We all know Woody Guthrie, right? Dust bowl balladeer. Labor activist. Mentor to Bob Dylan, and by extension, inspiration to perhaps millions of singer-songwriters.
Well, now it’s time to meet the unknown Woody Guthrie: now, revealed for the first time, he composed of dozens of Jewish-themed songs while he was living in Coney Island, Brooklyn.
One of these long-buried songs is Holy Ground. Guthrie’s Jewish lyrics are set to music by the Klezmatics.
Holy ground
Take off, take off your shoes. This place you’re standing, it’s holy ground.
Woody Guthrie’s Jewish lyrics came as a surprise to Nora Guthrie, director of the Woody Guthrie Archives and Woody’s daughter. She became aware of his connection to Judaism only recently, in a chance encounter with the Klezmatics and Itzhak Perlman. Following a concert at Tanglewood, where (unbeknownst to Nora) Perlman and the band had performed some of Greenblatt’s Yiddish songs, Guthrie was introduced to Perlman as “Aliza’s granddaughter.” She recalls, “All my life, I’ve been introduced as Woody’s daughter, Arlo’s sister … but this was the first time I’d ever been introduced as ’Aliza Greenblatt’s granddaughter!’ Then Itzhak asked me how I liked his version of Aliza’s song – I almost fell through the floor. I never knew she wrote songs – I always thought she was just my Bubbie!” The revelation about her grandmother’s history encouraged Nora Guthrie to bring her father’s Jewish songs to light, and she enlisted the Klezmatics – one of the world’s preeminent klezmer groups – in the project.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/woody-guthries-songs-bubbe-eric-j-greenberg/
https://www.woodyguthrie.org/merchandise/klezmatics.htm