Larry Long

Singer-songwriter Larry Long aimed to restore the compositions of Dust Bowl balladeer Woody Guthrie to the balladeer’s birthplace. For roughly four decades Okemah, Oklahoma had resisted its most celebrated native, with residents labeling Guthrie a Communist and rejecting a proposed museum from the Guthrie family during the 1970s. “It would just attract hippies,” declared locals who regarded the songwriter as nothing but trouble. Long countered by introducing Guthrie’s material to Okemah schoolchildren and prompting them to compose their own pieces in a comparable, accessible style. Flying Fish captured the performances at a town theater, after which the community water tower began declaring Okemah the “Home of Woody Guthrie.” Among Long’s subsequent recordings are the 1988 release It Takes a Lot of People…, the 1992 album Troubadour, 1996’s Here I Stand, and 2000’s Well May the World Go. In 2006 he produced the singalong CD I Will Be Your Friend: Songs and Activities for Young Peacemakers, which the Teaching Tolerance project of the Southern Poverty Law Center supplied without charge to schools and allied groups. He reappeared in 2011 with the album Don't Stand Still on the Cereus Records label.