Dust Bowl Ballads - Volume 1
by Woody Guthrie

Dust Bowl Ballads - Volume 1 by Woody Guthrie
Year: 1940
Overall rank: 3,486th   Overall chart history
Average Rating: 
74/100 (from 46 votes)
  Ratings distribution   Average rating history
Accolades:
Award Best album of 1940 (1st)
Award Best album of the 1940s (1st)
Award Best albums of all time (3,486th)

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Woody Guthrie - Dust Bowl Ballads [New CD]
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Dustbowl Ballads by Woody Guthrie (CD, 2001)
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Guthrie, Woody : Dust Bowl Ballads CD 1988 Brand New Sealed
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Woody Guthrie bestography

Dust Bowl Ballads - Volume 1 is ranked 2nd best out of 25 albums by Woody Guthrie on BestEverAlbums.com.

The best album by Woody Guthrie is Dust Bowl Ballads which is ranked number 2862 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 536.

Woody Guthrie album bestography « Higher ranked (2,862nd)
Dust Bowl Ballads
This album (3,486th)
Dust Bowl Ballads - Volume 1
Lower ranked (3,549th) »
Talking Dust Bowl

(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).

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Dust Bowl Ballads - Volume 1 rankings

Rankings summary
Overall rank: 3,486th | 1940s rank: 1st | 1940 rank: 1st

Dust Bowl Ballads - Volume 1 collection

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Dust Bowl Ballads - Volume 1 ratings

Average Rating: 
74/100 (from 46 votes)
  Ratings distribution Help Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AV
where:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.

Showing latest 5 ratings for this album. | Show all 46 ratings for this album.

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RatingDate updatedMemberAlbum ratingsAvg. album rating
 
70/100
 
01/24/2026 23:35 Exist-en-ciel  Ratings distribution  7,84670/100
 
75/100
 
12/12/2025 08:43 cicadelic  Ratings distribution  12,17773/100
 
85/100
 
12/08/2025 15:29 wadwicz5  Ratings distribution  87886/100
 
25/100
 
09/19/2025 02:52 Proto  Ratings distribution  4,10833/100
 
80/100
 
09/02/2025 00:11 Toffuey  Ratings distribution  48279/100

Rating metrics: Help Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings)

This album is rated in the top 22% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 73.8/100, a mean average of 73.0/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 74.1/100. The standard deviation for this album is 15.2.

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Dust Bowl Ballads - Volume 1 favourites

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Dust Bowl Ballads - Volume 1 comments

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Rating:  
85/100
From 02/14/2023 04:53 | #293999
Such a surreal thing to listen to in 2023.. listening to him singing about dust covering everything almost 100 years ago is spooky. Really puts you back in time to a completely different era.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
60/100
From 09/01/2020 22:19 | #257664
Fundamento da música americana e da revolução musical que veria a seguir.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From 01/12/2020 12:32 | #246763
The start of the folk revival, but much more. A stylistic decision made by lack of alternatives, but it automatically is the perfect style to express political critique. Other than other folk revivals it didn't originate from chauvinistic longing to simpler times, but rather from a need for change. And this return to roots seems odd with this motive, until you realize it comes from a place of poverty. And that's why it's perfect: it shows the poverty perfectly; no better way to express poverty than by going back to your roots. It became a usual thing to do when culture had changed for people at the bottom of society to express their distress by going to the roots, the roots being a different thing every time. In the seventies that was rock 'n' roll, and we called the revival punk for instance.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +3 votes (3 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
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Best Albums of 1940
1. Dust Bowl Ballads - Volume 1 by Woody Guthrie
2. Dust Bowl Ballads - Volume 2 by Woody Guthrie
3. Empress Of The Blues by Bessie Smith
4. King Louis by Louis Armstrong
5. Arnold Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire by Arnold Schoenberg / Erika Stiedry-Wagner / Stefan Auber / Kalman Bloch / Leonard Posella / Eduard Steuermann / Rudolf Kolisch
6. Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2 In C Minor by Leopold Stokowski / Philadelphia Orchestra / Sergei Rachmaninov
7. Blues On Parade by Woody Herman And His Orchestra
8. Marlene Dietrich by Marlene Dietrich
9. Stravinsky: Le Sacre Du Printemps (The Rite Of Spring) by Igor Stravinsky / The Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra Of New York
10. Chain Gang by Joshua White And His Carolinians
11. Harlem Blues by Josh White
12. Harlem Seen Through Calypso Eyes by Wilmoth Houdini & His Royal Calypso Orchestra
13. The South American Way by Carmen Miranda
14. At The Piano by Count Basie
15. Rachmaninoff: Concerto No. 3 In D Minor For Piano & Orchestra by Albert Coates / The London Symphony Orchestra / Vladimir Horowitz
16. Piano Solos by Art Tatum
17. Decca Presents Selections From George Gershwin's Folk Opera Porgy And Bess by Various Artists
18. Beethoven: Concerto In D Major For Violin And Orchestra by Arturo Toscanini / NBC Symphony Orchestra / Jascha Heifetz
19. Jazz As It Should Be Played by Bix Beiderbecke
20. The Voice Of Ma Rainey by Ma Rainey
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