On the two CD set, Pete Remembers Woody, Pete recounts his vivid firsthand reminiscences, wide-ranging and frequently humorous, of Woody's adult life Guthrie's transmutation of his experiences and omnivorous readings into popular although often controversial songs, his tips on freight-hopping and saloon singing, encounters with musical contemporaries Leadbelly and others, and many of the life lessons Pete has subsequently used in his own career, still ongoing in this Centennial year of Guthrie's birth. Interspersed with Pete's recollections of Woody are versions of some of Guthrie's most famous songs performed by idealistic links in the topical music chain like Arlo Guthrie (dueting with Pete on one of the few Woody-Seeger co-writes, 66 Highway Blues), the Work 'o the Weavers (This Land is Your Land, So Long, It's Been Good to Know Yuh!), CD producer David Bernz, whose own three-part Woody's Ghost serves to bookend and provide an intermission between the two CDs, and Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer, who added music to Woody's lyrics for Howdy Little Newly come. The Vanaver Caravan, the 40-year-old troupe of musicians and dancers, performs the Depression plaint Do Re Mi, Union Maid, Pastures of Plenty and Peace Pin Boogie, while members of Hope Machine tackle I Ain't Got No Home and I've Got to Know. Woody himself, with another of his running buddies, Cisco Houston, is heard on a 1940's recording of New York Town. Fink's banjo-playing on various traditional tunes helps tie together the masterful sequencing of spoken stories and related songs.
