Dust Bowl Ballads

Dust Bowl Ballads
Studio album by Woody Guthrie
Released	July 1940
Recorded	April 26, 1940 & May 3, 1940
Genre	Folk
Length	45:44
Label	RCA Victor
Producer	R. P. Weatherald
Woody Guthrie chronology
Library of Congress Recordings (1940) Dust Bowl Ballads (1940) The Columbia River Collection (1941)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Rolling Stone	[1]
Allmusic	[2]

Dust Bowl Ballads is an album by Woody Guthrie, recorded for Victor Records during Guthrie's time in New York City in 1940. It was Guthrie's first commercial recording and the most successful album he made. It is sometimes considered the first concept album.

The Dust Bowl Ballads was originally released as two three-disc collections of 78 rpm records. Twelve sides, including the double-sided "Tom Joad", were included in this release, but two of the thirteen songs, "Pretty Boy Floyd" and "Dust Bowl Blues" were left out due to length. All tracks were recorded at RCA Victor studios in Camden, New Jersey on April 26, 1940, except "Dust Cain't Kill Me" and "Dust Pneumonia Blues" which were recorded on May 3. In 1964, during the American folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, a reissue including all tracks from the sessions was released in LP format by Folkways Records after RCA Warner refused Guthrie's request to re-issue the album.^[3] The complete Dust Bowl Ballads remains available on compact disc, audio cassette, and digital upload through the Smithsonian Institution's Folkways Collection.^[4]

The songs on "Dust Bowl Ballads" are semi-autobiographical, chronicling Guthrie's experience as a so-called "Okie" during the Dust Bowl era, where Guthrie witnessed the economic hardship that many migrant workers faced in California. Like many of Guthrie's later recordings, these songs contain an element of social activism, and would be an important influence on later musicians, including Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Joe Strummer.

Track listing

Track	Song Title	Other
1.	The Great Dust Storm (Dust Storm Disaster)	26622 - A
2.	I Ain't Got No Home In This World Anymore	26624 - A
3.	Talkin' Dust Bowl Blues	26619 - A
4.	Vigilante Man	26624 - B
5.	Dust Can't Kill Me	26620 - B
6.	Pretty Boy Floyd	LPV 502
7.	Dust Pneumonia Blues	26623 - B
8.	Blowin' Down This Road	26619 - B
9.	Tom Joad - Part 1	26621 - A
10.	Tom Joad - Part 2	26621 - B
11.	Dust Bowl Refugee	26623 - A
12.	Do Re Mi	26620 - A
13.	Dust Bowl Blues	LPV 502
14.	Dusty Old Dust	26622 - B
15.	Talkin' Dust Bowl Blues (alternate take)	Buddha records CD reissue only

See also

• Woody Guthrie discography
• Moe Asch
• Alan Lomax
• The Grapes of Wrath

Sources

• Marsh, Dave. "Dust Bowl Ballads" liner notes. Buddha Records, 2000
• Helfert, Manfred. Ballads from Deep Gap, North Carolina and Okemah, Oklahoma. 1997.

References

1. ^ Rolling Stone review
2. ^ Allmusic review
3. ^ Smithsonian Folkways: Sounds to Grow On Episode 20. Broadcast February 21, 2010.
4. ^ Dust Bowl Ballads. Smithsonian Folkways Records.