Ragtime arrangements on a Tenor Guitar

[Roland Lee]

I was asked to do a ragtime arrangement for the Pete Seeger tune This Land Is Your Land. So here's an example of a simple meoldy ragged up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQNtetbBNw4

[Christine Robins]

It's by Woody Guthrie, not Seeger.

[Roland Lee]

Thanks Christine! I'll make the correction on my channel.

[belbein]

Not so fast. Pete Seeger recorded it and made it an anthem. Woody Guthrie is who Pete Seeger got it from. But WG never wrote any music that I know of--he took melodies from other people's songs and wrote his own words. Given the theme of this song, it would not surprise me if this was an old folk song or song from the protest movements of the 30s or before. Anything that Woody Guthrie did--that anyone else recorded--was probably from the folk music/social protest movements. This is folk music in action, folks: no known author, no known composer, just music.

[Bill McCall]

Well, Guthrie certainly wrote the lyrics but the melody is apparently from a Baptist hymn, with changes by Woody. A fairly common practice to reuse PD songs.

And there was that set of music he was commissioned by BPA to write about the Columbia River. BPA is not known for supporting social protest.

[Roland Lee]

Thanks Bill! All I remember of the song...was that as school children, we were all forced to sing it as a patriotic anthem,
alongside 'Oh Canada' and the Lord's prayers.

[jesserules]

"When the World's on Fire" by the Carter Family, 1930:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxo-zayI6tE

[AndyV]

Thanks Bill! All I remember of the song...was that as school children, we were all forced to sing it as a patriotic anthem,
alongside 'Oh Canada' and the Lord's prayers.

Not so I think, my compatriot. Since this discussion has turned to folk music and roots/evolution of the song; you would have learned The Travellers version with lyrics by Sid Dolgay the mandocello player.

[Roland Lee]

Thanks AndyV! Yes it's all coming back now, unfortunately..."This land was made for you and me" as the last line.
Place: Austin Heights Elementary School (Coquitlam) around the mid 60s.

[AndyV]

Port Kells Elem., early 70's.

[Roland Lee]

Thanks again AndyV! Unfortunately, Austin Heights Elementary which used to be a high school was torn down a while back.
http://searcharchives.coquitlam.ca/uploads/r/city-of-coquitlam-archives/f/1/f1e1fc7563329782acf226f9094e325411b7965d0511c48b78 6dfe9c5308b7d5/C6.70__Austin_Heights__n.d.jpg
I actually performed there in 1970 ...when I was 12.

[AndyV]

Port Kells Elementary is still standing, but the house in Clayton that we moved to in '73 which I lived in until adulthood was torn down last year to make room for a new school. Harder and harder to deny my age.

[Roland Lee]

New location for videos and pdfs: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1p5l5iTrglKMg9erZ2wEyq1780Y7my9hQ