Photo Credit: © Sid Grossman 

Woody Guthrie’s home recordings are set to be released to the public. After 75 years in the vault, a landmark two-set collection of songs, tracked from 1951-52 and titled Woody at Home – Volume 1 & 2, will arrive via Shamus Records. The collection features 22 previously unreleased tracks, 13 of which Guthrie never recorded elsewhere. As an initial preview and lead track, the musician’s only known recording of “Plane Wreck at Los Gatos (Deportee),” dubbed “Deportee (Woody’s Home Tape),” is available to stream now. The complete collection is due on August 14, 2025. 

The Rock & Roll Hall and Songwriters Hall of Fame member, International Folk Music Award Lifetime Achievement honoree, GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award winner, and figurehead of cultural commentary offers his response to a 1948 New York Times article regarding a plane crash in Los Gatos Canyon, Calif., which killed 32 people, 28 of the deceased were migrant workers. The timing of the track’s arrival also boasts a layer of commentary on the current climate in US politics and Trump’s abhorrent immigration changes.

Historian and author Tim Z. Hernandez, who has written two books on the tragic event, provided context via Guthrie’s press release, “On January 28, 1948, a plane deporting 28 Mexican workers crashed down in the agricultural hub of California’s San Joaquin Valley, in a place called Los Gatos Canyon. Not a single soul survived. News reports named the four American crew members but referred to the Mexicans simply as ‘deportees,’ after which they were buried anonymously in ‘the largest mass grave in California’s history,’ while the remains of the American crew members were sent home to their families.”

Speaking to Guthrie’s perception and understanding of racism associated with the country’s expulsion of migrant workers, Hernandez continues, “Woody understood that to be nameless in death was an injustice of the highest order, and within days of the crash he sat down to pen what would become one of the major protest songs of the last century, perhaps even more relevant today than it was nearly eighty years ago. To finally hear these words in Woody’s own haunting voice, is to hear a prophetic voice from the grave, warning us about where we’ve been, who we’ve become, and where we are headed.”  

“Deportee” was recorded by Guthrie and has never received a commercial release until now. Tracked in his family’s apartment in Beach Haven, Brooklyn, using cutting-edge technology from the era, including a two-channel tape recorder. The complete set was transferred and produced by Grammy-winner Steve Rosenthal. Jessica Thompson restored and mastered the collection, using both “pioneering software and antique tape machines to de-mix and mix the voice and guitar, while staying true to the homemade, analogue spirit of the original recordings.”  

Commenting on the pertinence of “Deportee,” Rosenthal commented, “It’s fascinating how relevant this song is in 2025. With all the craziness that’s going on with you know who, this song has a super high level of relevance. What Woody speaks about, and how he speaks about people, and how he speaks about the whole issue of immigration, is really amazing and spot on, and it’s good for Americans to hear it. This is a good time for this song to resurface. Having this song come out now is very important. It’s fascinating that it still needs to be said, and that the lessons of the song haven’t been learned yet. But that’s America, right? It needs to be reminded of its better side because it tends to forget it.”

Guthrie’s granddaughter, Anna Canoni, wrote, “‘A song ain’t nothing but a conversation you can have again and again.’ It keeps this conversation in the narrative. The song is the medium, but the conversation is what needs to be said, what needs to be had.  And unfortunately, it needs to be had again and again and again. That’s what Woody’s lyrics remind us of—these larger life lessons, these conversations that must continue.”

Listen to “Deportee (Woody’s Home Tape)” below. 

Pre-save the album here.