Talk:Woody Guthrie/Archive 1

Malespina bio
I think we ought to link to the Malespina biography, as it begins almost word-for-word the same as the Wikipedia article:

http://www.malaspina.com/site/person_602.asp

--Uncle Ed 16:45 Mar 20, 2003 (UTC)

Protest song
Protest song, or specifically a protest against "God Bless America"?


 * Woody Guthrie wrote "This Land Is Your Land" in 1940 on a cross-country hitchhiking trip. The original fourth line of each verse -- "God blessed America for me"--was a nod to another beloved anthem, Irving Berlin's "God Bless America." By 1949, when Guthrie recorded the song for Folkways Records, he had changed the fourth line to "This land was made for you and me."


 * While I have always loved "God Bless America", as a Yankee fan, I can understand if he got annoyed at hearing Kate Smith's version again, and again, and again...

Removed
Moved from article:


 * Currently the disgraceful Richmond Organization, who own the "copyright" (dispite the disclaimer issued by Guthrie himself) wish to sue people who want to use this song in satire or parody.

I do not really feel this belongs in an article about Guthrie, but if it does it needs to be NPOVed anyway. Rasmus (talk) 08:51, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Quote subject
What song does the following quote refer to? Some people (elsewhere on the net) seem to be implying that it is "This Land" which I suspect is erronous, does anyone know?

"This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."


 * This is printed in one of the many songbooks guthrie put out, also it may have been used in the almanac days, I doubt it specifically applied to this land but I'm not sure wha it was originally attributed to either. Dannygutters 21:50, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

picture
I just changed the picture. I'm not sure if the old one was Woody Guthrie (I think it's Billy Bragg), but the new one definitely is. There may be an issue about the copyright, but I trust more zealous members of this community will look after that. Triped 04:05, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)


 * The photo you replaced was definitely Woody Guthrie. This photo seems to be from the Guthrie archives which i believe retains the copyright to all their images but the copyright situation of the previous image is unclear as well O'Dubhghaill 22:23, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Let's ask ourselves what Woody would want. =] Thanks for clearing that up.  That picture is on the back of Mermaid Avenue.  Both photos are cool...could the article have two? Triped 04:34, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)

Ballads of Sacco & Vanzetti.
This is a part of Woody Guthrie's history that is nearly always left out. His writing of songs about the unjust Sacco & Vanzetti case. I own the LP, which has 11 songs written and recorded by Guthrie, and 1 song by Pete Seeger. The album, titled "The Ballads of Sacco & Vanzetti", was somewhat recently released on CD. There is a ton of detailed information on this at http://www.geocities.com/Nashville/3448/sacco.html I consider this to be his best recorded work. Every song is a master piece.


 * Guthrie may have considered the case unjust, as do you, but it was hardly unjust.


 * It is my understanding that these songs were released as sort of a housecleaning project by Moe Ash when guthrie's interest in the project tapered out do to (his percieved) poor results. I would think a section could mention them, as they were indicitive of a period of writing difficulties in guthrie's life, but I don't think they figured very prominantly in the guthrie story as works themselves. For information on these recordings check out the "Woody Guthrie: A Life" biography by Joe Kline pp 327-328 -dannygutters

wives
The article mentions Woody getting married several times, but it doesn't ever mention how those marriages ended. Would someone who knows this please add it?


 * Hyacinth 09:02, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I updated some of this information about his first and thrid wives - dannygutters

Martin Hoffman
I have removed the link for Martin Hoffman. The Hoffman that wrote the music for "Plane Wreck at Los Gatos," who is memorialized in Joan Baez' "For Martin," committed suicide many years ago. He is not the professor this article links to. PacificBoy 20:01, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Good article nom
No references or citations at all. - Francis Tyers · 10:53, 13 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I added a bunch of citations to pages in the Joe Kline Biography. Dannygutters 21:51, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Failed GA
As of 13 October 2006, I am making a speedy failing for this article to reach Good Article status, per WP:WIAGA, because of the following fatal reason: This article is totally unsourced. Please provide your reliable sources according to WP:CITE to support the three pillars of Wikipedia: neutral point of view, no element of original research and verifiable. I've put a template in this article for editors to fill in their references. Please do not consider it as discouraging. If all of those matters above have been fixed, this article can be renominate it again. Cheers. &mdash; Indon ( reply ) &mdash; 11:06, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Categories
I notice the article is in a few categories as well as their sub-categories (e.g. "People from Oklahoma" as well as "Oklahoma musicians"). Should that be changed? Adam McMaster 10:17, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Legacy; Joe Strummer
I'm wondering why the wording was changed from "obviously" to "apparently." Not only is the claim cited from Nora Guthrie herself, but is also verified in several biographies of Joe Strummer notably Kris Need's "Joe Strummer and the Legend of The Clash." Anyone familiar with the life of Joe Strummer knows why he called himself "Woody," so why it became "apparently" is beyond me. I have no objection in regards to changing the wording of the sentence, but it is more concrete than "apparently." It is certainly because of his admiration of Woody Guthrie. Jlee562 08:27, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

GA
I am failing this article based on several things Try and reference each paragraph and cleanup the popular culture section, listing the article at WikiProject_Biography/Peer_review will provide useful feedback from editors. M3tal H3ad 07:45, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Two cleanup tags, which could probably be removed
 * 2) The lead needs to be expanded to two or three paragraphs per WP:LEAD
 * 3) was a highly influential and prolific is POV
 * 4) References come after punctuation per WP:FOOTNOTE, ex [9]. -> .[9]
 * 5) folk singers.[1]  external jump needs to be converted to a reference
 * 6) Do not wikilink years alone, such as 1939 -> 1939
 * 7) Guthrie famously wrote the slogan "This Machine Kills Fascists" on his guitar. Reference?
 * 8) The quote in the box needs a reference
 * 9) The "Post-death influence on popular culture" is a mess and is trivial. One sentence, unreferenced paragraphs making the article fail both criteria 1 and 2, not "well-written" and "unverifiable"
 * 10) a [citation needed] tag
 * 11) Remove the red linked article under See Also, the point of the section is to link to article that exist
 * 12) Reference one needs to be formatted to include a title, publisher (website), date last accessed, WP:CITE
 * 13) The Songs of Woody Guthrie - is a link to geocities to a personal website please remove it per WP:EL.
 * I updated your bulleted list to a numeric one to identify items easier, I will work on these edits and resubmit. as for number 7, do we need to cite the "This Machine" quote? Guthrie is holding an example in the photo in the article. Dannygutters 15:56, 10

April 2007 (UTC)
 * Updated items 1,34,5,6,7,9,11,12,14,15. Still need to update the Lead and Post-Death sections. Dannygutters 16:47, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, I've updated the article in regards to all the items mentioned, I will try to get it peer-reviewed before renominating for GA status. Any thoughts on the Lead and Influence sections would be appreciated. Dannygutters 20:02, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Good work. I've made a couple of very minor corrections to the lead, but to me it all looks good. Adam McMaster 20:20, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Peer Review Items
I have tried to implement most of the items listed in the peer review tips Dannygutters 19:36, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Free images
Are these images from the LOC free? gren グレン 13:46, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

and the stuff here. How do we determine copyrights and renewals? gren グレン 13:58, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Flag Icon
I think that flag icons are out of place on biographies of people that are not closely related with national politics or government. It makes sense to have a flag icon on prime ministers, but not really on folk singers. I am removing it. If anyone objects, we can discuss further... &mdash; Gaff ταλκ
 * I agree. See WP:FLAG. Adam McMaster 18:24, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Successful good article nomination
I am glad to say that this article which was nominated for good article status has succeeded. This is how the article, as of June 13, 2007, compares against the six good article criteria:


 * 1. Well written?: prose is clear and grammar correct. The linear biography is a good approach.  The section on his influence is a little too listy.  I'd review WP:EMBED and try to think how to better integrate that information.
 * 2. Factually accurate?: It would be nice to see more sources. Right now most of the article is verified with the Joe Klein book.  Ideally, however there would be several more sources.  Someone with access to news archives, such as Nexis, could dig up more sources to improve.  Will never be FA without additional sources.  For me, this was my biggest hesitation in passing the article, but it appears that the article was actually written with multiple sources and Klein was used primarily as verification, so I felt comfortable passing.
 * 3. Broad in coverage?: The biography is thorough, although perhaps each section could be fleshed out some more. More sources would help with that.  As above, the influences section could be smoothed out.
 * 4. Neutral point of view?: I'm not an expert on Woody Guthrie controversies, but as far as I can tell this is pretty balanced.
 * 5. Article stability? Yep! It's stable.
 * 6. Images?: great public domain pictures!

If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to take it to a GA review. Thank you to all of the editors who worked hard to bring it to this status. — JayHenry 00:51, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
 * If anyone can add more sources that would be great, maybe we can get this article to FA status for woody's upcoming birthday. Dannygutters 18:58, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Woody's Dirty Letters
The Kline bio details Woody's 'hobby' of writing dirty letters in the later part of his life. Mostly these were to his mistress then wife Marjorie, but occasionally he would engage in dirty correspondence with fans (with or without their request) this even resulted in a charge of indecency at one point but was settled. I'm not sure if this should be included in the article, as on one hand is gives us a clearer picture of woody the man but on the other hand distorts the image of woody by elevating a detail of his private life to a place of equal weight with the public persona detailed in the article. There is some debate over weather the letters were a symptom of his Huntington's as these patients can tend to show an increased creativity and sex drive, but since conclusions can't be drawn definitively I wouldn't suggest this connection be made. Details of the civil suit should be included if factually, tho private correspondence with his wife (even though included in the biography in a public way) would seem inappropriate for an academic article. Dannygutters 16:22, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
 * If you can find the details, I'd say the letters to his wife add valuable perspective. Not like there's no precedent, either, although those weren't at all scandalous.  MrZaius  talk  16:33, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Communist?
I believe I read somewhere that Woody wanted to join the Communist Party but they wouldn't let him because he wouldn't renounce christianity. Can anyone confirm this? It would make that bit a little more interesting and informative. bobanny 15:24, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure about the christianity angle. I didn't see it in the kilne bio, but if you can source it go ahead and put something up. More Likely Woody never officially joined up because he didn't want to pay the dues. Dannygutters 17:30, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

The Charts
I'm currently doing an assignment on Woody and I noticed that there is no information in relation to how many records he sold - relative to, say, Sinatra (who obviously sold a lot more). Bassically, I just need to know roughly what his top selling single/album was or any information like that. I only say this becaus I find it strange that no such information is in the article
 * Woody's recordings are such that they didn't ever 'chart' his best selling album is most likely "Songs to Grow On" a recording of children’s songs. His recording for moe asch was sporadic at best. While never big sellers, much of Woody's music was given to schools and libraries, which contributed to the high visibility of songs like "This Land is Your Land" in the American conscious. If you find any facts as to record sales please add them to the article, that would be great. Dannygutters 19:10, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Todo: Cite from
If anyone has read or has a copy of the "Ramblin' Man" bio, we could use some citation from that. Currently the article cite's heavily from the kline bio.

http://www.amazon.com/Ramblin-Man-Times-Woody-Guthrie/dp/0393327361/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-7130564-9874832?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192815922&sr=1-1 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dannygutters (talk • contribs) 17:46, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I am doing this. Hopefully we will be in a state to be reviewed for FA status Dannygutters 16:19, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Categories
I am removing the "scottish americans" category from this article as that seems to be outright false. And I'm hesitant to keep the American Socalists category. Woody was by no means a driving figure in socalism, tho he was associated with the communist party as a liberal. Unless we are going to include everyone in the category of their leanings maybe we should remove this one too? Thoughts? Dannygutters 17:52, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, I just added the American socialists category, in part because of the article's discussion of Guthrie as "A lifelong socialist and trade unionist, [who] also contributed a regular column, "Woody Sez", to the Daily Worker and People's World newspapers. He was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or Wobblies) Union for some years." My experience, at least, is that his politics were and are well-known and notable ("This machine kills fascists", for instance), and that he is known as a notable member of the socialist movement -- not because he was a "driving figure", but because he was a well-known celebrity with openly socialist politics. -David Schaich Talk/Cont 18:02, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I think we should keep it, but I still reserve reservations that it overstates Woody's Socialist tendancies vs the rest of his life. At what point is that distiction made, Why isn't he in a divorcee's category for example. But you are correct as notable celebrity associated with socialism he should be in the cat. So be it tho. Dannygutters 00:29, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Bound For Glory: 'loosely autobiographical'?
In the 'Guthrie's influence' section, under 'Prolific writer' it says that BFG is 'loosely autobiographical'. But it seems largely autobiographical. After all, it's not really written in a 'fictionalised' way as say, Kerouac's 'On The Road' is.

SteveRamone 03:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I think it's that way because it loosely deals with woody's life, jumping around selectively, and written in a memoir way it's not really thought of as a traditional autobiography. Compare to say the Joe Kline bio of woody. Dannygutters —Preceding comment was added at 00:31, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

request for ban IP 216.56.26.2
I put in a request to ban this ip that made a bunch of vandalism entries yesterday. According to this IP's contribution history that's about all he does. Dannygutters 14:29, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
 * This IP is a school, admin put a 6 month ban on anononymous editing, which should help. yay wikipedia.Dannygutters 03:07, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Merged some facts from the influence section into the bio
Things like covers of songs moved to appropriate spots in the bio. As per Featured_article_criteria, trying to eliminate a listy or trivia section. They seem to prefer a bio format. Dannygutters 16:05, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Legacy
I suggest adding a "Legacy" section that describes the work of the Foundation and Archives - outlining exhibits, etc. Would also move the info about the annual Festival there as well since the festival is more part of Guthrie's Legacy than musical influence - although it is that also. If no one disagrees, I will work on these changes. Kmzundel 14:58, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
 * We previously had information regarding contemporary work from the Archive and festival in a separate section (i think musical influences) but got moved this was advised to move inline in the bio as per WP:FA criteria. I think that if there's something to add that wouldn't fit inline in the bio with the other foundation information it could warrant an extra section as long as we're not just moving this info back. Like if you want to move from the musical influence section (which is a bit of a Trivia list right now, I’d like to integrate most of it into other sections), to a legacy part that could be good. Tho keep in mind that in depth information about the festival should be on the festival's page (in fact I should add a main article link) Dannygutters 16:51, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It may make sense to use the Musical Influence section Only for items regarding songs written about or in tribute to guthrie and move other information like concerts in honor, the festival, etc to the Legacy section Dannygutters 16:55, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I am NOT suggesting adding more in depth information about the festival. What is already in the article re: the festival is sufficient. Mostly I'm suggesting adding more info about the Foundation's programs and exhibits. Kmzundel 17:42, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Edit Summary
Please remember to always fill in the edit summary field - even if it's just to say "typo" or "style" or "fixign link" or whatever. This is considered an important guideline in Wikipedia. Kmzundel 22:13, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Citing sources
Just spent more than one hour adding references to 10 unreferenced statements. Please do NOT add unreferenced statements if working toward FA status. Kmzundel 04:31, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Mermaid Avenue archives
IMHO, most of the info in this whole section should be moved or removed. It contains much duplication and is out of order chronologically. It simply makes no sense to me. There needs to be a section about the Foundation that leads into the Billy Bragg Mermaid Avenue recordings. Kmzundel 16:47, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I had some time on my hands and re-ordered the Sections and re-worked the Mermaid Ave section. Also added many more references. The Peer Review process will demand that unsubstantiated statements be referenced. Kmzundel 19:16, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * This is great, these refrences are a very useful detail yet tedious to look up. Dannygutters 20:35, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Section Titles
I'm not sure if the section titles should be Years rather than biographical milestones. I can't find anything specific in the wikipedia biography guideline pages, but all of the other longer musician bios I checked use this format rather than years. Personally I think it makes more sense to do it this way since a person scanning the contents for a particular item would likely not know what year it occured it.. check out Bob Dylan,Fidel Castro or George Washington. Dannygutters
 * Manual_of_Style suggests nouns for heading titles. Dannygutters 20:41, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Let me think on this to try to come up with some nouns that would be broad enough to work. For now, I think the years are OK.  See Ellis Paul. Kmzundel 23:07, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Hundreds of Songs
If my memory serves me well, in the foreward to The "Woody Guthrie Songbook", Pete Seeger says that his published work is well over a thousand songs with countless hunreds left unpublished and unrecorded, I suppose the songs that Billy Bragg has worked on now count as published and recorded. I would therefore suggest that to write: "Hundreds of songs", falls well short of the correct amount. Dylan has written hundreds, but doesn't even come close to Guthrie's total. Thank you. Educated Guest (talk) 19:27, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

"This Land" in the public domain
This article currently uses Image:Woody Guthrie - This Land.ogg, a 30-second sample of "This Land is You Land", claiming fair use. But according to this (and further details here), the song is in the public domain. I believe a full version of the song should be included. – Quadell (talk) (random) 15:53, 9 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Errr, yes and no... the sheet music of the 1945 version is public domain... not necessarily any recordings of it. But, quite likely some recordings of it are.  But, that comes down to how does Wikipedia work on allowing non-renewal evidence on Wikipedia.  I have not been up to date on our ever-evolving copyright policies but some evidence will be required. gren グレン 07:33, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * You're right about recordings. As to non-renewal evidence, I think those links I listed above should be adequate. – Quadell (talk) (random) 12:54, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * But I meant non-renewal for any full length sound recording where a notable group like the EFF hasn't assured us it wasn't renewed. I know on the FAC someone mentioned that they would upload a full version I just want to make sure it doesn't get deleted. gren グレン 13:13, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh I see. Happily, there are online searches available. See User:Quadell/copyright for details. – Quadell (talk) (random) 14:36, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The sample on the page is from the Asch recording sessions. This particular track was issued on the Dust Bowl Ballads record, According to this copyright search the copyright was most recently renewed to Rounders Records in 1988, so I think to err on the side of caution we should maybe keep the clip a sample. --Dannygutters (talk · contribs) 14:41, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Dan, probably a good idea to post this info on the FAC page. Kmzundel (talk) 15:16, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Origins
Question about the "origins" note in the sidebar. Woody Guthrie did live in Los Angeles for a time, but lived most of his adult life in New York City and was born and raised in Oklahoma and Texas. I don't see him having "originated" in LA. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.162.220.10 (talk) 23:32, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * You're right, I don't agree with LA as an Origin either. Removing. --Dannygutters (talk · contribs) 00:36, 30 January 2008 (UTC)