On Sunday, July 14, 1912, with the temperature standing at 99 degrees and not a cloud in the sky, Nora gave birth to a boy.
Charley named him Woodrow Wilson Guthrie, in honor of the man the Democrats had nominated for President just the week before.
Nora called him Woodrow, not Woody as everyone else did, and sang him the songs her mother had brought from Tennessee, songs that had come over on the boats from England and Ireland and had been passed from mother to daughter (men, by and large, thought them too sappy) ever since. She sang of murders and jealous lovers and natural disasters. She sang about the woman who left her family to run off with the dashing outlaw, about the town that had been crushed by a cyclone, about families wrecked by bad luck. She sang lullabies to sing Woody to sleep and nonsense songs to cheer him up. Joe Klein

Woody Guthrie was a man of many talents. He was a folk poet, folk singer, and author; he was a country boy in a big city, a family man who wandered, and an individualist with a worldly vision. He was one of the most influential, and yet generally unrecongnized, creative spirits of the past forty years, particularly in the urban folk revival. His lifestyle and personality evoked admiration and criticism, love and hatred.
Born Woodrow Wilson Guthrie on July 14, 1912, in Okemah, Oklahoma, to Charley and Nora Guthrie, Woody was the third of five children. As a child, he enjoyed the comforts and pleasures normally provided a family by a successful businessman of that time. His father was a politician as well as a farmer-stockman and real estate investor. His mother was both beautiful and talented. Her mother had been a frontier school teacher in the Indian Territory and Nora was a singer of old songs. Guy Logsdon

Well, I was born in Okemah, Okfuskee County, Oklahoma, in 1912, the year that Woodrow Wilson was nominated for President. My dad was quite a figger in Okfuskee County politics at that time, and so he named me after the President, Woodrow Wilson Guthrie - which is too much of a name for a country boy. So I sawed off all the fancy work an' jest left "Woody" - I cood remember that.
Gawdamighty. I been interested in a world of stuff since I been born. Sold papers, shined shoes, polished spittoons, sold gas and oil, clerked in a hotel, picked that cotton, drilled waterwells, helped a carpenter, milled wheat, drove tractors, bootlegged whiskey, peddled home brew, jerked soda, stocked groceries, painted signs, traveled in road shows, read hypnotism, studied human nature, tried to preach, played a guitar, sung in saloons, practiced divine healin, played in movies, rode freight trains, begged back doors, slept in a million jails, slept under bridges, broke my arm on a bronco, wrote junk, been from coast to coast the hard way, believe in everybody, joined everything, and still a goin' strong ! Above statements are all true. Woody Guthrie

Happy Birthday to a man who has influenced many, paved the musical pathway for many and has in some way or another, inspired and touched the lives of literally millions of men, women, and children of all walks of life all over the world with his writings, his teachings, his beliefs, his thousands of songs, his music.
Woody, I feel it an honor and a privilage to be accused of hanging out on your son, Arlo's, official website !

<center><FONT COLOR="#000080">--- Edited 3 times, lastly by Levi on Jul 14, 2001 ---</FONT></center>

Yes, let's celebrate the one who started so much of this. We're all standing in his two dollar shoes.

Can't make the party though. Outdoor concert tonight.

Which reminds me... If you're in southern CA don't forget to look towards Vandenberg after 7 PM. Your taxes will be at work testing the missile defense that nobody wants. It's usually the best light show your military budget can buy.

-Z

Wow, Levi! Right on!

Happy Woody Guthrie's birthday to everyone.

thank you levi!

and thank you, woody...

happy birthday, woody..wherever you are..and thanks!

thanks to levi, too..that was great!