Abstract

Bound for (More) Glory

When journalists Bruce Springsteen, Willie Nelson, Bono, Emmylou Harris and other stars covered the author Woody Guthrie material in the early nineties, it seemed that the Dust Bowl balladeer and communist-leaning union organizer had become as mainstream as he ever would. Most anticipated is the follow-up to "Mermaid Avenue," the 1998 collaboration between the English folk singer Billy Bragg and the Chicago-based rock group Wilco, which sold 300,000 copies and was a smashing artistic success. Because Guthrie was so many things, artist, novelist, memoirist, songwriter and performer, it would have been easy to soft-pedal his radical beliefs. Political tension helped scuttle plans for a major Guthrie show at the University of Tulsa in the early eighties, for example.