Woody Guthrie Folk Festival - The Beginning

The Beginning

In the early 1960s, Woody Guthrie was living on Mermaid Avenue in Coney Island, New York. Although Bob Dylan made a pilgrimage to visit Guthrie, who was physically deteriorating due to a neurological disorder called Huntington's Disease, the town of Okemah had no interest in remembering its native son. Okemah residents regarded Guthrie with some suspicion and some believed he was a Communist based on his "Woody Sez" column published in a Communist paper The People's World. In addition, Guthrie sang out his beliefs at labor union rallies - sometimes with other outspoken artists such as Pete Seeger and Cisco Houston. As late as 1971, the Okemah City Council refused to proclaim Woody Guthrie Day due to his radical politics. By the 1970s, although most young people in Okemah had never heard of Guthrie, Guthrie-followers began making pilgrimages to Okemah to visit the house where Guthrie lived. Guthrie's son Arlo - a well-known folksinger himself by the 70s - also made occasional trips to Okemah "to feel the situation out." However, it wasn't until the late 1990s, when Billy Bragg visited Okemah filming scenes for his Man in the Sand documentary about the making of Mermaid Avenue, a collection of unknown Guthrie lyrics put to Bragg's music in collaboration with Wilco, that the town of Okemah started to embrace its wiry wanderlusting native. Bragg fittingly christened the first festival in 1998. In an article for Dirty Linen Annette C. Eshleman wrote: "Residents' attitudes have gone from angry accusations of Guthrie being a Communist, to suspicious tolerance, to embracing his legion of loyal fans. And while the economic boost that a festival provides to such a small community is certainly welcome, the kindness and hospitality of openhearted locals is genuine."