Beyond his worth as a powerful balladeer, Woody Guthrie (1912-1967) was a prominent American literary figure. As a singer, poet, and essayist, he embodies the Depression and the war years that ensued.
His grandson, Cole Quest, was born in New York City, at an early age lived in Howard Beach, Queens, and later grew up in the comfortable confines of Mount Kisco and Chappaqua, in Westchester County. He has spent sufficient time playing and performing music, years ago, drifting into a sphere reminiscent of his grandfather’s. That is, however, where the similarities come to a deferential halt.
“Woody and I come from very different times and circumstances, and we are two very different people,” said Quest. “I have a love and appreciation of him and his musi,c and at times I emulate him. But I don’t pretend to have the rural, Dustbowl, Oklahoma vibe. Like I say, the most amount of dust I’ve seen is from the dust bunnies in my apartment.”
America’s great rambler and prophet-singer, Woody Guthrie, is still primarily associated with his Oklahoma roots, his birthplace in the oil boomtown of Okemah, and his trek with the Dust Bowl refugees westward in the mid-30s. Despite the undeniable part that Oklahoma played in his biography, Guthrie also lived in New York City for 27 years, arriving in 1940. (He died from a genetic brain disorder at age 55 in a Queens hospital).
“My mom (Nora) is from New York City as well,” said Quest. “Woody lived in Coney Island with my grandmother and mother (and siblings, Joady and Arlo). He experienced the homeland vibes of New York City.”
Electric Youth; Glides Naturally to Bluegrass
Not surprisingly, Cole’s upbringing was shaped and baked in all sorts of expression. Both his mother and father were modern dancers. His uncle Arlo Guthrie, would visit and occasionally play a song in the house, and if he wasn’t available in the flesh, then one of his recordings could often be heard. Cole’s father was “a music fanatic,” Cole said, and instead of reading his son a bedtime story, he would play him “a bedtime song.” It could be one of Woody’s or Bob Dylan’s or a blues number of Albert King’s, or one of Leadbelly’s gospel compositions.
Cole received his first guitar at age 10. As a teenager, he idolized Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and bands such as Led Zeppelin. His world was entirely electric. It wasn’t until he moved to Astoria, Queens, in his mid-20s, that he first picked up the mandolin and acoustic guitar. The transformation began the night that he walked into a local Irish pub; the bluegrass was unmistakably folk music at its core, but with an added layer of pep and punch. One of the participants offered a Woody Guthrie song. The rendition radiated with the same zest and hopefulness of the original, urging Cole to reconsider the contributions of his grandfather – and his ways. He attended bluegrass jam sessions and embraced the earlier stories and songs of the folk songbook. He borrowed someone’s Dobro and later bought one of his own. He’s been parked at that cultural crossroads ever since: bluegrass-anchored energy, blues-stirred restlessness, and folk-infused introspection.
“New York City has a constantly growing bluegrass community,” said Quest. “Every day of the week, you could find multiple jams to go to, like Mona’s Bluegrass Session on Monday nights.”
Over the years, Cole Quest and The City Pickers have been performing their fusion of traditional and contemporary bluegrass, recently dropping a few originals that are delightful enough to deserve to be part of the bloodstream of our amalgamated terrain.
“Where I’m From” has a marvelous sense of life and vitality. There are shadows and shades of a Woody composition, but the description of the experience is uniquely Cole’s, his message saying that words are charming gifts, that humans of all orders are inspired beings. It is a song of debt (to Woody) and part payment (him delivering his energy, making his own memories). He’s looking at everything that is going on around him, and with a fluffy, jaunty enthusiasm, discovering his own voice and pen. Among the new recordings, there is a country, heartbreak song, there are overt avowals of bluegrass, and there are keystones of gospel and bluesy hymnals. There is discreet humor. There is the sound of poetry in the words.
Playing Woody Fest; Watching “A Complete Unknown”
There is an annual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Okemah, and Cole and company have played there a time or two, a uniquely rewarding, yet complicated, perspective for him to traverse. Woody was a man of a thousand songs, and he was a man who inflamed a thousand passions. His belief in the underdog, his perceived rebelliousness, and his perceived radicalism still ruffled so many townspeople in Okemah in the late 1970s that demolition orders of Guthrie’s boyhood home were ordered and approved.
Cole’s mother, Nora, once took him to the spot where the home formerly stood. Cole was “very little then,” he said, and there wasn’t much more to see other than the remnants of a rotting foundation buried in the trees. He and his mother pushed the smallest bushes aside and there was a small, flaking pile of bricks present.
“There is a mixed feeling about him,” said Quest. “Oklahoma, though, is coming around and more accepting of Woody and maybe more proud and appreciative of his legacy…a couple years ago (around the time of the festival), someone saw us standing in the spot where the house used to be and began telling us all of this great history.”
Cole said that the big commercial success of the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown” has effectively reintroduced Woody Guthrie to a new generation of Americans.
“They open the movie with a Woody song, and you see Dylan going to meet Woody, and then he has all of these experiences, and in the end, we see Dylan reconnecting with Woody, and then going onward. It always harkens back to Woody. It is heartwarming for me to know the people involved in the project thought that that was a good idea.”
Obligated to Lineage and His Own Journey
Quest comprehends that he owes some obligation to his lineage, and that the only way that he can fulfill it gracefully is to be solid in his ways, solid in his stories, solid in his tunes, solid in his work. He doesn’t bill himself as Woody Guthrie reincarnate or the second or third coming of the greatest ballad-maker America has ever known. He will, however, play and sing one or two of Woody’s songs to stir up the crowd before relying on his own intellect, skill, and musicianship. (One of his finest gems, recorded in 2016, “My Name is New York,” niftily commingled Woody’s original lyrics with Cole’s original music.)
“I’m Woody Guthrie’s grandson so people are going to have an opinion or expectation of that,” said Quest. “There is similar overlap. I was into electric and found bluegrass, and the overlap of community and music, I found independently. It is based on my own journey into that space.”
The facts of Cole’s life seem to indicate that he was born with a genetically passed on perseverance, a belief that the underdog in him will eventually triumph. He’s daily discovering his deeper self and dwelling in the riches of what he’s finding.
“There is an advantage because they hear that it is Woody’s grandson and their ears perk up,” said Quest. “But we need to keep them in the seats. Meaning that we need to be ourselves and take own influences and build something that people could appreciate and enjoy. The connection will help you get people in the door, but people will walk out if it’s no good.”
Perennially in love with writing about the truths of the troubadour, Brian D’Ambrosio may reached at dambrosiobrian@hotmail.com
