Woody Guthrie Trivia
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60 free Woody Guthrie trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Woody Guthrie trivia quiz follows the folk singer from Okemah, Oklahoma, to the Los Angeles radio station where he first found fame, the New York loft he shared with Pete Seeger, the month he spent writing songs about the Columbia River dams, and the hospital wards where a teenage Bob Dylan came to visit. It covers the songs (This Land Is Your Land, Dust Bowl Ballads, Pretty Boy Floyd, Deportee), the book and film Bound for Glory, his Merchant Marine voyages, his three marriages and eight children, and the tributes that followed his death in 1967. About a third of the questions are easy enough for anyone who knows the chorus of his most famous song; the rest dig into radio call signs, hootenannies, the Hoping Machine and the archives that ended up in Tulsa. It suits pub quiz setters, music teachers and anyone who loves American roots music. If you enjoy it, try our folk music and Bob Dylan quizzes too. Every answer was checked against the Wikipedia articles on Guthrie, his songs, his family and the films and albums built from his work, and each explanation adds one more detail.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which US president was Woody Guthrie named after?
Woodrow Wilson
His full name was Woodrow Wilson Guthrie; Wilson was the Democratic candidate the year Woody was born, and won.
Q 02In which state was Woody Guthrie born?
Oklahoma
He was born on July 14, 1912, in the small town of Okemah, and left the state at 17.
Q 03Guthrie's hometown of Okemah was named after a chief of which people?
Kickapoo
The town was platted in 1902 on Creek Nation land and now hosts WoodyFest every July.
Q 04What phrase did Guthrie famously display on his guitar?
This machine kills fascists
A bronze statue of him in Okemah reproduces the guitar and its slogan.
Q 05Guthrie wrote 'This Land Is Your Land' in 1940 in response to which overplayed radio song?
God Bless America
He thought Irving Berlin's song was unrealistic and complacent, and signed his manuscript 'All you can write is what you see.'
Q 06The melody of 'This Land Is Your Land' was adapted from a tune recorded by which group?
The Carter Family
Their recording 'When the World's on Fire' was itself based on the Baptist hymn 'Oh, My Loving Brother'.
Q 07Where did Guthrie write the original lyrics of 'This Land Is Your Land' on February 23, 1940?
A New York hotel room
He was staying at the Hanover House on 43rd Street; by one account he then forgot about the song for years.
Q 08Guthrie's 1944 'This Land Is Your Land' dropped two critical verses: one on hunger, and one on what?
Private property
The earliest known recording, from March 1944, still includes the verse about the sign that says 'no trespassing'.
Q 09Who performed 'This Land Is Your Land' with Pete Seeger at Obama's 2009 inaugural celebration?
Bruce Springsteen
Seeger's grandson Tao Rodríguez-Seeger joined them; Springsteen had been playing the song live since 1980.
Q 10At whose presidential inauguration did Jennifer Lopez sing part of 'This Land Is Your Land' in a medley?
Joe Biden
She blended it with 'America the Beautiful' on January 20, 2021.
Q 11In 2002, 'This Land Is Your Land' was among the first 50 recordings added to which list?
The National Recording Registry
The Library of Congress selects recordings each year for their cultural or historical significance.
Q 12What nickname did Guthrie earn after releasing his 1940 album about the Okie migration?
The Dust Bowl Troubadour
He wrote the album from his own experience of joining the migration of Okies to California.
Q 13Which label released Dust Bowl Ballads in 1940?
Victor
Nearly all of it was cut in a single day, April 26, 1940, at the label's Camden, New Jersey studios.
Q 21Guthrie used his spot on the CBS radio show Back Where I Come From to get a booking for which friend?
Lead Belly
The two had busked together in Harlem bars, and Ledbetter's Tenth Street apartment was a hangout for New York's folk scene.
Q 22Why did Guthrie quit the well-paid radio show Pipe Smoking Time after only seven broadcasts?
He was told what to sing
The Model Tobacco Company was paying him $180 a week, a large salary in 1940.
Q 23In 1941 the US government hired Guthrie for one month to write songs about which river's dams?
The Columbia
He wrote 26 songs in that month, including 'Roll On, Columbia, Roll On' and 'Pastures of Plenty'.
Q 14Which song on Dust Bowl Ballads was so long it had to be split across both sides of a 78 rpm disc?
Tom Joad
It retells the story of the hero of The Grapes of Wrath, which had just been filmed.
Q 15Guthrie's 'Pretty Boy Floyd' portrays the Depression-era bank robber as what kind of figure?
A misunderstood Robin Hood
He wrote it in March 1939, five years after Floyd was killed by a posse led by FBI agent Melvin Purvis.
Q 16At which Los Angeles radio station did Guthrie first find fame in the late 1930s?
KFVD
He performed hillbilly music there with his radio partner Maxine 'Lefty Lou' Crissman.
Q 17What was Guthrie's radio nickname for his on-air partner Maxine Crissman?
Lefty Lou
Their KFVD show made him enough money to send for his family from Texas.
Q 18What was the title of the column Guthrie wrote 174 times for the communist newspaper People's World?
Woody Sez
It was written in an exaggerated hillbilly dialect and usually came with a small comic drawing.
Q 19Which folklorist recorded hours of Guthrie's songs and conversation for the Library of Congress in 1940?
Alan Lomax
He later suggested Guthrie write an autobiography, thinking his childhood stories were among the best he had read.
Q 20A committee named for which author hosted the 1940 benefit where Guthrie first met Pete Seeger?
John Steinbeck
The event was hosted by the John Steinbeck Committee to Aid Farm Workers.
Q 24How many songs did Guthrie write during his single month working for the Bonneville Power Administration?
26
He called the Pacific Northwest 'a paradise', and the songs were released as Columbia River Songs.
Q 25What word did Guthrie and Seeger pick up for the Almanac Singers' informal concerts?
Hootenanny
The Sunday events raised donation money to pay the rent on Almanac House in Greenwich Village.
Q 26Which Almanac Singers labor song did the group later agree Guthrie wrote, so his children would get royalties?
Union Maid
Songs written at Almanac House were normally credited to all members collectively.
Q 27Which publisher issued Guthrie's partly fictionalized autobiography Bound for Glory in 1943?
E.P. Dutton
Clifton Fadiman's New Yorker review called Guthrie and his songs 'a national possession, like Yellowstone and Yosemite'.
Q 28Who played Guthrie in the 1976 film Bound for Glory?
David Carradine
Hal Ashby directed and the film's cinematographer Haskell Wexler won an Oscar.
Q 29Bound for Glory (1976) was the first feature film to use which piece of camera equipment?
The Steadicam
Inventor Garrett Brown operated it himself for the film's moving shots.
Q 30In which branch of wartime service did Guthrie sail as a mess man and dishwasher from 1943?
The Merchant Marine
His friends Cisco Houston and Jim Longhi talked him into it after the Army refused him as a USO performer.