Woody Guthrie in Chico Ca. 1938, part one.

Due to the combined hardships of the Great Depression and ongoing drought, many people from Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri packed up their belongings and traveled west in search of work. An estimated four hundred thousand made their way to California in the 1930’s. Already a rambler but with more justification this time, Woody Guthrie hoboed his way from Texas to Los Angeles in 1936, where he eventually formed a musical duo with his cousin Jack Guthrie. They performed country-western tunes around town and had a show on radio station KFVD.

Jack Guthrie’s best friend, a construction worker named Roy Crissman, had come to California from Missouri with his wife and two daughters in 1932. Maxine, the oldest daughter, sang and played guitar and saxophone. She was out of high school and working in a dress factory when Jack first brought Woody over to meet the Crissman family in Glendale. One evening Woody and Maxine began singing old songs, and their harmonies were a perfect two-part musical fit; her alto to his bluegrass tenor. After that evening Jack and Woody had her appear occasionally on their radio show, and when Jack decided that he needed to leave the show to earn more money in construction, Woody had Maxine step in to take Jack's place.

He introduced Maxine as "Lefty Lou from ol’ Mizzou…she’s long winded and left-handed, and she can jump a six-rail fence with a bucket of milk in each hand and never cause a ripple…”  He didn’t mention how young and attractive she was. They soon replaced Jack’s country-western songs with the old-style tunes that Maxine liked; tunes such as "A Picture from Life's Other Side," and “Red River Valley.” Maxine recalled in an interview:

“When we first started out, we didn't have too many songs; then that was how Woody started putting his own version to original old songs. And then after a while we ran out of those, and he started writing his own. And he came up with "Oklahoma Hills" and "Reno Blues," and all those came about by accident, by [being inspired by] newspaper clippings…”

And Woody soon began to perform some of his more pointed tunes as well; songs like “Talking Dustbowl Blues” and “Do Re Mi” which spoke of the harsh reality behind the myth of California as the “Promised Land.” It was a perspective that was not lost on their audience.

There were no scripts, song lists or rehearsals. Woody would spin tall tales, sing requests and read letters from listeners. His down-home humor enabled him to express and promote his progressive “populist” political and social views in an inoffensive, entertaining way. He had has many as three 15 minute shows during each broadcast day, but the most popular one was the late night one he shared with Lefty Lou. They received over a thousand letters per month from listeners, and soon became so successful bringing in advertisers, that Woody was able to bring his wife and children to Los Angeles in 1937.

By the spring of 1938 however, both Woody and Maxine were tiring of the daily broadcast schedule, and they took leave from KFVD. The radio station’s owner though had started a small progressive newspaper, “The Light,” to counter the right-wing perspectives of L.A.’s two daily papers. He made Woody a volunteer roving reporter. Woody immediately hopped a box car along with Maxine’s unemployed father, Roy. They headed north into the central valley. Very quickly they landed in Chico, and spent a week here. Roy liked the area so much that he decided to go back to southern California, where he packed his family up and moved them all to Chico. Before he and Woody split up, they agreed to meet again in one month under the elms in Chico’s downtown plaza park.

Sources:
Joe Klein “Woody Guthrie: A Life” (Alfred A. Knopf, 1980).
Ed Cray “Ramblin’ Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie” (W.W. Norton & Co. 2004).
Richard Reuss “American Folklore and Left-Wing Politics: 1927-1957” (Indiana University, 1971).

Photo: Woody & Lefty Lou, KFVD.

On American Pastimes: Guthrie songs written circa 1937 for KFVD – “Philadelphia Lawyer (aka "Reno Blues”), “Oklahoma Hills”, “Do-Re-Me”, “Talkin’ Dustbowl Blues”.