Search - Woody Guthrie :: Live Wire

In 2001, The Woody Guthrie Archives received 2 spools of wire recordings from a live Woody Guthrie performance held in Newark, New Jersey in 1949. With the help of many talented recording engineers, the Woody Guthrie Foundation transferred this rare live performance from a delicate wire recording to digital audio, and, with state-of-the-art technology, restored it to near-perfection. This is one of the most significant recent finds in folk music history, and the 2008 Grammyr winner for Best Historical Recording. This rare Guthrie recording is a fluke of sorts in that its existence is linked somewhat ironically to the fortuitous collection of `folklore on what today is considered an outmoded and virtually obsolete recording technology: wire recordings. The two wire recordings on which these historic performances were found were lost for more than half a century. Discovered in a storage closet in the Florida home of Paul Bravemian, the wire recordings were donated to the Woody Guthrie Archives in 2001.