GUTHRIE, WOODY & MAXINE CRISSMAN

Woody and Lefty Lou's Favorite Collection Old Time Hill Billy Songs. [Los Angeles: KFVD Radio, circa 1937] 

Mimeograph, [28]pp. (217 x 141 mm) reproduced in black with drawings by Woody Guthrie reproduced in the margins; 4 pages transcribed up🌳side down, 2 particularly toned. Blue printed wrappers with KFVD dial device to rear, stapled; small tears and chips to extremities resulting in a few losses, staples lightly rusted, minor damﷺpstaining to rear cover, 

First edition of Woody Guthrie's incredibly scarce first radio songbook

In May of 1937, Woody Guthrie left his family in Texas and traveled to Los Angeles on the crest of a wave of Dust Bowl migrants in search of economic opportunities. He found work at the Los Angeles radio station KFVD, where he eventually formulated The Woody and Lefty Lou Show alongside his on-air singing partner Maxine Crissman (Lefty Lou). The show's folksy tone and Dust Bowl ballads resonated deeply♉ with displaced communities in California and beyond, and was an almost instantaneous success. 

The Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa describes his tenure as KFVD as "a monumental milestone in his career as a musician and activist," and the songs included in this pamphlet reflect a growing social consciousness that would come to define his songwriting. Old Time Hill Billy Songs includes a mixture of folk standards like "Midnight Special" along with Guthrie originals including "If You Ain’t Got the Do Re Mi." 🐲Guthrie and Crissman's commentary runs throughout, including autobiographical sketches, glib asides, and other musings. 

Guthrie wไent on to become one of the most signi🐓ficant figures in American folk music, and has been incalculably influential for subsequent generations of songwriters, including Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen, Robert Hunter, Bob Weir, and many more. The present pamphlet affords a rare opportunity to acquire the singer-songwriter's incredibly scarce first book. 

Not recorded in OCLC, or at auction

REFERENCE:

Richard A. Reuss. "Woody Guthrie and His Folk Tradition.” Journal of American Folklore, Vol.83, No.329 (Jul.-Sep., 1970), p.284).