Singer-songwriter (1912–1967) best known for such iconic folk songs as “This Land Is Your Land,” which glory in the spirit of the American landscape and its people. Interesting ALS, three pages on adjoining panels of an off-white folding paper towel, 7.5 x 9.5, “On top of old April,” 1955. Guthrie, using in several colors of ink, addresses his message to “Dear Singers … All In One” while convalescing in the Brooklyn State Hospital. Content within the letter (see below), as well as the multicolored “triple” inscription “Sing Out,” suggests that Guthrie was writing to the influential folk music magazine of the same name; whether the letter was unsolicited or “on assignment” is unclear. In part [Guthrie’s spellings and grammar retained]: “Artists … do sing up and out with the pure old truth in bigger bunches and at better lower & cheaper price than I hear it sung around any other … old printin shop or office…. I sure do believe that Petey Seeger is a real champion at more jobs then floggin his wire stringy banjo ... singing his ever better & better & better and better … songs. He sounds honester to my poor old exploited ear than Ewan Macall’s [Ewan MacColl, folk singer and partner of Peggy Seeger]. I don’t rekon that Macall has ever walked his land from end to end like Pete has…. Macall ever try to make his grat country’s own poverty and misery and deep … hunger and wories and fears … and hopes all rhyme … beat to time of a ballad song on any musicyial instrument like Pete has and habitually does…. I guess Ewan is a fine … honest hard workin’ man like England and Scotland … so full of by the uncounted millions and to me Ewan does the best job of singing exactly what his pappa and his mama and all his ancestors and all of his back generations of dead miners have told Ewan and had sung to him all his life about. He sounds too muchly slick & polished and rehearsed and thin to me—because he sings not about what his own life sees around him but what his ancestors lived thru and heard and sang out about. They made up their ballads to tell how hard … every minute and every hour … and every nite…. When I sit and just read those printed words in my … lp album here I get this terrible feeling again that I’m living in the place and scenery where it all takened place and where it all happened at but Ewan’s records fail to live quite up in their feelings when I play them.” Guthrie closes, “Every word you folks print up there is printed on a high high hard hittin’ hard fightin’ level and all your printed words needs is just a…jillion people to sing em up and out in your high militante spirit.” At the time of writing, Guthrie was a patient at the Brooklyn State Hospital (whose name he adds below his signature), where he spent a number of years in treatment for a number of maladies. After a number of diagnoses, including alcoholism and schizophrenia, it was finally determined that Guthrie’s suffered from Huntington’s disease, a genetic condition that had earlier claimed his mother’s life. Folds as noted and light show-through to text resulting from nature of material, otherwise clean, bright, and fine. COA John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and R&R COA.
