Guthrie '49 concert to be released

NEWARK, N.J., June 29 (UPI) -- A 1949 performance by legendary American folk singer Woody Guthrie is being re-recorded in a CD format for release this year.

The first commercially available recording of Guthrie's performance at the Newark, N.J., YM-YWHA was originally made by a retired pharmacist on his wire-recording equipment, which preserved the sound on wires wrapped about metal reels, The Star-Ledger reported Friday. Wire recording became obsolete in the 1950s.

In 2002, Paul Braverman turned his recording over to the Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archives, which announced a Sept. 6 release date for "The Live Wire: Woody Guthrie in Performance 1949."

In a 2003 interview with the Newark newspaper, Braverman said about 25 people attended the free concert, presumably arranged by Guthrie's second wife who taught dance at the Young Men's-Young Women's Hebrew Association.

Braverman, who died in 2003, told the newspaper he kept the wires because "I knew that somehow or other, they would be of value in the folk music field."

Guthrie, a prolific songwriter perhaps best known for his song "This Land Is Your Land," died in 1967 at age 55.