Woody Guthrie Autographs, Memorabilia & Collectibles

The most important American folk singer and songwriter of the first half of the 20th Century, Woody Guthrie (1912-1967) wrote more than 1,000 songs, many of them standards such as "This Land Is Your Land" (1940), "Grand Coulee Dam" (1941), "Talking Dust Bowl" (1950), and numerous others, many of which are still covered by folk, country, rock, and even pop musicians. Guthrie left home at 15 to ride the rails as a hobo, and his songs are fed by his many experiences in hobo and migrant worker camps and among the dispossessed of the Great Depression. Guthrie's songs are strongly left-leaning, with great sympathy for labor unions and farmer groups; he even wrote for Communist newspapers in the 1940s. Guthrie was especially popular as a recording artist in the 1940s, with many live performances as a member of the political folk group the Almanac Singers. Folk singers like Bob Dylan rediscovered his recordings in the 1950s and 1960s and revived his popularity. By this time, Guthrie was suffering from the effects of Huntington's disease, the illness that eventually caused his demise.