In the late 1940s Tom Paley used to play around New York as a duo with Woody Guthrie, the founding father of modern American folk music and legendary writer of songs such as This Land Is Your Land and So Long, It’s Been Good to Know Yuh.
At least, he was meant to perform with Guthrie. “We’d have a gig and I’d show up, but no sign of Woody,” Paley recalled. “I’d ring his wife and it would be, ‘He went out on Tuesday to get some cigarettes and he’ll probably be back in a couple of weeks.’ ”
A free and roving spirit, Guthrie had ridden the rails as an itinerant hobo during the Depression of the 1930s and old rambling habits died hard,