Live Wire

Several years ago, the Woody Guthrie official archives were given two spools of wire recordings of a live performance in New Jersey in 1949. The original recording was in a parlous state but was transferred to digital audio and its sound restored – if not quite to the ‘near perfection’ claimed in the liner notes, then certainly to something that is more than listenable.

There’s a visceral thrill about hearing Guthrie unmediated, exactly as he was heard on a cold winter’s night 62 years ago, singing a dozen of his best known songs, including ‘Talking Dust Bowl Blues’, ‘Tom Joad’, ‘Pastures of Plenty’ and ‘The Grand Coulee Dam’. His voice rings loud and true and despite the fact that his studio recordings were basically recorded live in a single take, there is clearly something different in hearing him in front of a live audience and spontaneously connecting with those to whom he is singing.

Equally fascinating is the spoken word commentary running through the recording, in which he is introduced and interviewed by his wife Marjorie Mazia Guthrie. It begins with a 15-minute introduction, in which she invites him to talk about his life and his songs. His answers flesh out the insights into his personality offered by the songs, giving us a fuller picture of the man than his studio recordings ever could. It’s not easy listening. His voice isn’t conventionally pretty and his pitch is variable. But as a document of the ‘authentic’ folk tradition of a now lost era, it is unbeatable.