{"id":40869,"date":"2025-07-14T12:31:37","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T12:31:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/14\/woody-guthrie-sings-deportee-in-a-never-before-heard-recording\/"},"modified":"2025-07-14T12:31:37","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T12:31:37","slug":"woody-guthrie-sings-deportee-in-a-never-before-heard-recording","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/14\/woody-guthrie-sings-deportee-in-a-never-before-heard-recording\/","title":{"rendered":"Woody Guthrie Sings &#8216;Deportee&#8217; in a Never Before Heard Recording"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tFor anyone who follows the news, the story will sound eerily familiar: migrant workers rounded up by immigration officials, put on a plane and transported to a deportation center and, ultimately, Mexico. The shocking twists, however, are the year it happened \u2014 1948, in Fresno County, California \u2014 and the tragedy that ensued: The aircraft crashed, killing everyone onboard, including the 28 workers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tA month later, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/woody-guthrie\/\" id=\"auto-tag_woody-guthrie\" data-tag=\"woody-guthrie\">Woody Guthrie<\/a> immortalized the horrific incident with a basic sketch for a song that, in the late Fifties, became \u201cDeportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)\u201d after Colorado folksinger Martin Hoffman set it to music. \u201cDeportee\u201d has since been covered by Pete Seeger, Bruce Springsteen, Dolly Parton, the Byrds, Joan Baez, Ani DiFranco, the late Guthrie pal and folksinger Cisco Houston, and Guthrie\u2019s son Arlo, among many others.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tBut Guthrie\u2019s own version has been lost to history, until now.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"&quot;Deportee (Woody&#039;s Home Tape)&quot; - Woody Guthrie\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bjlr-Rj9VwA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tUnveiled today, \u201cDeportee (Woody\u2019s Home Tape)\u201d is a newly unearthed and restored recording of Guthrie talk-singing his first version of the song. The historical document will be part of <em>Woody at Home \u2014<\/em> <em>Volumes 1 + 2<\/em> , a collection of previously unheard Guthrie recordings out Aug. 14.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tIn the tradition of so many topical and protest songs, \u201cDeportee\u201d was ripped directly from the headlines. Then living on Long Island, Guthrie heard the news about the plane crash either on the radio or in a newspaper. The <em>New York Times<\/em> reported that of those who died, some \u201centered the United states illegally\u201d and others \u201cstayed beyond duration of work contracts in California.\u201d But as Guthrie noted of the coverage, only the members of the crew were identified. The workers were simply called \u201cMexican deportees,\u201d as if they simply had no identifies; many were later buried in a mass grave in California.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tThe following month, Guthrie wrote the lyrics to \u201cDeportee.\u201d As his granddaughter Anna Canoni, president of Woody Guthrie Publications, said in a statement, \u201cAfter reading the article, which only named the four Americans that perished, Woody wrote this song in \u2014 I don\u2019t want to say anger or frustration, but perhaps in observation of the 28 Mexican nationals who were not named in the article, and moreover, an observation of how the U.S. treats foreigners.\u201d<\/p>\n<section class=\"brands-most-popular \/\/ editors-pick-module lrv-u-margin-tb-2 lrv-u-border-a-2 u-box-shadow-5-5 lrv-u-padding-lr-1 a-span1 u-padding-b-1@tablet u-overflow-hidden\">\n<h2 id=\"section-heading\" class=\"c-heading larva  lrv-u-text-align-center u-border-color-black a-font-theme-primary-xxs lrv-u-color-black lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase u-letter-spacing-0063 lrv-u-padding-t-050 u-padding-b-0375@tablet lrv-u-padding-b-050@mobile-max lrv-u-border-b-2\">\n<p>\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tIn the home recording of the song, Guthrie is heard talking the lyrics over basic fingerpicking, without the more developed melody Hoffman later added. Making this version even more potent, Guthrie also adapts a first-person approach (\u201cI don\u2019t have a name and I ride this big airplane\/And just call me one more deportee\u201d) instead of the later third-person revise (\u201cYou won\u2019t have your names when you ride the big airplane\/All they will call you will be \u2018deportees&#8217;\u201d).<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Dolly Parton - 04 - Deportee (Plane Wreck At Los Gatos)\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oDfqXkYWzZM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t\u201cDeportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)\u201d is probably the best-known of Guthrie\u2019s songs that he didn\u2019t fully record. At the time he made this tape, at the Guthrie family home in Brooklyn, he was coping with the early signs of what would later be diagnosed as Huntington\u2019s disease. Guthrie would eventually be hospitalized in New Jersey, where a young Bob Dylan would meet him (a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-features\/bob-dylan-movie-a-complete-unknown-fact-check-1235194229\/\">moment depicted<\/a> in the recent Dylan biopic <em>A<\/em> <em>Complete Unknown<\/em>).<\/p>\n<section class=\"brands-most-popular \/\/ recirculation-modules trending-in-article lrv-u-margin-tb-2 lrv-u-border-a-2 u-box-shadow-5-5 lrv-u-padding-lr-1 a-span1 u-padding-b-1@tablet u-overflow-hidden\">\n<h2 id=\"section-heading\" class=\"c-heading larva  lrv-u-text-align-center u-border-color-black a-font-theme-primary-xxs lrv-u-color-black lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase u-letter-spacing-0063 lrv-u-padding-t-050 u-padding-b-0375@tablet lrv-u-padding-b-050@mobile-max lrv-u-border-b-2\">\n<p>\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tThe new collection includes nearly two dozen unheard recordings, including a version of \u201cThis Land Is Your Land\u201d with added verses, and home recordings of \u201cPastures of Plenty\u201d and \u201cJesus Christ.\u201d But for present-tense reasons, \u201cDeportee\u201d remains the most haunted and haunting of the tapes. As Canoni said, \u201cMy grandfather wrote, \u2018A song\u00a0ain\u2019t\u00a0nothing but a conversation you can have again and again.\u2019 It keeps this conversation in the\u00a0narrative. \u2026\u00a0\u00a0And unfortunately, it needs to\u00a0be\u00a0had again and again and again.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/woody-guthrie-deportee-song-immigrants-rare-recording-1235383582\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For anyone who follows the news, the story will sound eerily familiar: migrant workers rounded up by immigration officials, put on a plane and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":40870,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop","article","has-excerpt","has-avatar","has-author","has-date","has-comment-count","has-category-meta","has-read-more","thumbnail-"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}