Woody Guthrie

Ask a Mexican: Where can I find more info on ranchera music?

Introducing the 2013 RFT Web Awards Finalists

The past twelve months was an outstanding time for hot digital action in St. Louis. Our citizens launched apps, pushed pixels, encouraged consumerism and conducted full-on comedy shows in 140 characters or less. If we learned anything, it's that you can't get a job -- or even a date -- without being ... More >>

Euclid Records' 50 Best-Selling Albums of 2012

Euclid Records -- one of several excellent purveyors of music in this town and our 2012 winner for Best Record Store -- has just released its top 50 sellers of 2012. It's an interesting list for several reasons. It bears almost no resemblance to Billboard's list, of course. But it also speaks to the ... More >>

The 20 Best Concerts That Happened in St. Louis in 2012, According to Us

It's been another steller year for live music in St. Louis, whether you were looking for the most legendary living pop artist or the quiet birth of a powerful local band. We've racked our brans and come up with our twenty favorite shows (they're listed below), but what tops your list? Was it The Ur ... More >>

Outernational Toured Mexican Border Towns Before Its EP Release in Edwardsville

Outernational is a band to which music writers love making comparisons about politically outspoken musicians of yesteryear. Just about all of them stick. Yes, the New York-based rock group agrees with Woody Guthrie about whose land this is, shares the musical eclecticism of Joe Strummer (the Clash) ... More >>

Woody Guthrie 100th Birthday Party, Tribute and 88.1 KDHX Benefit, 7/14/12: Review

Just One Big Soul: Woody Guthrie 100th Birthday Party, Tribute and 88.1 KDHX Benefit Off Broadway July 14, 2012 Behold the power of Woody Guthrie: A man with a trucker hat, tousled grey hair, and a thick, hearty mustache, a mustache that has seen some hard travelin', chokes out "Goodbye to my one ... More >>

The Fourteen Best Forgotten Woody Guthrie Covers

No American songwriter has produced a more malleable, sing-able and shareable body of work than Woodrow Wilson Guthrie. Decades after his death, his archives continue to yield sweet, unfinished fruit for the likes of Jay Farrar, Billy Bragg and the Klezmatics (for starters) and his songs continue to ... More >>

The Ten Best Shows In St. Louis This Weekend: July 13 to 15

This weekend would have been the hundredth birthday of Woody Guthrie, if he'd only lived that long. To celebrate, both Plush and Off Broadway are hosting tributes -- Plush's is on Friday night and Off Broadway's is on Saturday. It was good thinking on the part of these two venues to put their shows ... More >>

Bound for Glory

Out Every Night: The Best Shows From July 9 to 15

The Monday after Independence Day weekend is one most brutal. After a full weekend of barbecue and beer and illegal fireworks, going to work seems all the more objectionable. I'm too damned hungover on Freedom to be productive, personally. My "word of the day" today is "aliquant," which even my spel ... More >>

Woody Guthrie's New Years Rulin's: Photographer Corey Woodruff's Ambitious Tribute

A local photographer is commemorating Woody Guthrie's 100th birthday by giving a modern twist to a series of resolutions the iconic singer made back in the 1940s. And he's launched a Kickstarter drive so that his work can be showcased to the general public. Guthrie - an Oklahoma-born folk singer an ... More >>

Woody Guthrie has plenty to say, 100 years after his birth

The Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration Kicks Off in Tulsa

On Saturday the world's foremost Woody Guthrie scholars gathered at the University of Tulsa to discuss how Guthrie's Oklahoma roots shaped his music and the Sooner State musicians who've followed in his footsteps. "Different Shades of Red: Woody Guthrie and the Oklahoma Experience at 100" is the fir ... More >>

Arlo Guthrie, Roseanne Cash, the Flaming Lips and More at the Woody Guthrie Centennial Concert

Arlo Guthrie | Old Crow Medicine Show | Tim O'Brien | Jimmy LaFave | Roseanne Cash | Hanson | Del McCoury Band | Jackson Browne | The Flaming Lips | John Mellencamp This Land is Your Land: Woody Guthrie Centennial Concert Brady Theater, Tulsa, Oklahoma March 10, 2012 After decades of neglecting the ... More >>

Wilco and Jay Farrar will Release Woody Guthrie Tribute Albums This Year. Separately.

Photos by Jason StoffIf nothing else, Jay Farrar (left) and Jeff Tweedy (right) agree on Woody Guthrie.​Over the weekend, Billy Bragg announced that he and Wilco would release a third installment in their Mermaid Avenue series. The albums draw inspiration from Woody Guthrie's notebooks of unre ... More >>

Jay Farrar's Woody Guthrie Tribute Album, New Multitudes, is Out in February

Woody Guthrie left behind notebooks full of words, snippets and entire lyrics. The Woody Guthrie Foundation, led by his daughter Nora, has been lending them to artists to create music around his words. You may remember the series' most successful installment to date, Wilco and Billy Bragg's collabor ... More >>

40 Best St. Louis Releases of 2011: Part One

​As you may have noticed, we were excited to be St. Louis music fans this year. And there is no more substantial document of the sound of this city in 2011 than the music released by its bands and artists. It is not an exaggeration to guess that the releases in the metro area number in the tho ... More >>

Jay Farrar and Bobby Bare Jr. At The Sheldon Concert Hall, 10/21/11: Review And Setlist

Sarah Samples and the SheldonJay Farrar soundcheck at the Sheldon​ Jay Farrar | Bobby Bare Jr. The Sheldon Concert Hall October 21, 2011 The worst thing you can say about any form of popular music, but rock music especially, is that it is polite. Let it be wild and outrageous, energetic and en ... More >>

Listen To Union Electric's "Tunnels" Before Saturday's Release

​In this week's Homespun column, Christian Schaeffer weighs in on the new release from the Union Electric -- "Tunnels" / "An Irish Orphan." The A-side is, in the bands' description, "Tunnels is based on the story of Chinese immigrants, who came to Mexico for work, and were forced to live liter ... More >>

The Ten Most Effective American Protest Songs

This one doesn't make the cut, unfortunately.​It's Fourth of July weekend, and in the haze of the heat, barbecue, domestic beer, and red-white-and-blue buntings, it's easy to get caught up in ranting-chanting, "USA! USA! USA!" The founding fathers and a lot of musicians might not agree with ... More >>

The Dive Poets Recommended Tour Essentials: AAA "Plus," Ramen, Canned Meat and Peanuts

Anna Moffatt and Eric Sargent in Tulsa. Courtesy of the Dive Poets.​Roughly half of St. Louis' finnest fiddlin' folk/Americana outfit, the Dive Poets, took to the road recently -- Jeff York and Renato Durante stayed home with new babies, and Eric Sargent, Karl Eggers and Anna Moffatt comprised ... More >>

Jeff Tweedy finds a kindred spirit in soul legend Mavis Staples, survives the dunk tank

10 Things to Do for $10 This Weekend in St. Louis, July 2-4, 2010

​It's America's birthday on Sunday, and you know St. Louisans are going to celebrate hard. But if you're not sure what to do this weekend, just walk under the Arch on Saturday morning and stay there. You'll catch Fair St. Louis and performances by John Legend and the B-52s. Across town, there are ... More >>

Joe Pug

8 p.m. Sunday, July 4. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue.

Interview Outtakes: Bobby Long, Playing at the Firebird on Sunday

Dirty Pond Songs, the debut album from English singer-songwriter Bobby Long, is a quiet album, a collection to put on when you're deep in thought or otherwise thinking about life's weightier matters. It's also an album indebted to many of Long's favorites, which he named in a recent RFT interview. ( ... More >>

London Calling: B-Sides gets the skinny on London singer-songwriter Bobby Long

Melissa Etheridge

8 p.m. Monday, August 11. Fox Theatre, 527 North Grand Boulevard

Anti-Flag

7 p.m. Saturday, March 29. Pop's, 1403 Mississippi Avenue, Sauget, Illinois

One of Us Must Know

The elusive Bob Dylan, masterfully considered, in I'm Not There.

Defiance, Ohio

8 p.m. Tuesday, March 6. Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center (3301 Lemp Avenue).

Dave Alvin

9 p.m. Wednesday, July 19. Off Broadway (3509 Lemp Avenue).

Ellis Paul

Friday, January 13; Off Broadway (3509 Lemp Avenue)

Charlie Poole

You Ain't Talkin' to Me: Charlie Poole and the Roots of Country Music (Sony/Legacy)

Todd Snider

Saturday, June 18; Mississippi Nights (914 North First Street)

Best Songwriter

Chris Johnson

Working-Class Hero

Fred Eaglesmith is everyday people

Foehner's Keepers

Gale Foehner kicks it old-school at Frederick's Music Lounge

Dropkick Murphys

Tuesday, September 16; Mississippi Nights

War on War Songs

Iraq and roll don't go together well when rockers protest

Triumph of the Wilco

I Am Trying to Break Your Heart pushes pop propaganda

Bright Eyes

Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil Keep Your Ear to the Ground (Saddle Creek Records)

Hefner

We Love the City (Too Pure/Beggars Banquet)

Best Folk-Music Venue

Focal Point

Billy Bragg and Wilco

Mermaid Avenue Vol. 2 (Elektra)

Rambin' Boy

Singer/songwriter Tom Paxton is still just folk

PARTY POLITICS

Billy Bragg brings Woody Guthrie back to vibrant life

Here Comes the Summer

Jeff Tweedy used to be in a band called Uncle Tupelo. He's not anymore.

Meet the Beat

Hip-hop's here. Deal with it. Check the local MCs and DJs moving up from the underground.

1998: The Year in Music