Level: 2
Tuning: Standard

"Pastures of Plenty" was the last song Woody Guthrie wrote about the dust bowl and its after-effects. While traveling around the northwest, writing songs about the Grand Coulee Dam project for one of FDR's government-sponsored artist programs, he saw some Okies still living in government camps. Based on the Appalachian tune, "Pretty Polly," the lyrics reveal the depths of Woody's feeling for these folk who had been his neighbors back in Oklahoma. It's one of his often covered songs, with versions by dozens of folk singers. Some people play "Pastures of Plenty" in a minor key, but Woody didn't, and this fingerpicking version is in the key of D major, with plenty of blue notes thrown in. Old-time Appalachian musicians and blues players/singers of the early '30s often played a song's melody while singing it (instead of playing a simplified backup part) and that's what happens in this arrangement. This isn't typical Travis-style fingerpicking: though the thumb plays four downbeats per bar, it's the thumb and not the fingers that pick out the melody.