“Roll On, Columbia” is 75 years old.
If you grew up here, you most likely learned that song while studying Washington state history.
It was one of 26 tunes the folksinger Woody Guthrie wrote in May of 1941 after he was hired by the Bonneville Power Administration to pitch the benefits of cheap hydroelectric power for the public.
He also wrote songs about Grand Coulee Dam and the Columbia Basin irrigation project, even though the taming of the Columbia River meant a huge life change for American Indians in the river’s watershed because the salmon runs were decimated.
How and why the left-wing folksinger Guthrie, at age 28, got a job with the BPA is chronicled in the new book “26 Songs in 30 Days: Woody Guthrie’s Columbia River Songs and the Planned Promised Land in the Pacific Northwest.”
Published by Sasquatch Books and written by Greg Vandy, KEXP (90.3 FM) radio’s The Roadhouse show host, and Daniel Person, Seattle Weekly editor, the book has had a big launch during the past two months.
Several events remain, however.
Vandy plans to talk about the book during a big tribute to Guthrie at 7:30 p.m. May 26 at Benaroya Hall in Seattle. Northwest-based artists singer Sera Cahoone, noted guitarist Bill Frisell and songwriter Shelby Earl will perform some of the 26 songs Guthrie wrote 75 years ago. Ticket information is at www.seattlesymphony.org/benaroyahall.
Vandy will sign books after the concert.
Then on May 28, if you are heading east for the Memorial Day weekend, Vandy plans to talk about Guthrie and the book as well as sign copies of “26 Songs in 30 Days” beginning at 7:45 p.m. at the Grand Coulee Dam Visitor Center. Be sure to stay for Grand Coulee’s free laser light show, “One River, Many Voices,” which starts at 10 p.m. and lasts about 30 minutes.
Finally, a reading from Vandy’s book and a musical performance of Guthrie’s songs is set for 3 p.m. May 30 on the Fisher Green Stage during the Northwest Folklife Festival.
In the book, Vandy (with help from Person) brings the reader up to speed on Guthrie’s life and the beginnings of the Columbia Basin reclamation project heading into the spring of 1941.
Guthrie — who had a guitar on which he painted “This Machine Kills Fascists” — was not a pro-capitalism hack, but it appears that coming out of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl years he truly was inspired by the Grand Coulee Dam and what it provided for the working people of Washington and Oregon.
Though “26 Songs in 30 Days” is a history of an American folk music icon and of our state, its examination of social democracy during an era in which our country had been suffering “couldn’t be a better reminder of how timeless and expansive such topics are in today’s political discourse,” according to the publisher’s statement.
The book is replete with old photos, letters written by Guthrie, BPA posters from the time and descriptions of each of the 26 Guthrie songs.
“Pastures of Plenty,” Vandy writes, is one of the greatest folk songs ever written. The ballad is about migrant farm workers and the hope of turning unusable desert into an irrigated Eden.
“It remains as one of the most frequently recorded Columbia River songs and continues to stand as an enduring anthem for social change,” Vandy wrote.
Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427; gfiege@heraldnet.com.
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