Maps of Music

Ballads of Sacco & Vanzetti (1965)

Where the lyrics of Ballads of Sacco & Vanzetti take you, and where it was really made.

Guthrie never finished this ballad set on the Sacco and Vanzetti case and was unhappy with the result, yet Asch released it in its unfinished form.

Place unknown

Do you know where this album was recorded, or where its cover was shot? Tell us and we will add it to the map.

Ballads of Sacco & Vanzetti: a set of ballad songs written and performed by Woody Guthrie
Subject: the trial, conviction and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti
Eleven tracks on the album's track listing
Pete Seeger later recorded an unreleased track for the project

Moe Asch commissioned the series in 1945
Guthrie met Moses 'Moe' Asch of Folkways Records in 1944
Guthrie first recorded 'This Land Is Your Land' with Asch, and later 'Worried Man Blues'
Guthrie never completed the project
He was unsatisfied with the result
Asch released the project later in its abandoned form
The Folkways recordings made with Asch are still available today in the most complete series of these sessions

Recorded in 1946 and 1947
Discogs note: Commissioned by Moses Asch, 1945. Recorded in 1947.
Recorded by and produced by Moses Asch
The 1996 Smithsonian/Folkways reissue was remastered from the original acetate discs
Acetate transfers were mastered by Joe Gastwirt

Woodrow Wilson Guthrie, born July 14, 1912 in Okemah, Oklahoma; died October 3, 1967 in New York.
Left Okemah in 1929 and followed his father to Pampa, Texas, where he began busking and playing music.
Moved to California during the Dust Bowl period and worked at Los Angeles radio station KFVD.

Solo artist; no group members.
Married Mary Jennings (1933), Marjorie Greenblatt (1945), and Anneke van Kirk (1953); fathered eight children in total.
His son Arlo Guthrie became a nationally known musician.

Known for songs such as "This Land Is Your Land" and "Tear the Fascists Down", with themes of American socialism and anti-fascism.
Wrote hundreds of country, folk, and children's songs; the 1940 album Dust Bowl Ballads earned him the nickname "Dust Bowl Troubadour".
Wrote the column "Woody Sez" for the communist newspaper People's World (1939–1940); was never a formal Communist Party member.
Served in the U.S. Merchant Marine during World War II before being drafted into the Army in 1945.
Diagnosed with Huntington's disease in 1952; hospitalized from 1956 until his death in 1967.
Influenced Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen and many others; inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.

Arlo Guthrie judged the ballads of the Sacco and Vanzetti cycle among the best his father ever wrote
The 1996 Smithsonian/Folkways remaster presented the album with a previously unpublished letter
The unpublished letter was written by Guthrie to the judge in the Sacco & Vanzetti case

The album was published by Folkways in 1960 according to the Italian-language record
The album was published in many countries starting in the 1960s
The album was remastered in 1996
Folkways' catalogue includes the Asch Recordings series, with the most complete collection of these sessions

Pete Seeger recorded an unreleased track, "Sacco's Letters to His Son", for the project
The 1996 reissue included a previously unpublished letter by Guthrie to the judge in the Sacco & Vanzetti case
The Folkways recordings made with Asch are collected in The Asch Recordings series
Guthrie's first recording with Asch was 'This Land Is Your Land'