Hard Travelin' Conference (28 Sept. 1996)
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH
excerpted memories / anecdotes
"I remember later on, in the fifties,
when the folk boom, was getting under way.
Every weekend we'd bring him home from
one of the hospitals out in Howard Beach
there, in Queens, where we were at the
time. And we'd have a stack of records
that had come in that week from all around
the world, where people had recorded his
songs in all of these different languages
that we never heard of, couldn't read,
or understand, but he'd sit there, you know,
eating hot dogs, and we'd play that stack
over and over. . .My dad exists today in
a lot of people who are here, not just me.
And he exists in ways that mean different
things to different times. . .In more and more
places, too there is the kind of belief that you
can change the moment. Sometimes you
can just change one little moment from one
situation to another by inspiration of a song,
or a couple of words, or just having fun or
playing, and moment by moment, the world
seems to change on its own. . . It's only in
the last 50 years that people have let TVs
and radios do their singing for them . . .
FROM Hard Travelin' (collection of essays)
about Woody Guthrie, WESLEYAN UNIV.
PRESS
No comments:
Post a Comment