Woody Guthrie traveled Depression-era America writing plainspoken songs about dust storms, migrant labor, and the country he loved and criticized in the same breath. "This Land Is Your Land," written as a pointed answer to "God Bless America," became the closest thing American folk music has to a counter-anthem. His talking-blues cadence and unadorned populism gave the folk revival its founding grammar, shaping everyone from Pete Seeger to Bob Dylan.

the sound in question

1944

This Land Is Your LandWoody Guthrie