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Woody Guthrie: A Life
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 780
EAN: 9780385333856
ISBN: 0385333854
Label: Delta
Manufacturer: Delta
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 512
Publication Date: February 09, 1999
Publisher: Delta
Release Date: February 09, 1999
Studio: Delta
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Editorial Review:
Before he became Anonymous, author of the political novel Primary Colors, Joe Klein wrote this intelligent biography of America's legendary folksinger-activist. Klein's first book may not have created the fuss that Primary Colors did, but it attracted the attention of no less a celebrity than Bruce Springsteen, who used to cite it with respect during concerts before singing Guthrie's most famous lyric, "This Land Is Your Land." Klein's unearthing of two politically radical verses usually omitted from that song is just one instance of the solid research underpinning his vivid narrative of Guthrie's often tragic life (1912-67). Before Woody turned 15, his sister died in a fire and his mother was committed to an Oklahoma insane asylum with a mysterious disease he later learned he inherited; Klein's chilling description of Huntington's chorea is one of the book's strong points. Its heart is a full rendering of Guthrie's restless wanderings across Depression-era America, which fired his lifelong radicalism, and a scrupulously unsentimental account of Woody's oft-sentimentalized personality. He may have been a genius and a staunch advocate of the common people, but Guthrie was also a bad husband, neglectful father, and difficult friend, as Klein shows. He pays Woody's life and music the tribute of assuming they need no sanitizing, and this biography is all the more interesting because of it. --Wendy Smith
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - The Epic American Tale
Woodrow Wilson Guthrie wasn't the most talented of musicians, but few people have had more influence on the landscape of American music. He was an incredibly prolific writer and the grandfather of the 1960s folk music revival, hero to the Dylan, Baez and the like.
Woody was to music what Steinbeck was to literature, capturing the California story of the thousands of "Okies" who emigrated to California looking for employment when dust storms devastated their farms during the Depression. ... Read More
Rating: - A Great Biography!
....and I'd recommend this book even to those not especially interested in Woody Guthrie. The writing is superb, and Klein's reporting skills are without peer. The book also stands as a fine social history of Depression Era America.
Rating: - A Fabulous Bio of a True American Hero
Klein has written a definitive bio of Woody Guthrie. He portrays Guthrie in his full humanity with flaws and all. As a result, this is a rich real portrait in which Guthrie is illuminated as a human that was able to achieve in-human feats during his life time. This book is a must for anyone interested in understanding this seminal figure of American history and culture.
Rating: - The greatest biography ever written
Every Christmas, I buy multiple copies of this book and give it away to friends and family. Every spring/summer, I receive multiple messages of enthusiastic thanks and gratitude. No one who reads it comes away unaffected.
Basically, I will just say this is the most riveting biography I've ever read, and I've read it many times (am rereading it now actually).
There are two primary reasons why this book is so far above all other biographies:
1.) Joe Klein's writing ... Read More
Rating: - "America comes spilling out"
This biography is stunningly and painfully intimate. Joe Klein did a fantastic job. This is a great read.
Guthrie is a tremendous American icon who not enough of us actually know about or perhaps have even heard of. He was a thousand contradictions. In his art and in his life, in his outrageous, childlike, precocious, brooding, energetic, and endlessly subversive behavior... he was just utterly himself, he embodied a particular American brand of freedom in life, outlook, and sense of possibility.
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