Grown-Up Anger: The Connected Mysteries of Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and the Calumet Massacre of 1913

by Daniel Wolff

A tour de force of storytelling years in the a dual biography of two of the greatest songwriters, Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie, that is also a murder mystery and a history of labor relations and socialism, big business and greed in twentieth-century America—woven together in one epic saga that holds meaning for all working Americans today. When thirteen-year-old Daniel Wolff first heard Bob Dylan’s "Like a Rolling Stone," it ignited a life-long interest in understanding the rock poet’s anger. When he later discovered "Song to Woody," Dylan’s tribute to his hero, Woody Guthrie, Wolff believed he’d uncovered one source of Dylan’s rage. Sifting through Guthrie’s recordings, Wolff found "1913 Massacre"—a song which told the story of a union Christmas party during a strike in Calumet, Michigan, in 1913 that ended in horrific tragedy. Following the trail from Dylan to Guthrie to an event that claimed the lives of seventy-four men, women, and children a century ago, Wolff found himself tracing the history of an anger that has been passed down for decades. From America’s early industrialized days, an epic battle to determine the country’s direction has been waged, pitting bosses against workers and big business against the labor movement. In Guthrie’s eyes, the owners ultimately won; the 1913 Michigan tragedy was just one example of a larger lost history purposely distorted and buried in time. In this magnificent cultural study, Wolff braids three disparate strands—Calumet, Guthrie, and Dylan—together to create a devastating revisionist history of twentieth-century America. Grown-Up Anger chronicles the struggles between the haves and have-nots, the impact changing labor relations had on industrial America, and the way two musicians used their fury to illuminate economic injustice and inspire change.

Genres: Music, History, Nonfiction, Biography, Politics, Labor, Social Justice

356 pages, Hardcover

First published June 13, 2017

About the author

Grammy-nominated author Daniel Wolff's latest book is "Grown-up Anger: Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and the Calumet Massacre of 1913." His previous books include "The Names of Birds," "The Fight for Home: How (Parts of) New Orleans Came Back," "How Lincoln Learned to Read,""4th of July/Asbury Park" and "You Send Me: The Life and Times of Sam Cooke.""

Reviews

[Craig Werner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received an advance copy of this first-rate book from the publisher and my blurb will be appearing on the cover when it's published in June, but might as well have any of you who are interested in Dylan, American music and the relationship between culture and history put it on your lists now.

Wolff begins with the 1913 Calumet massacre--in which 73 members of an Upper Michigan mining community, including 60 children, were killed in a stampede almost certainly orchestrated by the company they were on strike against. Even if you know about Calumet, you'll learn something new, but Wolff's larger agenda is to provide a primer of the history and potential uses of anger, both political and personal. Reworking the well, but not completely-known story of Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie, he shows how anger can function in music. The book would serve admirably as an introduction to Dylan and Woody, but even if you've read the mountains of words published about them, as I have, you'll come out seeing things from new angles.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worker's rights, labor history, the red scare and the music of Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan (And Pete Seeger and others). It probably seems like this book has been written a thousand times, and it usually ends up a hackneyed mess of cliche and poor understanding of either labor history or folk music. This is not one of those books. Using the Calumet Massacre of 1913 as an anchor, this is a great read and an important story about how our collective past is told and remembered.

[Jay Gabler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe a little more Michigan mining history than the average music fan needs, but Wolff does a great job situating the careers of Guthrie and Dylan in the context of the American labor movement. I reviewed Grown-Up Anger for The Current.

[Michael Czapla · Rating 5 out of 5]

a great way to cover history- write two biographies and one history lesson at the same time.

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Revolving around mining, music and murder, Daniel Wolff’s Grown- Up Anger explores the 1913 Calumet massacre in Michigan, Woody Guthrie’s political proselytizing beginning in the 1930’s and a young Bob Dylan, destined for musical greatness. Wolff’s narrative introduces “Mother” Ella Reeve Bloor, a revolutionary in labor circles and a witness to the Calumet & Hecla Mining Company Christmas catastrophe, where 73 people died. An angry Mother Bloor relays the devastating details to Woody Guthrie and the rest is a raging history of battling societal constraints through song. This is definitely a relevant read given the state of our current affairs.

[Carl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interweaving the stories of Woody Guthrie with a particular focus on the song "1913 Massacre", Bob Dylan with focus on "Song to Woody" which reborrows the same already borrowed melody, and the history of the miners, unions, mines & industry of the Keewenaw Peninsula, Michigan copper lode which lead to the tragedy which killed 70 odd innocents, mostly children under mysterious & never fully explained circumstances. The account is alternately engaging - at least for fans of Dylan & Woody - & pointless but it reminds one of "The Unwinding" by George Packer as setting the scene for America's current economic & political malaise.

[Jennifer (JenIsNotaBookSnob) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this quite a bit, though, for me the history of Calumet was more interesting than the Bob Dylan portions. It bounces around a bit, I'm not much of a Dylan fan, so those parts dragged for me, the rest of it was pretty interesting and written in an engaging style.

[Richard Levine · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I began reading Daniel Wolff's book, I felt that I was almost the ideal reader. I was familiar with the Woody Guthrie song about the 1913 massacre (from his son Arlo's recording) but didn't otherwise know much about Guthrie himself or the real events of the song; and I've read a little about Dylan's early career in other books but am certainly no expert Dylanologist. But in the end, although Wolff provides a good bit of informative and interesting material in the book, I found it a little frustrating and confused -- or at least confusing.

As suggested by the subtitle, this is one of those books where the author tries to interweave three different stories. I didn't find the interweaving all that elegant, but the individual pieces were worthwhile. For me, the parts about Woody Guthrie worked the best, combining basic biographical elements with some good insights about Guthrie's performing and songwriting styles, his politics and his philosophy. The Dylan parts were fine, but they covered ground more familiar to me. And the parts about the 1913 massacre itself were very interesting, but my problem with this third "connected mystery" is that Wolff doesn't particularly limit himself to writing about that event, but uses it as a springboard to vent about a whole lot of other issues in the last 150 years of American social, economic, and labor history. Which is fine, but given that he uses only a small part of his 260 pages of text to cover these much larger issues, what he has to say about them often seems rather scattershot and superficial.

Also, until the very end, I had little idea of what he was getting at with the titular concept of "Grown-up Anger." For the most part, when he writes about Guthrie he does not especially make us see Woody as an angry man. Anger is more present in the Dylan chapters, which begin with an angry 13-year old Wolff appreciatively hearing for the first time the fury of Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone, and then culminate in a chapter in which Wolff describes and analyzes the recording of that masterpiece of anger. But I can't really buy Dylan as an avatar of anger -- sure, he can do anger as well as anyone when he chooses to, but he is such a protean personality and has moved on through so many other phases as a "grown-up" (including the commercial phase - remember his Chrysler, IBM, and Victoria Secret's commercials?) that to end his part in the story by claiming that a song he recorded as a 24-year old is the epitome of grown-up anger seems a lot like selectively editing the facts to make a point.

Then, in the book's final chapter Wolff presents his own grown-up angry screed about various social and economic injustices in 21st Century America, tying them to the events of 1913 and other historical injustices he's alluded to in earlier chapters. Okay, so now I finally get whose "grown-up anger" we're talking about! It's an interesting way to end up, but for me it didn't quite work as a way of connecting the three topics that the rest of the book covered. (As an aside: The book was published in 2017, and if Wolff was this angry then I can only imagine how much angrier he must have gotten during the 4 years of Trump presidency.)

I am now pretty interested in reading Woody's autobiography (or autobiographical novel, in Wolff's assessment) Bound For Glory.

[Kevin]

Having spent time in Calumet, Michigan, last summer and really connecting with the region, I was excited to find this book. I'll also admit to a passing but engaged interest in both Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie, so this book felt like an obvious choice. That said, I wasn't entirely sure how author Daniel Wolff would draw these three threads together and make them altogether coherent. While the music careers of Dylan and Guthrie are important, they seem far removed from the Calumet Massacre's weight and importance. That said, the narrative here certainly works and, if anything, boosts the Calumet Massacre's importance along with labor action in the Keweenaw Penninsula by attaching it to the two well-known names.
Come for the folk music history; stay for the labor history.
While not the best biographies of Guthrie or Dylan, this book's importance is the articulation of life and tragedy in the copper towns surrounding the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company's operation in UP Michigan. To that end, Wolff has done well.

[Lyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely interesting. Connecting the dots between Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan and the 1913 Calumet massacre.

[Bill reilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was only seven and a half years-old in the summer of 1965 when “Like a Rolling Stone” was released and so I have little memory of my impression of the song. Daniel Wolff's book begins with the story of Dylan's first Top 40 hit. Woody Guthrie's “This Land is Your Land” which was based upon a Baptist hymn was more familiar to me. I love Woody's line, “I've seen lots of funny men, some will rob you with a six-gun, some with a fountain pen”("Pretty Boy Floyd"). The two legends met in 1961, as Dylan's idol was dying. The spirit of the Okie morphed into the Jewish kid from Minnesota. In 1913, the children of striking miners in Calumet, Michigan were killed in an accident where someone had yelled “fire” and blocked exits resulted in the tragedy. Guthrie wrote “1913 Massacre” years later, immortalizing the event. At the time Michigan was the largest source of copper in America. The Calumet Corporation was formed in response to the demand for copper for use in munitions during the Civil War. A boom and bust period followed at the end of the war. Meanwhile, Jimmy Rodgers and Gene Autry paved the way for Guthrie as Woody would for Dylan. Woody's time in California coincided with the Dust Bowl days where his fellow Okies; as portrayed in “The Grapes of Wrath”(my favorite novel), worked the fields beside despised immigrants. Dylan's influences, other than Guthrie, were mostly black musicians, including the singer Odetta, whose 1870 negro spiritual, “No More Auction Block,” became the melody used by Bob for his most famous song, “Blowin' in the Wind.” The book gives a comprehensive look at the union battles of the early 1900's. By 1964 Dylan was labeled a “protest singer,” especially after “The Times they are a-Changin',” adapted from a bagpipe tune and “With God on our Side,” based on an Irish rebel classic, “The Patriot's Game.” Dylan gave them a whole new meaning. After appearing with Joan Baez at the March on Washington, Dylan distanced himself from the Left. Guthrie had been more involved with it, writing songs for a documentary on the government built Grand Coulee Dam. One of my heroes, Pete Seeger, receives too little attention in the book; I live a short distance from Peekskill and am familiar with the riots involving Seeger and Paul Robeson. The world is on fire and we are led by a tweeting fool. Woody Guthrie is long gone and Dylan's last work was an album of Sinatra covers. The singer sounds as if he is in need of a large dose of Metamucil. Where have you gone FDR? Go Bernie. This was written on February 18, 2020 while listening to Woody Guthrie's Greatest Hits and a day after watching the John Ford film version of Steinbeck's novel, “The Grapes of Wrath.” The book is definitely a good read.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Take a piece of blank paper and draw a horizontal line, say 2 inches across. At the right end write the name Woody Guthrie and at the left end write Bob Dylan. A little to the right of the center place a hash mark and write Calumet massacre. Color the whole page Angry (with a capital A).
Historians say that our political views are largely shaped by the events occurring when we first become aware of the wider world and become politically conscious. Wolff, in the midst of a diffuse adolescent anger, first hears Dylan’s ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ in 1965 and through that connects with history. Not from the words of the song, but from the way the words are delivered he discerns the sound of anger; an anger that he felt didn’t need to justify itself. This sets him on a course to learn the history , the source of the music.
Along the way we learn about copper mining in northern Michigan, the early days of the union movement and an event in 1913 that is mentioned in the subtitle. We learn about the early years of the folk music movement, rooted in labor strife and Woody Guthrie and communism. We are reminded of the terrible toll of the war in Vietnam and how badly it divided the country. The social upheaval that was occurring was reflected in the music.
The ‘massacre’ referred to in the subtitle is described as well as the various interpretations, depending on which side of the labor union divide you are on. It isn’t really clear whether the 74 deaths was a deliberate act or an accident. The ‘truth’ depends on where you’re viewing it from. Easily understood in our era where truth is ‘relative’.
By the end we are reminded of how wealth has become ever more concentrated. The working class that the labor union was wanting to represent has lost wealth at an astonishing rate, even while the economy was booming. In 1965 when ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ was released the average worker made $34,000/year. Five decades later it is now $33,000/year. In 1913 the richest 1% owned 18% of the national wealth, but by 2000 it 20%.
The various narratives in the book fold back on one another, much like the music in LRS. In the end Wolff comes back to the song and interprets it in light of what he has learned. Now his anger is ‘grown up’.

[Gregg Martinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an interesting juggle between the life of Woody Guthrie(which was fascinating), the Calumet disaster and Bob Dylan. I think the hardest part was tying Dylan's anger into Guthrie's anger and then tying that back to Calumet. As a piece of creative non-fiction it finds a way to tell these three parallel stories with lots of parallels throughout. I'd say that there is much more to the parallels that go unexplored. Its like a conversation between people, sometimes the conversation could have veered into different territories but it chose not to. It ends with a depressing reminder about how our economy is so much worse in terms of inequality than even the worse excesses of the gilded age. Wolff does a great job with the subject matter and weaving together a braided narrative.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up at a tiny bookshop in Copper Harbor, MI. I was looking for something about the Calumet Massacre. This touched on that story, intertwined with other topics like labor history and folk music. Very interesting.

[J. Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Could have done without the boomer "history ends in the 60s," navel gazing. Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" is shoehorned into an interesting narrative. Also, the end covers the results of how the boomers failed America in the last chapter without the awareness it was the split between the anti-war movement and labor that destroyed the Roosevelt-Coalition. Which is odd because the book discusses the origin of the coalition...

Like most of his generation, Wolff wrote a compelling narrative but over-looked the lessons of his generation that haunts the hollowed-out landscape of the rust belt.

[Ben · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 stars. I just couldn't get into this one. There were too many story lines that seemed to be forced together in an attempt at a cohesive narrative, and frankly, I didn't find them to be very interesting for the most part. The sections about Woody Guthrie seemed to dominate the book, and that was by far the least appealing of the three story lines to me. I did find parts of the Dylan story to be somewhat interesting, and as a Michigander, I did enjoy reading about the history of Calumet. But overall it was a struggle to get through.

[BMR, LCSW · Rating 3 out of 5]

The biggest takeaway from this for me was that Woody Guthrie's dad was a raging racist, and Woody had to learn otherwise as an adult.

The book was far more interesting when discussing the bloody history of organized labor than when discussing Dylan or Guthrie.

Only of real interest to those who are labor history geeks. I need to read more about that 1913 stampede at the copper miners' hall during the Christmas party.

[Mimi · Rating 4 out of 5]

a cultural history of Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie (and other folk singers) and their connection to the Calumet Massacre, part of a possible union busting plot, an interesting way to approach the far-left movement in the 20th century. Sometimes the story is tenuous, but overall fascinating.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

This guy is me...

[David Partikian · Rating 5 out of 5]

The original version of “1913 massacre” is haunting despite modern digital formats not doing justice to the ghostly quality of Guthrie’s voice and the sound of stylus on old scratchy vinyl. The incident, a stampede at a Christmas party for striking miners in Calumet, Michigan following the false shout of “fire,” is embedded in American folklore and the American consciousness.

Bob Dylan was obsessed with the song and borrowed the medley for one of his first originals, “Song to Woody.” His versions were never recorded on any official album, but tabs for a version he sang at Carnegie Hall in the early 60’s can be found on the web readily.

Grown-Up Anger appeared just last year and is a one-sit read despite its 250 pages; the additional notes and bibliography make it indispensable. Musician and author Daniel Wolff details the abominable incident, from the East Coast money investing in the copper mines around Calumet, Michigan to the ongoing labor dispute to the Christmas party where the “Copper Boss Thugs” falsely scream fire, causing a stampede that kills “73” children. The account is definitive, and only ends, recently, with authorial detective work determining whether the doors at the bottom of the stairs opened by pushing or pulling. As can be imagined, the incident and song are still a sore point in Calumet.

The rest of the book analyses how the song was the centerpiece of Woody Guthrie’s philosophy and the impetus of Bob Dylan. Of all the books I’ve read on Guthrie, this is the best (with Woody, Cisco, & Me: Seamen Three In The Merchant Marine a close second). Joe Klein’s standard biography is way down on the list. Of the copious literature on Dylan (including one by the incredibly astute literary critic Christopher Ricks who also tackles Milton and Beckett), Wolff’s is the only book about Dylan on my shelves. Friends of mine know that I did not agree with the Nobel committee a couple of years back; the lionization of Dylan has gone a bit far. Daniel Wolff does about the best job in approaching Dylan. . .from this single incident and song, but also with humor rather than deification. It works spectacularly. At last a writer not on his knees in obeisance while writing about Dylan. Wolff’s work is a concise history of US labor from the point of view of one nasty incident, but also a brilliant look at two American “originals.” The anger of Guthrie and Dylan is his focus, though he does ably recount their careers and the song’s place in them.

Wolff, earlier in his career, wrote a biography of Sam Cooke. Anyone who appreciates Cooke’s brilliant music and pitch perfect voice (sure he’ll buy that pretty girl a Coke!) should check out Wolff’s book and his account of a completely segregated U.S.A and the gospel world. Cooke was a Bad Ass.

[David T · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned a lot about Woody from this book. Wolff provides an even-handed description of his artistic development and genius, and how his political and personal "anger" fed and directed his work. I wish that Woody's anger had been more fully contextualized in terms of anger as a sociological phenomenon , and particularly in terms of reactionary propaganda production at the time. The Dylan stuff was interesting, but probably could have been an epilogue, or at least a Part II. Wolff lays out Woody and Bob's stories in parallel with eachother and with the story of the 1913 Calumet Massacre, where a bunch of kids were killed in a stampede (probably) caused by anti-union thugs. That parallel format has the weakness of placing the 1950s red scare and its impact on the arts at the end of Woody's story but not at the beginning of Bob's. Unfortunately, It turns out that the Red Scare is central to the solipsistic fear and anger that Wolff has Bob embodying. It's a convincing argument that kinda gets buried. Wolff provides a good history of copper mining in Michigan, union battles, and the Calumet Massacre, but again kind of undersells his argument about its impact on Woody. It seems like he sees Woody, when he sings about Calumet, as trying to tell a new kind of public-square horror story where the horror is being expressed for itself, without a political goal. I think Wolff is trying to get at the idea that Dylan almost, but didn't quite, pick up that same thread when he (sort of) invented teen angst, and that a piece of Woody's legacy remains untapped/developed because of the red scare. He muddles it up, but it's pretty interesting stuff.

[Bruce Greene · Rating 5 out of 5]

This little gem has gone under the radar for many a year. With so much written about both Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, it's hard to believe Daniel Wolff's work about another deep connection they share has gone unnoticed by many who claim to "read everything" about these two icons.
If you are interested in either of these two folk music giants, don't let this one go by unnoticed.
Wolff's premise is presented as an unsolved mystery. He posits that there is a song about the Calumet Massacre of 1913 that connects Guthrie and Dylan and furthermore gives rise to the vast amount of anger in their lyrics and dispositions. Both musicians took moral stances, so given the struggles they witnessed and sang about a good bit of anger is understandable. Who wouldn't express anger about a historical event in 1913 in which 70 children were killed at a Christmas Eve gathering when thugs sent by a mining company cried fire and then blocked the exit door causing a massive stampede on a stairwell. But Wolff pursues the matter with painstaking detail and by the end of the book anyone familiar with the words of music of Guthrie and Dylan will be listening and thinking anew to the singer's disposition.
Here's a final thought: As he has aged, Dylan often sings many of his early songs differently. Ever hear his do Times are Changing as he accompanies himself on piano? Could itbee that his anger as a mature adult has lessened? Is that why his versions of other classics of his cannon seem somewhat diluted in live performances. Does he sing Ballad of a Thin Man today as he did 50 years ago? You decide.

[Cat · Rating 4 out of 5]

We have certainly become a nation of sheep since those early days, but violence commonly accompanied many strikes during the Industrial Revolution. Many immigrants would not put up with the nonsense American workers did and there was lots of blood shed on both sides of those battles. When my friends and I discuss these strikes and battles, our kids are horrified at the violence. We tell them sometime it's necessary to progress and making a better world. They understand as they get older. What I think is telling as a society, is that we no longer seem to be teaching our children these histories. The play nice and conform and tolerate police have sort of been in power for a long while now, along with the ending of unions and work getting more ridiculous, I note the fear in the younger adults in our society. I would imagine Guthrie was far more aware of the various strikes and battles with large companies being closer to that era. Possibly just randomly picked one battle , out of the many, and wrote a song about it. Dylan, of course, being a fan, continued the battle cry. The books interesting in the research of tying the event to Guthrie and Dylan and protest. Anger and music seem to go hand in hand. So many protest songs....

[Timothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting essay on the music of Bob Dylan and Woody Guthie and especially the obvious influence of Guthrie on Dylan. Wolff connects the "Calumet Massacre" (I put it in quotes because perhaps it is better labeled a tragedy, which is officially is considered to be, rather than a massacre) to both (which it certainly is in terms of the song Guthrie wrote about it and the song Dylan wrote honoring Guthrie) and somehow this is connected to Wolff's teenage rage (o well, it is a metaphor, a launching pad for this piece.) Wolff wants to connect the Wobbleys and the radical wing of the labor movement and even the American communist party circa the 19th and early 20th centuries to the two musicians. If you like Bob Dylan's music this will interest you and it is well written.

[Mary Keen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Got to chapter 3 (part 2 of 9) and stopped .

Interesting US history to start with, then Wolff's research discovered that Dylan lied about almost everything in his background, almost a joke how he kept changing his personal history.

Even worse, the Guthrie family became prosperous by the father Charlie stealing land, etc from the Indian tribes around and the father had the power to keep Blacks from voting and watched the mother of a young child hang. (not clear on what she supposedly did as disgusted by then, espec as we'd seen Arlo Guthrie perform years ago. Apparently, Woody Guthrie had some neurological problem and required constant assistance to eat, smoke, etc.

Audio overdrive @ normal speed (I tho/t there might be some music in it besides the intro =none!)

[Cat · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's hard to be angry once you've achieved success. It's an interesting read. I had never heard of the 1913 Massacre until this book. sad. American history is fraught with labor/management issues, some very violent. Lots of folks made money off the tragedies. I've noted over the years, as have some "angry young rockers" back in the 70's- it's hard to be young and angry when you have lots of money! It's the demise of many. Squeaking wheel. Corporation has enough money to shut you up.
Not a bad read, but I'm a born skeptic.

I received a Kindle arc from Edelweiss in exchange for a fair review.

[Andrew Bishop · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just have to say that this will now go down as one of my favorite books I have ever read. I’ve never been much of a history lover, but I do love music, and especially pre 80’s music. I stumbled upon this book while looking to learn more about who Woody Guthrie was, and this book gave me that and so much more. I now have an incredible appreciation for folk music and it’s connection with America’s never ending labor struggle. The twists and turns and gut punches this book gave me! The stories were so real and tangible you feel like you’re right there, hard travelin’ with Woody, Bob and the hard working laborers that fueled the grown up anger.

[Justin Jayne · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5.

This started off really interesting and then shifted into only kinda interesting. I really appreciate the author's attempts to tie 3 seemingly unrelated people/events together and unify them with a theme of class/working solidarity. I just don't think it fully works.

I loved hearing about my mother's hometown and I loved even more thinking about how that staunchly Republican town has a mural of an even stauncher communist on their main street. I learned so much about Woody Guthrie and his life, Bob Dylan's inspiration and a massacre that happened 110 years ago. I have no idea what to do with that information, but it's cool to have learned it.

[Mark Foley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an outstanding exploration of labor politics, music, and culture. Wolff's insights into the music, particularly his discussion of "Bringing It All Back Home Again", were revelatory to me and have changed the way I think about Dylan, Guthrie, and labor politics in America. Plus, the deep dive into the Calumet mines was a really great exploration of one particular corporation that was, in many ways, an exploration of how the entire industrial economy worked during the late 19th and early 20th century. A great book. I know I will go back to it repeatedly in the years to come.

[Matt Hickey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a bit of music history, criticism, and true crime investigation around the subject of Guthrie’s song “1913 Massacre.” The story is sad and provocative but I found the background details about Guthrie the most interesting. He really was the first songwriter who sold themselves as a character or an image. The choices he made about how to dress or even where to place himself as a narrator in his songs crafted a character that became the stuff of folk tales itself. It’s definitely going to change the way I look at singers for a while.