10 Albums That Influenced My Musical Taste: Day 6: Woody Guthrie:”Dust Bowl Ballads.” After I got into The Beatles the second artist that I explored after reading about the influence he had on them- was Bob Dylan. While not only listening to but reading about Dylan- I found that the artist that was his major influence was folk singer Woody Guthrie. One day around 1980 I was at the record store and came across Woody Guthrie’s Dust Bowl Ballads. I had read about this album while reading about Dylan so I scooped it up and went home and began listening. The influence that Woody Guthrie’s Dust Bowl Ballads had on me was – introducing me to music that was made before my birth and after that I would seek out other music like Harry Smith’s landmark Anthology Of American Folk Music series which takes the music back into the 20’s-to the 40’s.