When The Who’s Pete Townshend commissions you to create an album encompassing the life and times of the great Woody Guthrie you know you must be doing something right.
Celebrated Somerset-based singer-songwriter Reg Meuross was the man Townshend set in his sights to devise the release and the result is a 16-track tour de force rekindling the life one of the most significant figures in American folk music.
He was an apt choice with an enviable back catalogue. When people ask where all the protest singers are now, they need look no further than Meuross. Few songwriters have contributed more to the protest and commentary song annals than him so who better to compose a song cycle homage to ‘The Father of Protest’.
With more than 15 solo albums under his belt, Teesside-born Meuross is renowned for his strong, thought-provoking narrative songs that soar straight to the heart of the matter – be it a song about the NHS or those triggered by the events of 9/11 and the July 7 London bombings.
He has been inspired by characters from Dick Turpin to the poet Shelley, serial killers to the Bevan boys, WW1 veterans to Yorkshire fishwives.
In many ways a latter-day Guthrie, Meuross embarked on four years of meticulous research into the life of the man dubbed ‘The Dust Bowl Balladeer’, totally immersing himself in the subject.
The result is the mighty Fire & Dust, released on Hatsongs Records on March 14, 2025 and produced by Townshend.
“I so enjoyed my role as studio producer for this music from Reg.
His songwriting comes straight from the heart, the melodies fall under his fingers. This is folk music at its best.”
Pete Townshend
Meuross’s third ‘song cycle’ it follows on from 12 Silk Handkerchiefs (2018) about the 1968 Hull triple trawler tragedy and the subsequent campaign which saw fishwife Lilian Bilocca fight for better safety conditions.
In 2023 Meuross unveiled his second song cycle, the acclaimed Stolen from God – the result of another painstaking, no stone unturned probe, this time into the transatlantic slave trade.
This impactful, perceptive new song cycle shines a bright light on Woodrow Wilson Guthrie’s roller coaster life and notably has received a nod of approval from Woody’s daughter Nora.
Born in Oklahoma in 1912, his prolific songs of American socialism and anti-fascism inspired generations and many have become staples in the U.S. music canon. He has influenced the work of key musicians from Bob Dylan to Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen to Pete Seeger as well as Tom Paxton to Billy Bragg.
Married three times, he had eight children but succumbed to Huntington’s disease at the age of just 55. Amidst all his music-making he also served in both the US Merchant Marine and U.S. Army during WW2.
Meuross traces that remarkable story in 13 original ‘light and shade’ songs complemented by covers of four of Woody’s own – So Long It’s Been Good to Know Ya, Deportees, Ain’t Got No Home and probably his best known song This Land is Your Land – which has been called ‘America’s alternative national anthem’.
The album title references the fire tragedies that devastated his family while ‘dust’ recalls the dust storms that caused the largest migration in U.S. history, forcing Woody out of his childhood home but setting him on his extraordinary journey.
Some of the songs are written from the perspective of family members – his father Charley and his wife Mary. Elsewhere Meuross has found inspiration from a poem penned by Guthrie and Guthrie’s own written thoughts when in a New Jersey psychiatric hospital. Bright, up tempo numbers weave together with songs of sadness and wry humour.
In Meuross’s percussive, driven track Fit for Work (told from the point of view of a Mexican migrant worker working in the fields of California) he echoes Guthrie’s own song Deportees, which recalls the 1940 plane crash at California’s Los Gatos Canyon in which 28 Mexican migrant workers, being deported back over the border were killed – along with the American air crew – but while the crew were dignified by name, the workers were simply referred to as deportees.
Closing track The Gypsy Singer* makes a fine finale, inspired by Bob Dylan’s visits to Guthrie in his last years. It’s a gentle and poignant ‘passing of the baton’ song.
Says Reg: “It was because of Dylan’s visits to Woody, his mimicking of his songs and singing, his hobo style, and his courage that I – and probably many more contemporary music fans – became interested in Woody. I already knew some of his folk songs, in fact in my very first gig I played two of them. But Dylan drew my attention to the side of Woody for which he has since become famous; the compassionate, flawed and fiery fighter for freedom and equality, the protest balladeer, the ‘Gypsy Singer.”
Townshend who also plays on two of the tracks (bass guitar and keyboards) says: “Reg’s terrific songs tell Woody’s life story with respect and affection, but also truth”.
When he commissioned the new work he saw the project as ‘drawing a direct line from Woody through Bob Dylan to Reg Meuross’.
“Fire & Dust reveals a Woody Guthrie who was, above all, human. An activist, a humanitarian, tireless in his support for the working man, he was a poor parent, and a poor husband who put the causes he sang about so passionately before his duty to his own family. For me, through Reg’s brilliant songs, learning that Woody was a man with faults – just like me and most men I know – brought him to life in a new way.”
Reg plays guitar throughout the album and his strong, clear vocal steers the tracks. He also contributes harmonica and banjo while he is joined by top flight musicians including Show of Hands’ Phil Beer on mandolin, slide guitar and fiddle, Welsh pianist and accordionist Geraint Watkins (Nick Lowe, Van Morrison), Marion Fleetwood (TRADarr, The Sandy Denny Project) on fiddle, Roy Dodds (Fairground Attraction, Working Week)on percussion, Simon Edwards (Graham Parker, Talk Talk) on bass guitar, Beth Porter on cello and Katie Whitehouse on backing vocals.
Full band, trio, quartet and solo shows are planned through 2025 alongside the release, with narrated interludes between songs spoken by Will Kaufman, Emeritus Professor of American Cultural History at the University of Central Lancashire. He says: “In addition to his inspirational musicianship, Reg Meuross has an ear tuned to history, justice and the everyday human struggle to find a place in this world. It’s only natural he should write and sing with the angel of Guthrie on his shoulder.”
Meuross has formed a new band to head out on the road – Reg Meuross and The Strike – a flexible line-up drawn from the musicians who performed on the album. A special album launch gig will take place on March 12 at London’s Bush Hall with the full band and narrator and this will be followed by some trio shows (Meuross, Fleetwood and Watkins)and several quartet shows, when the trio will be joined by Phil Beer – The Stables, Milton Keynes, St. Edith Folk, Sevenoaks, Wickham Festival, Sidmouth Folk Week and Devon’s The David Hall, South Petherton.
In Fire & Dust Meuross effortlessly and empathetically carries the mantle of Guthrie’s magnificent music and message, in a potent, unflinching storytelling of a fragile, colourful and convoluted life, marred by so much tragedy but fuelled by so much passion.
2025 TOUR DATES
PREVIEW GIG:
February 22 SOLO Clent Village Hall, Worcestershire
ALBUM TOUR
March 12 FULL BAND album launch – Bush Hall, London
March 20 TRIO The Ropewalk, Barton Upon Humber
March 21 TRIO Nailsea Folk Club, Somerset
March 22 TRIO The Beehive, Honiton
March 23 QUARTET The Stables, Milton Keynes
April 4 SOLO Phoenix Folk Club, Poynton, Cheshire
April 6 SOLO Globe Hay on Wye, Powys
April 7 SOLO Kitchen Garden, Birmingham
April 8 SOLO The Cutty Wren, Redcar
April 10 SOLO The Old Bell Hotel, Derby
April 11 SOLO Cafe #9, Sheffield
April 12 SOLO Glenfarg Folk Feast Day, Bridge of Earn
April 29/30 SOLO Costa Del Folk, Ibiza
May 11 SOLO Filey Folk Festival
June 4th TRIO Stoller Hall, Manchester
June 5th TRIO Temperance Bar, Leamington Spa
June 6 TRIO Bridport Arts Centre, Dorset
June 7 QUARTET St Edith Folk, Kent
June 19 TRIO The Sub Rooms, Stroud
July 2 SOLO Silo Sessions, Fowey, Cornwall
July 5 SOLO New Forest Folk Festival
August 3 QUARTET Wickham Festival, Hampshire
August 4 QUARTET Sidmouth Folk Week
August 10 TRIO Broadstairs Folk Week
September 3 SOLO Grateful Fred’s at The Atkinson, Southport
September 11 TRIO Huntingdon Hall, Worcester
September 12 QUARTET The David Hall, South Petherton, Devon
September 13 TRIO Ropetackle Arts, Shoreham by Sea, Sussex
September 20 SOLO Banter Festival, Lincolnshire
September 23 SOLO Priston Festival, Bath
“A mighty songwriter and an equally fine singer” – Martin Carthy
For more details please visit :regmeuross.com/fire-and-dust
* The closing track on this album, The Gypsy Singer, is Reg Meuross’s moving tribute to Woody Guthrie, based on Bob Dylan’s hospital visits to Guthrie in his final years. With the current release of the Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown it is a topical song, reflecting on the passing of the baton between these two iconic figures of American folk music.
Says Reg: “It was because of Dylan’s visits to Woody, his mimicking of his songs and singing, his hobo style, and his courage that I – and probably many more contemporary music fans – became interested in Woody. I already knew some of his folk songs, in fact in my very first gig I played two of them. But Dylan drew my attention to the side of Woody for which he has since become famous; the compassionate, flawed and fiery fighter for freedom and equality, the protest balladeer, the ‘Gypsy Singer.”
The song ties in with the opening scene of A Complete Unknown, when a young Bob Dylan (played by Timothée Chalamet) arrives at Greystone Park Hospital in New Jersey, where Guthrie is bedridden with Huntington’s disease; Dylan performs a song for Guthrie, “Song to Woody,” marking a pivotal moment in the film where Dylan pays homage to his musical hero. (Guthrie is played by American actor and film producer Scoot McNairy.)
