By: Davis D. Joyce

Davis D. Joyce — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:42:05 +0000

I enjoyed your Woody piece online very much. I love the Woody Guthrie Festival–despite the incredible heat! I go every year, volunteer to sell stuff, including my books, and then I make a donation for each one sold to the Woody Guthrie Coalition to help keep the festival going. I think it’s so great that his hometown of Okemah used to have a serious problem honoring Woody–a few still did when the festival began 12 years ago–and now has this wonderful festival every year to honor him and his music. I also think it’s great that the state of Oklahoma finally got over its hangup with Woody enough to have a Charles Banks Wilson portrait of him hanging in the state capitol (as his son Arlo said when he learned about it, “Damn, they finally hung Daddy in the state capitol!”) AND inducted him into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame a few years back.
Woody, you see, spoke up for the common people of the Depression/Dust Bowl era in a powerful, sometimes radical way. You note his comment about “right wing, left wing, chicken wing….” Maybe you’re also aware that once when “accused” of being a Communist, he reportedly replied, “I ain’t necessarily never been a Communist, but I have been in the red all my life.”
Woody is central to my approach to Oklahoma history. My first book of “alternative views” of Oklahoma history, “AN OKLAHOMA I HAD NEVER SEEN BEFORE,” has a picture of the Okemah water towers on the cover, one of which says “Home of Woody Guthrie,” and an essay on Woody’s Oklahoma years. My second such collection, ALTERNATIVE OKLAHOMA, is dedicated “To the memory and spirit of Woody Guthrie” and contains an essay by Thomas Conner (of the Woody Guthrie Coalition and the CHICAGO SUN-TIMES) on Woody’s continuing influence on Oklahoma’s Red Dirt music scene. (Both books were published by the University of Oklahoma Press.)
My approach to Oklahoma history is much influenced by Howard Zinn’s approach to American history, especially in his million+ seller, A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. (Prometheus Books published my study of Zinn’s life and writings a few years ago entitled HOWARD ZINN: A RADICAL AMERICAN VISION.) It’s an approach sometimes called “people’s history,” or, perhaps more revealingly, “history from the bottom up.” Thus, my Oklahoma history books emphasize such subjects as women, minorities, common people, and the radicals/reformers who work to improve people’s lives. Even when I deal with a familiar subject, such as Oklahoma’s
(in)famous land runs(s), I look at it from a different point of view, as in Jerald C. Walker’s essay entitled “The Difficulty of Celebrating an Invasion” in my first book.
Pardon me for the element of self-promotion involved in this message, but it’s my hope/belief that some readers of this site might be interested.
Davis D. Joyce

By: Beth Perry

Beth Perry — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 14:24:59 +0000

Your commentary was insightful and captured the essence of Woodyfest well. Follow-ups on some of the local artists who are bringing Woody’s lyrics back to life could be worthwhile.

Comments on: A Woody Guthrie diary

By: Davis D. Joyce

By: Beth Perry