More than 30 years after his slow death from the degenerative disease Huntington's chorea, Dust Bowl folk icon Woody Guthrie's political message resonates on the just-released all-star tribute album, 'Til We Outnumber 'Em.

One of several recent projects honoring Guthrie's work, 'Til We Outnumber 'Em is a live recording featuring Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Guthrie's son Arlo, Bruce Springsteen, British political folk artist Billy Bragg, Indigo Girls, Soul Asylum frontman Dave Pirner, actor Tim Robbins and Ani DiFranco.

Produced and mixed by DiFranco, the 19 tracks on 'Til We Outnumber 'Em were taken from a Sept. 29, 1996, concert at Severance Hall in Cleveland and focus on Guthrie's sometimes controversial social commentary and its relevance today.

Despite everyone "doin' it in their own modern style" on 'Til We Outnumber 'Em, Elliott said the tributes are true to Guthrie.

"It amazes me that anybody that different from Woody's style of music would even appreciate him," said Elliot, speaking by phone before performing at the 48th Florida Folk festival in White Springs, Fla., last weekend, "but I guess they feel it's important to pay homage to 'Grampaw,' 'cause Woody is kinda like the grampa of whatever they call folk music today."

The disc neatly splices together eloquent spoken-word segments by Robbins, Country Joe McDonald and Guthrie's colleague Fred Hellerman, with powerful musical presentations of several of Guthrie's more provocative songs. (Springsteen's good-humored take on one of Guthrie's many children's songs, "Riding in My Car," is a lighthearted exception.)

Long Look

Guthrie's vision and wide-ranging influence have been the object of increased attention during the past few years. Last year, Joe Klein's 1980 biography, "Woody Guthrie: A Life," was released in paperback form.

The Woody Guthrie Archives in New York and the Smithsonian Institution co-sponsored and organized a traveling museum exhibit that examined the connections between Guthrie's personal history, family life, cartoon work and, above all, his music and political activism. The exhibit's video portion featured interviews with several high-profile artists inspired by Guthrie, including some, like Springsteen, who participated in the 1988 album Folkways: A Vision Shared — A Tribute to Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly.

Early this year, Rounder released a ballad opera from its Alan Lomax collection, The Martin and the Coys, that featured Guthrie himself in a radio program originally broadcast in 1944. And this week, Elektra is offering Mermaid Avenue, Volume 2. The latter is the second album in which Bragg and rootsy American band Wilco put to music some of Guthrie's voluminous lyrics, as discovered in the Guthrie archives maintained in New York by Guthrie's daughter Nora.

For 'Til We Outnumber 'Em, Bragg contributes a version of "Against the Law."

Elliott, who traveled the country with Guthrie and appears on 'Til We Outnumber 'Em doing "1913 Massacre" and "Talking Dust Bowl," said all the attention would please his old colleague. "I think he would be very proud and happy to know that people appreciate what he did," Elliott said.

With its dark themes, 'Til We Outnumber 'Em seems particularly concerned with resurrecting Guthrie's radical political spirit. Folk music has popularly become associated with songwriters who most often sing of trials of the heart, not of society. Much of Guthrie's groundbreaking appeal lay in his willingness to confront social injustice and, as the saying goes, make the personal political.

For The People

The new album includes a Springsteen cover of "Plane Wreck at Los Gatos (Deportee)," a song commenting on the plight of seasonal farm laborers. Pirner sings "Pretty Boy Floyd," a song celebrating the outlaw, and DiFranco contributes "Do Re Mi," a ditty on the ways of capitalism, as experienced by Dust Bowl drifters coming to California during the Depression years.

"The thing that was most important to Woody," Elliott says, "was that workin' people deserved a break. And that's why he was so passionately in favor of and helping organized unions."

Asked whether he thinks anyone is continuing in Guthrie's tradition, Elliott points out that "Woody himself claimed that Bob [Dylan] was really carrying on the tradition: 'I was a performer and a singer, but Bob was a writer and a poet.' "

Profits from 'Til We Outnumber 'Em will go to the Woody Guthrie Archives and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum educational foundation.

Ironically, it took all this time since the concert for DiFranco's Righteous Babe label to finally secure the authorizations necessary to release the album.

No doubt, Guthrie would have found ample material for comment in the effort required to free "people's music" from such legal entanglements.