“THE BEST THING I’VE DONE SO FAR” (WOODY GUTHRIE): VERY SCARCE ORIGINAL 1940 ALBUM DUST BOWL BALLADS, WITH THREE ORIGINAL 78 RECORDINGS INCLUDING TOM JOAD, FROM THE ESTATE OF AN INTIMATE GUTHRIE FRIEND AND CORRESPONDENT, WITH LAID-IN TYPEWRITTEN LEAF OF STEINBECK’S FAMOUS QUOTE, AND WITH EXCEPTIONAL LETTER OF PRESENTATION FOR THE ALBUM

GUTHRIE, Woody. LP album. Dust Bowl Ballads. WITH: Original booklet “Dust Bowl Ballads.” WITH: Autograph letter signed. (Camden, New Jersey): RCA Victor, [1940]. Oblong quarto, original half dark blue and illustrated paper boards,three interior paper sleeves housing three 78 rpm discs; original booklet (measuring 7 by 9-1/2 inches) laid in, and single leaf (measures 9 by 6 inches) of typescript on verso laid in. Letter: single sheet of lined paper (measuring 8 by 10-1/2 inches), neat cursive on recto. Housed together in a custom clamshell box.

Original album of three 78 rpm discs featuring the legendary first recording of Guthrie’s Tom Joad and four additional Guthrie ballads, with original Victor booklet “Dust Bowl Ballads,” written by Guthrie, laid-in, along with a single leaf of laid-in typescript containing John Steinbeck’s famous praise for Guthrie in the words “Woody is just Woody… we call this the American spirit.” Original signed autograph letter written entirely in Woody Guthrie’s neatly inked cursive, signed by him and dated “January Second, Nineteen Forty Six,” noting his gift of these albums to his intimate friend Charlotte Strauss and gratitude for her letters during his lonely months on a Las Vegas air base.

This landmark 1940 three-disc album of Guthrie’s Dust Bowl Ballads, with the first recording of Tom Joad and four additional ballads, is widely hailed as “his masterpiece, an American classic that deserves to be placed alongside Huckleberry Finn” (Hill, Salon). This first of a two-volume series came at the urging of folklorist Alan Lomax, who persuaded Victor Records to produce it. On hearing the news, “one night in New York, Guthrie asked Pete Seeger where he could get a typewriter. ‘The Victor people want me to write a song about The Grapes of Wrath [1040]’ he said.” Seeger took Guthrie to a friend’s apartment and for some hours, before giving in to sleep, Seeger watched Woody drink some wine, “test a few lines on his guitar, and then back to the typewriter…. The next morning Seeger found the bottle empty, Guthrie asleep on the floor, and a 17-verse ballad called Tom Joad sitting in the typewriter… Victor was so impressed that it decided to use all 17 verses even though it took both sides of a record to get it all down. Woody was tremendously—uncharacteristically—proud of the song… [and] wrote ‘I think the ballad of the Joads is the best thing I’ve done so far.’ The songs were recorded without much fanfare, on May 3, 1940, at Victor’s Camden, New Jersey studios. Woody simply stood in a studio and sang one after the other… He was paid three hundred dollars for the session and was jubilant… The Victor executive in charge of the production asked Woody to write a little booklet explaining the songs, which he did:; he billed himself as ‘The Dustiest of the Dust Bowlers… Lomax asked John Steinbeck to write a general introduction” and Steinbeck responded with his memorable praise for Guthrie, writing “Woody is just Woody… there is nothing sweet about the songs he sings. But there is something more important for those who will listen. There is the will of the people to endure and fight against oppression. I think we call this the American spirit” (Klein, Woody Guthrie, 164-166).

Included with this album is an autograph letter signed from Guthrie presenting the album to an intimate friend. January 1946 saw Woody Guthrie celebrating his recent discharge from the army and return home to Coney Island. Guthrie’s long months on an army base near Las Vegas were lonely and difficult, a time when he may have begun to experience early symptoms of Huntington’s Disease, which ultimately ended his life. “Confused states of mind, a kind of lonesomeness, a nervousness, stays with me,” he would write. “Lacking anything better to do, he wrote letters. His correspondence, which had been extraordinary in his emotional complexity,” grew even more so (Klein, 314). In October 1945 Guthrie began writing to a woman named Charlotte Strauss, in a correspondence rich with what John Greenway described as “Woody’s ‘hypnosis with words… [and] fantastic flights of imagery” (Santelli, 88). His letters to Strauss were also alive with an irrepressible flirtatiousness and gentle counsel. In this January 2, 1946 letter Guthrie expresses his appreciation for Strauss and her letters, herein noting his gift of several albums to her, and writing, “Here’s to your heart for the people in these songs and … Here’s to the letters you wrote me in Forty Five and the ones to come out of you from here on in.”

Guthrie’s letter reads: “3520 Mermaid Avenue, Brooklyn, 24, N.Y., January Second, Nineteen Forty Six. To Charlotte, Paste this inside your album cover when you get your records. Here’s to a girl as good as they come, as open, as deep as the day is long. Here’s to your heart for the people in these songs and here’s to the hope that we never will have anymore such tales as these to write nor to sing about. Here’s to the mama and the papa that brought you, and to the brothers and sisters that wrestled you. Here’s to the letters you wrote me in Forty Five and the ones to come out of you from here on in. There is no use to tell you to listen deep because this is already a habit of yours. Just listen. Prv. Woody Guthrie 42234634.”

With laid-in original Victor booklet Dust Bowl Ballads with text by Guthrie, and single leaf of typescript containing Steinbeck’s seven-line description of Guthrie beginning “Woody is just Woody,” ending with “I think we call this the American spirit” and “John Steinbeck” in typescript. Album with three 78 rpm discs in original paper sleeves: Talkin’ Dust Bowl Blues (26619-A) and Blowin’ Down This Road (26619-B); Do Re Mi (26620-A) and Dust Cain’t Kill Me (26620-B); Tom Joad-Part 1 (26621-A) and Tom Joad-Part 2 (26621-B). New Grove, 856.

Original 78 rpm discs in fine condition, very lightest edge-wear to bright original boards; laid-in booklet with slight foldline crease, small bit of tape to upper edge of Steinbeck leaf. Letter text fine, faint tiny pinholes at left margin, tiny bit of loss to upper edge without affecting text. An exceptional album letter and presentation letter in about-fine condition.