ABSTRACT
In a 1964 examination of the folk revival, the New York Times’s Robert Shelton cut to the heart of the contested legacy of Woody Guthrie: ‘Was he a rebel or reformer, responsible social critic or irresponsible bohemian, the product of his times or of a hereditary disease, a chronicler of an era or a poetic voice that ranks large in American letters?’1 During his brief career, Guthrie’s wide array of cultural contributions – poetry, prose, recorded song, live performances and cartooning – held a variety of meanings for popular musicians, dynamic subcultures and mainstream popular culture. The creation of Guthrie’s legacy was shaped by an array of forces outside his control and provides an alternative approach to the common historiographical debate concerning the role of producers and consumers in popular culture.2
