Woody Guthrie Tribute Concert
Sunday, September 14th, 2008
Woody Guthrie Festival, Lents Park, SE Portland, OR
First Annual Woody Guthrie Festival - 3-6pm
Portland OR
Price: FREE
The Lents Neighborhood of SE Portland presents the music of Woody Guthrie. Guthrie lived in an apartment in this neighborhood in May 1941 when he wrote his Columbia River songs. The apartment still stands today! The neighborhood is proud of this connection to Guthrie and will celebrate.
Yours truly will be the narrator for this event. I was asked to perform musically but turned them down after some thought. It's been a while since I've performed, and I wasn't sure I'd have the rehearsal time. However, I told them I'd be delighted to recite from Guthrie's journals. After all, many sing his songs but not so many have put his journals to memory. So I just heard today that I'll be the narrator/host, introducing the music at 3, 4 and 5pm, and they left it pretty open about how I choose to do that. It will be a fun gig.
The shoot went great. I have everything I need now.
3 comments:
Very cool that you are a major part of the Lents Guthrie tribute, Charles.
Congratulations.
Hope you enjoy the day.
I didn't know he lived in Portland.
-eric
Only for a few months in an apt on NE 92nd (still there) when the BPA hired him to write propaganda songs for the dams being built (1940-1). The story is he wrote 26 in a month and left, the NW classics among them.
The elder Udall picked him up hitch-hiking to NY. Guthrie was broke and Udall loaned him money.
Yes, it's also nice to be remembered. It's been over ten years since I've done my Guthrie show, which of course was something of a fixture in the 80s. So it was cool to be asked to do it, even if I declined. And very cool to get to do part of it, portions of the non-singing part.
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