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This Land is Your Land

Episode 2 of 3

Documentary series about American folk music. The 1930s saw folk redefined as the voice of protest and the outsider. Woody Guthrie fitted the mould perfectly.

Three-part documentary series on American folk music, tracing its history from the recording boom of the 1920s to the folk revival of the 1960s.

In the depression of the 1930s, John Lomax found convicted murderer Leadbelly in a southern jail. Leadbelly's music was never quite as pure and untouched by pop as Lomax believed, but it set a new agenda for folk music, redefining it as the voice of protest, the voice of the outsider and the oppressed.

Dustbowl drifter Woody Guthrie fitted the mould perfectly and the two of them teamed up with Lomax's son Alan, Pete Seeger and Josh White - a group of friends who believed 'they could make a better world if they all got together and just sang about it'. Their songs and their radical politics took them to high places of influence, but brought about their downfall in the blacklisting 1950s.

Contributors include Pete Seeger, Rambling Jack Elliot, Anna Lomax, Tom Paxton, Roger McGuinn, Woody Guthrie's sister and daughter and Josh White's son.

1 hour

Last on

Sat 17 Mar 2012 01:30

Music Played

  • The Carter Family

    When The World's On Fire

  • Woody Guthrie

    This Land is Your Land

  • Lead Belly

    Goodnight Irene

  • Sonny Terry

    Pick a Bale of Cotton

  • Lead Belly

    Blind Lemon Blues

  • Lead Belly

    Alberta

  • Lead Belly

    Irene

  • Lead Belly

    Mother's Blues

    • Little Children Blues.
  • Lead Belly

    East Rider

  • Woody Guthrie

    Pretty Boy Floyd

  • Woody Guthrie

    Do-Re-Mi

  • Woody Guthrie

    So Long It's Been Good to Know You

  • Uncle Dave Macon

    Sail Away Ladies

  • Igor Stravinsky

    Symphony in Three Movements, Con Moto

  • Aunt Molly Jackson

    Kentucky Miner's Wife

  • The Skillet Lickers

    Ride Old Buck to Water

  • Lead Belly

    4, 5 & 9

  • Josh White

    Blood Red River

  • Lead Belly

    Mother's Blues

  • Bookmiller Shannon

    Down in Arkansas Among the Sticks

  • Josh White

    Uncle Sam Says

  • Lead Belly

    Bourgeois Blues

  • Woody Guthrie

    Car Song

  • Woody Guthrie

    Train Blues

  • George Spangler and Congregation

    Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah

  • The Almanac Singers

    Union Maid

  • The Almanac Singers

    Billy Boy

  • The Almanac Singers

    Washington Breakdown

  • The Almanac Singers

    Dear Mr President

  • The Almanac Singers

    Round and Round Hitler's Grave

  • David 鈥淗oneyboy鈥 Edwards

    Water Coast Blues

  • David 鈥淗oneyboy鈥 Edwards

    Just a Spoonful

  • David 鈥淗oneyboy鈥 Edwards

    Roamin' and Ramblin' Blues

  • Josh White

    Howling Wolf Blues

  • Josh White & Libby Holman

    Baby Baby

  • Pete Seeger - The Bells of Rhymney

  • Pete Seeger - We Shall Not Be Moved

  • Jean Ritchie

    Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies

  • Pete Seeger - My Oklahoma Home Blowed Away

  • Mississippi John Hurt

    Frankie

  • Woody Guthrie

    I Ain't Got No Home in This World Anymore

  • The Weavers

    Tzena, Tzena, Tzena

  • Lead Belly

    There's A Man Going Around Taking Names

  • Woody Guthrie

    Sleep Eye

  • Dock Boggs

    Country Blues

  • Frank Sinatra

    Goodnight Irene

  • Paul Robeson

    Summertime

  • Josh White

    Lord, I Want to Die Easy

  • Pete Seeger - There Once Was a Woman Who Swallowed a Lie

  • Buddy Thomas

    Yellow Barber

  • Bascom Lamar Lunsford

    I Wish I Was a Mole In The Ground

  • Dock Boggs

    Pretty Polly

  • Woody Guthrie

    Train Blues

  • Bob Dylan

    Song to Woody

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