Dust Bowl Ballads

VINYL FORMAT. This is the first record that "the Oklahoma cowboy" Woody Guthrie recorded in NYC after his arrival in 1940 for Alan Lomax as part of his work for the Library of Congress. Originally released as three separate 78 rpm records, these are Guthrie's tales about one of the most dire periods in rural America, the Dust Bowl era (also known as the Dirty Thirties). Repressed by Smithsonian Folkways in 1964 during the American folk revival years, this quintessential work proves that Guthrie was a true minstrel of the other face of America, the one that you can't find in history books: tales of poverty, migration, storms, illness, hunger and harsh criticism of the American government, incapable of committing to equality. Guthrie would become very popular among city radicals and idealists, and thanks to records like this, a true icon of social activism in the cradle of capitalism.