Born to Win

by Woody Guthrie, Robert Shelton (Editor)

Woody Guthrie is an American legend: a rambling troubadour who made the scene at a hundred historical happenings--the Oklahoma oil boom, the Dust Bowl, the Depression & World War II among them--& made these scenes unforgettable with his songs of praise & protest. 'This Land is Your Land,' 'So Long, It's Been Good to Know You,' 'Hard Traveling,' 'Pretty Boy Floyd,' & 'The Dust Bowl Ballads,' are just a few of the Guthrie songs that have made his name a byword in American music.
Born to Win is a great new collection of his stories, drawings, poems, previously unpublished songs & reminiscences. Their themes are the themes oa whole new generation of balladeers have triumphantly taken up: War. Love. Justice. Wandering. Children. Injustice. Sex. The American scene. together they convey a vivid & immediate sense of what Woody Guthrie is all about.

Genres: Music, Memoir, Nonfiction

251 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie was an American songwriter and folk musician. Guthrie's musical legacy consists of hundreds of songs, ballads and improvised works covering topics from political themes to traditional songs to children's songs. Guthrie performed continually throughout his life with his guitar frequently displaying the slogan "This Machine Kills Fascists". Guthrie is perhaps best known for his song "This Land Is Your Land" which is regularly sung in American schools. Many of his recorded songs are archived in the Library of Congress.

Guthrie traveled with migrant workers from Oklahoma to California and learned traditional folk and blues songs. His songs are about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression and are known as the "Dust Bowl Troubadour." Guthrie was associated with, but never a member of, Communist groups in the United States throughout his life.

Guthrie was married three times and fathered eight children, including American folk musician Arlo Guthrie. He is the grandfather of musician Sarah Lee Guthrie. Guthrie died from complications of the degenerative neurologic affliction known as Huntington's Disease. In spite of his illness, during his later years Guthrie served as a figurehead in the folk movement providing inspiration to a generation of new folk musicians, including mentor relationships with Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Bob Dylan.

Reviews

[Maya Michel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first got this book in the early 70s and read it over and over again. There is so much normalcy in it, in Woody's words. Heartbreak, hard times, optimism, love. I lent it out a few times until the last time when it didn't return. It took me more than 20 years to get it again and I pored over it just as I did the first time. Betterworld Books is a great place to find those books impossible to locate, even they took the 15 years I've been shopping with them to get it.

[Ginebra Lavao Lizcano · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading Woody is like listening to the out loud thoughts of a hyperactive kid inside of a hurricane with Maybelle Carter playing on the back and fine dust getting in your eyes.

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to Dad I was brought up with classical and folk music, the latter primarily through the program "The Midnight Special" on WFMT in Chicago. As far back as memory goes, Saturday was the one night of the week when I was allowed to stay up late to listen to the program with Dad, Mom and any guests who were around.

The most precious of these memories are from grandmother's cottage near the SW shore of Lake Michigan. Set on a high ridge among pines and oak, accessible only by winding paths along hillsides, the house had been built by her parents and grandparents during WWI, not long after a forest fire, when the land was cheap enough for Norwegian families in Chicago, all friends, to pool their resources for the purchase of several hundred acres along the lakefront. When I was born, the trees had grown, brushing the roof and windows, sussurating in the breeze. Below, a hundred steps, hand-made, to the bluff and beach, flanked by pines planted long before my birth. At night, a light shining down those stairs and bats swooping, mouths agape, the updraft. The only other light, Father's pipe from the wicker chaise in the corner. The only other sounds, showtunes, British comedy routines and folk music, new and traditional--the stuff of "The Midnight Special" from ten p.m. until one in the morning.

Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, Carl Sandburg, Pete Seager, the Almanac Singers, the Weavers--all go back to earliest recollection, through childhood and adolescence. Dad was sharing with me, and, later, my brother, what he most enjoyed, connections with his past, with a time his father smoked in that same corner...perhaps his grandfather as well. Dad was giving us roots, roots in our woody hills, roots in our broader culture.

This was the first book, other than a songbook, I ever saw "by" Woody Gurthrie. I snapped it up and read it, remembering idyllic childhood summers, "remembering" an idealized American past of anti-fascist and worker heroes one of whom was, of course, Father.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

mixed up,bunch of nonsense written when the writer was surely drunk and then parts were GREAT when not sure if he was drunk or not. I can understand his socialist views considering the things he saw and the times in which he lived. i originally gave this 3 stars but am going to change it to 4 stars now that i have given it more thought. need to read his bio.

[John Nondorf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stray thoughts, sketches, poems (some that later became songs recorded by Billy Bragg and Wilco), and folksy essays from a true national treasure.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have never heard a voice like his in anything I have ever read. This guy is total earnestness. Sometimes he makes no sense. His life was really a work of art. His writing was less so.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

a joy...

[Joel]

1965