GARDINER — This year marks the centenary of Woody Guthrie’s birth, so Maine musicians Bob Webb and Dave Peloquin will celebrate his music and times in their concert “Woody’s A’Hundred — The Life and Music of Woody Guthrie” at 7:30 p.m. today at Johnson Hall Performing Arts Center, 280 Water St.
Drawing on more than 40 years of experience singing Guthrie’s songs, Webb and Peloquin will perform a day before what would be Guthrie’s 100th birthday.
A Johnson Hall release describes the performance as follows:
Woody’s songs of hard times and good people have been celebrated around the world. His songwriting influenced a generation of icons of American music, including Bob Dylan, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Bruce Springsteen and Woody’s son, Arlo Guthrie.
“This Land Is Your Land” has even been proposed as a replacement for the national anthem. Webb and Peloquin will recount the surprising story of how it came to be written, as well as other wellloved songs written by the “Dustbowl Balladeer,” such as “Hard Travellin’,” “Do-Re- Mi,” and “So Long, It’s Been Good To Know Yuh,” and a few that Woody wrote for his children.
During the show, Webb and Peloquin plan to explore America of the 1930s and ’40s, a time when the Depression, the Dust Bowl and World War II combined to drive many Americans from their homes. They demonstrate Woody’s talent as a propagandist for the federal government, his heroism in the service of the wartime Merchant Marine, and his feelings for the lost refugees from his native Oklahoma.
Webb began singing Woody Guthrie songs in 1963, and became acquainted with a number of Woody’s friends during his last years, including Will Geer, Bess Lomax Hawes, Sam Hinton and Frank Hamilton. In addition to his acclaimed work with the guitar, Webb is also an acknowledged master of the five-string banjo in the “frailing” or “clawhammer” style of the Southern Appalachian mountains.
Peloquin is a multi-talented singer and guitarist who founded and performed with two popular New Englandbased sea-music groups, Wickford Express and Compass Rose, the latter having appeared by invitation at the Kennedy Center. He, too, began singing Woody Guthrie’s songs during the 1960s.
Tickets cost $16, with Johnson Hall members paying $13 and students, $6. Call 582-7144 for reservations.
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