Tribute to Woody Guthrie in Wheeling September 10
WHEELING IL - The Indian Trails Public Library, 355 S. Schoenbeck Road, presents “The Life & Songs of Woody Guthrie” on Sunday, September 10 at 1:00 pm.
The program features folk singer songwriter Mark Dvorak presenting pieces from Guthrie’s vast body of written works, and performing twelve of his most enduring songs.
Guthire was born in Okemah OK July 14, 1912 and was America’s great folk ballad maker. He also wrote books, drew pictures, had a newspaper column and hosted a couple of radio shows, one in New York and earlier in Los Angeles. Some of Guthrie's best songs - “This Land Is Your Land,” “Roll On Columbia,” “Pastures of Plenty,” and countless others - endure as living documents of the times in which he lived and worked and are still relevant some fifty-six years after he passed away.
“The program was adapted from various sources over the course of years,” said Dvorak from his home in Brookfield IL, just outside Chicago. "It was performed in 1984 as the inaugural event for the Plank Road Folk Music Society in 1984. The Plank Road folks are still carrying on the song tradition in the Downers Grove area and Woody’s songs are still resonant in today’s world.”
Dvorak has given concerts in almost all of the United States and has made visits to Finland, Canada and Ireland. To date he has released twenty albums of traditional and original music including Waterbug’s acclaimed Time Ain’t Got Nothin’ On Me and 2020s independent release Let Love Go On. He is the music director for Music & Potlucks, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization which presents musical and cultural programing to support agencies who serve those who are food and sheltered challenged.
He as won awards for children’s music, journalism and was honored in 2013 with the FARM Lantern Bearer Award from Folk Alliance International. In 2008 he received the Woodstock Folk Festival Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Chicago Tribune calls Dvorak “masterful,” and the Fox Valley Folk Festival describes him as a “living archive of song and style.” In 2012 WFMT 98.7 fm Midnight Special host Rich Warren named him “Chicago’s official troubadour.”
For information phone the Indian Trails Public Library at 847.459.4100 or visit www.itpld.org.
Learn more about Mark Dvorak at www.markdvorak.com.