Maine musicians/singers Dave Peloquin and Bob Webb will pay tribute to Woody Guthrie at their “Woody’s A’Hundred” concert on Saturday, Sept. 22, at the University of Maine at Farmington.

FARMINGTON — The Arts Institute of Western Maine will kick off its fall season with a concert in honor of Woody Guthrie’s 100th birthday.

Maine troubadours Bob Webb and Dave Peloquin will celebrate Guthrie’s music and times with their  “Woody’s A’Hundred” concert on Saturday, Sept. 22, at the University of Maine at Farmington.

Drawing on more than 40 years of experience singing Guthrie’s songs, Webb and Peloquin perform his music with warmth and humor.

Woody’s songs of hard times and good people have been celebrated worldwide. He wanted to write songs that make people feel good about themselves, such as “This Land Is Your Land.”

Webb and Peloquin will recount the surprising story of how that song came to be written, as well as other well-loved songs written by the “Dustbowl Balladeer” such as “Hard Travellin’,” “Do-Re-Mi” and “So Long, It’s Been Good To Know Yuh.”

Webb and Peloquin explore America of the 1930s and 1940s, a timewhen the Depression, the Dust Bowl and World War II combined to drive many Americans from their homes. They demonstrate Guthrie’s talent as a propagandist for the federal government, his heroism in the service of the wartime Merchant Marine, and his feelings for the lost refugees from his native Oklahoma.

Guthrie’s songwriting influenced a generation of icons of American music, including Bob Dylan, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Bruce Springsteen and Woody’s son, Arlo Guthrie.

One of the most important American songster of the 1930s and ’40s, Guthrie’s songs still hit home today.

Webb’s performance career has taken him from New Zealand to Poland, and has included touring with Tom Waits. He began singing Guthrie songs in 1963, and became acquainted with a number of Guthrie’s friends, including Will Geer, Bess Lomax Hawes, Sam Hinton and Frank Hamilton.

Besides his acclaimed work with the guitar, Webb is also a master of the five-string banjo in the frailing or clawhammer style of the Southern Appalachian mountains. In 1983, he curated “Ring the Banjar!: The Banjo in America from Folklore to Factory,” the first full-scale museum exhibition about the history of the banjo.

Singer and guitarist Peloquin founded and performed with two popular New England based sea-music groups, Wickford Express and Compass Rose, the latter having appeared by invitation at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. He, too, began singing  Guthrie’s songs during the 1960s.

The “Woody’s A’Hundred” concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Nordica Auditorium. Tickets are $10 for adults, free for children and students. For more information, call 778 -3722 or visit artsinstitute.org. 

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