The Little Sandy Review. No. 5: A Tribute to Woody Guthrie

Approx. 7" x 4¼", pp. 38, [2]; self-wrappers; saddle-stitched and mimeographed throughout; a fine copy." This copy from the collection of the late Jon Pankake, co-founder and co-editor of The Little Sandy Review. "The Little Sandy Review was a folk music fanzine published by Paul Nelson and Jon Pankake in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Launched in 1959, the zine was dedicated to reviewing folk music legends such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, as well as then newcomers like Bob Dylan, The New Lost City Ramblers, and Koerner, Ray, and Glover. Thirty issues of the zine were published in total before publication ceased in 1965" (University of Minnesota, Special Collections). Say Nelson and Pankake in the inaugural issue: "We are two people who love folk music very much and want to do all we can to help the good in it grow and the bad in it perish. After reading this issue, it should be very apparent to anyone who we think is good and who we think is bad and why . We also want to print a complete coverage of all folk records released that would be of interest to the American folk-record buyer." And so they did for six years, reviewing the likes of Pete Seeger, Peggy Seeger, Bob Gibson, Jean Ritchie, Muddy Waters, New Lost City Ramblers, Odetta, Blind Willie McTell, Maybelle Carter, Bonnie Dobson, Alan Lomax, Woodie Guthrie, Marjorie Guthrie, Ed McCurdy, Lightning Hopkins, Joan Baez, Greenbriar Boys, the Soho Skiffle Group, the Dillards, Mississippi John Hurt, John Lee Hooker, "Spider" John Koerner, Leadbelly, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs, Carolyn Hester, the Clancy Brothers, Judy Collins, Peter, Paul, and Mary, and even Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers. And native Minnesotan, friend of Glover, Nelson, and Pankake, Bob Dylan whose debut album gets a 7-page review in issue 22 - the longest review by far in the entire run of LSR. Dylan's second album, Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, gets a 5-page review in issue 27, where it is panned. Contributors to No. 5 include Jon Pankake and Paul Nelson, and their reviews the Ledbelly Memorial Set I-V, The Weavers at Carnegie Hall, and Woody Guthrier's Ballads of Sacco and Vanzetti." Also, "Something about Woody," by Malvina Reynolds, two letters from Woody, 2 illustrations of Woody by Joni Tangen, a Minneapolis art student, "Woody Guthrie and the Gift to be Simple," by Pete Seeger; "A Few Comments About Woody from Canada," by Edith Fowke; and a Woody Guthrie Discography, among others. Also, an article on the Stinson Record Line. Cover artwork by Jon Pankake. "Over time, the value of these reviews grows more apparent as the recordings themselves - re-packaged and re-issued multiple times by now - gain increasing stature as landmarks in the emerging consensus on a formal American roots canon. For all of this to happen, though, the editors of The Little Sandy Review first had to invent, essentially from scratch, the foundations of modern rock journalism" (David Lightbourne, from newvulgate.blogspot.com).