[ebooks] Mussolini (Italian Edition) by Paolo Valera at Arts-Photography

Review

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Songs for the poorBy MR PHILIP J SHANNON"Only thing that is higher than that dust is your debts"; wrote Woody Guthrie from Texas in 1934; about the giant windstorms that flattened farms and hopes; driving a million poor farmers; "dust bowl" refugees; from Oklahoma; Arkansas; Colorado; New Mexico and Texas; away from drought and rapacious landlords and bankers.Born in 1912 in Oklahoma; Woody attempted to "find himself" through the "superstition business" of faith-healing; fortune-telling; Rosicrucian tracts; Eastern mysticism and the Baptist Church; finally ended with socialism as the response to the existence of private plenty amidst mass poverty during the Great Depression.Cray is unable to resolve whether Woody ever joined the US Communist Party; but he favours the majority opinion that Woody was too eclectic (he melded primitive Christianity with communism; Jesus with Lenin); and too independent; to have been useful; or happy; as a member ("he was not an organisation guy"; said an editor of the Daily Worker; for which Woody wrote almost 300 columns). Nevertheless; Woody was proudly loyal to the Party for better and; occasionally; worse.Woody brought his special gift of song to his new-found cause; dedication to the poor. Tastes of commercial musical success were the exceptions to an otherwise frigid reception by the cultural arm of capitalism (his Department of the Interior minder edited out "the bad stuff" from his 1940 government-commissioned album on the building of the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River because "he was in the class struggle pretty deep").Woody survived submarines and mines during the war but he did not survive the FBI which blacklisted the pro-Soviet and anti-racist balladeer from the Merchant Marine. Music continued to consume Woody; and his 1947 songs on Sacco and Vanzetti (the two Italian-American anarchists framed and executed for a payroll murder in 1927) often reached the poetic heights of his creative peak (roughly 1937 to 1947); despite lapses into "political speeches in verse".Signs of Woodys eventual fate; however; began to appear with the onset of the rare; genetic; incurable nervous system disease; Huntingtons chorea. As energy and creativity drained from him; he produced "no new songs of real note" from this time. Alcohol was Woodys solution to his developing psychosis but this only made everything worse.Despite the curse of Huntingtons; the attentions of the FBI continued (they didnt drop Woody from their `watchlist until 1955) and the blacklist stayed in place (RCA and Decca dumped him; and Hollywood ditched a movie deal for his autobiography). The last thirteen of Woodys 55 years were spent in state psychiatric hospitals; dying slowly until the end came in 1967.Woody was no saint. Cray doesnt soft-pedal on Woodys personal failings; not all of which were entirely reducible to the effects of Huntingtons. Woody could be ill-mannered; self-engrossed; irresponsible; undisciplined and immature. However; he was; more often; supportive and generous. An eternal child in many respects; Woody was; despite his faults; impossible to hate and easy to love.Woody left generations of musicians in his debt which was marked by a lyrical grace and melodic simplicity; sung with a voice which "bit at the heart" and which drew its moral verve from; as Pete Seeger put it; Woodys "strong sense of right and wrong".0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. This is simply the best Life of GuthrieBy Michele F. MarloweThis is simply the best Life of Guthrie. I didnt know him; but I loved him; but Im glad I didnt have to live with him. He was an artist; and artists are not usually easy to live with. Marjorie; the wife who knew him and loved him best (and probably was hurt the most) gets a lot of time in the book and adds a lot of glory to it. The bad luck in his life was phenomenal; Huntingtons Chorea was only the half of it. But his music and personality brought us a lot; a lot of joy (still does) and this book is a gentle journey with him - I hope that isnt too dumb - and I hope his children and grandchildren love him.20 of 20 people found the following review helpful. The guy behind the folk heroBy Kerry WaltersEd Crays new biography goes a long way toward clearing up some of the hagiographic fog thats collected around Guthrie since his long illness and death. The romantic picture of Guthrie is that he was an artistically restless drifter who threw in his lot with the farmers and laborers of the Depression era. Theres some truth to that picture. Guthrie undoubtedly was a good poet and wrote some good songs and prose (although his skills as a performer were uneven); was extremely restless; and seems to have had a genuine concern for the poor. But these bare facts only scratch the surface of his complexity. He was also a self-indulgent tomcat who took little responsibility for his many children; a prima dona performer who frequently insisted doing things his way or no way; a person whose idiosyncracies and freeloading perpetually tried the patience of his friends and acquaintances (see; for example; Crays account of Woodys refusal to carry his weight when he lived in the Almanac Singers cooperative); and a chronic mythmaker; in both his memoir and his tales; when it came to his relations with the working class. In the eyes of many (although certainly not all); there apparently was a charm to him that overrode his blemishes. But the blemishes are still there.In a curious way; the people who come across as the real heroes of this biography are the less celebrated types such as Pete Seeger and Will Geer; both victims of the McCarthy witchhunt; and Marjorie Greenblatt Mazia; Arlos mom and Guthries second wife; who nursed Woody during the final years; long after they were divorced. Compared to them; Woody both lived a pretty comfortable life and was less committed to the farmers and laborers he sang about. Touchingly; it was these same people whose loyalty to Guthrie helped make him into one of Americas folk heroes after his death.