Woody Guthrie shouldn’t be a name that is unfamiliar to any of you reading this. He is perhaps America’s most famous singer-songwriter and has influenced a great number of the most famous musicians of the late twentieth century, big names like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Joe Strummer. Guthrie wrote America’s unofficial national anthem "This Land is Your Land", was rumoured to be associated with several of America’s communist parties, married three times with eight children and had a guitar which killed fascists, all whilst living through depression, so he lived a fairly interesting and busy life.

2012 marks the centenary of Woody Guthrie’s birth, but Jackson Browne and company are kicking off the celebrations early, with this compilation and tribute. These are not songs that were recorded by Guthrie during his lifetime; rather they have been compiled and pieced together from the staggering amount of material that Guthrie left behind when he passed away in 1967. So much material that Billy Bragg and Wilco have already managed to team up and release two albums worth of previously unheard and unreleased music.

An interesting and somewhat disparate collection of individuals have come together to contribute to this album, some of those included make sense, others come as a bit of a surprise; did anyone really think that Lou Reed would turn up on a Woody Guthrie tribute album? Despite all these different style the album has come together well, with the final product being a strong and considered tribute to the great man of the American folk tradition. That being said, some tracks work slightly better than others.

Title track "A Note of Hope" is an understated instrumental affair, which sets the listener up nicely and provides a real sense of time and place. That is before the album changes tack completely. Launching straight into jazz number "Wild Card in the Hole" a song created by Madeleine Peyroux from a lyric in Guthrie’s journals. Whilst it seems like a slightly strange genre shift, it is a great performance throughout, with a stunning vocal performance that really does Guthrie’s lyrics justice. Tom Morello inclusion is not that much of a surprise, his work as The Nightwatchman and his recent appearances at the Occupy protests around the world show that he is part of a continuation of the protest singer tradition which Guthrie started all those years ago. “Ease My Revolutionary Mind” is an upbeat rollicking track, with some fantastic lyricism and a great vocal performance from Morello.

Lou Reed’s contribution, though surprising, is a wonderful inclusion an understated affair, just Reed’s vocal backed up by an ethereal electric guitar. This places the emphasis on the lyrics, highlighting Guthrie’s skill at documenting the America he saw around him. Michael Franti’s “Union Love Juice” doesn’t quite work for me, and just seems a little out of place; that being said he does put in a solid vocal performance, the instrumentation however is jarring and disrupting. ‘Peace Pin Boogie’ has is a great little jazz number, with a brilliant vocal performance from Kurt Elling and a nice catchy refrain.

Ani DiFranco is another musician whose inclusion doesn’t come as too much of a surprise, with her roots in American folk and protest music. Her track is an interesting one, a spoken word meditation on lyricism and the difficulty of capturing the American voice. Author Studs Terkel offers up another spoken word performance, his distinctive voice backed by jazz instrumentation vividly brings post Depression Era America to life. Nellie McKayoffers up a fine vocal performance on her contribution Old Folks backed with some beautiful piano playing and delicate acoustic guitar. Chris Whitley’s ‘On The High Lonesome” is a nice bluesy track, featuring some interesting guitar playing.

Pete Seeger is an obvious inclusion on the album, as a contemporary of Guthrie, a it is only natural that he feature somewhere on the album. Whilst he cannot sing like he used to, his spoken word performance I incredibly moving, his gravelled vocal filled with gravitas and the echoes of American history. The album closes with Jackson Browne and his fifteen-minute track “You Know the Night”. Now this might sound overly long to you, and I must admit my initial reaction was “does it really need to be that long?” That being said once you start listening you don’t really notice its length, it’s a captivating track, which is in part due to Browne’s vocal performance, but also thanks to Guthrie’s lyrics. And if it does prove to be too long for you, you can always purchase the radio edit, which has a considerably shorter playtime.

A Note of Hope is a solid tribute to a true great of American music. Featuring a diverse range of performers, it highlights not only the skill and prowess of Guthrie but also his relevance even today. Ultimately this is an album, which will only appeal to a small demographic, which is a shame. There are a number of performances on the album that are worthy of attention, and not just from those with a passing interest in Guthrie or the American folk tradition.

7.5/10