At 11yrs old Annie’s mother put a guitar in her hands and taught her a few chords. It didn’t take long for Annie to reinvent her love — she still dances, just a little differently now. She recalls her dad teaching her how to finger-pick Elizabeth Cotten’s song ‘Freight Train’. “My dad started off showing me the chords and saying, ‘Okay do this with your thumb,’ and he’d go away for a few months. He’d come back and ask me if I practiced. I was in love and couldn’t put the guitar down, so of course I practiced. Once he realized I wasn’t giving up, he kept adding a new finger and another string.”
Guthrie is a prolific songwriter and versatile musician who primarily plays acoustic guitar, bass, percussion and autoharp. Annie’s songs are honest, ranging from light and funny to gut-wrenching heartbreak (mostly gut-wrenching heartbreak); as her grandfather Woody Guthrie said, “You can only write what you see,” and she has taken that to heart, writing songs that tell it like it is.
