One little conversation at an Elizabeth Mitchell concert, and before you know it Jeff Giles and Bill Childs are working on a Woody Guthrie tribute album. It's called Keep Hoping Machine Running (the title is from list of New Year's resolutions from Woody in 1942), and it's being released July 31 on Childs' Spare the Rock Records. Appropriately enough, given the 100th anniversary of Guthrie's birth, all net proceeds from sales will benefit the Woody Guthrie Foundation.
You can read more from Jeff about the album as well as see the complete tracklist, but I think listening to Chicago's Little Miss Ann perform her contribution ("Swimmy Swim") while a little video scrapbook explains how her track came to be might be even more worthwhile. As with many of Guthrie's songs, "Swimmy Swim" is pretty simple in its construction, but Little Miss Ann and her band do right by the track.
Little Miss Ann - "Swimmy Swim" [YouTube]
