New Woody Guthrie Album To Be Released
Woody_Guthrie by Al Aumuller
Woody At Home Volume #1 & #2, by the greatest folksinger of them all, Woody Guthrie, will be released August 14 by his estate. It contains 22 tracks (20 songs and two poems). Thirteen of the songs, up to now, have only been studied via his written lyrics. Now, historians and fans can hear, for the first time, Woody recording them at his Brooklyn apartment in 1951 and 1952. They would, sadly, become his last recordings before his hospitalization.
The legendary singer-songwriter died 58 years ago from complications of Huntington’s disease in 1967 at the age of 55. He lived in Morris Plains at Greystone Park Hospital for five years before he was transferred to Brooklyn State Hospital and then to Creedmore State Hospital in Queens where he died. His ashes were scattered into the ocean off Coney Island. He wrote over a thousand songs, two novels and continues to this day to be an influence on artists of all stripes including Dylan, Springsteen and Mellencamp.
He was fond of saying, “a song ain’t nothin’ but a conversation you can have again and again.” He came out of Oklahoma with a satchel of songs bemoaning social injustice and hardship, cementing the validity of what would become “protest songs.” Known as the “Dust Bowl Troubadour” for his songs documenting that 1930s environmental disaster, his 1940 album, Dust Bowl Ballads, remains a beacon of inspiration. He wrote for the poor, the disenfranchised and the struggles of the working class, zeroing in with a keen eye on poverty and labor rights. He wrote on his guitar “This Machine Kills Fascists.”
He didn’t like Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” so he wrote “This Land Is Your Land,” a song many believe should be America’s National Anthem. He wrote “Deportee” in 1948 after reading a New York Times article about a plane crash that killed 32. Four Americans were named as among the dead, their bodies returned to their families. Twenty-eight Mexicans also died, but were just labeled as “deportees” and buried in a mass grave. “Woody wrote this song [for] the 28 Mexican nationals who were not named…an observation of how the U.S. treats foreigners,” says Anna Canoni, Woody’s granddaughter and President of Woody Guthrie Publications. “Woody’s lyrics remind us of these larger life lessons,” she added to Paige Gawley in American Songwriter magazine. Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Dolly Parton and The Highwaymen (comprised of Willie, Waylon, Cash and Kristofferson) have since recorded it.
The album’s producer, Steve Rosenthal, in the same article, says, “it’s fascinating how relevant this song is in 2025. With all the craziness going on…this is a good time for this song to resurface.”