– CBS Radio – Back Where I Come From – August 19, 1940 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection.-
In an attempt to broaden the musical tastes of mainstream America, CBS Radio in 1940 experimented with the idea of presenting Folk music, Gospel singers and Blues musicians on a coast-to-coast program.
Called Back Where I Come From, it was hosted by noted literary critic Clifton Fadiman and presented Woody Guthrie, The Golden Gate Quartet, Burl Ives, Josh White and Willie Johnson in a half-hour program with the premise of talking about current events and playing songs along those themes.
It was interesting on a lot of levels, not the least that it introduced a mainstream audience to non-mainstream music. The show was also written by Alan Lomax and future film director Nicholas Ray, who directed the program.
Needless to say, the show didn’t become a regular feature, and this was only a one-off. But it’s a historic document featuring the legendary Woody Guthrie on the radio.
Enjoy the next half-hour of musical history.
Summer is over, Winter is around the corner and everybody is back at work or school. If you’re in school you’re probably knee-deep in History – tests, reports, papers – homework. Reading about things that happened decades before you were born – can’t quite wrap your head around it. If you’re a teacher, it’s like pulling teeth to get your students even remotely interested in what happened before they were born. If you’re at work, you may be one of those people in middle-management who have to do presentations – something to amaze your boss and your colleagues – no pressure, but you have to deliver the goods, usually yesterday. Not to brag, but Past Daily is one website where you can find out about a lot of things you didn’t know about – hear things you aren’t familiar with – and by becoming a subscriber you can download all this audio (at last count over 10,000 sound files) you can build your own reference library, a mouse click away. You can also go exploring by using the Search Engine to dig deep.
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