Only Woody Guthrie Recording of “Deportee (Woody’s Home Tape)” Released As Single Today, Woody’s Birthday
July 14th– Home recordings by the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, Songwriters Hall of Famers, International Folk Music Award Lifetime Achievement honoree, and GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award winner Woody Guthrie will be released in the two-volume landmark collection Woody At Home – Volumes 1 & 2 on one CD, LP, digital download, and streaming release via Shamus Records (label subsidiary of Woody’s longtime publisher, TRO Essex Music Group) on August 14, 2025.
The lead track off the collection is Woody’s only known recording of his iconic song “Plane Wreck at Los Gatos (Deportee).” Today, to mark Guthrie’s birthday, Shamus Records is releasing Woody’s version with his original music as “Deportee (Woody’s Home Tape)” as a single.
Pitchfork shared “Deportee (Woody’s Home Tape)”
Guthrie wrote “Deportee” (also known as “Plane Wreck at Los Gatos”) in 1948 in response to a New York Times article about a plane crash in Los Gatos Canyon, California that killed 32 people, including 28 migrant farm workers.
Of “Deportee,” historian and author Tim Z. Hernandez, who has written two books on the incident, adds, “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. 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.”
Anna Canoni, President of Woody Guthrie Publications, and Woody’s granddaughter, added: “Deportee”, as recorded by Woody Guthrie, has never been commercially released until now. Woody wrote this song on February 3, 1948, after reading a NY newspaper article about a plane crash in California that was carrying 28 Mexican citizens back home after completing the Bracero Program. This U.S./Mexican labor initiative began during WWII and brought Mexican citizens to the U.S. to be temporarily employed. After reading the article, which only named the four Americans that perished, Woody wrote this song in—I don’t 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. In this powerful version of the song, Woody writes from a first-person perspective. He becomes the “I” in the story, beckoning you to be more invested. “Some days I’m not legal/Some days I’m not wanted/My contract is gone, so I hafta move on/More than six hundred miles/You chased me towards that border/Worse than maddogs or thieves or outlaws, either one.” Woody hits the punch, the lesson, in the closing verse of this song, “Is this the best system to grow some good fruit? To die in your aircrate/To fertilize your topsoil/To be called by no name, except “one more deportee”?” The song, as set to music in the late 1950s by Martin Hoffman, has traveled the world over, thanks to musicians who keep it in our consciousness. Musicians like Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Dolly Parton and so many others who have kept this conversation in motion. The song is as relevant today as the day Woody first penned it. Tim Z. Hernandez finally answered Woody’s question, “who are all these people, scattered like dry leaves?” Tim found the names of all 28 Mexican victims, giving closure to all those who never knew what happened to their loved ones. We recognize all of the victims of this tragic plane crash; Miguel Álvarez Negrete, Francisco Durán Llamas, Santiago Elizondo García, Rosalío Estrada Padilla, Bernabé García López, Tomás Gracia de Aviña, Salvador Hernández Sandoval, Severo Lara Medina, José Macías Rodríguez, Elías Macías Trujillo, Tomás Márquez Padilla, Luis Medina López, Manuel Merino Calderón, Luis Miranda Cuevas, Ignacio Navarro Pérez, Martín Navarro Razo, Ramón Ochoa Ochoa, Ramón Paredes González, Apolonio Placencia Ramírez, Guadalupe Ramírez Lara, Alberto Carlos Raygoza, Guadalupe Rodríguez Hernández, Maria Rodríguez Santana, Wenceslao Ruiz Flores, Juan Ruiz Valenzuela, José Sánchez Valdivia, Jesús Santos Meza, Baldomero Marcos Torres, Frank Atkinson, Mrs. Bobbie Atkinson, Marion Ewing, and Frank E. Chaffin.
Producer Steve Rosenthal reflected: 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.
Anna Canoni: My grandfather 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.
Nearly 75 years after they were made, the recordings on Woody at Home, Volumes 1 & 2 have been newly transferred and produced by GRAMMY-winner Steve Rosenthal (The Rolling Stones, Blondie, Lou Reed, Natalie Merchant, Laura Nyro) and restored and mastered by GRAMMY nominee Jessica Thompson (Kurt Vile, Erroll Garner, Mickey Newbury, Ralph Stanley, Lou Reed, Janis Ian), 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.
These raw and intimate home tapes were recorded in the early months of 1951 and 1952, at the family’s apartment in Beach Haven, Brooklyn. Woody made them as his musical introduction to his music publisher. Woody got his first publishing deal in 1950 with a new startup, TRO Essex Music Group, founded by music publisher Howie Richmond. By 1950, two-channel tape recorders allowing recordings in stereo appeared in the United States for the first time. Able to get his hands on one of the new machines, Howie sent the recorder to Woody in Brooklyn. Woody spoke, rambled, sang, and gave new context and intimate reflections into his songs using the single mic reel-to-reel machine. Woody sings about historic events, stories of the disenfranchised and ignored, love, and of course, the fight against fascism.
Woody at Home was co-produced by Anna Canoni, Steve Rosenthal and Kathryn Ostien.
About Woody Guthrie:
Woodrow Wilson Guthrie was born July 14, 1912, in Okemah, Oklahoma. Over the decades, his songs have run around the world like a fast train on a well-oiled track. They’ve become the folk song standards of the nation, known and performed in many languages throughout the world. He wrote over 3,000 songs in his lifetime, hundreds of which have become staples in the canon of American music. He inspired several generations both politically and musically with songs such as “This Land Is Your Land.”
For more information, please visit www.woodyathome.com
LABEL: Shamus Records, Inc. www.shamusrecs.com
PUBLISHER: TRO Essex Music Group www.troessexmusic.com
WOODY GUTHRIE OFFICIAL: www.woodyguthrie.org
