Unheard Woody Guthrie recordings to be released in August

New music from Woody Guthrie will be released next month, more than 50 years after he died.

“Woody At Home” will have 22 recordings, and 13 of those songs have never been heard before.

These are songs he sang in his home in the 1950s to send to his publisher, and thanks to advances in audio technology, they were able to enhance the quality so they could be released.

FANS EXCITED

Rowan Rockwell, Becky Wuenschel, and John Rockwell traveled to Tulsa from Rockport, MA.

"I'm definitely really excited, I think it's a really important time for his songs to come back, especially songs that we haven't heard before, to come back into the modern world right now and remind people about workers' rights and injustice,” said Rowan.

"I've been a fan of Woody Guthrie for many years, and I'm just really amazed to be here at the museum and be able to do the interaction with all the exhibits and keeping his memory alive,” said Wuenschel.

"I'm eager to hear what new artists will do with the new music that's been found,” said John.

NEW LIFE TO HIS WORDS

The Woody Guthrie Center says this is a chance for fans to hear recordings straight from the source.

"There's such limited access to Woody's own words with him speaking them,” said Cady Shaw, the Senior Director of the Woody Guthrie Center. “There's like four minutes of recorded footage of him and very few recorded songs. He wrote over 3,000 songs, and very few of those were recorded."

Shaw says the issues Guthrie sang about so long ago are still important to people now.

"He wrote just prolifically about issues in the world and things that really touched his heart,” said Shaw. “ A lot of the things that he was talking about, back then, are incredibly relevant today."

A MUSICAL LEGACY

Tanner Messer with Big Country 99.5 believes the release of these recordings is a special and rare opportunity for music fans.

"I always love it when there's these unearthed recordings coming up, and we get to hear new music from people who we've not gotten to hear from in a long time,” said Messer.

It’s a chance for Guthrie to continue his legacy for future generations to come.

"Each following generation tries to be those artists that they looked up to,” said Messer. “The legacy of Woody Guthrie is something that I think you could trace back all throughout country music, even to present day."

MORE INFORMATION

The recordings will be released on August 14th.

For more information visit: https://woodyguthrie.org/