Rating: 
Summary: Head to the Record Store!
Review: As a child of the 60's and 70's, I held the rather myopic view that my generation invented rebellion, cynicism and their voice in music. Not so! Joe Klein's masterful telling of Woody Guthrie's story reveals the musical tradition of the folk song as a means of political activism long before Bob Dylan and the rest. Woody Guthrie's wonderful, painful life is detailed with careful attention and astute observation. Mr. Klein does not spare us the unsavory irresponsiblity of this hobo, nor does he turn us away from the tragedy of his illness and death. Instead, through the words, letters, and memories of Woody, his friends, and detractors, Joe Klein gives us a protrait fo a flawed, resolute singer of our songs and in the process, presents a bit of our history that was never covered in my textbooks! Not an easy read, but a mesmerizing story. My next stop is the record store (or is it CD store?)!
Rating:
Summary: Head to the Record Store!
Review: As a child of the 60's and 70's, I held the rather myopic view that my generation invented rebellion, cynicism and their voice in music. Not so! Joe Klein's masterful telling of Woody Guthrie's story reveals the musical tradition of the folk song as a means of political activism long before Bob Dylan and the rest. Woody Guthrie's wonderful, painful life is detailed with careful attention and astute observation. Mr. Klein does not spare us the unsavory irresponsiblity of this hobo, nor does he turn us away from the tragedy of his illness and death. Instead, through the words, letters, and memories of Woody, his friends, and detractors, Joe Klein gives us a protrait fo a flawed, resolute singer of our songs and in the process, presents a bit of our history that was never covered in my textbooks! Not an easy read, but a mesmerizing story. My next stop is the record store (or is it CD store?)!
Rating:
Summary: So long, it's been good to know ya...
Review: I concur with the majority of reviews of this book. I have owned my hardcover copy for many years, and I've read it three times. Joe Klein did a good job. For most people, there is more here about Woody, his times, his friends and his foes and his sorrows than they will want or need to know. However, I must also advise true fans to consider buying another book, "Woody, Cisco and Me" by Jim Longhi. That one depicts only the WW II adventures when Woody and his friends took jobs feeding the crew and troops on merchant ships crossing the Atlantic in l943. It shows a side of Woody that Joe Klein's work does not, and both books should be read or owned by people with a serious interest in this wiry, weird genius.
Rating:
Summary: An unflinching look at America's most important Songwriter
Review: I first picked up a copy of this book after Bruce Springsteen mentioned during a concert that he had read it and loved it. It inspired him to sing a very sad and mournful rendition of This Land is Your Land and to explain why it was really an angry song and not at all the happy little ditty we remembered from childhood. That was a fitting introduction to this book of his life which was also not a happy little ditty. Woddie Guthrie's life and music speak to more than just Folk Music fans and I hope more younger folks pick this book up, read it and as a result give his music a listen. If you want to hear Bruce's comments on this book, they preceed his performance of This Land is Your Land on his Live performance Boxed Set. I highly recommend listening to NEBRASKA and THE GHOST OF TOM JOAD while reading this book!!
Rating:
Summary: An outstanding Book
Review: I thought i knew it all till i read this book. Joe Klein has taken a one dimensional american icon and breathed life into him!--Most fans of Woody's know the basics the image--this book makes Woody a human being--it fills in the details as to what made this man tick-- This is quite simply the best book(with the exception of Ulysses by James Joyce) the most enjoable and best researched,best written book that I have read in the past 15 years
Rating:
Summary: An outstanding Book
Review: I thought i knew it all till i read this book. Joe Klein has taken a one dimensional american icon and breathed life into him!--Most fans of Woody's know the basics the image--this book makes Woody a human being--it fills in the details as to what made this man tick-- This is quite simply the best book(with the exception of Ulysses by James Joyce) the most enjoable and best researched,best written book that I have read in the past 15 years
Rating:
Summary: America: A Life
Review: I undertook this as an antidote, or chaser, let's say, for the superficial, cheerleading, and ultimately cloying "The Incompleat Folksinger" by Pete Seeger. It turned out to be better than the last eight biographies I've read, far better than most of them. (For the record these are: "Carl Sagan: A Life in the Cosmos" by William Poundstone, "Carl Sagan: A Life" by Keay Davidson, "Stephen Sondheim: A Life" by Meryle Secrest, "Various Positions: A Life of Leonard Cohen" by Ira Bruce Nadel, "Gyorgy Ligeti" by Richard Toop, "Lou Harrison: Composing a World" by Leta E. Miller and Fredric Lieberman, "Glenn Gould: The Ecstasy and Tragedy of Genius" by Peter F. Ostwald, and "Glenn Gould at Work: Creative Lying" by Andrew Kazdin.) It turned out to be a biography of America as much as a biography of Woody Guthrie, and I recommend you read it whether he particularly interests you or whether he doesn't.
Rating:
Summary: Biography of a Nation
Review: It's hard for a book that comes so highly recommended to avoid ultimately being a bit of a disappointment, but Joe Klein's fine biography of Woody Guthrie does just that. Full-bodied and balanced, "Woody Guthrie: A Life" gives a very complete picture of an amazing life. The only disappointment here is reaching the end, both of Klein's book and of Guthrie's fascinating life.Klein's extensive research is the first key to this book's success; he is able to show so many different sides of one of America's greatest songwriters that Guthrie becomes ever more complex even as he becomes ever more human. Equally as important, though, is the manner in which Klein unblinkingly and impartially tells the bad along with the good. So what comes out in the long run is exactly how brilliant, industrious, flighty, difficult to live with, insufferable, and ingenious Woody Guthrie was. Klein's prose and its conversational ease spin out this long yarn, detours included, in a fluent and friendly tone that reflect well the topic at hand. Readers expecting mere annotations to Guthrie's music will be surprised to find much more in this book--I know I was. I was shocked to be allowed a glimpse into familial and erotic life. None of this interested me at first, and even seemed like an unwanted accompaniment to the real story of the music, but Klein quickly makes it clear that this corner of Guthrie's life had its own impact on his creative energies in every other area, and the gaps get filled in. This completeness contributes to a portrait that quickly overgrows the confines of a single American life, for Guthrie's story is in many ways the complex story of America in the last century. Klein's telling of this story allows us a glimpse into histories we've forgotten or have been allowed to forget. How many of us knew, for example, that there were 3 million communists in the USA before WWII? Their history has been muted for a long time, but their role and the role of labor unions in the formation of America--and their quick and precipitous decline--play continually in the background of this biography. I highly recommend this book not just as a biography of Woody Guthrie but as a mapping of the American 20th century, as an explanation of how we became what we are and how we're still becoming, of how far we've come and how far we still have to go.
Rating:
Summary: Biography of a Nation
Review: It's hard for a book that comes so highly recommended to avoid ultimately being a bit of a disappointment, but Joe Klein's fine biography of Woody Guthrie does just that. Full-bodied and balanced, "Woody Guthrie: A Life" gives a very complete picture of an amazing life. The only disappointment here is reaching the end, both of Klein's book and of Guthrie's fascinating life. Klein's extensive research is the first key to this book's success; he is able to show so many different sides of one of America's greatest songwriters that Guthrie becomes ever more complex even as he becomes ever more human. Equally as important, though, is the manner in which Klein unblinkingly and impartially tells the bad along with the good. So what comes out in the long run is exactly how brilliant, industrious, flighty, difficult to live with, insufferable, and ingenious Woody Guthrie was. Klein's prose and its conversational ease spin out this long yarn, detours included, in a fluent and friendly tone that reflect well the topic at hand. Readers expecting mere annotations to Guthrie's music will be surprised to find much more in this book--I know I was. I was shocked to be allowed a glimpse into familial and erotic life. None of this interested me at first, and even seemed like an unwanted accompaniment to the real story of the music, but Klein quickly makes it clear that this corner of Guthrie's life had its own impact on his creative energies in every other area, and the gaps get filled in. This completeness contributes to a portrait that quickly overgrows the confines of a single American life, for Guthrie's story is in many ways the complex story of America in the last century. Klein's telling of this story allows us a glimpse into histories we've forgotten or have been allowed to forget. How many of us knew, for example, that there were 3 million communists in the USA before WWII? Their history has been muted for a long time, but their role and the role of labor unions in the formation of America--and their quick and precipitous decline--play continually in the background of this biography. I highly recommend this book not just as a biography of Woody Guthrie but as a mapping of the American 20th century, as an explanation of how we became what we are and how we're still becoming, of how far we've come and how far we still have to go.
Rating:
Summary: Great bio of the first American singer-songwriter
Review: The Amazon listing displays March 1999 as the publication date, but this is actually a reissue, and this is a book that well deserves to be re-issued. It's one of the few really great music bios -- extremely well-written and researched, and not just hagiography. And, Woody was one unique and fascinating character. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to learn what Woody was really like (not just the lovable dustbowl balladeer) and wants to learn about folk music, American communism, and lots of other interesting stuff.
|
