Woody Guthrie exhibit, with items from Dylan and Lennon, opens in New York

'Woody Guthrie: People Are The Song' exhibition features writings, drawings, photos, books, musical instruments, audiovisual media and items from the archives of Dylan, John Lennon and Bruce Springsteen. Photo: Handout

It's a fair bet that anyone who clicks on this article does not need a backstory on Woody Guthrie - legendary singer-songwriter, activist, poet, artist, writer of This Land Is Your Land and many other standards and the single greatest influence on Bob Dylan and a generation of musicians.

But as a stunning, just-opened exhibit at the Morgan Library & Museum shows, there was much more to him than his most well-known songs might indicate. Most striking of all, as manuscripts of his writings show, he was an amazingly deft wordsmith who would have made a hell of a rapper - and many of his verses and casual writings show a rustic, ribald sense of humour that is rarely present, or at least rarely obvious, in most of his songs.