The name of Woody Guthrie is brought up so often as an influence on current folk-singers that there is a danger of forgetting the recorded work of the man himself. This album should serve to inform those who have heard the name, not the singer, that Guthrie possessed a real and individual talent. Some of the songs may be part of the past, it is true – a hard, adventurous past – but a large amount of the material is still topical, only the place-names have changed. The railroad, as usual, features a lot in these songs: riding the rods from Baltimore To Washington (‘guess the police got troubles too’); Little Black Train (same theme as This Train and Gospel Train); the train that carries the loved one away (Danville Girl and Poor Boy); and the Train Blues (more or a breakdown than a blues, perhaps, that swings like mad towards the end). All the material is, in fact, good, and the performances enhanced in places by the sad second voice of Cisco Houston and the harmonica of Sonny Terry. Some of the songs here have appeared in other Woody collections, but these are different (and apparently previously unissued) versions. Recommended.
Discography
(a) Baltimore To Washington; Little Black Train; (b) Who’s Going To Shoe Your Pretty Feet?; (a) Slip Knot; Poor Boy; Mean Talking Blues; (c) Stepstone (19 mins) – (b) Bed On The Floor; (b) Little Darling; (a) Miner’s Song; (d) Train Blues; (b) Danville Girl; (b) Ride Old Paint (16 min)
(a) Woody Guthrie (vcl/g). (b) Guthrie (vcl/g); Cisco Houston (vcl/g/mandolin). (c) Guthrie (vcl/g); Houston (mandolin); Sonny Terry (hca). (d) Guthrie (g); Terry (hca).
(Verve Folkways VLP 5008 32s.)
