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Okemah, Oklahoma’s first tribute for Woody Guthrie will be available on digital platforms worldwide on July 14, 2024.  The first tribute took place on December 1, 1988 at the historic Crystal Theatre in Okemah.  This album is a live recording of that event.   It contains works by Guthrie, as well as songs collectively written by Larry Long and children of Oklahoma.

The event played before a full house which included Guthrie’s sister, Mary Jo Edgmon, who wrote, “I felt the warmth of my family all around me. Clara, Roy, Woody, George, Papa and Mama. They, too, all sat in this very theater many years ago. When the children came marching down the aisle and onto the stage, I swelled with pride and the tears came. I knew Woody was watching.”

Besides Larry Long and seventy school children from Okemah, Langston, and Davenport, Oklahoma there was banjo virtuoso Alan Munde, “Fiddlin’ Pete” Watercott, gospel pianist Shirley Davis, Woodrow (Wotko) Haney and  Olen Edwards.  This was not only the first time that an African American Choir had ever graced the stage of the Crystal Theatre, but that Woody Guthrie’s words were spoken in both the Seminole & Creek language.

As a result of Long’s work in Okemah, an organization known as W.O.O.D.Y. (Woody Guthrie Okemah Organization for Developing Youth) was born. Founding members included Okemah residents Carolyn Price, Dr. Larry and Vicki McKinney, Lois Tanner, Mark Smyth, Shari Parks, Bobby Massey, and Mike and Wilma Lambeth. The organization’s goal was to hold an annual event to not only honor Woody Guthrie, but to also raise funds for the education of local youth. This organization eventually transitioned into the Woody Guthrie Coalition Inc.

One of the featured songs on this collection, which was collectively written with Okemah youth, entitled “Okemah Waltz” became Okemah’s official town song on November 12, 2012 by a unanimous vote of the Okemah City Council.

Plans are presently in the works for Larry Long & the Children of Oklahoma to have a reunion in 2025 during the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival.

The entirety of It Takes a Lot of People can also be downloaded on Larry’s Bandcamp site.

 

Larry Long writes songs the same way an artists uses found objects: a bit of local folklore here, a traditional American Indian instrument there, and, before you know it, he’s created a thing of beauty.  It might take a little time before that beauty becomes clear, but the listener’s patience never goes unrewarded.

On this, his third album, the Minneapolis song crafter and guardian of the Mississippi River has assembled a most intriguing and beguiling collection of tunes.  (Long has called in some chips, and fans of local music will recognize assistants like Michael Johnson, Peter Ostroushko, Claudia Schmidt, Leo Kottke, Billy Peterson and Bruce Kurnow).

The centerpiece of the album is a 13-minute-long “Water in the Rain,” which recalls and is dedicated to the 38 Dakota warriors who were hanged en masse in Mankato in 1862.  It also features Dakota poet Amos Owen listing the names of the 38 and offering a prayer for reconciliation.  It is a project of moving depth and emotion that demands repeated hearing and rapt attention.  Rating: 4 Stars – James M. Tarbox, St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch

Produced by Billy Peterson & Larry Long
Digitally recorded at Creation Audio
Recording Engineer: Chopper Black
Mixing Engineers: Chopper Black & Lynn F. Peterson
Musical Consultant: Rick McArthur
Front Cover Art: Traditional Cree Biting of Birch Innerbark by Angelique Merasty (Beaver Lake, Saskatchewan)
Front Cover Photo: Ron Miles

Sweet Thunder is made available through Larry Long Music in association with Rock the Cause Records

The University of Minnesota Libraries is one of the largest special collections departments in a university setting in the United States.

Larry Long’s Archives include the life-stories of over one-thousand elders who’ve been honored through his multicultural curriculum entitled ‘Elders’ Wisdom, Children’s Song’. These elder stories personalize their tragedies and triumphs, often against injustice and terrible odds, while contributing to the well-being of their communities.

This collection also includes artifacts from Larry’s fifty-years of performing and organizing throughout the world, including the Central Minnesota Powerline Struggle, American Agriculture Movement’s Tractorcade to Washington D.C., Senator Paul Wellstone, Mississippi River Revival, Run For Freedom with Lakota youth, American Indian Movement, Pete Seeger, Studs Terkel, Fiddlin’ Pete Watercott, Kris Kristofferson, Meridel Le Sueuer, Hormel Strike, Soviet-American Peace Cruises down the Volga and Mississippi Rivers, South Africa, Brazil, PACERS Small Schools Cooperative in rural Alabama, honoring of Mrs. Rosa Parks at the 45th Anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the first hometown tribute for Woody Guthrie in Okemah, Oklahoma.

The University of Minnesota’s goal is to have Long’s archives digitized and available to the public by for his 75th birthday on November 21, 2026.