On Woody Guthrie

"We wasn't in that class that John Steinbeck called the Oakies because my dad was worth 35,000 dollars to 40,000 dollars and everything was hunky-dory an' he had a little bit of bad luck...," Cray quotes Guthrie as saying in a 1940 conversation with musicologist Alan Lomax.

But with the Depression, the family lost everything, and Guthrie got a first-hand experience of poverty and life on the streets that stuck in his mind for life.

The book is a gold mine of information. In the Introduction, Cray presents the following nugget that aptly illustrates Guthrie's sense of social realism in music.

Sickened by the saccharine sweetness of Kate Smith's rendition of "God Bless America," Guthrie went home and wrote in response:

One bright sunning morning in the shadow of the steeple

By the Relief Office I saw my people-

As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if

God blessed America for me.

This verse, which he later scrapped, was the inspiration for what is probably Guthrie's most famous song, "This Land Is Your Land," the de facto national anthem of Working America.

The Blues Blog, This Man Was Your Man, This Man Was My Man (May 9, 2004), quoting Ed Cray, Ramblin' Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie.