woody guthrie's american song

In today’s Denver Post I review the play ‘Woody Guthrie’s American Song,’ now playing at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. This is truly an amazing show, and I urge anyone interested in great, heartfelt music that speaks to our roots to see it. Without Woody Guthrie there would have been no Bob Dylan. Without him it’s even possible that the sixties as a radical reset of our values and mores might not have played out as it did. He embodies the spirit of speaking out against oppressive power in a bold and fearless way, and he did so before it was fashionable, often at the risk of life and limb.

But even if you don’t think rustic, Depression-era music is your cup of tea, I still think anyone who believes it is time for a change in this country should check this out. This amazing man stood up to entrenched power at a time when it was much more difficult to do so, when big companies and those with power could physically beat strikers, when people were so desperate for work that 10,000 of them would show up for a couple thousand potential jobs and thus were totally at the tender mercy of big money.

He fought on despite charges that he was a Communist and other attempts to discredit him, simply because he believed that regular folks ought to get a fair shake, and that this country wasn’t built to benefit only those in power. He spent his entire life fighting to make this a better place for all the people, and through his songs the cast of this show make that spirit come to life. The five-part harmonies they sing are absolutely stirring, and the story of the Ludlow Massacre will bring you to tears. That’s the tale of a mining strike in 1913 when the governor of Colorado ordered the National Guard to aid a private army of mining company thugs in evicting striking miners from a camp they had set up to carry on their strike. It didn’t make the company happy that they were striking, of course, but having moved out of the company housing--for which they were charged--and demanding better pay and safer working conditions, the company found the strikers intolerable. Finding the miners and their families firmly entrenched in pits and caves they had dug underneath their tents, the troops waited until night and doused the tents in kerosene, then lit them on fire. When the men, women and children tried to flee, they were cut down with Gatling guns.

It’s a stark reminder as we approach the celebration of our nation’s birth that our history isn’t always as pretty as textbooks would have us believe.

this machine kills fascists, indeed.