Biography:

Guthrie was reportedly involved in the 1911 lynching of Laura and L. D. Nelson.[17] (Woody Guthrie wrote three songs about the event in the 1960s. He said that his father, Charles, became a member of the Ku Klux Klan during its revival beginning in 1915.[17][18])

Three significant fires occurred during Guthrie’s early life. In 1909, one fire caused the loss of his family’s home in Okemah a month after it was completed.[10] When Guthrie was seven, his sister Clara died after setting her clothes on fire during an argument with her mother,[19] and, later, in 1927, their father was severely burned in a fire at home.[20] Guthrie’s mother, Nora, was afflicted with Huntington’s disease,[21] although the family did not know this at the time. What they could see was dementia and muscular degeneration.[22]

When Woody was 14, Nora was committed to the Oklahoma Hospital for the Insane. At the time his father Charley was living and working in Pampa, Texas, to repay debts from unsuccessful real estate deals. Woody and his siblings were on their own in Oklahoma; they relied on their eldest brother Roy for support. The 14-year-old Woody Guthrie worked odd jobs around Okemah, begging meals and sometimes sleeping at the homes of family friends.

Guthrie had a natural affinity for music, learning old ballads and traditional English and Scottish songs from the parents of friends.[23] Guthrie befriended an African-American shoeshine boy named George, who played blues on his harmonica. After listening to George play, Guthrie bought his own harmonica and began playing along with him.[24][25] He used to busk for money and food.[23] Although Guthrie did not do well as a student and dropped out of high school in his senior year before graduation, his teachers described him as bright. He was an avid reader on a wide range of topics.[26]

In 1929, Guthrie’s father sent for Woody to join him in Texas,[27] but little changed for the aspiring musician. Guthrie, then 18, was reluctant to attend high school classes in Pampa; he spent most of his time learning songs by busking on the streets and reading in the library at Pampa’s city hall. He regularly played at dances with his father’s half-brother Jeff Guthrie, a fiddle player.[26] His mother died in 1930 of complications of Huntington’s disease while still in the Oklahoma Hospital for the Insane.

Credits: