Til We Out Number 'Em / Plays the Music of Woody Guthrie
More than 30 years ago, shortly after the death ofWoody Guthriein the fall of 1967, a number of folk heavies likeBob DylanandPete Seegerassembled in Carnegie Hall to pay tribute to the folk patriarch. ThatTribute to Woody Guthrieserves as something of a precursor to this 2000 record spearheaded by Ani DiFranco, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Guthrie Archives. It is a testimony to the incredible staying power of Guthrie's songs and his legacy that successive generations of musicians continue to be touched by what DiFranco calls his "rail-riding, rambling, story-gathering, political, acoustic-balladeer model." Like the first tribute, this one includes readings of Guthrie's prose along with interpretations of his music, but it also adds personal reflections from Fred Hellerman andArlo Guthrie, among others. Highlights from this 1996 gathering include a pair of Bruce Springsteen performances (the playful "Riding in My Car" and the solemn "Deportee"), David Pirner's urgent "Pretty Boy Floyd," and "Ramblin' Round," invested with the right amount of weariness by the Indigo Girls with DiFranco. Also of note is DiFranco's dramatic reworking of "Do Re Mi," which highlights the song's often overlooked dark theme, and Billy Bragg's "Against the Law," which reappears onMermaid Avenue Volume II, a second set of Guthrie lyrics set to Bragg's music. It's telling that Arlo Guthrie andRamblin' Jack Elliott, two participants from the first tribute, return here, and it's more than likely that many of these artists will appear on the future Guthrie celebrations that surely are to come.--Marc Greilsamer