BY THOMAS CONNER
© Tulsa World I'll be at a party somewhere in 10 years, and the discussion inevitably will turn to concerts we've seen. We'll be swapping takes on Lollas and Liliths, and somehow I'll mention that I saw Billy Bragg perform his Woody Guthrie songs in Woody's hometown of Okemah back in the summer of '98. The faces around me will tighten — brows raised, cheeks drawn, lips pursed. There will be a beat of silent, palpable awe. Someone will say, "Wow, you were there?" By then, the Woody Guthrie Free Folk Arts Festival in Okemah will have surpassed the Philadelphia folk festival as the country's largest celebration of folk music and all things acoustically American. Each year, tens of thousands of folkies will invade Okemah — the once peaceful town few in the nation had heard of — for the four-day festival featuring the world's biggest names in folk music, from Arlo Guthrie to Bruce Springsteen. Jewel will be trying to mount a comeback, begging the festival organizers for a spot on the prestigious bill. Congress will have replaced the national anthem with Woody's "This Land Is Your Land." These are the images that floated through my mind Tuesday night as I stood outside Okemah's Crystal Theater after Billy Bragg's historical performance inside. Surely I had just witnessed the beginning of something big. Surely something significant had happened tonight. Whether the momentum of this week's incredible folk festival in Okemah — featuring Arlo, Tom Paxton, a host of talented folkies and Billy Bragg — will carry it far enough to realize my little daydream remains to be seen (a good bet, though). Still, something significant certainly happened Tuesday night. After years of hesitation and doubt from his home state, Woody was finally welcomed home. The festival hooted and hollered all weekend, but the defining performance was Bragg's Tuesday night show. Himself a union-backing troubadour, Bragg was asked by Woody's daughter, Nora, to write and record music to several of the thousands of tuneless manuscripts in the Woody Guthrie Archives. The results of this collaboration were released this month as an album, "Mermaid Avenue," and Bragg opted to perform some of these gems in Woody's hometown — on a vintage stage where Woody himself once performed. The evening was electric. The faces of the all-ages, standing-room-only crowd were bright with anticipation and thrill. Camera crews from the BBC, CNN and various regional production groups scurried throughout the theater. Woody's sister was there. Journalists from France were there (gloating over their nation's World Cup victory . . . on Bastille Day, no less). Best of all, no one was protesting Woody's socialist leanings. Everyone was friendly, and the show was free. But despite the build-up and the hype preceding this simple folk concert, Bragg wound up surpassing it. A veteran British rocker with folk tendencies and punk roots, Bragg emerged on stage as humble and personable as ever. He plugged in his lone electric guitar and began serving up songs and stories. He played a few of his own tunes — opening with the romantic "A New England" and closing with an encore of his greatest political song, "Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards" — but concentrated on the task at hand: reintroducing us to our nation's most important songwriter. The album, as I've already huzzahed in these pages, is a stellar achievement, but Bragg's performance realized every hopeful anticipation. That these songs communicate just as effectively through one man and his guitar (rather than the full band on most of the record) speaks to the already established simple genius of Guthrie's writing. That Bragg revived Woody's spirit with such vitality speaks to the simple genius of his own talent. This evening in Okemah was not the knee-slapping nostalgia-fest I partly feared it might become. Instead, Bragg's sincerity, tenderness and obvious appreciation for the material and the man fluffed, buffed and wholly restored the memory and image of Guthrie in the minds of a curious crowd. It's like finding out something new about someone you've known for years — this new light shed on the person's character shatters your preconceived notions and makes their personality more tangible. Woody not only was an earnest, guitar-toting activist; he was a lover, a worshiper, a voter, a dreamer and a father. Bragg made sure we saw these sides of Woody. His Christian devotion rang proudly in Bragg's harsh reading of "Christ for President." His playfulness bounced through "My Flying Saucer." His amazingly graceful blend of the personal and political inspired chills in "She Came Along to Me." "This is the Woody most people haven't seen — the Woody in the archives," Bragg said on stage, "and it's just as important as the Woody we already know." Why is this important? Ask any of the people there Tuesday night — the grandparents, the tattooed punks, the grizzled Okies, the dewey-eyed high schoolers, the well-starched nine-to-fivers. These disparate groups were all gathered together peacefully to celebrate a few glories of living, and Woody's words — thanks in no small part to Bragg's faithful delivery — spoke to every one of them. Woody's impact effects more people than Will Rogers, Troy Aikman or even Garth Brooks, and his legacy has only begun. Welcome home, Woody. Comments are closed.
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Thomas Conner
These online "clips" reproduce a self-selection of my journalism (music etc) during the last 20+ years. It's a lotta stuff, but it only scratches the surface. I do not currently possess the time or resources to digitize the whole body of work. These posts are simply a bunch of pretty great days at the office. Archives
May 2014
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