The Life, Music, and Thought of Woody Guthrie: A Critical Appraisal ed. by John S. Partington (review)

Though its title does not announce this book as an anthology of utopian scholarship as such, its editor’s profile in the field is well established. An accomplished scholar of the thought and reception of the work of H. G. Wells, Partington reveals at the outset that the idea for the volume emerged from a presentation given to the 2005 Utopian Studies Society conference in New Lanark. Motivated by the capacious interdisciplinarity of the conference, Partington sought to advance the musical dimension within utopian studies by calling for contributions to a collection of essays on Woody Guthrie’s work in the context of American and international politics, one that would draw upon expertise in “cultural studies, history, literature, journalism and folklore.” Though the book is not explicitly utopian in its title, or often its content, utopianism nonetheless “seems to emerge from its pages” (xi). Guthrie’s was a time of war, of great misery, personal, political, national, and international; there was, however, great hope in his work that defied the abjection of the 1930s and 1940s.

The collection is divided into three parts: The first deals in the songs as diagnosis and cure; the second analyzes the image and self-image of Woody Guthrie; the third studies Guthrie in comparative terms. For me, the first part speaks most volubly to the utopian thematic. The first contributor, Richard Nate, situates Guthrie in the context of Roosevelt’s New Deal and studies songs that Guthrie wrote commending the New Deal and the various “Federal One” projects that invited artists to participate in the “remaking” of America. What emerges from Tate’s compelling scholarship is a moment of great cooperative effort. The idea of individual liberty, so closely linked to westward expansion and American self-identity, had seemingly run its course and in so doing had run America into the ground economically. Hence a greater communitarian impulse was called for, and Guthrie’s lyrics expressed a concept of solidarity and community that offered a way forward. Though the support of artists such as Guthrie was indicative of a productive exchange between the political establishment and musical counterculture, there were obviously tensions. Like musical archivist Alan Lomax and fellow musician Pete Seeger, Guthrie had contacts with the American Communist Party. Guthrie, however, gave full-throated support to New Deal rhetoric with his Columbia River songs. “Talking Columbia,” for instance, gave an especially hopeful account of the possibilities inherent in hydro-generated electricity, which, for Nate, “was considered more than just a convenient tool: it was a symbol of hope, a means of creating a better society, perhaps even a path to Utopia” (10).

Editor John Partington’s essay, the second in the collection, is, as one would expect, the most utopian in its thematic approach and in its hermeneutic. Partington describes Guthrie’s crossing between rural and urban realms, taking American folk music into the cities, and delineates two social visions at work in Guthrie’s thought. The first vision is conservative and celebrates the smallholder and the traditional family unit; the second is radical, favoring trade unions, civil rights, women’s rights, and international socialism. The second vision had Guthrie writing for Communist Party organs such as The Light and People’s World in California and the Daily Worker in New York. Partington seeks to understand and reconcile rural and urban, as well as conservative and radical visions, resolving them into a broader concern for the plight of the working class. There was, for Guthrie, “a better world a-coming”; defiance of exploitation and oppression would therefore go hand in hand with the hope of better times. But these better times, in a curious way, drew upon the idea of a golden age for sustenance, hence the backward look in Guthrie’s future-oriented vision. His rural utopia is thus configured in almost arcadian terms, where the happy smallholder is the ideal...