Hard Travelin'

Zoomer Roberts: vocal & guitar

Love him or hate him, there is no getting around the influence Woody Guthrie has had on American music. This performance comes from a tribute concert that took place at the Chamizal Theater in 1985. It was recorded on a portable tape recorder by someone in the front row of the audience.

The production was staged by Charlie McDonald, who was boyhood friends with Bill Guthrie, Woody's son by his first wife, Mary. I met Mary Guthrie several times, and she gave me some good advice: "You keep going!" Her brother, Matt Jennings, played fiddle in a band with Woody in the 1930s, and he told me stories (none of them flattering) that I've never heard elsewhere. In the late 1980s, a BBC crew traveled to Matt's home in Horizon City to interview him for a film documentary about Woody, and he invited Applejack to be there to eat, drink, and accompany him on some fiddle tunes. I appeared on screen in the finished product for about two seconds.