***Those Old Dust Bowl Wandering Blues-Woody Guthrie’s Bound For Glory

DVD Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Bound For Glory, starring David Carradine, 1976

Of course everybody, everybody who is interested in such matters, learns the different genre of the American Songbook in different ways. For example, one, probably without knowing it, learned many of the most popular Broadway-inspired tunes through going to the movies as a kid where the denizens of Tin Pan Alley held forth and provide many memorable lyrics which we hum almost unconsciously. Other genre like folk music (including mountain music and country and western)and its various sub-genre like talking blues came  via more thoughtful appreciation of the music, or that we got caught up in, those of us from the generation of ‘68 anyway , as part of our break-out from our parents’ music in the early 1960s. And in that folk tradition one strand followed a certain genealogy from Woody Guthrie in the 1930s, the subject of the film under review  Bound For Glory, through the guidance of Pete Seeger and on through Bob Dylan (and to a lesser extent Ramblin’ Jack Elliott).

No question the 1930s, the time of the Great Depression that affected the parents of the generation of ’68, those who got by the best way they could during that time and then slogged through the bloodshed of World War II, cried out for a troubadour to sing, like Walt Whitman did a couple of generations before, of the great troubles in the land. The plague of the dust bowls of the plains, the hard picking of the orchards and the fields, the plight of the Oakies, Arkies, and any other peoples afflicted by the economic downturn while others feasted on the goods produced by others. They needed a voice, as the story line in the film develops, who had been through it all, been choked by the plains dust, been forced to trample along by freight train, had been turned back at the “garden of Eden” California, and much more. A rolling stone for lack of a better word as this film amply demonstrates who could sing of new generation’s concerns using talking blues, simple but powerful lyrics, and the news of the day as his calling card. A voice who could speak to the better instincts of humankind without being foolish about such sentiments.

Of course Bound For Glory, based in part on Woody’s own autobiography from a specific period of his life includes the struggle to gain recognition for his form of expression without losing his integrity, his voice of the people. And hones in as well on his rather stormy personal life, including a failed marriage, his struggle to remain a master-less man in a period when such men were becoming a very scarce commodity indeed. Oh yes, and to fill American songbook with many, many classic songs that spoke (and speak) to the downtrodden, the sick, the homeless and those who have no voice like This Land Is My Land, Pretty Boy Floyd, Dust Bowl Blues, Do Re Mi, and Union Maid . See this one if only for the great soundtrack, and the message that Woody was trying to bring forth.