‘Woody at Home’ – Recordings bring folksinger closer to granddaughter

Anna Canoni holds a copy of the album “Woody at Home Vol. 1 & 2” next to a poster image of her grandfather in the Woody Guthrie Publications office in Mount Kisco. (Robert Brum Photo)

By ROBERT BRUM

Anna Canoni grew up hearing all about her grandfather, Woody Guthrie, but never had the chance to meet him.

Now newly released recordings made by the balladeer who inspired Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen and countless others have given her a new closeness with the man whose life and music have been so familiar. 

Canoni co-produced tapes Guthrie, who penned “This Land is Your Land” among other folk music anthems, made in his Brooklyn home more than 70 years ago.  

As president of Guthrie Publications in Mount Kisco, Canoni oversaw myriad projects involving the folksinger’s estate, including “Woody at Home,” a two-volume set of material Guthrie recorded in 1951-52 for his new publisher.

The songs and spoken-word intervals captured in mono on a reel-to-reel recorder with a single microphone were restored through audio software that eliminated a hum that had made them all but inaudible, allowing his voice and guitar to become clearer.

What she heard was a side of her grandfather Canoni had never experienced; Guthrie died from Huntington’s disease in 1967, before she was born.

It was like “sitting in a room just with my grandfather playing music,” she said recently. “It’s not a performance, he’s working through the process of a song. He tries it out again and again. The only way you could have that kind of intimacy is if you’re family or friends with someone like that. So I hadn’t heard that. I hadn’t heard the sound and the softness and the warmth of his voice that I heard on these recordings.” 

She added, “This was the first time I got to hear him and it was loving, it was tender, it was warm and it was so touching to me. And I thought, ‘Now, this is something I’d love to share,’ because this is a new side, a new aspect of Woody Guthrie that even those of us who’ve heard all things Woody Guthrie — this is new.”

For Terri Thal, Bob Dylan’s first manager, hearing Canoni talk about her grandfather was “a discovery.” 

“I’ve never before heard anyone humanize Woody Guthrie … Anna does,” said Thal, whose book, “My Greenwich Village: Dave, Bob and Me,” recalls the folk revival of the 1950s and ‘60s. “She brings him to life. Growing up in an era of desolation, living through weather that is unimaginable to us; traveling and trying to find work during the midst of the Depression. She reminds us that he married and raised a family that had to cope with his devastating illness.”

Steve Rosenthal, Nora Guthrie and Anna Canoni at TRO Essex Music Group. 

Fighting injustice

“Woody at Home, Vol 1 & 2” is a 22-track set on Shamus Records, co-produced by Canoni, audio engineer Steve Rosenthal and Kathryn Ostien of Guthrie’s publisher TRO Essex Music. 

On the recordings, Woody — who was in the early stages of the illness that took his life in 1967 — doubles down on his well-known themes of injustice, racism, greed and corruption that resonate deeply today, Canoni said. Thirteen of the tracks had not been previously released.

Guthrie added three new verses to “This Land is Your Land,” but later thought better of it and stuck with his original composition. “Pastures of Plenty,” another well-known ballad, depicts the lives of migrant workers

“Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos),” recounts a 1948 tragedy in which 28 Mexican migrant farm workers died, but news accounts at the time only listed the names of the white crew members.

The parable “Backdoor Bum and the Big Landlord” doesn’t name-check Woody’s Beach Haven landlord, Fred Trump (the president’s father), although the connections are clear.

The closing track, “You Better Get Ready,” contains what his granddaughter calls the album’s lesson: “You better get ready, ‘cause you may be called to fight.”

“He doesn’t mean literal fighting,” said Canoni, who has herself been a regular at local protest rallies. “He means activism, he means citizenship, he means participation. You must wake up and fight for your neighbor, for your loved ones, for people you don’t even know. We have to find those commonalities.”

The release also includes love songs, revealing a side of the troubadour many people don’t know about. 

Terri Thal said “Woody at Home” presents a more relaxed group of songs than she had heard on his other records. “But I also hear a songwriter who worked carefully to project his message through vivid imagery,” she said. “We usually think of Woody as a radical; these recordings show that he also was a poet.”

Woody’s legacy

Canoni became president of the nonprofit publishing company in 2024 upon the retirement of her mother, Nora Guthrie, Woody’s daughter from his second marriage. 

Nora, who lives in Mount Kisco, helmed the company for more than three decades, producing books, albums, films, exhibitions and programs related to her father’s creative legacy.

“The beauty of her work has always been, she moves forward in a very creative way,” Canoni said of her mother. “She starts with a question or an idea and says, ‘Let’s expand upon that.’ ”

Canoni and co-worker Kyra Sturken have been busy meeting demand since the new recordings came out in August, when they shipped 1,000 copies.

During a mid-September visit, they were awaiting a shipment of CDs of the album. “There’s been a wonderful response,” said Canoni, who grew up in Queens and now lives in Chappaqua. 

The Mount Kisco office handles publishing, events and runs a website and online shop. Photos, posters, books, CDs and memorabilia fill the walls and shelves of the three rooms. The folksinger’s archives that were once stored here have been moved to the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

“If you’re curious about Woody Guthrie, we’re going to make sure that no matter whatever it is you’re looking for, you’ll find,” said Canoni, who is active in efforts to improve the lives of people with Huntington’s disease. “A lot of the things that we carry are out of print but we wanted to make sure they’re accessible as much as possible.”

She added, “When we want to investigate an element of Woody’s creative writing — lyrics, prose manuscripts, art — we try to figure out how best to share that, because it’s really more about education for us than anything else. My real goal is that Woody can be an inspiration for future generations.”

Woody at Home

— “Woody at Home, Vol 1 & 2” is available at woodyathome.com.

Visit woodyguthrie.org for more on Woody Guthrie Publications. 

— Canoni will be co-leading a Greenwich Village walking tour of sites where Woody Guthrie lived or wrote on Sept. 21. For more information, visit thevillagetrip.com/event/my-name-is-new-york/.

— Huntington’s Disease Society of America Team Hope Walk New York City takes place Saturday, Sept. 20. For more information, visit greaterny.hdsa.org.