Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – January 14, 2025: Remembering Peter Yarrow

Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif finds connections and develops themes in various genres. The show is broadcast on CKCU, 93.1 FM, in Ottawa on Tuesdays from 3:30 until 5 pm (Eastern time) and is also available 24/7 for on-demand streaming.

This episode of Stranger Songs was recorded and can be streamed on-demand, now or anytime, by clicking on “Listen Now” at … https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/595/68573.html

Theme: Remembering Peter Yarrow (1938-2025).

The theme on this edition of Stranger Songs is Remembering Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul & Mary. Peter died on January 7 at age 86 following a four-year battle with bladder cancer.

This program includes songs performed by Peter and Peter, Paul & Mary, as well as some songs from his or their repertoire performed by several other artists.

Peter Yarrow- Don’t Ever Take Away My Freedom

Peter (Warner Bros.)

Peter, Paul & Mary- Puff (The Magic Dragon)

Moving (Warner Bros.)

Dave Van Ronk- River Come Down (Bamboo)

Down in Washington Square (Smithsonian Folkways)

Priscilla Herdman- Autumn to May

Stardreamer (Stardreamer Music)

Kronos Quartet with Sam Amidon, Brian Carpenter, Lee Knight & Aoife O'Donovan- Where Have All the Flowers Gone

Long Time Passing: Kronos Quartet & Friends Celebrate Pete Seeger (Smithsonian Folkways)

Bethany Yarrow with Peter Yarrow- The Cruel War

Rock Island (Little Monster)

Peter, Paul & Mary- Blowin’ in the Wind

In the Wind (Warner Bros.)

Peter Yarrow & Richie Havens- The Great Mandala (The Wheel of Life)

Lifelines Live (Warner Bros.)

Cliff Eberhardt- 500 Miles

500 Miles (Red House)

Grayson Capps- Early Morning Rain

Heartbreak, Misery & Death (Royal Potato Family)

Penny Lang- If I Had a Hammer

Live at the Yellow Door (She-Wolf)

Peter, Paul & Mary- Rich Man Poor Man

Late Again (Warner Bros.)

Tom Paxton- The Last Thing On My Mind

The Compleat Tom Paxton (Even Compleater) (Rhino Handmade)

Peter Yarrow- Tall Pine Trees

Peter (Warner Bros.)

Stan Rogers- Delivery Delayed

Between the Breaks…Live! (Fogarty’s Cove/Borealis)

Peter, Paul & Mary- Day is Done

The Very Best of Peter, Paul & Mary (Warner Bros./Rhino)

Noel Paul Stookey & Peter Yarrow with The Paul Winter Consort- Et Misericordia

Something New and Fresh (Neworld)

Peter Yarrow- Freedom Medley: Woke Up This Morning with My Mind on Freedom/Oh Freedom/This Train is Bound for Glory/Twelve Gates to the City/Down by the Riverside/We Shall Overcome

Lifelines Live (Warner Bros.)

Peter Yarrow- Weave Me the Sunshine

Peter (Warner Bros.)

Peter, Paul & Mary with Tom Paxton, Fred Hellerman, Ronnie Gilbert, Odetta, Richie Havens, Dave Van Ronk, Susan Werner, Buddy Mondlock & John Sebastian- River of Jordan

Lifelines Live (Warner Bros.)

Next week: Blood on the Tracks Revisited.

--Mike Regenstreif

Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Tuesday May 24, 2022: More Songs of Bob Dylan

Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif finds connections and develops themes in various genres. The show is broadcast on CKCU in Ottawa on Tuesdays from 3:30 until 5 pm (Eastern time) and is also available 24/7 for on-demand streaming.

CKCU can be heard live at 93.1 FM in Ottawa and https://www.ckcufm.com/ on the web.

This episode of Stranger Songs was prerecorded at home and can already be streamed on-demand by clicking on “Listen Now” at … https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/595/56363.html

Theme: More Songs of Bob Dylan.

A year ago, in the week surrounding Bob Dylan’s 80th birthday, I presented three shows of Dylan songs on CKCU: two editions of Stranger Songs and one of the Saturday Morning Show. Given his prolific output over the past 60 years, I only scratched the surface of Dylan’s great songs. So, our theme on this edition of Stranger Songs – which falls on Dylan’s birthday – is More Songs of Bob Dylan – all of them interpretations by other artists.

Mike Regenstreif & Joan Baez (2003)

Tom Russell- Seven Curses
Indians Cowboys Horses Dogs (HighTone)
Martin Simpson- North Country Blues
Vagrant Stanzas (Topic)
Joan Baez- Love is Just a Four-Letter Word
Any Day Now (Vanguard)

Tim O'Brien- Tombstone Blues
Red On Blonde (Sugar Hill)
Richie Havens- Maggie’s Farm
Something Else Again (Verve Forecast)
Sneezy Waters & His Very Fine Band- I Threw It All Away
Live (Sneezy Waters)

Jack Williams & Mike Regenstreif (2016)

Barney Bentall & Valentino Trapani- You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
Cosmic Dreamer (True North)
Ben Sidran- Tangled Up in Blue
Dylan Different (Bonsai)
Andrea Von Kampen- If You See Her, Say Hello
Old Country (Tone Tree Music)
Jack Williams- Buckets of Rain
Laughing in the Face of the Blues (Wind River)

Julie Felix- Romance in Durango
Starry Eyed and Laughing… Songs by Bob Dylan (Remarkable)
Tom Jones- One More Cup of Coffee
Surrounded By Time (S-Curve)
Cowboy Junkies- I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You
Dylan …Revisited (Uncut)

Guy Davis & Mike Regenstreif (2006)

Durham County Poets- Not Dark Yet
Out of the Woods (Durham County Poets)
Ian Hanchet- Everything is Broken
Dealin’ from the Bottom (of My Heart) (Ian Hanchet)
Guy Davis- Sweetheart Like You
A Nod to Bob (Red House)
Bettye LaVette- Going, Going, Gone
Things Have Changed (Verve)

The Copper Ponies- Ring Them Bells
Ring Them Bells (Hudson Harding)
Happy Traum- Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You
I Walk the Road Again (Roaring Stream)

Elana James- I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
Black Beauty (Snarf)

Next week: Reflections on Freedom.

Find me on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Saturday Morning with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Saturday March 26, 2022

Saturday Morning is an eclectic roots-oriented program on CKCU in Ottawa heard on Saturday mornings from 7 until 10 am (Eastern time) and available for on-demand streaming anytime. I am one of the four rotating hosts of Saturday Morning and base my programming on the Folk Roots/Folk Branches format I developed at CKUT in Montreal.

CKCU can be heard live at 93.1 FM in Ottawa and https://www.ckcufm.com/ on the web.

This episode of Saturday Morning was prerecorded at home and can already be streamed on-demand at … https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/128/55682.html

Richie Havens- Here Comes the Sun
Résumé: The Best of Richie Havens (Rhino)

Pete Seeger & Tao Rodriguez Seeger- Maple Syrup Time
Seeds: The Songs of Pete Seeger, Volume 3 (Appleseed)
Le Vent du Nord- Dans l’eau-de-vie de l’arbre
20 Printemps (La Compagnie du Nord)
Tamarack- Maple Syrup
Leaving Inverarden (Folk Era)
Trent Severn- Stealin’ Syrup
Trillium (Trent Severn)

Jesse Winchester & Mike Regenstreif (2000)

Jesse Winchester- Yankee Lady
Live From Mountain Stage (Blue Plate Music)
Bob Stark- I Can’t Be Sure
Sculpted Pieces of Love (Bob Stark)
Colleen Peterson- Brand New Tennessee Waltz
Beginning to Feel Like Home (Capitol)
Michael Miland- Isn’t That So
Michael Miland (Michael Miland)
Jennifer Warnes- You Remember Me
Shot Through the Heart (Arista)

Tom Paxton, Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer- When the Big Bad Books Go Boo
When the Big Bad Books Go Boo – single (Community Music)
Carla Ulbrich- From the Bible
Twang (Romantic Devil)

Rupert Wates- For the People
For the People (Rupert Wates)
Greg Greenway- Let It Roll
Songs From the Beginning (Sheen of Heat Music)
Johnsmith- Virgil’s Sweet Six String
Backroads (Blue Pine Music)

Mike Mullins- Beneath the Skye the Water is Wide
8-String Sketches (Rubber Chicken)

Mike Regenstreif & Bruce Cockburn (2017)

Psoy Korolenko- Babi Yar
Yiddish Glory: The Lost Songs of World War II (Six Degrees)
Sophie Milman- Tulchin
Yiddish Glory: The Lost Songs of World War II (Six Degrees)
Tom Paxton- Silent Night
New Songs for Old Friends (Reprise)
Leonard Cohen- The Partisan
Songs from a Room (Columbia/Legacy)
Bruce Cockburn- If I Had a Rocket Launcher
Greatest Hits (1970-2020) (True North)

Lisa Null- Sweet Dove of Peace
Legacies (Folk-Legacy)
Sue Horowitz- Peace Song
Notes From the Garrison (Sue Horowitz)
Noel Paul Stookey featuring Theresa Thomason- In Reverence
Fazz: Now & Then (Neworld Multimedia)
Priscilla Herdman- Peace Must Come
Darkness Into Light (Flying Fish)

Eliza Gilkyson- Colorado Trail
Songs from the River Wind (Howlin’ Dog)
Tom Russell & Ian Tyson- Navajo Rug
Cowboy’d All to Hell (Frontera)
Over the Moon- Someday Soon
Chinook Waltz (Borealis)
Bill Staines- My Sweet Wyoming Home
Miles (Mineral River)
Willie P. Bennett- Blackie and the Rodeo King
Blackie and the Rodeo King (Bnatural Music)

Hoyle Osborne- Can-Can
Ragtime Cowboy Joe: Piano Music from an Old West Saloon (Ripple)

Shari Ulrich & Mike Regenstreif (2019)

Rick Fines- Live Forever
Solar Powered Too (Rick Fines)
Susan Crowe- Still, You Do Not Come
The Door to the River (Corvus)
Shari Ulrich- Busy
Back to Shore (Borealis)
Lynn Miles- Main St.
We’ll Look for Stars (Must Have Music)

The Duke Robillard Band with Michelle Willson- Trouble in Mind
They Called It Rhythm & Blues (Stony Plain)
Barbara Dane- Prescription for the Blues
Trouble In Mind (Dreadnaught)
Memphis Slim & Willie Dixon- Chicago House Rent Party
Songs of Memphis Slim & Willie Dixon (Folkways)
Kenny ‘Blues Boss’ Wayne- Rock and Rolling This House
Blues from Chicago to Paris: A Tribute to Memphis Slim and Willie Dixon (Stony Plain)

Pierce Turner- Don’t Get Too Fallen
Terrible Good (StorySound)
The Band- I Shall Be Released
Music from Big Pink: 50th Anniversary (Capitol)
Cowboy Junkies with Garth Hudson- Clothes Line Saga
Garth Hudson Presents a Canadian Celebration of The Band: 10th Anniversary Edition (Curve Music)
The Brothers & Sisters- My Back Pages
Dylan’s Gospel (Columbia)
Bob Dylan- Visions of Johanna
The Real Royal Albert Hall 1966 Concert! (Columbia/Legacy)

Wynton Marsalis- The Pearls  
Selections from Swinging into the 21st (Columbia)

I’ll be hosting Saturday Morning next on April 23. I also host Stranger Songs on CKCU every Tuesday from 3:30-5 pm.

Find me on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Tuesday April 20, 2021

Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif finds connections and develops themes in various genres. The show is broadcast on CKCU in Ottawa on Tuesday afternoons from 3:30 until 5 pm (Eastern time) and is also available 24/7 for on-demand streaming.

CKCU can be heard live at 93.1 FM in Ottawa and https://www.ckcufm.com/ on the web.

This episode of Stranger Songs – Episode #11 – was prerecorded at home and can already be streamed on-demand by clicking on “Listen Now” at … https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/595/51656.html

Theme: Celebrating Spring

Garnet Rogers- Old Campfires
Summer’s End (Snow Goose Songs)
Kim Wallach- Come, Spring
Chatter of the Finches (Black Socks Press)
Richie Havens- Here Comes the Sun
Alarm Clock (Stormy Forest)
Tommy Makem & Liam Clancy- Rambles of Spring
The Makem & Clancy Collection (Shanachie)

Wade Hemsworth with the Mountain City Four- The Blackfly Song
Wade Hemsworth with the Mountain City Four (Peter Weldon)
Connie Kaldor- Spring on the Prairies
Wood River (Coyote)
Ian Tyson- Springtime
Cowboyography (Stony Plain)
David Mallett- Greenin’ Up
Midnight on the Water (North Road)

Bruce Cockburn- April in Memphis
Crowing Ignites (True North)

Rosalie Sorrels with Mitch Greenhill- Go With Me
If I Could Be the Rain (Folk-Legacy)
Mark Stepakoff featuring Rose Polenzani- April Fools
Any Port in a Storm (Mark Stepakoff)
Finest Kind- April Morning
Heart’s Delight (Fallen Angle)
Tex König- One Morning in May
Königsblende (Music Cellar)
Grace Griffith- May Morning
Passing Through (Blix Street)

Mike Regenstreif & Tom Paxton (2009)

Tom Paxton- Virginia Morning
Redemption Road (Pax)
Rod MacDonald- Second Spring
Boulevard (Blue Flute Music)
Jacques Brel- Au Printemps
The Very Best of Jacques Brel (Select)
Frida's Brow- Spring
Frida’s Brow (Frida’s Brow)

Marie Lynn-Hammond- Flying/Spring of ‘44
Marie-Lynn Hammond/Vignettes (Vignettes Media)
Quartette- Spring of ‘45
Work of the Heart (Denon)
Mark Perry- Springtime
Recollections (Northern Sky)

Eleni Mandell- I Believe in Spring
Snakebite (Zedtone)
Erin McKeown- They Say It’s Spring
Sing You Sinners (Nettwerk)
Banjo Nickaru & Western Scooches- When the Red, Red Robin
Very Next Thing (On the Bol)
Lew London- Swingtime in Springtime
Swingtime in Springtime (Philo)
Suzy Bogguss- Jumping Into Spring
Swing (Compadre)

Modern Jazz Quartet- I’ll Remember April
European Concert (Atlantic)

Next week – April in Paris

Find me on Twitter. www.twitter.com/mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Saturday Morning with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Saturday May 16, 2020

Saturday Morning is an eclectic roots-oriented program on CKCU in Ottawa heard live on Saturday mornings from 7 until 10 am (Eastern time) and then available for on-demand streaming. I am one of the four rotating hosts of Saturday Morning and base my programming on the Folk Roots/Folk Branches format I developed at CKUT in Montreal.

CKCU can be heard live at 93.1 FM in Ottawa and http://www.ckcufm.com/ on the web.

I was subbing for Alan Surmachynski on this episode of Saturday Morning. It was prerecorded at home and can be streamed on-demand at … https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/128/47778.html

Corin Raymond- Hamilton

Dirty Mansions (Local Rascal Records)

Archie Fisher & Garnet Rogers- The Outside Track

The Best Times After All: Live (Snow Goose Songs)

Priscilla Herdman- The Drover’s Sweetheart

The Water Lily (Philo)

Erynn Marshall & Carl Jones- Tulse Hill Days

Old Tin (Dittyville Music)

John Doyle- The Path of Stones

The Path of Stones (Compass)

Stephen Mendel- Ready for the Storm

Sing Me a Story (Stephen Mendel)

Valerie Smith featuring Claire Lynch & Irene Kelley- From a Distance

From a Distance – single (Bell Buckle)

Ken Whiteley- Let Me Rest Awhile

Calm in the Eye of the Storm (Borealis)

Sandy Cash- I Don’t Get Memories

More Than Meets the Eye (Sandy Cash)

David Mallett- Hope for One and All

…In the Falling Dark (Vanguard)

Eliza Gilkyson- One More Day

2020 (Red House)

Tom Mitchell- No Time for Me

When the Moon is Right (Truesongs)

Missy Burgess with The Blue Train- Don’t Go to Cincinnati

Live (Missy Burgess)

Andy Cohen & Jack Radcliffe- Cincinnati Flow Rag

Four Hands No Waiting (Wepecket Island)

Claudia Schmidt- Dear Friends

Slow Steady Heart (Pragmavsion Publishing)

Tom Russell & Iris DeMent- Love Abides

The Man from God Knows Where (HighTone) or The Tom Russell Anthology 2: Gunpowder Sunsets (Frontera)

Extended feature: “Songs of The Beatles.” The next 16 songs were originally recorded by The Beatles in the 1960s. These versions were recorded by other artists over the 50 years since John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr broke up.

Mary McCaslin- Things We Said Today

Old Friends (Philo)

Christine Lavin- All My Lovin’

FolkZinger (Appleseed)

Deborah Holland- Norwegian Wood (This Bird has Flown)

Vancouver (Rage On Records)

David Grisman, John Hartford & Mike Seeger- When I’m Sixty-Four

Retrograss (Acoustic Disc)

The Friends of Fiddler's Green- In My Life

Old Inventions (Friends of Fiddler’s Green)

Judy Collins- Yesterday

Judy Collins Sings Lennon & McCartney (Wildflower)

Sarah McLauchlan- Blackbird

I Am Sam (V2)

The Persuasions- Rocky Raccoon

The Persuasions Sing The Beatles (Chesky)

Lucy Kaplansky- I’ve Just Seen a Face

The Tide (Red House)

Caroline Doctorow- Across the Universe

Dreaming in Vinyl (Narrow Lane)

Anne Hills & Michael Smith- I Will

Paradise Lost & Found (Redwing)

The Bobs- Strawberry Fields Forever

Cover the Songs of… (Rounder)

Durham County Poets- With a Little Help from My Friends

Hand Me Down Blues (Durham County Poets)

Jane Lewis- Come Together

Stay with Me (Jane Lewis)

Richie Havens- Here Comes the Sun

Résumé: The Best of Richie Havens (Rhino)

k.d. lang- Golden Slumbers/The End

Recollection (Nonesuch)

Gretchen Peters- The Sailor

The Night You Wrote That Song: The Songs of Mickey Newbury (Scarlet Letter) 
Steve Forbert- Suzanne

Early Morning Rain (Blue Rose Music)

Rachelle Garniez- Anthem

Gone to Glory (StorySound)

Leonard Cohen- Thanks for the Dance

Thanks for the Dance (Columbia/Legacy)

Beth Anne Cole- Song for Leonard

Perhaps the Gods of Love (Beth Anne Cole)

Bruce Murdoch- The Rookie

Sometimes I Wonder Why the World (Bruce Murdoch)

Shelley Posen- Night Nurse

Ontario Moon (Well Done Music)

Jonathan Byrd- I’ve Been Everywhere

I’ve Been Everywhere – single (Jonathan Byrd)

Jackie Washington- Wham, Re-Bop-Boom-Bam

The World of Jackie Washington (Borealis)

Lew London- Swingtime in Springtime

Swingtime in Springtime (Philo)

Susie Arioli Swing Band featuring Jordan Officer- Honeysuckle Rose

Pennies from Heaven (Justin Time)

Steve Howell, Dan Sumner & Jason Weinheimer- Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen

Long Ago (Out of the Past)

Paul Geremia- Dr. Jazz

Love My Stuff (Red House)

Rory Block- He May Be Your Man

Prove It on Me (Stony Plain)

Nell & Jim Band- Isaac in Kolomej

Western Sun (Whippoorwill Arts)

I’ll be hosting Saturday Morning next on May 23.

Find me on Twitter. @MikeRegenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Woody Guthrie: The Tribute Concerts – Carnegie Hall 1968, Hollywood Bowl 1970

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Woody Guthrie: The Tribute Concerts – Carnegie Hall 1968, Hollywood Bowl 1970

Bear Family Records

woodyguthrie.org

Woody Guthrie, one of the most important, iconic and influential of 20th century folksingers, songwriters, authors, activists, and social commentators died 50 years ago this month on October 3, 1967. Woody was 55 when he died after spending 13 years in hospitals due to Huntington’s disease, a hereditary neurological disease.

Woody left an extraordinary body of work created in a remarkably brief career. It used to be said that he wrote about 1,000 songs. Now thanks to the archival work of Nora Guthrie, Woody’s daughter, we know that he wrote about 3,000 songs – some of which have come to life over the past couple of decades as Nora has passed lyrics on to contemporary artists to set to music, and many of more of which we can still look forward to hearing in years to come.

I was barely into my teens when Woody died and it was right around that time that I was developing a serious interest in folk music. I bought my first Woody Guthrie LP within a week or two of hearing that he’d died. Pretty soon I also read Bound for Glory, his autobiography published in 1943. I was hooked on Woody’s songs and writings. Within a couple of years I was meeting some of Woody’s real life friends –  Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Logan English, Pete Seeger and others – who were all open to sitting and chatting with a kid who wanted to hear stories about their travels and adventures with Woody. Later on, I got to know Arlo Guthrie and Nora Guthrie and hear some of their stories about growing up as Woody’s kids.

After Woody died, multi-artist tribute concerts in his honor were held at Carnegie Hall in New York City on January 20, 1968 and at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on September 12, 1970, both produced by Harold Leventhal. The concerts were recorded and a couple of LPs with excerpts from those concerts, including scripted narration, were released in 1972 on Columbia and Warner Bros. Records. I eagerly bought those LPs when they first came out and returned to them frequently over the years.

But those LPs only gave us highlights of those wonderful concerts. A half-century later we have Woody Guthrie: The Tribute Concerts – Carnegie Hall 1968, Hollywood Bowl 1970, an amazing boxed set of three CDs and two hardcover books.

Pete Seeger, Judy Collins, Garth Hudson, Arlo Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Rick Danko, Jack Elliott, Levon Helm, Odetta, Robbie Robertson, and Richie Havens at Carnegie Hall, January 1968. Photo by Dave Gahr.

The first CD includes most of the Carnegie Hall concert (apparently one reel of the original tapes was lost) including singing performances by Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, Judy Collins, Odetta, Tom Paxton, Richie Havens, and Bob Dylan, and narration by actors Will Geer and Robert Ryan. There is also a recording of Woody himself singing his great kids’ song, “Riding in My Car,” that must have been played for the audience at the concert. The backup musicians included bassists Raphael Grinage and Bill Lee and a group that would soon come to be known as The Band: Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel and Robbie Robertson. I would note that there were actually two Carnegie Hall concerts that day that followed the same script – an afternoon show and an evening show.

The second CD and part of the third includes the entire Hollywood Bowl concert including singing performances by Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Country Joe McDonald, Jack Elliott, Odetta, Richie Havens, and Earl Robinson, and narration by actors Will Geer and Peter Fonda. The backup musicians were John Beland (Dobro), Ry Cooder (guitar, mandolin), Chris Ethridge (bass), Gib Guilbeau (fiddle), Thad Maxwell (guitar), John Pilla (guitar) and Stan Pratt (drums).

There are a good 20 performances on these CDs that were not on the original LPs. As well, the concerts have been restored to their original set orders rather than the artificial sequencing of tracks from the two shows on the LPs.

I can’t list highlights from these concerts because if I mention Tom Paxton singing “Biggest Thing That Man Has Ever Done,” how can I not mention his versions of “Pretty Boy Floyd” or “Pastures of Plenty”? And If mention Tom Paxton, how can I not mention the great performances by Odetta, Jack Elliott, Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez, Richie Havens, Richie Havens, and Earl Robinson? I loved almost all of them – particularly the many collaborations on songs featuring two or three or more of the artists. Of course, the moving finales to the two concerts were full cast performances of “This Land is Your Land.”

I will say something about Bob Dylan’s Carnegie Hall performances of “Grand Coulee Dam,” “Dear Mrs. Roosevelt” and “I Ain’t Got No Home” with The Band. It was Dylan’s first public concert since his 1966 motorcycle accident and came after he’d spent much time in 1967 holed up with The Band recording what would later emerge as The Basement Tapes and more recently and much more intriguingly as The Bootleg Series Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Complete. Dylan’s folk rock arrangements of these three Woody Guthrie songs, I think, can be seen as an outgrowth of the basement tapes process. The arrangements, I would add, don’t sound at all like Dylan’s John Wesley Harding album which was recorded after The Basement Tapes but before the Woody Guthrie tribute concert at Carnegie Hall.

It’s also interesting to note that Dylan – wisely, I think – left out the verses to “Dear Mrs. Roosevelt” pertaining to the Second World War-era summits in Tehran and Yalta, particularly the one that seemed to praise Joseph Stalin. It’s a verse that might have made sense in the 1940s – but certainly not after what the world started to learn in 1956 about the former Soviet dictator.

Earl Robinson, Odetta, Jack Elliott, Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, and Peter Fonda at Hollywood Bowl, September 1970. © Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc.

Linking the songs in both concerts is the narration from a script based on Woody Guthrie’s writings that was first put together by Millard Lampell – a member of the Almanac Singers with Woody, Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Sis Cunningham and others in the early-1940s – for a benefit concert in 1956 after Woody had been hospitalized. Most of the narration was read by actors Robert Ryan, Will Geer and Peter Fonda but we also hear a poignant passage read by Judy Collins (Carnegie Hall) and Joan Baez (Hollywood Bowl) in which Woody recalled the childhood death of his sister Clara. My favorite passage in the narration comes when Will Geer recites Woody’s “I hate a song that makes you think you are not any good…” quote.

The bonus tracks that complete the third CD are mostly interviews about the concert – most of them newly recorded with performers who were part of the events like Arlo Guthrie, Tom Paxton, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Judy Collins. It’s interesting to hear about Arlo’s discomfort at the time about the how the concerts followed a script – particularly given Woody’s spontaneous nature.

While most of the artists and other interviewees look back with awe at their experiences, the set also includes a four-minute passage from a 1968 interview with Phil Ochs conducted by Gordon Friesen of Broadside Magazine (and released after Ochs’ death in 1976 on an LP, Broadside Vol.11: Interviews with Phil Ochs) in which Ochs speaks very resentfully about the Carnegie Hall concert and about his not having been invited to be part of it. It’s not pretty hearing him attack the concert itself and speak bitterly about certain artists he felt were less worthy than himself.

The final bonus track is Bob Dylan’s stunning spoken word piece, “Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie,” that he recited at a Town Hall concert in New York on April 12, 1963 and that was previously released on the boxed set, The Bootleg Series, Vols. 1-3: Rare and Unreleased, 1961-1991. A perfect ending.

The two coffee-table-sized hardcover books included in the set are stunning. The main book includes substantial essays about Woody Guthrie, the concerts and the artists – with many amazing photographs – and much more Woody-related information. There are also reproductions of some of Woody’s drawings and original hand- and typewritten lyrics. The second book is a hardbound version of the songbook released in conjunction with the 1972 LPs that includes more great photos of Woody and the concert performers as well as the script and songs (music and lyrics) as they were sequenced on the LPs. Both books are something to behold.

Producers Nora Guthrie, Michael Kleff and Steve Rosenthal have done a magnificent job in restoring the Carnegie Hall and Hollywood Bowl concerts on the CDs and in putting together the magnificent books. Woody Guthrie: The Tribute Concerts – Carnegie Hall 1968, Hollywood Bowl 1970 is a beautiful collectors’ item.

I will be featuring excerpts from Woody Guthrie: The Tribute Concerts – Carnegie Hall 1968, Hollywood Bowl 1970 when I host the Saturday Morning program on CKCU on November 11 (7-10 am Eastern time).

Michael Kleff, Nora Guthrie & Mike Regenstreif  at the Kansas City Folk Festival (2017)

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif