I recently had the fortune of being asked to contribute a song to this new Woody Guthrie tribute record "Keep Hoping Machine Alive" (Spare the Rock Records).
"The new album, whose title is drawn from Woody’s list of New Year’s resolutions for 1942, is timed to honor what would have been his 100th birthday.
Keep Hoping Machine Running represents the third release for Spare the Rock Records, following 2010′s Many Hands: Family Music for Haiti and Science Fair, released on July 3. Like both of those earlier releases, Hoping will benefit a good cause: 100 percent of the net proceeds from sales will go toward the Woody Guthrie Foundation, a non-profit organization devoted to the care and administration of the Woody Guthrie Archives.
More than 40 years after his death, Guthrie’s presence continues to be felt in American music — not only through his influence on the work of countless artists who followed in his steps, but through the way his songs have been so thoroughly absorbed by generations of listeners. Simple, powerful, strong, defiant, tender, and funny, Guthrie’s anthems of American living remain as rich and vibrant today as they were when he wrote them.
The timeless power of Guthrie’s music is reflected in the story behind Keep Hoping Machine Running, which was hatched in a spur-of-the-moment meeting between executive producers Bill Childs and Dadnabbit and Popdose‘s Jeff Giles; the project was conceived on a Saturday afternoon, and by Monday morning, artists were already calling dibs on songs and sending in recordings for the album.
In the spirit of Guthrie’s doggedly prolific work ethic and beautifully simple aesthetic, artists were told to keep their performances as natural — and to record them in as few takes — as possible. (As Dean Jones of Dog on Fleas put it in a letter of advice, “Laugh and make mistakes.”) The result is a collection that demonstrates the continued relevance of Guthrie’s work while preserving some of its inimitable spirit."
