Woody Guthrie Folk Festival
| Woody Guthrie Folk Festival | |
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| Genre | Folk, Country, Blues, Folk rock, Red Dirt |
| Dates | mid-July |
| Location(s) |
 Okemah, OK. |
| Years active | 1998-present |
| Founded by | The Orphanage Society and the Woody Guthrie Coalition |
| Website | |
| Woody Guthrie Folk Festival | |
The Woody Guthrie Folk Festival is held annually in mid-July to commemorate the life and music of Woody Guthrie. The festival is held on the weekend closest to July 14 - the date of Guthrie's birth - in Guthrie's hometown of Okemah, Oklahoma. Daytime main stage performances are held indoors at the Brick Street Cafe and the Crystal Theater. Evening main stage performances are held outdoors at the Pastures of Plenty. The festival is planned and implemented annually by the Woody Guthrie Coalition, a non-profit corporation, whose goal is simply to ensure Guthrie's musical legacy. The event is made possible in part from a grant from the Oklahoma Arts Council. Mary Jo Guthrie Edgmon, Woody Guthrie's younger sister, is the festival's perennial guest of honor.
The festival, which over the years has morphed into being called "WoodyFest" by attendees, was founded in 1998 and the inaugural festival included performances by Guthrie's son Arlo Guthrie, British folk-punk-rock artist Billy Bragg, Ellis Paul, Jimmy LaFave, Joel Rafael, and The Red Dirt Rangers. For the festival's founding, the Woody Guthrie Coalition commissioned a local Creek Indian sculptor to cast a full-body bronze statue of Guthrie and his guitar, complete with the guitar's well-known inscription: "This machine kills fascists". The statue, sculpted by artist Dan Brook, stands along Okemah's main street - named Broadway - in the heart of downtown Okemah.
The Woody Guthrie Coalition wanted the Guthrie family's approval before establishing the festival. Arlo Guthrie and his sister, Nora, felt strongly that their father would want the festival accessible to all and stipulated that they would sanction the festival if it were free. The Coalition complied and for 17 years the festival was free, except for a nominal parking fee. After struggling financially for several years, in 2015 the Coalition initiated an admission fee for two venues, while still providing free music at another two venues. To keep expenses at a minimum, artists donate their time, although the Woody Guthrie Coalition pays for the artists' transportation and lodging. According to Rafael, the festival is a wonderful event because musicians are motivated to participate for all the right reasons.
In the early 1960s, Woody Guthrie was living on Mermaid Avenue in Coney Island, New York. Although Bob Dylan made a pilgrimage to visit Guthrie, who was physically deteriorating due to a neurological disorder called Huntington's Disease, the town of Okemah had no interest in remembering its native son. Okemah residents regarded Guthrie with some suspicion and some believed he was a Communist based on his "Woody Sez" column published in a Communist paper The People's World. In addition, Guthrie sang out his beliefs at labor union rallies - sometimes with other outspoken artists such as Pete Seeger and Cisco Houston. As late as 1971, the Okemah City Council refused to proclaim Woody Guthrie Day due to his radical politics. By the 1970s, although most young people in Okemah had never heard of Guthrie, Guthrie-followers began making pilgrimages to Okemah to visit the house where Guthrie lived. Guthrie's son Arlo - a well-known folksinger himself by the 70s - also made occasional trips to Okemah "to feel the situation out." However, it wasn't until the late 1990s, when Billy Bragg visited Okemah filming scenes for his Man in the Sand documentary about the making of Mermaid Avenue, a collection of unknown Guthrie lyrics put to Bragg's music in collaboration with Wilco, that the town of Okemah started to embrace its wiry wanderlusting native. Bragg fittingly christened the first festival in 1998. In an article for Dirty Linen Annette C. Eshleman wrote: "Residents' attitudes have gone from angry accusations of Guthrie being a Communist, to suspicious tolerance, to embracing his legion of loyal fans. And while the economic boost that a festival provides to such a small community is certainly welcome, the kindness and hospitality of openhearted locals is genuine."
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Wikipedia