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Title: Dust Bowl Ballads
Artiste: Woody Guthrie
Genre: Folk
Familiarity: An American folk hero, but I've heard little of his work.

1. The great dust storm (Dust storm disaster): Kind of an uptempo song, I assume just he and his guitar, very acoustic, gives a good idea of the hard times in what became known as the Dust Bowl in America in the 1930s. Like much folk, it's basically telling a story, fairly straightforward, almost as if Guthrie was an observer and not involved, and yet there's great emotion coming through too.
2. I ain't got no home in this world anymore: Another uptempo one; odd, given the title and the subject matter.
3. Talkin' dust bowl blues: Sort of a narrated vocal rather than a singing one. Like the line “Gamblin' man is rich and the workin' man is poor.”
4. Vigilante man: Ooh! Harmonica! Nice. Good tune.
5. Dust can't kill me: Real sense of defiance in this. Like it, though it Does come across as a little selfish --- “Dust got my baby but it can't get me.” Hmmm.
6. Pretty Boy Floyd: It's okay but not that great.
7. Dust pneumonia blues: Meh, not mad about this one. Just not feeling it.
8. Blowin' down this road: More harmonica. Cool. Like this one.
9. Tom Joad part 1: I never liked Tom Joad from the time I heard the Springsteen album, so I'm not starting from a good place here. Meh.
10. Tom Joad part 2: Why does this have to be in two parts? They're basically the same. Meh again.
11. Dust Bowl refugee: Good harmonica start. This is pleasant enough.
12. Do re mi: I know this one. Heard Nanci Griffith cover it on her Other Voices, Other Rooms album.
13. Dust bowl blues: A real old blues tune, can't beat it.
14. Dusty old dust: God damn I can feel that dust in my throat! Need a drink after this. Another decent acoustic song.

End result: I think the problem with this album is that, while it's great and all, there's only so much you can listen to him talk about how the dust storms ruined his life. Not to cheapen what happened, but would you listen to a full album about say Hurricane Katrina or the Great San Francisco Earthquake? It gets a little boring after a while.

So, Love or Hate? Despite all that I still have to give it a Love. There's just too much honesty and pain in there not to acknowledge it.

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