Customer Reviews

This Land Is Your Land

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a fantastic CD! Our two year old daughter has loved it since she was six months old - Woody Guthries fun filled songs and great song melodies are a real treat and never wear out. It has saved us many a time on long road trips with the little one and is just pure fun to listen to. Highly recommended!

This CD instantly became our family's favorite--we've been dancing in the kitchen every night since we got it. Plus, Riding in My Car and All Work Together are great songs to use as cues with my two-year old, and are infinitely superior to Barney! We'll be listening to this one long after her other children's CDs have been outgrown.

Toe-tapping, finger-snapping. It really is a classic. Not only do my four young grandsons love this CD, so do I and other adults. We listen to it frequently when driving locally and on long trips. The kids enjoy it because the songs are catchy and fun, and the vocals are so distinctive. But adults can appreciate the exceptional musicianship as well. The arrangements and instrumentation are done by talented professionals having a good time, and the quality is outstanding. Of course the CD is set apart by the fact that the songs were written by Woody Guthrie and are sung by Woody, Arlo, and the two together (thanks to modern technology). Far superior to most recordings for kids.

A lot of people know Woody Guthrie as guitar playing, nasally singing "king" of the Dust Bowl blues. The quintessential Okie. Or as "king" of the hoboes in the Great Depression of the 1930's. And, of course, those are two of his personas. However, along the way he also became an important singer and writer of children's songs, many of which, almost by accident, we sang as kids (at least those who grew up in the 1950's, others can tell their own tales) without knowing the source. That is probably most clearly seen in Woody's classic "This Land Is Your Land" but there are, as this CD under review demonstrates, many others. Woody just seemed to have a knack for producing the kind of doggerel that kids, including this reviewer when he was a kid, just love. Kudos, Woody.

Here Woody and/or his son Arlo, a folk legend in his own right from the "Generation of `68" (if for no other reason than the song "Alice's Restaurant", one of the 1960's anthems) run through a litany of Woody's better child-oriented songs. I note the wonderfully silly "Riding In My Car", the above-mentioned "This Land Is Your Land" and "So Long It's Been Good To Know Yuh". I can hear you humming right now.