0:00:27 > 0:00:30A fiery young drifter took this traditional hymn tune
0:00:30 > 0:00:34and transformed it into what would become America's alternative national anthem.
0:00:34 > 0:00:40# This land is your land, this land is my land
0:00:40 > 0:00:44# From California to the New York Island
0:00:44 > 0:00:49# From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
0:00:49 > 0:00:53# This land was made for you and me... #
0:00:53 > 0:00:59The Carter family promised justice in the world to come, but Woody Guthrie wasn't willing to wait.
0:00:59 > 0:01:05He wrote this on his way across an America devastated after ten years of depression.
0:01:05 > 0:01:10# There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me
0:01:10 > 0:01:14# The sign was painted, it said "private property"
0:01:14 > 0:01:18# But on the back side, it didn't say nothing
0:01:18 > 0:01:22# This land was made for you and me... #
0:01:22 > 0:01:28He was heading for New York City, fast becoming the Mecca of the folk world.
0:01:28 > 0:01:33There, in this house, he met a group of friends who would reinvent folk
0:01:33 > 0:01:37music for their time as a voice of protest, the voice of the oppressed.
0:01:38 > 0:01:43There was the Communist son of a classical composer,
0:01:43 > 0:01:48a folk song collector, a black sex symbol and civil rights campaigner,
0:01:48 > 0:01:53and a convicted murderer who brought old songs with him out of a southern jail.
0:01:53 > 0:02:01All but he were still in their 20s, and life in the house was a party.
0:02:01 > 0:02:06We all lived together and very happily. It wasn't a mission.
0:02:06 > 0:02:11It was just a happening. It just happened to all come together.
0:02:11 > 0:02:16I look back on it now as the golden age of conviction
0:02:16 > 0:02:21that we could make a better world if we all got together and just sang about it.
0:02:21 > 0:02:24MUSIC: "Goodnight, Irene" by Leadbelly
0:02:33 > 0:02:38Ten years before, early in the Depression, the bank at which John Lomax worked failed.
0:02:38 > 0:02:43He had to phone all his customers to tell them that their investments were worthless.
0:02:43 > 0:02:49Unemployed and with a family to support, he slumped into a depression of his own.
0:02:49 > 0:02:53But he pulled through and made history by returning
0:02:53 > 0:02:58to an early passion, when he published a groundbreaking collection of cowboy songs.
0:03:01 > 0:03:06In 1933, with a car boot full of the very latest recording equipment
0:03:06 > 0:03:08supplied by the Library of Congress,
0:03:08 > 0:03:16he set off with his 18-year-old son Alan, scouring southern prisons for traditional black songs.
0:03:16 > 0:03:20They thought they'd hit the jackpot when they came across Leadbelly.
0:03:20 > 0:03:27He had a huge repertoire of songs and he was recognised in the prison.
0:03:27 > 0:03:30He was asked to come out and entertain sometimes.
0:03:30 > 0:03:32MUSIC: "Goodnight, Irene" by Leadbelly
0:03:40 > 0:03:48I think Leadbelly recognised in my grandfather somebody who could help him advance his musical career.
0:03:48 > 0:03:56He wanted to be a successful, popular musician and this had long been his ambition, from childhood.
0:04:02 > 0:04:06John Lomax saw the prisons as time capsules, uncontaminated by
0:04:06 > 0:04:09the modern world and its commercial music.
0:04:09 > 0:04:15He believes when you put black people in isolation, they will revert back
0:04:15 > 0:04:19to the music that they'd grown up with, the songs of their childhood,
0:04:19 > 0:04:22the real black music before all this modern technology came along.
0:04:22 > 0:04:30Leadbelly did sing old songs, in an old style, but he also listened to the pop songs of the day.
0:04:43 > 0:04:50When Leadbelly got out of Angola state penitentiary, he was released on good time.
0:04:50 > 0:04:56Not because he made a record for the governor, which was kind of the myth
0:04:56 > 0:05:01that both he and my grandfather allowed to circulate, because it made a good story.
0:05:13 > 0:05:20It was at this hotel in Marshall, Texas that Leadbelly met John Lomax in 1934, on his release from prison.
0:05:20 > 0:05:25Leadbelly wrote to grandfather, asking him for a job,
0:05:25 > 0:05:30and he wrote Leadbelly back, "Be here, bring your driver's licence and guitar."
0:05:40 > 0:05:45That's where they set off on this historic trip around the South,
0:05:45 > 0:05:47where Leadbelly acted as his assistant and driver.
0:05:53 > 0:05:59It was highly unusual in that time and place for white and black to work together.
0:05:59 > 0:06:04You had to be really careful, because if you were seen to be stirring up trouble, so to speak...
0:06:04 > 0:06:07That was a very tense period.
0:06:07 > 0:06:13They did get Leadbelly into their hotel sometimes, they would sneak him in.
0:06:13 > 0:06:18But that was absolutely not permissible.
0:06:21 > 0:06:26Lomax was a showman, and he couldn't resist writing to his friends in New York
0:06:26 > 0:06:30and saying, "I've found this phenomenal singer, and wait till you hear him!"
0:06:30 > 0:06:32So he got a couple of invitations from
0:06:32 > 0:06:37the Modern Language Association, this collection of English professors.
0:06:40 > 0:06:45In between a session on Elizabethan madrigals
0:06:45 > 0:06:49and a session on sea shanties,
0:06:49 > 0:06:53John Lomax stood and delivered a lecture about Negro folk song
0:06:53 > 0:06:59and Leadbelly performed the numbers. It was absolutely electric.
0:06:59 > 0:07:01HE SINGS
0:07:10 > 0:07:15This was very revolutionary, just even to talk about black song,
0:07:15 > 0:07:18let alone have a real actual person get up there and do it.
0:07:18 > 0:07:22And the story of Leadbelly, that he was a former convict
0:07:22 > 0:07:27and that he had sung his way out of prison, that caused a big stir.
0:07:27 > 0:07:31'Hailed by the Library of Congress's music division
0:07:31 > 0:07:35'as its greatest folk song find in 25 years,
0:07:35 > 0:07:38'Leadbelly's songs go into the archives of the great
0:07:38 > 0:07:42'national institution, along with the Declaration of Independence.'
0:07:42 > 0:07:46- And that wasn't all. - Leadbelly, what are you doing here?
0:07:46 > 0:07:49Leadbelly, what are you doing here?
0:07:49 > 0:07:53Boss, I've come here to be your man, I've come here to work for you the rest of my life.
0:07:53 > 0:07:57The newsreels made a scripted reconstruction of their first meeting.
0:07:57 > 0:08:02- It was shown in cinemas before the main feature. - All right, Leadbelly, I'll try it.
0:08:02 > 0:08:08Thank you! I'll drive you all over the United States, I'll tie your shoe strings for you.
0:08:08 > 0:08:12You'll never have to tie your shoe strings as long as I work for you.
0:08:12 > 0:08:17And I'll sing songs for you, you'll be my big boss, I'll be your man.
0:08:17 > 0:08:19Thank you, sir, thank you, sir!
0:08:22 > 0:08:28My grandfather was very patriarchal, domineering, complicated, sentimental.
0:08:28 > 0:08:34No doubt he bossed...told Leadbelly what to do, but he told everyone what to do.
0:08:38 > 0:08:42The Lomaxes took Leadbelly on a tour round some northern colleges.
0:08:42 > 0:08:46The Lomaxes would give him what money
0:08:46 > 0:08:48they thought he should have in his pocket.
0:08:48 > 0:08:54Well, now, Leadbelly got tired of that. Just degrading, very degrading.
0:08:54 > 0:08:58He said, "I got tired of him giving me money like I'm a little boy -
0:08:58 > 0:09:04"'Go out and buy some candy or something' - that's why I left"
0:09:04 > 0:09:11There was a very unpleasant fight that they had and that was the end of that.
0:09:11 > 0:09:14My grandfather was offended for ever and ever.
0:09:25 > 0:09:29They had worked together for only eight months, but between them,
0:09:29 > 0:09:33they had achieved something remarkable - the redefinition of American folk.
0:09:33 > 0:09:36Suddenly, you had this idea -
0:09:36 > 0:09:41folk music was not just genteel old songs
0:09:41 > 0:09:47from the mountains, or nostalgic songs from the plantation South.
0:09:47 > 0:09:55Folk music had a kind of edge to it. Folk music was outsider music.
0:09:55 > 0:10:03It was sung by Negro prisoners on chain gangs, by all kinds of outcasts.
0:10:03 > 0:10:06That was the world that Leadbelly's songs conjured up.
0:10:06 > 0:10:13It was just one step away from saying folk music was actually about protesting the way things were.
0:10:22 > 0:10:26The man who would fit this new mould perfectly was Woody Guthrie.
0:10:30 > 0:10:36Every year, this festival is held in the town where he was born.
0:10:36 > 0:10:42I would do anything, anywhere, anytime for my brother Woody Guthrie.
0:10:42 > 0:10:45I am tickled to death that I can be here
0:10:45 > 0:10:48for that little scrounging rascal!
0:10:51 > 0:10:57He was very small and slender, little bitty legs, little bitty arms.
0:10:57 > 0:11:02Woody made you feel like you were very special.
0:11:02 > 0:11:05And when Woody talked, you listened.
0:11:19 > 0:11:23A drifter, a rebel, always siding with the down-and-outs,
0:11:23 > 0:11:27Woody was known only to a small, radical audience
0:11:27 > 0:11:29and never had a hit record.
0:11:29 > 0:11:31Now, he is seen as a national treasure.
0:11:34 > 0:11:37He was a classic American archetype.
0:11:37 > 0:11:43He was every teenage American boy's dream of running away from home,
0:11:43 > 0:11:46seeing what's over the next hill.
0:11:46 > 0:11:49The clever little guy.
0:11:49 > 0:11:52The clever little guy with the social conscience.
0:11:52 > 0:11:55In a sense, Woody was his own invention.
0:11:55 > 0:12:01He was born middle class - his father was a land speculator and local politician.
0:12:03 > 0:12:08But the family fell apart. Woody's father went bankrupt,
0:12:08 > 0:12:13and his mother was shut away as insane, though in fact, she had Huntington's chorea.
0:12:13 > 0:12:18Age 14, Woody was left to fend for himself.
0:12:19 > 0:12:24# Oh, if you ain't got the do-re-mi, folks
0:12:24 > 0:12:27# If you ain't got the do-re-mi... #
0:12:27 > 0:12:31Because Woody was an underdog himself, he began to identify
0:12:31 > 0:12:35with other people who were poor and oppressed.
0:12:42 > 0:12:47The Depression had destroyed farmers' livelihoods, and now the dustbowl destroyed their land.
0:12:47 > 0:12:52A great movement started out to California, where there were migrant farm worker jobs.
0:12:52 > 0:12:57Woody joined the drift west. This is when he wrote his first song.
0:12:57 > 0:13:00# So long, it's been good to know you
0:13:00 > 0:13:04# So long, it's been good to know you
0:13:04 > 0:13:08# So long, it's been good to know you
0:13:08 > 0:13:11# This dusty old dust is a-blowing me home
0:13:11 > 0:13:15# I've got to be rolling along... #
0:13:17 > 0:13:19They stopped him at the California border
0:13:19 > 0:13:23and said, "Do you have any money?" And he went, "Isn't this America?
0:13:23 > 0:13:27"I didn't realise I needed a visa to go across the California border."
0:13:27 > 0:13:32Once he started saying, "I wonder why it's like this,"
0:13:32 > 0:13:36the feelings started planting ideas in his head,
0:13:36 > 0:13:41which started coming out as words and language of his music.
0:13:44 > 0:13:48When I was at high school, I listened to So Long It's Been Good To Know You
0:13:48 > 0:13:52and I thought, "This guy can't sing at all, he's a terrible singer.
0:13:52 > 0:13:55"But I love his songs."
0:13:55 > 0:14:00It took me a while to learn to like music with the bark still on it.
0:14:00 > 0:14:05# And the rustlers broke on us
0:14:05 > 0:14:09# In the dead hours of night
0:14:09 > 0:14:16# She rose from her warm bed, a battle to fight... #
0:14:16 > 0:14:20He knew how to put words together and make it be meaningful and poetic.
0:14:20 > 0:14:28A rich collection of slang words that came from oil well drilling
0:14:28 > 0:14:32and gamblers that they sing about in the blues and in the cowboy songs.
0:14:35 > 0:14:38It's not the way they speak in New York City.
0:14:38 > 0:14:45# Come all of you cowboys and don't ever run
0:14:45 > 0:14:52# As long as there's bullets in both of your guns. #
0:14:52 > 0:14:57Woody's songs fitted the mood of the times.
0:14:57 > 0:15:00I am prepared to recommend the measures that a stricken nation
0:15:00 > 0:15:03in the midst of a stricken world may require.
0:15:03 > 0:15:10When Franklin Roosevelt became president, he immediately implemented the new deal
0:15:10 > 0:15:12to create work despite the Depression.
0:15:12 > 0:15:15And folk music was expected to spread the word.
0:15:22 > 0:15:29In the 1920s, folk music had been built around a nostalgia for a pastoral, rural world.
0:15:30 > 0:15:38By the 1930s, that phrase "folk music" gains a different sort of electricity about it.
0:15:38 > 0:15:40It's hijacked, I suppose, by the Left.
0:15:40 > 0:15:47At first, the Left had dreamed of modern classical music as the path to a bright future.
0:15:47 > 0:15:50Pete Seeger was from a well-off New York family.
0:15:50 > 0:15:55Both his parents were classical musicians who wanted to take music to the people.
0:15:55 > 0:15:58My father was in a group called the Composers' Collective.
0:15:58 > 0:16:01After all, in Russia, they had collective farms,
0:16:01 > 0:16:04why not have a composers' collective in New York?
0:16:06 > 0:16:11But the proletariat was not interested in their songs.
0:16:11 > 0:16:17My father brought a Kentucky miner's wife to the meeting of the collective
0:16:17 > 0:16:22and she sang, "I am a union woman, just brave as I can be,
0:16:22 > 0:16:26"I do not like the bosses and the bosses don't like me."
0:16:34 > 0:16:38The other composers said, "Charlie, this is the music of the past.
0:16:38 > 0:16:42"We're supposed to be creating the music of the future."
0:16:42 > 0:16:45My father said to her, "I'm sorry they didn't understand you,
0:16:45 > 0:16:49"but I know some young people gonna want to learn your songs," and I was one of them.
0:16:49 > 0:16:55In the '30s, the Communist Party was as mainstream in America as it would ever be.
0:16:55 > 0:17:01It abandoned modernism and threw in its lot with folk music.
0:17:02 > 0:17:08But the two heroes were not yet quite ready to man the barricades.
0:17:14 > 0:17:17Guthrie now had a job playing for his cousin Jack
0:17:17 > 0:17:19on a Los Angeles country radio show.
0:17:23 > 0:17:29Many of the southern white recording artists of the '20s had died or gone back into obscurity.
0:17:29 > 0:17:33Others were swept into this emerging commercial country scene.
0:17:33 > 0:17:36Folkwas already becoming folksy.
0:17:36 > 0:17:38Country music leant to the Right.
0:17:38 > 0:17:44But Guthrie was different - he had a sideline writing a column for a Communist paper.
0:17:44 > 0:17:49The best instrument that he played was the typewriter.
0:17:49 > 0:17:55He would play a lot of fund-raising parties and Communists were his best audience.
0:17:55 > 0:17:57His only paying audience, a lot of the time.
0:17:57 > 0:17:59Common-ism, he called it.
0:17:59 > 0:18:02"It's Common-ism. What we have in common."
0:18:02 > 0:18:06One guy told me he couldn't possibly be with Communism.
0:18:06 > 0:18:08He could never finish the paperwork!
0:18:08 > 0:18:15Three nights a week meetings - this is not Woody. No way.
0:18:15 > 0:18:20But it was enough to lose him his job at the country radio station.
0:18:22 > 0:18:26Meanwhile, Leadbelly was struggling too,
0:18:26 > 0:18:29trying to make a comeback without John Lomax.
0:18:29 > 0:18:32He wanted to be a commercial singer.
0:18:32 > 0:18:35But his style was passe.
0:18:35 > 0:18:40Its rough rawness appealed mainly to the Left.
0:18:42 > 0:18:50The general public, especially the black public, preferred a more uptown sound they could dance to.
0:18:52 > 0:18:57Josh White had been the youngest star of the race records era.
0:18:57 > 0:19:00He didn't want to be danced to, he wanted people to listen.
0:19:00 > 0:19:04He found a home in the emerging folk scene in New York.
0:19:04 > 0:19:06MUSIC: "Blood Red River Blues" by Josh White
0:19:17 > 0:19:23His style was smooth, but his past was brutal.
0:19:23 > 0:19:29Born in the South, he had seen his father badly beaten and put in an insane asylum
0:19:29 > 0:19:33for daring to ask a white sheriff to remove his hat in their house.
0:19:33 > 0:19:40From the age of eight, he travelled around, leading blind, black musicians, 66 of them in all.
0:19:44 > 0:19:47One of the blind men he was leading was sleeping
0:19:47 > 0:19:54in a field, and the blind man heard some noise, and woke my old man up.
0:19:54 > 0:20:00He woke him up by putting a hand over my father's mouth so he wouldn't make any noise.
0:20:00 > 0:20:06A crowd of white people had found two black men,
0:20:06 > 0:20:09chased them and hanged them.
0:20:09 > 0:20:13These men were already dead,
0:20:13 > 0:20:15hanging from the trees.
0:20:22 > 0:20:28And every now and then, someone would get a hot poker and go...and burn these bodies.
0:20:28 > 0:20:31This is what this 8-year-old boy witnessed.
0:20:31 > 0:20:38Aged 17, he would go north for good, leaving all the blind bluesmen he worked for behind.
0:20:41 > 0:20:45John Lomax's son Alan was put in charge of the folk song archive
0:20:45 > 0:20:48at the Library of Congress in Washington.
0:20:50 > 0:20:55He did in six years what most men would have done in a lifetime.
0:20:55 > 0:20:57He was full of youthful confidence and energy
0:20:57 > 0:21:01and he'd call up the head of the Columbia Broadcasting System.
0:21:01 > 0:21:06"Mr Paley, I think you should play some of these wonderful melodies."
0:21:11 > 0:21:13- Hello there, Peter.- Howdy.
0:21:13 > 0:21:16What's that funny-looking guitar you're playing?
0:21:16 > 0:21:19Oh, this isn't a guitar, this is a banjo.
0:21:19 > 0:21:20Tell me, is a banjo something new?
0:21:20 > 0:21:24New? It's about as new as America is.
0:21:24 > 0:21:29Alan gave Pete Seeger his first job, sifting through the Southern records
0:21:29 > 0:21:33of the '20s to decide which ones could best be considered folk.
0:21:33 > 0:21:36The banjo still makes folk dance out in the country.
0:21:36 > 0:21:39Well, then, Pete, what are you doing here in New York City?
0:21:39 > 0:21:43Well, it's a funny thing, but people in this big town
0:21:43 > 0:21:46are beginning to like my kind of music too.
0:21:46 > 0:21:50Pete was from the big town himself, but he saw hope for the future
0:21:50 > 0:21:53in looking back to the music of the rural poor.
0:21:53 > 0:21:57Pete ended up taking a stand as a political songwriter.
0:21:57 > 0:22:01That's what he decided to do, but I think it comes from, you know...
0:22:01 > 0:22:04the folk traditions were important to him as well.
0:22:04 > 0:22:09As time went on, the people that were carrying the tradition on happened to be really political people.
0:22:13 > 0:22:17Alan Lomax had swung increasingly to the Left, much to his father's annoyance.
0:22:17 > 0:22:23But even more wounding to his father was that he had taken up with Leadbelly again.
0:22:23 > 0:22:29Alan put Leadbelly on his new radio show, and recorded him again for the Library of Congress.
0:22:29 > 0:22:33Leadbelly had yet to make a commercial record.
0:22:33 > 0:22:36He too became part of the emerging folk scene.
0:22:36 > 0:22:42He was, you know, contained and very proper.
0:22:42 > 0:22:45But he was always the star,
0:22:45 > 0:22:48because when he began strumming, and that voice,
0:22:48 > 0:22:54that special voice, people would be spellbound.
0:22:54 > 0:22:56When you pick cotton,
0:22:56 > 0:23:00you've got to jump down to pick a bale of cotton a day.
0:23:00 > 0:23:04You can't fool around. And we sang...
0:23:04 > 0:23:07My dad and Leadbelly would do radio shows together.
0:23:07 > 0:23:12My father was very aware of letting people know, "I can speak as well as you can."
0:23:12 > 0:23:15He didn't have an accent like Leadbelly did.
0:23:15 > 0:23:17MUSIC: "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" by Leadbelly
0:23:27 > 0:23:33On stage, Leadbelly didn't mind wearing the jeans and the thing around the neck and playing.
0:23:33 > 0:23:37Dad felt, "Secretly, they're laughing at you, Leadbelly.
0:23:41 > 0:23:44"I wanna show you're not coming here to watch the monkey dance."
0:23:46 > 0:23:49# Oh, Lord, I can pick a bale of cotton... #
0:23:49 > 0:23:51Didn't bother Leadbelly.
0:23:51 > 0:23:55The man was born in 1880, things didn't faze him as Dad.
0:23:55 > 0:23:59Dad was very aware of... "representing the Negro race."
0:23:59 > 0:24:01# Jump down, turn around and pick a bale of cotton
0:24:01 > 0:24:03# Jump down, turn around and pick a bale a day
0:24:03 > 0:24:05# Oh, Lord, I can pick a bale of cotton
0:24:05 > 0:24:06# Oh, Lord, I can pick a bale a day
0:24:06 > 0:24:08# Oh, Lord, I can pick a bale of cotton
0:24:08 > 0:24:12# Oh, Lord, I can pick a bale a day. #
0:24:18 > 0:24:22Josh White's attitude won him friends in high places.
0:24:24 > 0:24:28# Well, airplanes flying across the land and sea
0:24:28 > 0:24:32# Everybody's flying but a Negro like me
0:24:32 > 0:24:38# Uncle Sam says your place is on the ground... #
0:24:38 > 0:24:43With the war looming, he wrote a song against racism in the armed services.
0:24:43 > 0:24:47# When I fly my airplane, don't want no Negro 'round... #
0:24:47 > 0:24:50The head of Uncle Sam right then was President Roosevelt.
0:24:50 > 0:24:55My father got a phone call to come to the White House and sing this song.
0:24:55 > 0:25:02# ..when ships go to sea, all they got is a mess boy's job for me
0:25:02 > 0:25:08# Uncle Sam says, keep on your apron, son... #
0:25:08 > 0:25:14It began a friendship between the two families that lasted beyond FDR's life.
0:25:16 > 0:25:20Leadbelly also made a trip to Washington, visiting Alan Lomax.
0:25:20 > 0:25:24He too wrote a song putting anger into words.
0:25:24 > 0:25:26# We rode all around in the rain
0:25:26 > 0:25:32# No coloured people wouldn't let me in, because I was with a white man
0:25:32 > 0:25:36# In Bourgeois Town, me and Marty, standing up there
0:25:36 > 0:25:39# Heard the white man tell, "I don't want no niggers up there..." #
0:25:41 > 0:25:47Bourgeois Blues is about Leadbelly's own experience
0:25:47 > 0:25:51trying to check into a hotel in Washington DC.
0:25:51 > 0:25:57And he had been hanging out with all of these leftie folk singers and absorbing a political consciousness.
0:25:57 > 0:26:00# Tell all the coloured people, I want them to understand
0:26:00 > 0:26:03# Washington ain't no place for no coloured man
0:26:03 > 0:26:04# Cos it Bourgeois Town... #
0:26:04 > 0:26:07It's about segregation.
0:26:07 > 0:26:09It's not really about class war.
0:26:09 > 0:26:12# White folks in Washington, they know how
0:26:12 > 0:26:15# To chuck you a nickel just to see a nigger bow
0:26:15 > 0:26:18# It Bourgeois Town... #
0:26:24 > 0:26:28The circle was completed when Guthrie turned up in New York in 1940.
0:26:28 > 0:26:30# Take me ridin' in the car, car
0:26:30 > 0:26:32# Take me ridin' in the car, car
0:26:32 > 0:26:34# Take you ridin' in my car, car
0:26:34 > 0:26:36# I'll take you ridin' in my car... #
0:26:36 > 0:26:39Woody performed at a Grapes of Wrath fund-raising concert,
0:26:39 > 0:26:43where he met Alan Lomax and Pete Seeger for the first time.
0:26:43 > 0:26:46MUSIC: "This Land Is Your Land"
0:26:46 > 0:26:52# From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
0:26:52 > 0:26:58# This land was made for you and me. #
0:26:58 > 0:27:02They were just knocked over.
0:27:02 > 0:27:06Pete Seeger admired Woody, he saw Woody as the thing itself.
0:27:06 > 0:27:09You know, and he tried to emulate him.
0:27:11 > 0:27:16Woody's folk classicism with his Left politics
0:27:16 > 0:27:21proved to be the ultimate fantasy for the New York Left.
0:27:23 > 0:27:29Alan got Woody to come down there, and he spent two days recording every song he knew.
0:27:29 > 0:27:32# John Henry, was he was a baby
0:27:32 > 0:27:36# Sittin' down on his mammy's knee
0:27:36 > 0:27:40# Picked up a hammer in his little right hand
0:27:40 > 0:27:43# He said that'll be the death of me
0:27:43 > 0:27:46# That hammer will be the death of me... #
0:27:46 > 0:27:49This was the first time Woody had recorded.
0:27:49 > 0:27:53He'd written dozens of songs - the lyrics, not the music.
0:27:53 > 0:27:55He called himself a tune thief.
0:27:55 > 0:27:59Woody let me tag along with him to visit his family.
0:27:59 > 0:28:03I remember his wife's mother shaking me by the shoulders
0:28:03 > 0:28:07saying, "You've got to make that man treat my daughter right!"
0:28:07 > 0:28:09Woody was not a good husband.
0:28:11 > 0:28:15But he did show me how to hitch a ride on a freight train.
0:28:17 > 0:28:21And how to pick up coins in a saloon.
0:28:21 > 0:28:27He says, "Pete, put your banjo on your back, go and buy a nickel beer and sip it as slow as you can.
0:28:27 > 0:28:30"Someone will say, "Kid, can you play that thing?"
0:28:30 > 0:28:33"Say, "Maybe a little," and keep on sipping your beer.
0:28:33 > 0:28:38"Sooner or later, somebody will say, "Kid, I got a quarter for you if you pick us a tune.
0:28:38 > 0:28:41"Now you swing it around and play your best song."
0:28:41 > 0:28:43And I never went hungry.
0:28:45 > 0:28:49Pete Seeger started a new group, the Almanac Singers, which Woody was also to join.
0:28:49 > 0:28:53Everyone would turn up at their house in Greenwich Village
0:28:53 > 0:28:57for hootenannies - informal concerts - and rent parties.
0:28:57 > 0:29:01People would come in and maybe pay a quarter and you'd hear Burl Ives,
0:29:01 > 0:29:06my dad, Leadbelly, Woody singing, which they would do anyway,
0:29:06 > 0:29:09but maybe helping someone make their rent.
0:29:09 > 0:29:11The Almanacs took a lot of old country songs
0:29:11 > 0:29:15and old folk songs, well, whatever folk was,
0:29:15 > 0:29:19and changed the words to fit the political agenda of the day.
0:29:19 > 0:29:23They used what they called folk music to argue their cause -
0:29:23 > 0:29:27the people whose music they used never called it folk music.
0:29:27 > 0:29:33It's fascinating to see how many gospel songs became union organising songs.
0:29:37 > 0:29:44Woody was a portable newspaper, and he would change his lyrics to fit the events of the day.
0:29:44 > 0:29:46He wrote his most famous union song,
0:29:46 > 0:29:51Union Maid, for a specific picket line to the tune of Redwing.
0:29:51 > 0:29:54# There once was a Union Maid
0:29:54 > 0:29:57# Who never was afraid
0:29:57 > 0:29:59# Of the goons and the ginks and the company finks
0:29:59 > 0:30:02# And this is what she'd say... #
0:30:02 > 0:30:06# ..Oh, you can't scare me I'm sticking to the Union.
0:30:06 > 0:30:11# I'm sticking to the union Till the day I die... #
0:30:11 > 0:30:14I occasionally did sing Union Maid, when they needed it.
0:30:14 > 0:30:18We felt very proud to be part of the Almanac Singers.
0:30:18 > 0:30:24# Will you go to the war Billy Boy, Billy Boy?
0:30:24 > 0:30:28# Will you go to the war Tom and Billy...? #
0:30:28 > 0:30:31But the Second World War presented the Almanacs
0:30:31 > 0:30:34with a challenge that was to lead to their downfall.
0:30:34 > 0:30:37# ..He's a young boy And cannot leave his mother... #
0:30:37 > 0:30:40The Soviets had seemed to be the bulwark against fascism.
0:30:40 > 0:30:46But in 1939, the Soviets made peace with Germany.
0:30:46 > 0:30:49Woody and the Almanacs followed the party line -
0:30:49 > 0:30:52opposing the war, which Britain had already joined.
0:30:52 > 0:30:57# ..You can come around to me when England's a democracy
0:30:57 > 0:31:00# But he young boy And cannot leave his mother... #
0:31:00 > 0:31:06One of Woody's less noble moments was when the Hitler/Stalin pact was signed
0:31:06 > 0:31:11and Russia invaded Poland, he wrote a talking blues about that.
0:31:11 > 0:31:14That's not one that you hear Bruce Springsteen singing these days.
0:31:16 > 0:31:20In May '41, they released a record of anti-war songs.
0:31:20 > 0:31:22# Franklin D, listen to me, you Ain't gonna send me 'cross the sea
0:31:22 > 0:31:26# 'Cross the sea, 'cross the sea, you Ain't gonna send me cross the sea.. #
0:31:29 > 0:31:35One song they did, it was an anti-Roosevelt song.
0:31:35 > 0:31:38# Oh, Franklin Roosevelt Told people how he felt
0:31:38 > 0:31:41# We damned near Believed what he said
0:31:41 > 0:31:44# He said, "I hate war And so does Eleanor
0:31:44 > 0:31:47# "But we won't be safe Till everybody's dead." #
0:31:47 > 0:31:49HE LAUGHS
0:31:49 > 0:31:52# ..Till everybody's dead... #
0:31:52 > 0:31:56But then, on June 22nd, 1941, Hitler invaded Russia.
0:31:56 > 0:32:03June 23rd, Woody arrived in New York and with a wry grin he says,
0:32:03 > 0:32:05"I guess we won't be singing any more peace songs."
0:32:05 > 0:32:08# Dear Mr President What I want is you to give me a gun
0:32:08 > 0:32:10# So we can hurry up And get the job done... #
0:32:10 > 0:32:14The Almanacs were FOR the war by the time a 16-year-old girl
0:32:14 > 0:32:17came across their music in her boarding house.
0:32:17 > 0:32:21There were these four people sitting on cushions on the floor,
0:32:21 > 0:32:23and they were singing,
0:32:23 > 0:32:27# Round and round Hitler's grave Round and round we go... #
0:32:27 > 0:32:30# Round and round Hitler's grave Round and round we go
0:32:30 > 0:32:34# Gonna lay that poor boy down He won't get up no more... #
0:32:34 > 0:32:39They were lefties, and that was my kind of people, honey!
0:32:39 > 0:32:41SHE LAUGHS
0:32:46 > 0:32:51They were Almanac wannabes. Who wouldn't wanna be an Almanac?
0:32:51 > 0:32:55But even though they signed up and went to war,
0:32:55 > 0:33:00the Almanacs would not be forgiven for their earlier opposition to it.
0:33:08 > 0:33:13In the early 40s, Alan Lomax did two major recording trips in the south,
0:33:13 > 0:33:15now without his father.
0:33:15 > 0:33:20A young guitarist was playing in the street one Saturday
0:33:20 > 0:33:23when Alan Lomax walked up.
0:33:25 > 0:33:27I thought he was a white boy wanting to talk to talk trash,
0:33:27 > 0:33:32I didn't pay him much attention. He has a book on his arm.
0:33:32 > 0:33:35He says, "My name is Alan Lomax, and I'm from the Library of Congress
0:33:35 > 0:33:39"in Washington, DC, and I'd like to do some recording."
0:33:39 > 0:33:43And I told him where I lived at,
0:33:43 > 0:33:46and I half forgot it, just that quick.
0:33:46 > 0:33:49BLUES MUSIC PLAYS
0:33:53 > 0:33:57Monday morning he drove up in a brand new Hudson Super Six,
0:33:57 > 0:34:00green Hudson, brand new. And my Auntie,
0:34:00 > 0:34:03she thought he was the police or a sheriff or something,
0:34:03 > 0:34:06she didn't know who it was. She was scared.
0:34:06 > 0:34:11Alan managed to persuade her he wasn't a cop -
0:34:11 > 0:34:15and he drove Honeyboy to a schoolhouse to record.
0:34:15 > 0:34:18'He's a man who's been all over the country.
0:34:18 > 0:34:21'He very experienced musician and he really knows how.
0:34:21 > 0:34:23'All right, David.'
0:34:31 > 0:34:35It took a long time. He gave me a twenty dollar bill,
0:34:35 > 0:34:37and that was more money than I'd had in a long time.
0:34:37 > 0:34:42Then he left, went on down the road towards the Mississippi
0:34:42 > 0:34:44and he was recording Muddy Waters.
0:34:44 > 0:34:47# Oh, I feel like grumblin'
0:34:47 > 0:34:50# Right out the corner... #
0:34:50 > 0:34:54# I'll do with you all day long... #
0:34:54 > 0:35:01Alan was still visiting prisons, where he recorded and filmed work songs, which would be a revelation.
0:35:01 > 0:35:05# ..Stuck and countin' corn
0:35:05 > 0:35:07# Yeah, yeah
0:35:07 > 0:35:10# Yeah, yeah... #
0:35:10 > 0:35:11# And I wish that everybody
0:35:11 > 0:35:17# Been trying to find out Where in the world... #
0:35:17 > 0:35:21The Library of Congress never recorded Josh White. He'd become too successful,
0:35:21 > 0:35:27and city. He was now performing regularly at New York's first integrated nightclub.
0:35:27 > 0:35:32I think my father was one of the first people to bring folk music into the nightclub.
0:35:32 > 0:35:36He was the first black man who used sex appeal.
0:35:36 > 0:35:38And the open shirt was part of it.
0:35:38 > 0:35:42He used those talents he had.
0:35:42 > 0:35:45If you happened to be good looking, you use it also.
0:35:45 > 0:35:47# I meant give me what I want
0:35:47 > 0:35:50# And you'll never hear me Howl no more. #
0:35:53 > 0:35:58Oh, Josh White. Josh White was so handsome and he was so...
0:35:58 > 0:36:03soft. That wonderful cat-like thing.
0:36:03 > 0:36:05Josh could just fit into anything.
0:36:05 > 0:36:08He was elegant and charming all the time.
0:36:08 > 0:36:16I admired his magnificent, beautiful polished guitar playing, which was...
0:36:16 > 0:36:21not real down-home blues picking. He grew up with that,
0:36:21 > 0:36:27but he had tailor-made a new style of delivery,
0:36:27 > 0:36:30for the rich white women in the nightclub in New York.
0:36:30 > 0:36:34He broke through the colour barrier.
0:36:34 > 0:36:42# Baby, baby... #
0:36:42 > 0:36:47He teamed up with Libby Holman - they were the first mixed race duo to tour and record together -
0:36:47 > 0:36:51though even they were not allowed to perform for troops overseas -
0:36:51 > 0:36:55it was considered too controversial in a still segregated army.
0:36:55 > 0:37:00# "Is there hope for the future?" Say the brown bells of Merthyr... #
0:37:04 > 0:37:09Pete came out of the army with a goal to get everybody singing folk songs.
0:37:09 > 0:37:12He started this thing called People's Songs.
0:37:12 > 0:37:16# And who robbed the martyr...? #
0:37:16 > 0:37:21Everybody thought, "This is it," you know, "We've been waiting for just something like this,"
0:37:21 > 0:37:27- and it became a very big thing. - The Almanacs were over, but Pete tried to rally their supporters.
0:37:27 > 0:37:31"The people are on the march and must have songs to sing," he wrote.
0:37:31 > 0:37:33# The union is behind us
0:37:33 > 0:37:35# We shall not be moved
0:37:35 > 0:37:38# The union is behind us
0:37:38 > 0:37:40# We shall not be moved! #
0:37:40 > 0:37:44# Oh, pretty ladies, three in a row Oh, pretty ladies, three in a row. #
0:37:44 > 0:37:48This was the world Kentucky country girl Jean Ritchie
0:37:48 > 0:37:51found herself in when she arrived in New York just after the war.
0:37:51 > 0:37:56We used to walk around and see people singing on the street.
0:37:56 > 0:38:00At midnight we'd go down into the subway
0:38:00 > 0:38:03and we'd sing our rounds and the echoes would, were wonderful.
0:38:03 > 0:38:06The, the ambience was great!
0:38:06 > 0:38:08And we'd go down. We'd sing and sing.
0:38:08 > 0:38:11You couldn't do that now. You'd probably get mugged!
0:38:22 > 0:38:26# All in the merry month of May... #
0:38:26 > 0:38:30Back where she came from, the old music was less in demand.
0:38:30 > 0:38:33Outside music was coming in,
0:38:33 > 0:38:38so that our old songs were not as omnipresent as when I was little,
0:38:38 > 0:38:43so I said to myself, "Maybe you should learn something else."
0:38:43 > 0:38:46But when I came to New York,
0:38:46 > 0:38:49people only wanted to listen to my old songs.
0:38:50 > 0:38:53CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
0:38:53 > 0:38:55How long you kids been standing here?
0:38:55 > 0:38:59Shucks, we been standing there the last 10 minutes listening to you.
0:38:59 > 0:39:01Well, I'll be darned!
0:39:01 > 0:39:04Hey, how about that square dance we're going to have?
0:39:04 > 0:39:09Some of the city folks were desperate to be country people, you know,
0:39:09 > 0:39:12so they would dress up in blue jeans and a bandanna around the neck
0:39:12 > 0:39:17and they would have square dances and act, uh, really silly.
0:39:17 > 0:39:21I kept telling them, at home, we put on our best clothes.
0:39:21 > 0:39:24We don't put on the rags to go to to go to a party in.
0:39:24 > 0:39:27SHE LAUGHS
0:39:27 > 0:39:30And they'd just laugh at me. They thought I didn't know anything.
0:39:30 > 0:39:33# Wish I had a dime
0:39:33 > 0:39:36# Wish I had a pretty little gal To kiss all the time... #
0:39:37 > 0:39:41But they didn't just want to listen to her old songs - they wanted to set them to work.
0:39:43 > 0:39:45I didn't like the fact that my ballads
0:39:45 > 0:39:51would be taken and just sung to make a point, for the left-wing people.
0:39:51 > 0:39:55I didn't think that was right. I thought music should be music.
0:39:55 > 0:39:59The songs that I was raised with were sort of sacred to me,
0:39:59 > 0:40:04and I didn't want to sing them through big foghorns and things like that.
0:40:04 > 0:40:07On the street. Uh, Pete Seeger, one time, said,
0:40:07 > 0:40:10"Sing through this and yell through this,"
0:40:10 > 0:40:13and I said, "I can't. I'm not that kind of person!"
0:40:15 > 0:40:18# It blowed away
0:40:18 > 0:40:20# It blowed away
0:40:20 > 0:40:24# My Oklahoma home blowed away
0:40:24 > 0:40:26Woody and Pete had their differences, too.
0:40:26 > 0:40:30Pete recognised that Woody was a great songwriter,
0:40:30 > 0:40:35but personally I don't think he could stand him much, being with him.
0:40:35 > 0:40:40Everything you weren't supposed to do, Woody did.
0:40:40 > 0:40:47If he saw an injustice, he was with Sonny Terry in a restaurant and they wouldn't serve him 'cos he was black.
0:40:47 > 0:40:50Woody just got so angry, he just trashed the whole restaurant.
0:40:50 > 0:40:54He didn't have time to write a letter to Congress!
0:40:54 > 0:40:56He was just really pissed.
0:40:56 > 0:40:57# It blowed away... #
0:40:57 > 0:41:00Pete didn't smoke, didn't drink,
0:41:00 > 0:41:03was organised and Woody smoked,
0:41:03 > 0:41:07drank, womanised, wrote great songs.
0:41:07 > 0:41:11So they were like really opposite.
0:41:11 > 0:41:16# I ain't got no home I'm just a-ramblin' 'round... #
0:41:16 > 0:41:19Leadbelly was better able to tolerate Woody's chaos.
0:41:19 > 0:41:21# I go from town to town... #
0:41:21 > 0:41:25He and Woody Guthrie were like two peas in one pod.
0:41:25 > 0:41:28They all would come to Leadbelly house playing half of the night.
0:41:28 > 0:41:32they enjoyed that. I was there all the time,
0:41:32 > 0:41:35and he'd say, "You go in and tell them it's getting late,"
0:41:35 > 0:41:41so I'd go back there and tell them and everyone getting ready, getting their things ready to go.
0:41:41 > 0:41:45But Woody. Woody's laying up in a corner.
0:41:45 > 0:41:51I say, "Woody, you better come outta there, because you gotta go,"
0:41:51 > 0:41:54"I ain't going," I'd say, "OK."
0:41:54 > 0:41:59"I'm telling you everyone left except that one old white boy back there,"
0:41:59 > 0:42:02and he said, "That's Woody Guthrie, leave him right there!
0:42:02 > 0:42:05"He'll come out some time in the morning," so he would.
0:42:05 > 0:42:09He was his best friend. He loved him and Woody loved him too.
0:42:09 > 0:42:12# I'm stranded on that road
0:42:12 > 0:42:14# That goes from sea to sea
0:42:14 > 0:42:19# A hundred thousand others Are stranded, same as me... #
0:42:19 > 0:42:24He was totally, as they say, outside the grid.
0:42:24 > 0:42:28There was a space around him that just is untouchable.
0:42:28 > 0:42:31He doesn't even claim to be a song-writer.
0:42:31 > 0:42:38In all of his writings he claims, "I was walking down the street, and I heard someone say this,"
0:42:38 > 0:42:42and he'd write it down, and he'd take it in, and he'd write a song.
0:42:46 > 0:42:51With the Cold war bearing down on the left, political folk song wasn't doing too well.
0:42:51 > 0:42:54But it was about to take a surprising new turn.
0:42:54 > 0:42:58Peoples Songs had become quite an organisation ,
0:42:58 > 0:43:01but they were broke, and, what do you do when you're broke?
0:43:01 > 0:43:04You have a big hootenanny! SHE LAUGHS
0:43:04 > 0:43:07So four of us got together to sing this song,
0:43:07 > 0:43:10# In every land hey, li, le, li, le, lo
0:43:10 > 0:43:14# Stand together hand in hand hey, li, le, li, le, lo
0:43:14 > 0:43:15# Hey, li, le, li... #
0:43:15 > 0:43:20Well, the banjos was playing and the guitars were playing,
0:43:20 > 0:43:24and the people were stamping their feet and we were singing our heads off
0:43:24 > 0:43:29and it just absolutely went - the place went wild,
0:43:29 > 0:43:33and I remember Pete saying afterwards,
0:43:33 > 0:43:40we were standing together looking at this thing happening, and he said, "I think we have something here."
0:43:40 > 0:43:43And that's how the Weavers started.
0:43:45 > 0:43:50We got a job down at the Village Vanguard for two weeks for 200 a week.
0:43:50 > 0:43:52That was for all four us.
0:43:52 > 0:43:55And hamburgers, hamburgers too.
0:43:55 > 0:44:00Well, it turns out that the two weeks turned into six months, you know.
0:44:00 > 0:44:04And it was during that time we became the hot item to see in New York.
0:44:04 > 0:44:06# Tzena, Tzena, Tzena, Tzena
0:44:06 > 0:44:07# Can't you hear the music playing
0:44:07 > 0:44:10# In the city square...? #
0:44:10 > 0:44:13Their fame spread, and they got a contract with Decca.
0:44:13 > 0:44:15# Our friends will find us With the dancers there... #
0:44:15 > 0:44:20Within 20 minutes after that song was released you could walk up and down Broadway
0:44:20 > 0:44:22and it was coming out of every single record shop.
0:44:22 > 0:44:26The song was a number-one hit. Every radio station was playing it.
0:44:26 > 0:44:27It was, it was remarkable.
0:44:27 > 0:44:30'This song came to us from the new land of Israel.
0:44:30 > 0:44:34'it was written for lots of people to sing and dance together.'
0:44:37 > 0:44:39# Tzena, Tzena, Tzena, Tzena... #
0:44:39 > 0:44:42And then I guess people were getting sick of it and they'd say,
0:44:42 > 0:44:44"Let's turn this over see what's on there,"
0:44:44 > 0:44:48and that was Good Night Irene, and there we went again.
0:44:48 > 0:44:52# Irene, goodnight
0:44:52 > 0:44:55# Irene, goodnight... #
0:44:55 > 0:44:59So here we were, now big pop stars.
0:44:59 > 0:45:06Good Night Irene was Leadbelly's signature tune. He died just before the Weavers took it to number one.
0:45:06 > 0:45:08We learned this song, Irene, from a friend of ours.
0:45:08 > 0:45:12Some people thought he was the greatest folk singer ever lived in America.
0:45:12 > 0:45:17# Good night, Irene Good night, Irene
0:45:17 > 0:45:23# I'll see you in my dreams. #
0:45:23 > 0:45:28# Has a man gone wrong He can name? #
0:45:28 > 0:45:31Leadbelly, when I met him, was very ill...
0:45:31 > 0:45:34# ..Gone wrong, take a name... #
0:45:34 > 0:45:39..and he played for us, and his niece was there,
0:45:39 > 0:45:42and she danced for us. And he made me hold his guitar.
0:45:42 > 0:45:44I said, "I can't play the guitar."
0:45:44 > 0:45:47But he said, "Just hold it and I'll show you some things,"
0:45:47 > 0:45:51and he gave me a lesson on his guitar, on his 12-string guitar.
0:45:51 > 0:45:54So that was one of my big moments, I guess.
0:45:54 > 0:45:59# Take a warnin' how you... #
0:45:59 > 0:46:03And he died not long after that.
0:46:03 > 0:46:07Martha asked me to sing at his memorial.
0:46:10 > 0:46:17# First they'll appear And then they're gone... #
0:46:17 > 0:46:23He was a nice... He was a nice man.
0:46:25 > 0:46:30Leadbelly's friend Woody also played at a memorial concert for him, along with Tom Paley.
0:46:30 > 0:46:33They had to wait to go on.
0:46:33 > 0:46:37He had been going backstage, and taking a nip of some drink,
0:46:37 > 0:46:40so when we actually did get up,
0:46:40 > 0:46:43he was a bit lit,
0:46:43 > 0:46:48but he did talk and talk and talk about Leadbelly and about various things.
0:46:48 > 0:46:53It felt like at least a half hour before we ever got to sing anything.
0:46:53 > 0:46:57# Dream a dream, dream a dream Dream a dream a little sweeter... #
0:46:57 > 0:47:00Often Woody didn't turn up at all.
0:47:00 > 0:47:03I remember calling his wife, I said, "Where's Woody?"
0:47:03 > 0:47:07"I don't know, he went out on Tuesday to get some cigarettes,
0:47:07 > 0:47:10"he'll probably be back in a couple of weeks."
0:47:10 > 0:47:14He was one of my heroes,
0:47:14 > 0:47:19but I got a little bit annoyed at his not showing up for some of the gigs.
0:47:19 > 0:47:25It was the Weavers' professionalism and jauntiness that fitted the mood of the time.
0:47:25 > 0:47:30Folk, ranch-house style, was now commercially viable.
0:47:30 > 0:47:33# Do you remember Sweet Betsy from Pike...?
0:47:33 > 0:47:36I loved Burl Ives' recordings.
0:47:36 > 0:47:38I would glom on to anything I could get a hold of
0:47:38 > 0:47:40that sounded like folk music.
0:47:40 > 0:47:42# ..Big yeller door
0:47:42 > 0:47:45# One Shanghai rooster And one spotted hog... #
0:47:45 > 0:47:49You know, there would be folk-like songs like, er,
0:47:49 > 0:47:52Ghosts Riders in the Sky and Cry of the Wild Goose,
0:47:52 > 0:47:56and stuff like that. And I liked that music, it told stories.
0:47:56 > 0:47:59# I'll see you in... #
0:47:59 > 0:48:02The tunes the Weavers did became common currency.
0:48:02 > 0:48:05# Last Saturday night I got married... #
0:48:05 > 0:48:07The Weavers had the golden touch.
0:48:07 > 0:48:13Woody Guthrie didn't get an American royalty until the 1950s
0:48:13 > 0:48:18when The Weavers, uh, had taken some of the rough edges off of folk music
0:48:18 > 0:48:21and popularised it and were singing songs
0:48:21 > 0:48:23like So Long, It's Been Good to Know You...
0:48:23 > 0:48:25# It's been good to know you So long... #
0:48:25 > 0:48:30which was, indeed, the first hit that Woody Guthrie ever had.
0:48:30 > 0:48:35But despite their smart clothes, the Weavers were almost the Almanacs reincarnated,
0:48:35 > 0:48:38and that past was coming back to haunt them.
0:48:38 > 0:48:41# I've sung this song But I'll sing it again
0:48:41 > 0:48:45# Of the people I've met And the places I've been... #
0:48:45 > 0:48:47The blacklisters were surprised as we were,
0:48:47 > 0:48:52"How did we let those Commie so and so's slip through our fingers?"...
0:48:52 > 0:48:55# ..Singin' so long It's been good to know you... #
0:48:55 > 0:48:57..and they started chopping us down.
0:48:57 > 0:48:59# It's been good to know you So long... #
0:48:59 > 0:49:03The world was closing in on the left.
0:49:03 > 0:49:11In June 1949, the man who was an idol to many in the American folk movement gave a concert in Moscow.
0:49:11 > 0:49:18Paul Robeson, ex athlete and lawyer, often sang folk-type songs from Broadway musicals.
0:49:18 > 0:49:23# ..Plant taters He don't plant cotton
0:49:23 > 0:49:29# Them that plants 'em Is soon forgotten... #
0:49:29 > 0:49:33His open support for the Soviet Union saw him pilloried at home.
0:49:33 > 0:49:37# ..He just keeps rollin' along... #
0:49:37 > 0:49:42Paul Robeson was under severe attack as a Communist, traitor and all of that,
0:49:42 > 0:49:47but he was still our hero, and a hero of many thousands and thousands of people.
0:49:47 > 0:49:52Just three months after that Moscow visit, the embattled Paul Robeson
0:49:52 > 0:49:57held a benefit concert for the Civil Rights Congress in Peekskill, New York.
0:49:57 > 0:50:03# Summertime
0:50:03 > 0:50:09# And the livin' is easy... #
0:50:09 > 0:50:16On the way out, people were lined up on this narrow road out,
0:50:16 > 0:50:18the police right next to them.
0:50:18 > 0:50:21They had piles of stones.
0:50:21 > 0:50:26I got on a bus that was going out and they smashed everything.
0:50:26 > 0:50:31# And your ma is good-looking... #
0:50:31 > 0:50:34They dragged people out of cars, they hurt people.
0:50:34 > 0:50:38#..So hush, little baby... #
0:50:38 > 0:50:41We didn't know that we had fascism in America.
0:50:41 > 0:50:46Not us nice, liberal, white people.
0:50:46 > 0:50:48We didn't know.
0:50:48 > 0:50:50We found out.
0:50:50 > 0:50:53A publication called Red Channels
0:50:53 > 0:50:58pointed the finger at most people in the '30s and '40s folk movement.
0:50:58 > 0:51:01Alan Lomax decided to leave the country.
0:51:01 > 0:51:06And it was the death-knell for the Weavers.
0:51:06 > 0:51:09Little by little, the radio stations wouldn't play our records,
0:51:09 > 0:51:12and we became pari... You know, musical pariahs.
0:51:12 > 0:51:17After about three years, we finally had to call it quits.
0:51:17 > 0:51:20It was a terrible time.
0:51:20 > 0:51:23I could be walking down Broadway,
0:51:23 > 0:51:27and I would see someone that I know very well coming towards me,
0:51:27 > 0:51:31and as they approached, they would cross the street,
0:51:31 > 0:51:35because they couldn't afford to be seen talking to me.
0:51:35 > 0:51:39In Kentucky they said, "You don't have anything to do with Pete Seeger, do you?"
0:51:39 > 0:51:41And I said, "Yes, he's a... He's a friend of mine."
0:51:41 > 0:51:46And they would look at me kind of strange and, uh, walk away.
0:51:52 > 0:51:57Josh White was touring Europe with Eleanor Roosevelt
0:51:57 > 0:51:58when Red Channels named him.
0:52:01 > 0:52:04Josh actually went to the people involved with Red Channels and said,
0:52:04 > 0:52:07"Look, why are you naming me as a Communist?
0:52:07 > 0:52:10"What do I have to do to persuade you that I'm not?",
0:52:10 > 0:52:12and they suggested that he go
0:52:12 > 0:52:17voluntarily in front of the House Committee On Un-American Activities.
0:52:17 > 0:52:20Pete was saying, "Josh, don't go down there until they call you.
0:52:20 > 0:52:23"Don't." And my old man said, "I'm gonna do it."
0:52:23 > 0:52:27Black entertainers were not asked to name names.
0:52:27 > 0:52:33Black entertainers were only asked to say that they disagreed with Paul Robeson,
0:52:33 > 0:52:39and that if they had been associated with Communist groups, they felt used.
0:52:39 > 0:52:42So that's what Josh White did.
0:52:42 > 0:52:46My father was attacked from both left and right because of his position.
0:52:46 > 0:52:50# The land that we call freedom
0:52:50 > 0:52:52# The home of liberty... #
0:52:52 > 0:52:58He thought, "All I can do is walk my walk, and maybe somewhere down the line you will realise,
0:52:58 > 0:53:01'Oh, I should see it a little differently.' "
0:53:01 > 0:53:05# With its promise for tomorrow
0:53:05 > 0:53:09# That's America to me. #
0:53:15 > 0:53:18Josh White was banned from American television for 13 years,
0:53:18 > 0:53:22when the Civil Rights movement put him back in the limelight.
0:53:22 > 0:53:25# Oh, da-dang fal, di di-do
0:53:25 > 0:53:26# Dang, fal-di-dee... #
0:53:26 > 0:53:31Burl Ives did name names - old friends like Pete Seeger.
0:53:31 > 0:53:35'Mr Seeger, you declined the protection of the Fifth Amendment
0:53:35 > 0:53:38'in refusing to answer the committee's questions. Why?'
0:53:38 > 0:53:42In all my life, I've never committed any kind of act,
0:53:42 > 0:53:45conspiratorial or even conducive,
0:53:45 > 0:53:49and I resented the implication that... By being called before the committee,
0:53:49 > 0:53:54that because my opinions might be different to Mr Waller's - he has a right to his opinion -
0:53:54 > 0:53:59I have a right to mine, but as my opinions might be different to his, I was any less of an American.
0:53:59 > 0:54:03I just feel it's improper for anybody to ask an American citizen
0:54:03 > 0:54:07his views for religious... What church he goes to, how he prays...
0:54:07 > 0:54:12Philosophical - he might be a vegetarian or a nudist or whatever it is.
0:54:12 > 0:54:15But a man has his right to his own opinion and I feel I have, too.
0:54:15 > 0:54:19# There was an old woman Who swallowed a lie
0:54:19 > 0:54:24# I don't know why She swallowed the lie
0:54:24 > 0:54:28# Perhaps she'll die... #
0:54:28 > 0:54:33He was to spend the rest of the '50s under investigation.
0:54:33 > 0:54:37The case wasn't dropped until 1962.
0:54:37 > 0:54:41I went round singing at schools and summer camps,
0:54:41 > 0:54:47and I didn't make much money, but I managed to feed my family.
0:54:47 > 0:54:51It was almost funny, the John Burt Society
0:54:51 > 0:54:53would picket my concert at some college,
0:54:53 > 0:54:57and all they did was give me free publicity and sell more tickets.
0:54:59 > 0:55:04I was one of those kids and I had my Pete Seeger banjo with me, you know,
0:55:04 > 0:55:09and I was asking him questions and he'd just come up with that...
0:55:09 > 0:55:12- PLAYS CHORD - knock and the door will be opened.
0:55:15 > 0:55:19Pete Seeger was a Johnny Appleseed of folk music.
0:55:19 > 0:55:21He inspired me to want to do it.
0:55:23 > 0:55:28# I wish I was a mole In the ground... #
0:55:28 > 0:55:32But as Pete Seeger was forced underground, an earlier generation of singers
0:55:32 > 0:55:37was bubbling to the surface, thanks to an unknown record collector
0:55:37 > 0:55:39with no political agenda for folk music.
0:55:39 > 0:55:43# ..A mole in the ground I'd root their mountains down
0:55:43 > 0:55:46# And I wish I was a mole In the ground. #
0:55:46 > 0:55:50Most records of the '20s had been pulped for the war effort,
0:55:50 > 0:55:56but Harry Smith scoured second hand stalls, picking up the leftovers for a few cents.
0:55:56 > 0:56:00It's midnight, and we're walking around the streets of Harlem.
0:56:00 > 0:56:02Harry jumps into a garbage can,
0:56:02 > 0:56:07head first, like this, and he comes up with a stack of photographs.
0:56:07 > 0:56:12And he starts laying them out on the street in piles and by categories.
0:56:12 > 0:56:16And people are coming out of the doorways saying, "What's going on here?"
0:56:16 > 0:56:22And Harry picked them up and handed one to each of the people around, they were all very satisfied.
0:56:22 > 0:56:24And then we got on the subway and went home.
0:56:24 > 0:56:29# I used to be around I'd sit around in town
0:56:29 > 0:56:33# I used to be around there I'd sit around in town
0:56:33 > 0:56:37# I courted pretty Polly And the duty's never been found... #
0:56:37 > 0:56:43Harry put together his own anthology of the best songs by the best artists he found.
0:56:43 > 0:56:50In the notes to the record, he had a statement, "Civilised man thinks out his problems.
0:56:50 > 0:56:53"At least he thinks he does.
0:56:53 > 0:56:55"Primitive man dances them out".
0:56:55 > 0:57:03He was a wild genius. That anthology brought that kind of music to a lot of people,
0:57:03 > 0:57:07and by a lot of people, I mean probably 500 or 1,000.
0:57:07 > 0:57:10And eventually, more and more.
0:57:10 > 0:57:15But it's like a dropping a pebble into a still body of water.
0:57:15 > 0:57:18These rings were felt far and wide.
0:57:18 > 0:57:24It would be ten years before the wave broke over a new generation.
0:57:24 > 0:57:27The folk music community at that time was very small,
0:57:27 > 0:57:31and our apartment was very small, so you could only fit 10 or 20 people in.
0:57:31 > 0:57:38Woody wasn't performing that much any more. But people would come round, like Rambling Jack Elliot.
0:57:38 > 0:57:42I remember once riding in a subway train with Woody,
0:57:42 > 0:57:45we were going into Manhattan to get some picks and strings.
0:57:45 > 0:57:48He's sitting there on the train and he says,
0:57:48 > 0:57:52"You know, people around here don't understand our music very well
0:57:52 > 0:57:56"because we sing in a dialect."
0:57:56 > 0:58:01But Woody Guthrie was reaching the end of his road.
0:58:01 > 0:58:04Like his mother before him, he had Huntington's chorea.
0:58:04 > 0:58:09I went out to visit Woody at the hospital,
0:58:09 > 0:58:14and he sensed our solicitousness and he says, "You don't have to worry about me here.
0:58:14 > 0:58:19"I mean, this place is fine, if you, if you get up on the street corner and you say,
0:58:19 > 0:58:23'Hey, I'm a Communist!', they'll stone you, they'll arrest you, they'll do everything."
0:58:23 > 0:58:27Here, I can say I'm a Communist and they say, 'He's crazy.'!
0:58:27 > 0:58:31It's the last place in America where you have free speech.
0:58:33 > 0:58:37Soon, Bob Dylan would be knocking on that hospital door.
0:58:37 > 0:58:40The group of friends was scattered and silenced.
0:58:40 > 0:58:44But from this rag tag and bobtail army which appeared to be defeated,
0:58:44 > 0:58:48folk music would emerge victorious,
0:58:48 > 0:58:52looking to an idealised past, searching for an ideal future.
0:58:52 > 0:58:56# Here's to Sisco and Sonny And Leadbelly too
0:58:59 > 0:59:03# And all the good people That travelled with you
0:59:06 > 0:59:10# Here's to the hearts And the hands of the men
0:59:13 > 0:59:19# That come with the dust And are gone with the wind
0:59:22 > 0:59:26# Hey, hey, Woody Guthrie I wrote you a song... #