Wenzel

Woodrow Wilson Gurthrie was born on July 14, 1912, in Okemah, Oklahoma, and was a keen observer of the world around him. Having lived through some of the most significant historic movements and events of the 20th Century-the Great Depression, the Great Dust Storm, World War II, the social and political upheavals resulting from Unionism, the Communist Party and the Cold War-Guthrie absorbed it all to become a prolific writer whose songs, ballads, prose and poetry captured the plight of every man. Woody Guthrie died on October 3, 1967, but his work lives on. He has been inducted in The Songwriters' Hall of Fame (1971), the Nashville Songwriters' Hall of Fame (1977), and The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum (1988). Pop and folk musicians such as Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bragg, Wilco, Ani DiFranco, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Arlo Guthrie and countless others, continue to draw inspiration from Woody Guthrie.

A few years ago, having read through much of my father's unpublished song lyrics, I decided I wasn't altogether comfortable with the Woody Guthrie icon image being projected all around. I wasn't comfortable because a lot of it wasn't true. I couldn't blame anyone. It's just the way history falls in, or out, of public knowledge.

So, in an effort to try to begin setting the record straight, I started looking around for musicians who knew they didn't know a lot about Woody Guthrie, not musicians who thought they did know a lot about Woody Guthrie. It's always easier to begin to go somewhere from nowhere, rather than go all the way back from somewhere and start all over again! To get to know Woody Guthrie, you only have to get to know his songs. All of his thoughts and feelings about everything are in his lyrics. There's about 3000 in all. So that's where I usually begin, and end up.

I met Wenzel in 2000 in Berlin. I went there with Billy Bragg to appear at the Political Songwriter's Festival, performing songs from Mermaid Avenue, a CD of Woody's unknown lyrics which Billy had set to music. Wenzel and Billy were on the same show. I had gone into one of the dressing rooms backstage to get a beer and instead I found this guy (Wenzel) pulling up his pants! But that's another story.

Later that night, I got to watch him perform. I decided then that I would look for an opportunity to work with him. At the time, I had no thoughts about what or when that would be. Then a year later, I discovered a little lyric called "Jinga Linnng." I could actually hear Wenzel's singing.

Last year, I invited Wenzel to come to the Woody Guthrie Archives in NYC. He poured over hundreds of unpublished lyrics which was an amazing and exhausting feat in itself. Woody's lyrics are often layered with meanings and history, particular to a time, place or person. Dialects, idioms, slang, words unique to geographic areas, jobs and ethnic groups abound! Even Guthrie-ites can find the language challenging!

I noticed Wenzel had a particular talent for sniffing out lyrics filled with political humor and double-entendre. Many of the lyrics he liked seemed to be geared for children but underneath, were equally poignant for adults. Other lyrics he was drawn to were tougher and more assertive than many of Woody's more well known songs. And a few were downright....odd!

However, the whole point is to let others draw their own conclusions. I like to let them tell me what kind of a man they find, what thoughts they find, what feelings they find. And I let them tell me, through their choice of lyrics and their music, what meaning Woody's words might still have for us now. Good words have a lot of meaning. Great words have deep meaning. A composer recognizes himself in either of these and joins up with them to complete the portrait.

Wenzel's singing style and compositions speak in a distinctly "non American" voice, using instruments and melodies that most American musicians would not naturally connect to Woody Guthrie; a brass section complete with tuba, bottles, bass and piano. These are hardly the sounds of the American west, let alone the lone, acoustic tone of the "dust bowl balladeer," as my father is fondly nicknamed back home.

"Ticky Tock" yanks our eyes away from the old caricature and points us to a fresh oasis, inspiring a new curiosity. Woody, and his songs, are lifted up out of the dusty pages and thrown back out onto the streets where they belong because my father's songs are always street songs and street people's words.

It's truly amazing for me now to watch these two new friends, Wenzel and Woody, rambling together along streets of Germany. I am grateful that they have let me tag along so I can listen in on what they have to say to each other.

Danke,
Nora Guthrie