Steinbeck Alive! on "Sweet Thursdays": History, Music, Art, Film, Literature, Ecology, Culture
Thursday, February 25th 5:30 p.m. at the National Steinbeck Center Woody Guthrie L.A. 1937 to 1941 book signing.
- Salinas, CA (1888PressRelease) January 07, 2016 - As Steinbeck was completing his novella Sweet Thursday in 1954, he mused: "this has been a lot of fun-fun in the direction of invention." On Thursday, February 25th at 5:30 p.m., the National Steinbeck Center located at 1 South Main Street, Salinas, California will present inventive programs on various topics, each distinctive, each interactive, all inspired by the range of Steinbeck's creativity and social engagement: "I am really a restless organism, casting about for the next thing," he wrote after penning the last scene of Sweet Thursday. Inspired by energy of this mid-career novella, a madcap sequel to Cannery Row, topics in this series will honor Steinbeck's inventiveness and his relevance to the contemporary world.
The first Sweet Thursday of 2016 is the Woody Guthrie L.A. 1937 to 1941 Book Signing:
"The songs themselves, his repertoire, were really beyond category. They had the infinite sweep of humanity in them. .. . Woody Guthrie tore everything in his path to pieces. To me [his music] was an epiphany." -Bob Dylan
Woody Guthrie L.A. 1937 to 1941
Darryl Holter and William Deverell
Angel City Press is proud to announce the publication of Woody Guthrie L.A. 1937 to 1941 , edited by historians Darryl Holter and William Deverell, on January 15, 2016. The first book to thoroughly explore the legendary folk singer's time in Los Angeles, Woody Guthrie L.A. 1937 to 1941 argues that Guthrie's brief residence in Los Angeles in the later years of the Great Depression forever changed his music, his politics, and his enduring legacy. Those changes became the basis of his incredible influence on the world's music.
"What happens when we push beyond Woody's iconic image to try to understand how an unemployed hillbilly singer in the late 1930s transformed himself into something else?" writes coeditor Darryl Holter in the book's first essay. "We learn that transformation started in, and started because of, Los Angeles, a place key to Woody's evolution."
Lyrics Guthrie wrote about Los Angeles, many of which he never set to music, are published here for the first time. The book also features more than a dozen of Guthrie's brilliant cartoons-his quickly drawn satires on politics, the wealthy, and the future of Los Angeles.
The book's twelve essays, richly illustrated by photographs from the era, explore such themes as Guthrie's early radio success in Los Angeles with the Woody and Lefty Lou Show ; his first recordings made on old Presto disks; And the important friendship he forged with the actor and leftist radical Will Geer (later of "Grandpa Walton" fame). Other pieces cover Guthrie's racial egalitarianism, as he threw off the worst of his Oklahoma and Texas roots and pushed past a notorious lynching in which his father may have participated; his ability to mold evangelical perspectives into politically savvy folk songs; and the impact he still exerts in his songs about migrants and workers looking for their main chance in California.
The product of many years' of work and close cooperation with members of the Guthrie family and estate, Woody Guthrie L.A. 1937 to 1941 was born from a 2012 conference and concert celebrating the centennial of Woodrow Wilson Guthrie's birth. Organized by the University of Southern California in close cooperation with the GRAMMY Museum, "Woody Guthrie's Los Angeles: A Centenary Celebration" presented an impressive range of academic papers exploring Guthrie's time in L.A. and concluded with a concert featuring musicians and Guthrie fans, including Stephen Stills, Jackson Browne, Noel Paul Stookey (of Peter, Paul, and Mary), and Tom Morello (of Rage Against the Machine).
"Because Woody Guthrie came to Los Angeles when he did, his music stridently addresses inequities and inequalities amplified by the Depression. In Los Angeles, the everobservant Dust Bowl troubadour became the urban folksinger," says coeditor William Deverell. "His time in L.A. created the Woody that-eighty years later-bears witness to America's promise and its problems."
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
DARRYL HOLTER In addition to Woody Guthrie L.A. 1937 to 1941 , Darryl Holter has written books and scholarly articles on labor history and urban revitalization. He has a Ph.D in History from the University of Wisconsin and taught for several years in the History Department at UCLA. Holter manages several family businesses in Los Angeles and is an Adjunct Professor in History at the University of Southern California. He is also a singersongwriter and a member of Professional Musicians Local 47. His album, Radio Songs: Woody Guthrie in Los Angeles, 19371941, was released to critical acclaim in 2015.
WILLIAM DEVERELL Woody Guthrie L.A. 1937 to 1941 is the latest of several books by William Deverell, a professor of history and the director of the HuntingtonUSC Institute on California and the West at the University of Southern California. With a focus on the nineteenth and twentieth century American West, Deverell has authored works on political, social, ethnic, and environmental history, including Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of Its Mexican Past . In Woody Guthrie L.A. 1937 to 1941 , he brings together his overlapping passions for the history of American folk music, the Great Depression, and Los Angeles.
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