Bringing It Together

When Folk Singer Woody Guthrie died in 1967 at the age of 55, he was already a legend. It was only natural that when his friends, loved ones and musical kinfolk gathered in New York's Carnegie Hall the next year to pay him tribute in song, their mood was not entirely somber. It was also touched by a joyful awareness of the continuing life in Guthrie's music.

At least that is the impression one gets from listening to two new LPs drawn from tapes of the Carnegie concert and another Guthrie Memorial held at the Hollywood Bowl in 1970. Especially intriguing is the variety of musical treatment to which Woody's songs lend themselves. On the one hand there is Richie Havens turning the gruff, striding Vigilante Man into a mournful, gripping blues ballad. Or Odetta, virtually inventing a western soul style for the happy-go-lucky Ramblin' Round. When Guthrie talked about hard rock he meant a substance men mined in a hole in the ground--something you'd never guess listening to Bob Dylan and the five members of what would soon become The Band tear into rocking versions of such Guthrie classics as I Ain't Got No Home, Dear Mrs. Roosevelt and the Grand Coulee Dam.

Two everyday rivals in the record marketplace have combined to issue these two disks; Volume I is on Columbia, Volume II on Warner Brothers ($5.98 each). That commercial cooperation is perhaps the ultimate testimony to Woody's ability to bring words, music and people together.

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