THE YEAR 2016 marked the 75th anniversary of one of the more notable months of Woody Guthrie’s distinguished songwriting career. Hired by the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) to write a series of songs touting the wonders of the coming hydroelectric revolution, Guthrie left Los Angeles penniless, and drove himself and his young family to Portland to survey the ongoing construction of the Bonneville Dam and the surrounding Columbia River Gorge. Guthrie penned 26 songs in 30 days, frankensteining melodies and lyrical roadmaps from his considerable back catalog of tunes for the BPA. He received $267 for his troubles.
Last year also marked the 75th birthday of Bill Murlin, a folksinger and BPA employee who in 1983 rediscovered nine long-lost songs through acetate disc recordings, lyric sheets, and other documents from Guthrie’s BPA employment. Murlin oversaw the subsequent 1987 publication of these forgotten gems, which reintroduced the story of Guthrie’s brief but poignant time in the Northwest—a songwriting binge that produced some of his best-known music, including “Pastures of Plenty,” “Roll On, Columbia,” and “Hard Travelin’.”