Woody Guthrie Center

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After my stroll through Perry, I headed straight to Tulsa, Oklahoma to visit the Woody Guthrie Center, which is a museum and archive center dedicated to the iconic songwriter and protest singer and located in the Tulsa Arts District. Right next door is the Bob Dylan Center which is not slated to open until May 10, 2022, which means I'll be making another trip to Tulsa next year!

The Woody Guthrie Center was an awesome museum and center, and provided a great introduction to Woody Guthrie and his life and music. The introductory 15-minute film wasn't showing, but there were five interactive video screens, each dedicated to one phase of his life with six short films highlighting each phase. I watched and listened to all of them. 

There were also interactive exhibits that allowed you to search and read his song lyrics in their original format. There was one big exhibit that included the original handwritten lyrics of “This Land is Your Land” and videos of other singers' renditions of the song. There was also a "Music Bar" for listening to his recorded songs. There was even a virtual reality exhibit on the Dust Bowl and Black Sunday, April 14, 1935, the date of one of the most devastating dust storms of the 1930s Dust Bowl era.

Finally, there was a special exhibit called Songs of Conscience, Sounds of Freedom, which explored songs and protest movements in our nation's history.

All in all, it was a wonderful visit and a capstone to the road trip.



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