Woody Guthrie, America’s Troubadour

Follow in the footsteps of America’s great troubadour, Woody Guthrie, as he travels across the country with his musical observations of life in America. Woody Guthrie was born on July 14, 1912 in Okema, Oklahoma. Woody’s mother and father shared their love of music with their son and passed tunes from their Western, Indian and Scottish heritage. Woody lived through the Great Depression. He traveled the land observing working men and women in various occupations. He shared in the struggles of the early union movement. He served in World War II both in the merchant marine and in the army. His songs formed the basis of the early folk movement. He died of Huntington’s Disease on Thanksgiving Day, 1967. He wrote nearly 3,000 songs, wrote two novels, created artworks and published poetry. He was truly a Renaissance Man in the truest sense of the term.

In their performances Bob Ford and the Ragamuffins target your students’ age groups to support teachers in their efforts to meet standards and educational goals. Specific areas targeted are The Creative Process, Rhythms and Rhymes of Words and Songs, and Song Writing. For older students we stress social studies -- the Great Depression, The New Deal, WW II, and the Union Movement in America. Working with your teachers, we can customize our performance to meet your goals.

This program is designed as an assembly program for large groups of students. With available projectors, this program can include slides of the words and historic scenes of the issues that inspired the music.

If the age range of the classes attending the assembly would be very large, we recommend two assemblies, if possible, to group the ages of the students appropriately. This would allow BF&R to target the standards for each group of students in attendance. For complete study guides, BF&R recommends the official Woody Guthrie website: http://www.woodyguthrie.org

The Fee for this program is $600 for the first assembly plus travel expenses. $900 for two assemblies plus travel. Workshops are available for an additional fee.