Back in September of 2012, when Ken and I had just finished 1913 Massacre, Deanna Kamiel invited us to screen our new film for her graduate documentary filmmaking class in the School of Media Studies at The New School. Like other screenings in the DOC Talk series, it included a…
A Perfect Holiday Pairing for the Bob Dylan Fan in Your Life
Here’s a holiday gift idea for the Bob Dylan fan in your life: a copy of Daniel Wolff’s Grown Up Anger, tracing the connections between Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, and the Italian Hall disaster, and a DVD of the…
For Woody’s Birthday, A New Book About “1913 Massacre”
Just in time for Woody’s birthday — he’d be 105 years old today — a new book about 1913 Massacre by Daniel Wolff: Grown up Anger. Wolff’s book explores the deep personal, cultural and historical connections between Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, following a trail that leads from Dylan’s “Song…
A Little Song About A Man Gone Wrong
Joan Baez: https://youtu.be/AHQ7N9lEl_E&w=512&h=288
People’s Stories and The Italian Hall Memorial
There’s a discussion underway in Calumet right now about the design of a new Italian Hall Memorial. We contributed the following thoughts to that discussion today. To the Italian Hall Memorial Group and The Village of Calumet, As producers of 1913 Massacre, the feature-length, 2012 documentary film about the Italian…
Woody and the Nobel Prize
By now you’ve probably heard that Bob Dylan has been awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature, and you probably won’t be able to turn on a radio or a TV today without hearing a Bob Dylan song. Sara Danius, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, “advised those unfamiliar…
When Oscar Met Woody
Seeing Oscar Brand’s obituary in the New York Times earlier this week sent me back to the interview we did with Oscar for 1913 Massacre. Here’s a brief audio excerpt from that interview: the story of how Oscar and Woody Guthrie met in 1940, after Woody wrote a song about the gathering of the American…
Woody and the Seventh-Inning Stretch
As you read this short article from the Sports section of last Friday’s New York Times, bear in mind that Woody wrote “This Land Is Your Land” after he grew tired of hearing Kate Smith singing “God Bless America” every time he turned on the radio: In the middle of the…
Fred Hellerman, 1927-2016
Fred Hellerman, the last surviving member of The Weavers, died on Thursday at 89. The New York Times obituary does not discuss Hellerman’s relationship with Woody Guthrie (except indirectly, where it notes that Fred produced Arlo’s first two albums). Hellerman nevertheless played an important part in the musical story of…