If it were up to Nora Guthrie, folk music history would have played out very differently. She remembers the day a 19-year-old Bob Dylan came calling at her family’s Coney Island home in search of her dad, Woody.
"I didn’t let him in," she laughs. "I was 11 years old. I was watching 'American Bandstand.' He knocked on the door. He looked kind of dusty, and he said, ‘I’m here to see Woody Guthrie.’ I said, ‘He’s not home,’ and I closed the door and ran back to [the TV]."
The persistent young folksinger eventually convinced the Guthries’ babysitter to let him in until he could be directed to the New Jersey hospital where his hero was ensconced. The rest is history (and cinema, as seen in 2024 Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown). But it’s only one moment among many in the Guthrie family’s long, rich New York City musical story.
New York became legendary Okie troubadour Woody Guthrie’s home in 1940, and it looms large in his legacy. Nora and her brother Arlo helped fan the flame of the Guthrie/NYC connection, and it keeps burning bright today. Nora initiated the upcoming release of Woody’s previously unheard NYC home recordings,Woody at Home, released by Shamus Records (a subsidiary of Woody's publisher, TRO Essex Music Group). And her Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter son, Cole Quest, is keeping the chain intact with his band the City Pickers and their new album ,Homegrown, including material from both him and his grandfather.
The extended Guthrie clan’s cultural dance with New York began long before Woody arrived in town. His wife Marjorie’s family were Jewish immigrants from Russia, leaving the shtetl behind in 1900 and eventually settling in Brooklyn. "My grandmother Aliza Greenblatt became a Yiddish poet and songwriter," says Nora, "and a lot of her work has been performed by everyone from [famed actor/folksinger] Theo Bikel to Itzhak Perlman."
Aliza's family were also heavily involved in politics of the era, including "the early Zionist movement and the socialist movement for workers' rights," Nora notes. "They were a prime family for Woody Guthrie to fall into."
Nora’s mom naturally gravitated toward an artistic path too. "My mother was a member of the Martha Graham Dance company from 1935 to 1950," she says. "She was the first teacher of Merce Cunningham, Eric Hawkins — some of the real mainstays of modern dance." That company would also become the engine that brought Woody and Marjorie together.
Woody’s very first days in New York were pretty epic. While he was living in Hanover House during his first week in the city, the song he’d been conceiving during his cross-country hitchhike to NYC finally crystallized. "This Land Is Your Land," the timeless tune that encompasses America "from the redwood forests to the gulf stream waters" and beyond, was written in a 43rd Street flophouse overlooking Times Square. Woody wrote other great, New York-centric songs there too, including "Jesus Christ" and "Talking Subway Blues."
In 1941, Woody became a member of the Almanac Singers. "It was the first group of folk musicians that ever ‘made it’ in the United States," says Nora.
Among others, the group included Pete Seeger and Lee Hays, who would go on to huge renown with the Weavers. They all lived communally in a series of apartments dubbed Almanac House, the first being a fifth-floor loft at 70 E. 12th St. In the East Village. "There was kind of a roving group of musicians that would come in and out," says Nora. "Leadbelly was part of it at times, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee...they shared the rent, shared food, and played music together."
The following year, at another Almanac House at 430 6th Ave. in the West Village, Woody and Marjorie’s paths intertwined. "One of the dancers in the [Martha Graham] company choreographed a modern dance piece to folk music," explains Nora. "They had been choreographing to some of my father’s Dust Bowl ballads that had just been recorded. They asked if he would perform live for their dance concert. He didn’t sing the songs the same way he had recorded the songs, so it was a disaster. The way he described it, dancers were bumping into each other, falling over each other, because he added choruses, he added verses, he took away beats."
But the story had a happy ending. "My mother went down to rehearse him and see if she could get him to sing the songs live the same way he had recorded them. After a very long night of rehearsal, she succeeded. And long story short, they got married."
Marjorie and Woody lived in Greenwich Village before moving to Brooklyn, ultimately settling at their famous Coney Island address at 3520 Mermaid Ave. "My mother got pregnant and that’s when they moved to Coney Island," says Nora. "Why? Because that’s where the grandparents were, to help babysit! It’s the same old story." In addition to Nora and her siblings (except the eldest, Cathy Ann), many great Guthrie songs were born on Mermaid Avenue, including "Deportees," "Riding in My Car," and the Sacco & Vanzetti song cycle.
Later, the Guthries lived in Brighton Beach, crossing paths with another famous New York family. "That was part of the Trump organization apartment housing," says Nora. "It was called Beach Haven. While he was there, my father wrote a number of songs about Fred Trump and what an awful landlord he was. He wrote ‘Old Man Trump’ and some other songs about how the Trumps were keeping Black people out of their apartments."
Naturally, Nora’s older brother, Arlo, was along for all of these Brooklyn adventures. And when he first started walking in his father’s footsteps at an early age, his transition into the musical community that Woody helped create in the Village was a natural one.
"He started performing at Gerdes Folk City over on Mercer Street when he was like 15," reports Nora. "We used to go into the city all the time as kids to hear my father’s friends play at [West Village folk club] the Gaslight and Gerdes and places like that — Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. Because we were underage, we would go for soundcheck.
"As soon as Arlo started playing guitar, [folksinger] Cisco Houston brought him up to do a few songs at Gerdes Folk City. Arlo has a long history of playing music at these clubs before he moved up to Massachusetts." The connection remained even after he left New York — the uproarious climax of Arlo’s classic "Alice’s Restaurant" takes place at his draft board interview at Whitehall Street near the financial district in lower Manhattan.
Woody's New York Recordings
Long before Arlo ever recorded a note, though, Woody was making recordings that would help form the foundation of American folk music, right in the middle of Manhattan. Most of his catalog was cut at Folkways Records founder Moe Asch’s studio on W. 46th St.
"He befriended Woody in the early ‘40s," explains Nora. "He invited him to come to the studio after midnight for free to record whenever he had a batch of new songs." The ad hoc sessions were as freewheeling as Woody himself. "One take, one mic. They would have a big jug of wine and go through the night. Almost every recording you’ve ever heard of Woody Guthrie other than Dust Bowl Ballads was recorded in Moe Asch’s studio in the middle of the night in one take."
Whether he was writing songs inspired by busking on the Bowery or by watching the world go past his Midtown boardinghouse window, Woody captured the ugly and the beautiful in his adopted hometown, and everything in between. Maybe his most moving statement on the city is "My Name is New York."
"I first read it after 9/11," explains Nora. "And the last verse of that song says, ‘I might boil and blow and shake to the ground, and smoke and tremble and blaze all around, and no matter how low or how high I might fall, just remember New York is the name I am called.’ I just went, ‘Oh my God, he wrote this song 50 years before 9/11.’"
A New Generation Carries The Torch
More than six decades after the song’s composition, Nora — already an old hand at overseeing archival Woody Guthrie releases — created the multimedia project My Name is New York, detailing her dad’s New York history through CDs, a book, and an online walking tour.
Her son Cole Quest created his own musical setting for "My Name is New York" on his 2016 debut album. "It’s a graphic telling of the experiences of New York," says Quest, who also wrote his own tune about his hometown, "Where I’m From," for his new release, Homegrown. "I certainly gave it my own try, but you can see Woody Guthrie coming through in the lyrics."
Cole started playing electric guitar at age 10, but folk music wasn’t originally on his agenda. "When you’re raised with it, it’s always around but somehow never the direct focus," he explains. "I was a Stevie Ray, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton kind of guitar player growing up."
Nora tells her son, "When my parents played folk music and people would come over to play, we would go upstairs and listen to the Everly Brothers. And when you heard folk music, you went upstairs and listened to Rage Against the Machine and Dropkick Murphys. You’re always one step ahead of your parents."
That all changed when he moved to his first post-college apartment, in the Astoria section of Queens. "I went to the Irish pub at the end of the block," he recalls. "They had an open jam session going on and they played ‘Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad’ [a traditional tune recorded by Woody]." It turned his head around and redirected his musical mind. "I had bought a mandolin about a week or two prior. I showed up there every Sunday for about three to five years, just learning the ropes of bluegrass music."
Quest became a mainstay at folk and bluegrass jams all around town, including The Quays in Astoria, Paddy Reilly’s in midtown Manhattan, Mona’s on the lower East side, and Sunny’s in Red Hook, Brooklyn. In between he would busk with friends at Madison Square Park or Central Park. But one of the most important venues for developing his music was the nonprofit Brooklyn folk music organization Jalopy.
"Jalopy has a theater, they have a [music] school, they have a tavern, they do festivals and community organized events," he says. "I’ve been part of it for years. Recently I had a more formal reason to work with them, which is this record. Jalopy has this great record label. I just threw my name into the hat, and they ended up saying yes."
With Quest on acoustic guitar, resonator guitar, and pedal steel, and the City Pickers adding harmonica, banjo, standup bass, and additional acoustic guitar, Homegrown remains true to the roots-based, all-acoustic approach that he picked up through all those jams and busking sessions. And Cole keeps his family’s musical continuum front and center by putting original tunes like the waltz-time "She Talks a Lot (And I Like It)," the harmony-laden anthem of unintentionality "I Ain’t," and the aforementioned "Where I’m From" alongside versions of beloved Woody tunes "Pastures of Plenty," "Philadelphia Lawyer," and "All Work Together."
Quest remains admirably unintimidated by the artistic potency that precedes him. Laughingly putting it in perspective, he says, "First of all, who are you trying to compete with? It’s like, ‘I want to start playing basketball.’ Are you gonna be better than Michael Jordan? It was never really intimidating; it was more inspiring than anything. I was never comparing myself to him, so I didn’t think it was anything to be fearful of."
All of Cole’s recordings have been helmed by another NYC musical institution — four-time GRAMMY-winning producer/engineer Steve Rosenthal, who has also overseen decades’ worth of Nora’s archival Woody projects (On the forthcoming At Home release he had help from Cole’s sister, Anna Canoni). "I love working with Steve," says Cole. "He knows where we come from, he knows what Woody is all about. He keeps the truth in there."
Down through the generations — from Aliza to Woody and Marjorie to Arlo and Nora, and now Cole and Anna — New York City's artistic world has been both sustenance and inspiration for the family.
"As New Yorkers we’re so hungry, we just gobble up everything," says Nora of her clan’s artistic appetite. "Not everyone wants to eat music the way we do. It takes a particular kind of person to enjoy the feast that’s here. There’s a huge social consciousness that goes on here, it all seeps into our sounds. Everything is influenced by all of these aspects of New York City, and the tensions of the city that often get resolved by music, whether it’s Patti Smith or Woody Guthrie or Lou Reed. We resolve things through the arts here."