Found! Woody Guthrie’s Home Tapes And Lost Songs
Home comforts: Woody Guthrie’s voice is still out there.
It’s 75 years since Woody Guthrie taped the songs on the newly released Woody At Home Vol. 1 & 2. Included are 22 previously unheard recordings made by just the singer and his sometimes out-of-tune guitar. Some are being heard for the first time, some are versions that show, as Guthrie says on one spoken track, “all these songs are highly gear-shiftable”.
Guthrie made the tapes at his family’s apartment in Beach Haven, Brooklyn, between 1951 and 1952 on a new-fangled recorder gifted to him by his music publisher, Howie Richmond. Compiled by his granddaughter and chief archivist, Anna Canoni, the songs are raw and immediate, with the added sounds of coughing and his young children wishing him goodnight. Canoni says the original tapes “sounded like he was underwater”, but thanks to producer Steve Rosenthal and restoration engineer Jessica Thompson, they were “de-mixed”, digitised and remastered without losing their poignant intimacy.
For the singer’s daughter, Nora Guthrie, it was remarkable hearing her father talking again. “When they gave me the finished recordings I lay down on a couch in a dark room because I wanted quiet around me,” Nora tells MOJO from her home in New York. “I just wanted to hear my dad talking to me, and this record is probably the most intimate relationship anyone could have with him.”
“Woody can’t be hurt or cancelled. He’s the perfect teacher right now.”
NORA GUTHRIE
The album opens with a version of Guthrie’s most famous song, This Land Is Your Land, with extra verses. Of equal interest, however, are previously unheard recordings of Biggest Thing That Man Has Ever Done, Pastures Of Plenty and Jesus Christ, plus the only known Guthrie recording of Deportee, about a 1948 plane crash that killed 48 farm workers being transported back to Mexico. Guthrie’s version, however, has a different last verse to covers by Billy Bragg, Dolly Parton and others.
“It’s my favourite part of his version, where he asks, ‘Is this the best system to grow some good fruit?’” Canoni says. “I’ve never heard the song with the word ‘system’ before, and he says it long before others began using it that way.”
Many fans had hoped the album would include Old Man Trump, a song Guthrie wrote about Fred Trump, his Beach Haven landlord and father of the current US President, who refused to rent apartments to people of colour. Although it has been recorded by others, there is still no known Guthrie version. Canoni says other songs on Woody At Home hold a similar message, though.
“In lieu of Old Man Trump is Backdoor Bum And The Big Landlord, which has much the same message, and You Better Git Ready, which asks us to be ready to fight fascists all over again. It’s a problem that just won’t go away.”
In all Guthrie sent 32 tapes and 300 songs to Richmond over two years, so this is unlikely the last we’ll hear from them.
“I think many artists feel very vulnerable speaking out, but Woody can’t be hurt or cancelled,” says Nora of curating her father’s archive. “He’s the perfect teacher right now, and it’s exciting to keep his voice out there for others who feel like everything is broken, and don’t know how to deal with it.”
Andy Fyfe
SID GROSSMAN, KEVIN WESTENBERG