I was asked to write a couple of paragraphs about the music for Infamous Commonwealth Theatre’s production of The Grapes of Wrath for their subscriber newsletter:
My goal was to provide a musical context for the Joads’ journey along Route 66, not only in a narrative sense, but in the physical motion of the Hudson Super Six, the hymns and melodies the Joads might have brought with them, and the types of music they could have encountered as they traveled. These intentions led me to arrange some well known songs and melodies, which were roughly contemporaneous with the dust bowl era, alongside my own compositions.
Most of my inspiration came from listening to recordings, notably Harry Smith’s now famous Anthology of American Folk Music compilation, and later recordings made during the folk revival of the late 1950s and ’60s by such groups as the New Lost City Ramblers. I felt that it was important for the music in The Grapes of Wrath to share some of the honesty, power and directness I heard in those performances, and it is my hope that something of the “human sperit” of which Jim Casy speaks, can be heard.
Grapes opens on Saturday, April 25th at the Raven Theatre, 6157 N. Clark St., Chicago. See Infamous’s web site for more details.