| ← 1939 |  |
1941 → |
| Album Chart of 1940 |
ENTER STAGE LEFT, WOODY GUTHRIE
It's a rather sparsely populated chart. Ok, there’s only Woody Guthrie. But I’m pretty sure he’d still be No.1 if I owned every album that was ever released in 1940.
Woodyguthrie.de tells how the “Dust Bowl Ballads” came to be:
An RCA Victor recording producer, R. P. Weatherald, approached [Alan] Lomax about making some recordings for Victor. Woody was with him and Alan immediately pointed to Woody and said, “Here’s your man — record him.” It was Alan’s expression of his appreciation for Woody as a performer and a folk artist…. He saw in Woody the perfect, but not unique, example of the cross fertilization of Ozark culture with Southwestern culture as modified and adapted by parts of Texas and Oklahoma. Woody was the most talented and prolific of known folk poets. These recordings were Woody’s first commercial effort, and they are, with the exception of some imaginative exaggeration, an accurate historical depiction, through music, of the Dust Bowl. It is doubtful that any historical period has had comparable folk response.
The Jukebox Rebel
01-Sep-2015
Woody Guthrie
Victor Records P-27
“A classic” FolkJukebox picks: “Talkin’ Dust Bowl Blues [album version 1940]” (10) • “Dust Can’t Kill Me” (9.5) • “Blowin’ Down This Road” (9.1)
John Steinbeck’s realist novel “The Grapes Of Wrath” was just over a year old by the time “Dust Bowl Ballads” saw releas...more →
Woody Guthrie
Victor Records P-28
“A classic” FolkJukebox picks: “The Great Dust Storm” (9.3) • “Dusty Old Dust” (9.2) • “Vigilante Man” (9.2)
With him having built up a strong repertoire over the preceding years, RCA got the maximum benefit when they fluked an a...more →
Album Charts by year
“A-list”
1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
“B-list”
1943 1945 1946 1950 1951 1952 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Album Charts by decade
“A-list”
1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s