There are far too many treasures to mention them all, but highlights include peerless renditions of his own compositions like "Hard Travelin'" and "Mean Talkin' Blues"; versions of "This Land Is Your Land," "Union Maid" and "So Long, It's Been Good to Know You" with less-well-known alternate lyrics; love songs; outlaw ballads like "Jesse James" and "Pretty Boy Floyd"; songs about shipwrecks and train wrecks and labor tragedies and civil engineering; songs about Sacco and Vanzetti and Charles Lindbergh and Jesus Christ and Omar Khayy#aacute;m and Judas Maccabeus.
Protest and commentary are threaded through many of these, as is a great deal of Guthrie's intense loathing of Nazism and fascism. But there is also plenty of apolitical folk like "Frog Went A-Courtin'" and "Crawdad Song" and "Red River Valley," and Guthrie's silly children's tunes like "Why, Oh Why?" and "Howdjadoo" and "Car Song" that show him in a more lighthearted mode -- there are times when you can hear him almost cracking himself up.
In the end, it's all wonderful. The Asch set works as the definitive collection of Guthrie material and a compelling portrait of one of the true giants of American song. -- M.V. Moorhead
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