interview with anna canoni and steve rosenthal

What is something you are excited about for the release of these home recordings?

Anna: 

So, one of the things I was most excited about when we just started discussing releasing these home recordings of my grandfather's was the intimacy of hearing him play in his own home. There was such a loud noise though it was very hard to hear this hum and it's kind of an underwater sound. So, I've always had a bit of a hard time but being able to work with Steve Rosenthal has been incredible because he was able to move through all of that and it's like Woody emerges on the other side as this incredible songwriter, so you feel like you're in the room with him when you're listening to these albums.

What is some insight into the process of restoring these historic tapes?

Steve: 

The recordings had serious problems and it's only within the last couple of years that audio restoration tools have come online that can fix these problems. So, that's a big reason why these songs and these recordings can come out now, the hum at times was louder than the vocal or the guitar was very difficult to remove but now it's possible to remove and once you rebalance it and get rid of these artifacts that make it unlistenable, you're left with really extraordinary recordings. 

Why did Woody decide to record like this in the first place?

Anna:

My grandfather didn't know how to write sheet music or music notation. He was introducing himself to his new music publisher, Howie Richmond, and Howie offered him instead of coming into the office to play his songs he said why don't you record yourself with this new recording machine that just came out on the market. But, according to Howie, Woody got so excited about the process of being able to record himself and send all this music that he just kept going hungry for it, more and more and more he had a lot of songs to share and didn't really have the mode to share them. This was really the first time he was able to take this vault of lyrics and songs and songwriting that he had done over the decades and share it with a publisher. 

What is one thing you find special about this particular project?

Steve:

One thing that's extraordinary is that the version on the record of This Land has new verses that no one has ever heard. I mean that's like finding new verses to The Star-Spangled Banner it's an extraordinary find that he's singing these lyrics that we've never heard before. So, I think that's an amazing song on the record it's great that people are going to be able to hear new Woody music and also, they're going to get to hear Woody singing his own songs in a way that's informal cause it's not a professionally made recording, so people have to know that coming into it. 

What is one thing you find special about this particular project?

Anna:

I think Woody emerges as a songwriter if we're just looking at the lyrics that he writes and the topics he talks about the variety. I don't really know many songwriters who speak of such a variety from you know atomic weapons to love to peace to the Trenton Six to deportees and immigration. I don't really know many who cross kind of all those genres in one short period of time right, we're really talking about 18 months that Woody is recording these songs. Another thing I personally love about these recordings is the gentleness of Woody's voice. At the speed and the churn that life moves these days to just sit down and listen to Woody speak at the speed he sings at, it reminds you to slow down. Life doesn't have to be so big and complicated if we actually talk to each other and slow down we might get there faster.