Library Foundation Benefit Celebrates Guthrie

Posted: 4/7/2017 2:46:37 PM
A benefit concert sponsored by the Coeur d’Alene Public Library Foundation will feature the music of one of America’s musical icons.

“Woody Guthrie: Tunes & Tales of the Columbia River,” featuring Bill Wiemuth and Laura Sable, will be presented Friday, April 21, in the Community Room. The doors open at 7 p.m., and the performance begins at 7:30 pm.

Admission is $30 person. Tickets are available online at: www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2865420.

Sable and Wiemuth previously performed at the library with a benefit concert featuring the life and music of Patsy Cline.

The couple live in Coeur d’Alene but for the past 18 years, they have performed at theatres, aboard hundreds of cruises, and at more than 1,000 corporate events. They have performed for audiences from New York to Alaska to the Mississippi River to the United Kingdom to Australia.

Sable was born in Coeur d'Alene and grew up in Newport, Wash. She has worked as a professional singer and actress since the age of 18 when she got her first professional gig with the Coeur d'Alene Summer Theatre in the chorus of “Oklahoma!” Over the past two decades she has performed locally with the Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre, Spokane Civic Theatre, the Lake City Playhouse, and she and Wiemuth have performed for holiday productions at the Coeur d'Alene Resort. 

The couple met while working as "showboat entertainers" onboard the Grand American Queen Steamboat in 1998 and have since produced and performed countless custom duo shows for audiences across the globe.

Guthrie was born on July 14, 1912, in Okemah, Okla. During his early years in Oklahoma, he experienced the first of a series of immensely tragic personal losses. With the accidental death of his older sister Clara, the family's financial ruin, and the institutionalization and eventual loss of his mother, Woody's family and home life was forever devastated.

During the Great Depression, Guthrie took to the road and the rails and gathered experiences that were reflected in his music.

In May 1941, after a brief stay in Los Angeles, Guthrie moved his family north to Portland, Ore., in the neighborhood of Lents, on the promise of a job. Gunther von Fritsch was directing a documentary about the Bonneville Power Administration's construction of the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River, and needed a narrator.
Alan Lomax had recommended Guthrie to narrate the film and sing songs onscreen. The original project was expected to take 12 months, but as filmmakers became worried about casting such a political figure, they minimized Guthrie's role.

The Department of the Interior hired him for one month to write songs about the Columbia River and the construction of the federal dams for the documentary's soundtrack. Guthrie toured the Columbia River and the Pacific Northwest.

Guthrie said he "couldn't believe it, it's a paradise,” which appeared to inspire him creatively. In one month Guthrie wrote 26 songs, including three of his most famous: "Roll On, Columbia, Roll On", "Pastures of Plenty", and "Grand Coulee Dam". The surviving songs were released as Columbia River Songs. The film, "Columbia," was not completed until 1949.

Guthrie was married three times and fathered eight children, including American folk musician Arlo Guthrie. The elder Guthrie died from complications of Huntington's disease, a progressive genetic neurological disorder. During his later years, in spite of his illness, Guthrie served as a figurehead in the folk movement, providing inspiration to a generation of new folk musicians, including mentor relationships with “Ramblin’”Jack Elliott and Bob Dylan.

Patrons who need accommodation to participate in library programs or services are asked to contact the staff prior to the activity by calling 208-769-2315. For more library information visit www.cdalibrary.org or www.lcplibrary.org.  The library is a department of the City of Coeur d’Alene and a member of the Cooperative Information Network, www.cinlibraries.org. The library news blog is available at www.cdalibrary.org/newsletter. Library Director, Bette Ammon. Main Library hours: Monday to Thursday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m./Friday & Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m./Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. Lake City Branch Hours: Monday through Thursday, 3-6:30 p.m. For regular updates follow our libraries on Facebook and Twitter.