A Graphic Novel by Nick Hayes (Abrams Comic Arts, 2016)
Woody Guthrie is to some the Walt Whitman of the depression making his way through the America that is perpetually left behind by politicians and business, and if that is the case, his Dust Bowl Ballads are his Leaves of Grass. Guthrie wrote so fast that his songs are a record of his life and the people he met along the way. A voice of ordinary people, life and sdturgugle in a way his obvious successors Dylan and Ochs could never be as they came to their songs, and in Ochs case activism, in full awareness of what Guthrie had already sung and said.
Nick Hayes’ biography of Guthrie and the songs is drawn in the style of woodcuts washed in sepia with the lettering that feels of that time. Hayes is a succinct and talented storyteller who draws the reader through the life and takes one to the places and brings to life the people that inspired the lyrics. The sadness and persistence of subsistance seep into your bones–and Woody Guthrie is speaking to our time–so many people struggle to make ends meet, others feel left out and ready to blame others, and those us who are better off feels helpless in the face of the hateful despising espoused by too many in authority. Government is either trying to make people’s lives worse or seems helpless to make anything better. Business is using labour to make untold profits while paying as little as possible with no sense of the role of business is part of society. Steve Earle caught this feeling back in 1997 (Here him at Woody’s 100th birthday party in 2012.
So come back Woody Guthrie
Come back to us now.
Tear your eyes from paradise
And rise again somehow.
If you run into Jesus
Maybe he can help us out.
Come back Woody Guthrie
To us now.
Review from The Guardian
Advertisements Share this:
