Twice-signed ALS, three pages two lightly-lined sheets, 8 x 11, no date. Letter to "Radio Station KGIL, Howard Gray, George Wilhelm and Others & All," signed at the conclusion and on the first page in the return address, "Woody Guthrie, c/o Cyrus Adler, 360 So. Bedford Drive, Beverly Hills, California." In part: "I just can't help writing to you folks to try to tell you what good and what a well needed job you're doing in the fields and pastures of our folklore, folkways, folksay, folkballads, folksongs, folk singers, folk dancers, and to all present and future students and scholars in all of these and similar pursuits of human good.
I well remember the many drops of honest sweat which your present planner and executive, Mr. Howard Gray shed...to help to tell this whole westerly coastline, ships at sea, mountain peoples, desert goldbugs, and working boys and working girls, and the playboys rich and poor, a few little words about me, my guitar, and my home made songs and ballads...
The words which Mr. Wilhelm uses and finds so easy on the tip of his tongue to tell you a little about the hard travels of every folk song, ballad, air, and tune, his way of making talk and chatter was the best I've heard anywhere...
Most discyspinner men tell you only a scant little about the words, tune, performers, of a songnumber. Even a smaller fewer number tell you a word about where this song was born, where it went, how it changed a bit from country to country, hill to hill, state to state, and some few proverbial folksayings to tell you a word at least about the kinds of hard labours the people in each spot do for all of us...
I feel glad for your valley folks, and glad for your hilly folks, glad for your Pasadena folks, your Glendale folks, your Beverly Hills folks...and your Burbank folks and your Sun Valley full of folks, glad, I mean, to know that there is a station called KGIL where they can...listen to Mr. Wilhem's hour or two of high class folklore and folk tales from history...Good clean decent entertainment with stars and people [and] artist of the highest calibre. Josh White. Burl Ives. Rich Dehr. Terry Gilkerson. Leadbelly. Kay Lee. Susan Reed. Richard Dyer Bennet. Jack Guthrie. Peter Seeger. Betty Sanders. Blind Sonny Terry. Cisco Houston. And, at the tiptop and muddy bottom of them all, Woody Guthrie.
My whole hour which you raked off and swept off for me and my gittbox, I don't think I could fish all day and catch the words of good feeling and words of thanks that I really want to send...
I've got several hundred more of my own folksongs and ballads which I do for kids of all ages from one to a thousand and one. I know about that samely number of songs I've learned off of miners, winder, diners and shiners, timber jacks, crop hands, cowpokes, tophands, road gangs, chain gangs, jails, railriders, up and down travelers, in and out rambler, circle goers, hoboers, comers and goers, dry boners, and wet soakers. My own songs tell about the good and bad times, hot & cold times, dry spells, flood times, the plagues and sad sicknesses, the diseases we've whipped and the ones we still must wrastle with, the tragic accidents that rake us and take us, the quakes, shakes, the storms, the wild crazy actions of the hurricane and cyclone, the ships that never return, the trains that miss a bend, a plane that towls up, and the one that lays and prays eleven whole nights in the ginroom.
It would tickle me all over to spend another hour with all of you good people there around KGIL." In very good to fine condition, with toning, tears, and paper loss to edges; writing area, especially signatures, remains mostly unaffected. KGIL began in 1947 as a big band radio station broadcasting in the San Fernando Valley, with disc jockey George Wilhelm hosting a nightly folk show from 10 to 11. This came during the early days of the American 'folk revival,' and Guthrie was clearly enormously appreciative of the station's efforts to introduce folk music to a wider audience. Rife with Guthrie's poetic vernacular and commentary on the folk scene of the period, this is a truly amazing letter with content of the highest caliber.
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