October Legends and Americana Ending November 14th
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 11/15/2015
Record Album, Songs To Grow On: Nursery Days WITH: Original booklet inscribed, “Our latest album, Woody Guthrie”. Songs to Grow on: Nursery Days. New York: DISC Company, [1947]. Oblong quarto, original half black and red paper. Housed in a custom clamshell Box. Original album of three 78 rpm discs containing the first recordings of six beloved children’s songs by Guthrie composed with and for his beloved daughter Cathy, given to the recipient with a laid-in original booklet from Moe Asch’s legendary DISC Company inscribed on the title page. Three 78 rpm discs in fine condition, lightest edge-wear to original album boards; laid-in booklet in fine condition. A scarce about-fine album with a notable association.
This rare album, with a distinctive association, is from the estate of Guthrie’s close and intimate correspondent Charlotte Strauss. “The most important Guthrie recordings on DISC Records before its demise [ in 1947] were his children’s songs…Woody made up songs to sing to his daughter Cathy, to whom he referred lovingly as Miss Stackabones…Many of these are still loved by children today. In 1947 DISC released Songs to Grow on: Nursery Days (Disc605)…Owing to their importance, Guthrie’s children’s recordings were among the very first Asch issued whenever a new format came along” (Santelli, 64)
Guthrie’s music and lyrics for the Songs to Grow on series of albums, composed for and with his beloved daughter Cathy, possess an artless glow that makes them “truly children’s songs”-the work of a man whose “innocence [and] childlike quality of wonder…were more than just a pose- he actually seemed to shed 30 years if experience and see the world as Cathy did…the bouncy, open rhyminess of being a kid. It was somehow inevitable, once he returned from the army [in early 1946] and began spending more time with her, that he and Cathy would become collaborators in fact as well as spirit” (Klein, 325-5). In early 1947 Cathy Guthrie died in a tragic fire at age six.
With laid-in original booklet for the DISC Company Songs to Grow on album series. With three original 78 rpm discs in original paper sleeves: “Needle Sing” (5074A), “Pick It Up” (5074B); “Build a House” (5073A), “Pretty and Shinyo “(5073B); “My Little Seed”(5075A), “ All Work Together” (5075B). Cover illustration by Thelma Martin. New Grove, 856. From the estate of Charlotte Strauss, whose revealing and often passionate correspondence with Guthrie began in 1945, intensified as he completed his tour with the Army, and continued over several years. Comes with letter of authenticity from University Archives.
This lot has a Reserve Price that has not been met.