Protest Music Hall of Fame: Dust Bowl Ballads – Woody Guthrie

Released in 1940, Woody Guthrie’s first commercial recording Dust Bowl Ballads is widely cited as the first concept album. Based on both his personal experiences and John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath it details the 1930s Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression when farmers were dispossessed of their land due to weather conditions and bank foreclosures. This resulted in […]

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Protest Music Hall of Fame: Woody Guthrie

“This machine kills fascists” It would be impossible to overestimate Woody Guthrie’s impact on American folk music. His contributions to the canon of protest songs are undeniable. His music rallies against fascism, racism, and other injustices. Even though Woody’s initial attempts at a music career began in the early 1930s, he started to gain a wider audience in 1937 when […]

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