Origins:Deportees-seeking original Woody recording

Subject: RE: Deportees - seeking original Woody recording
From: BrooklynJay
Date: 25 Dec 11 - 11:08 AM

After reading through this thread from the beginning, the first thing that occurred to me is that the Woody Guthrie Archives may have the answer. Either Nora Guthrie or Tiffany Colanino might be able to put this matter to rest. I would imagine that if there was an unreleased recording of Deportees extant (I'm thinking Woody's early 1950's tapes), then they would probably know about it.

Jay

Subject: RE: Deportees - seeking original Woody recording
From: Joe Offer
Date: 25 Dec 11 - 01:07 AM

I note with some satisfaction that the page from indybay.org quotes my post above...

I would guess that Woody wrote the lyrics in 1948, shortly after reading about the plane crash. As stated above, Woody chanted the lyrics and did not have a particular tune for the song - I think I read that in Joe Klein's biography of Woody. I believe it was 1960 that Martin Hoffman wrote the familiar melody for "Deportees." Woody died in 1967, but I think he stopped performing and recording sometime in the 1950s - anybody have a date for that?

So, as far as I can tell, Woody never recorded the song, but I'm hoping that somebody taped him singing it somewhere.

This song affects me like no other. I guess that's because I worked the Central Valley of California for 30 years. I visited the labor camps and saw their miserable conditions. I visited the Border Patrol offices and the Immigration Detention Centers. I talked with farmworkers in the fields and heard their stories about having to deal with the filth and the heat and the snakes and the lack of water and the backbreaking work. I was a federal investigator driving an air-conditioned car and sleeping in clean motels and eating nice meals, and it embarrassed me to be talking with such nice people who had life so tough. I was also sometimes embarrassed to be working in service to "la Migra" - I was doing security clearances on prospective employees of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

I once had a need to interview Cesar Chavez, somebody I had idolized since I was in college. He refused to see me, and I suppose he had good reason to refuse to be interviewed by a federal investigator. Still, it was a big disappointment. I suppose he didn't know I was on his side.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Deportees - seeking original Woody recording
From: Big Mick
Date: 25 Dec 11 - 12:37 AM

Let me look around. I swear I had a recording somewhere.....

Subject: RE: Deportees - seeking original Woody recording
From: bobad
Date: 24 Dec 11 - 10:53 PM

Some more info here including names of the deportees.

Subject: RE: Deportees - seeking original Woody recording
From: GUEST,999
Date: 24 Dec 11 - 10:03 PM

Excellent article about it here, Joe.

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/30/18475895.php

Subject: RE: Deportees - seeking original Woody recording
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 Dec 11 - 07:42 PM

Time to refresh this thread. It's a month before the January anniversary of the Plane Wreck at Los Gatos Canyon. I drove through the Coast Range this week, and the mountains are starting to turn the beautiful green they must have been when the deportees crashed there in 1948.

Everybody sorta-kinda remembers Woody singing this song or it being on a recording by Woody, but I still haven't found it. This Smithsonian Folkways search came up dry - and it's supposed to include all Folkways recordings.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Deportees - seeking original Woody recording
From: EBarnacle
Date: 19 Feb 10 - 11:08 AM

I vaguely remember a Folkways recording of Woodie that included "Deportees." My local library had it back in the '70s.

Subject: RE: Deportees - seeking original Woody recording
From: GUEST,Peter Glazer
Date: 19 Feb 10 - 10:35 AM

Here's the basic information, transcribed from the article in the NY Times: " Fresno, California, January 28th, Associated Press. A chartered Immigration Service plane crashed and burned in West Fresno County this morning, killing 28 Mexican deportees, the crew and an immigration guard. The Mexicans were being flown to the Deportation Center in El Centro for return to their country. The plane, southbound from Oakland airport, appeared to explode before it plummeted to the ground. The crew was identified as Frank Atkinson, 32 years old, of Long Beach, the pilot; Mrs. Bobbie Atkinson, his wife, the stewardess, 28, Marion Ewing of Balboa, copilot, 33. The group also included Mexican nationals who entered the United States illegally." Woody addressed the namelessness of the Mexicans in his lyric. I am the person who adapted the musical mentioned below, Woody Guthrie's American Song.

Subject: RE: Deportees - seeking original Woody recording
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 21 May 09 - 05:52 PM

I got curious and went looking, and found I had a note after all, telling who sang us those two Guthrie songs.

It was Dick Barker, of Moose, Wyoming (in Jackson Hole). My note says Dick told us he was a friend of Martin Hoffman's.

Dick Barker later became well known as a professional leading rafting trips down the Snake River. Overnight when camping he could always be persuaded to get out his guitar and give his customers a tune.

I still remember Dick fondly—and putting my foot in the mouth of that magnificent bearskin rug on on his living room floor. Didn't chip any teeth, thank goodness.

We had many a songfest that year, one or two at Dick's place, many Teton Tea parties at the Jenny Lake campground, which was in a different place then ... plus under the Moose bridge, which the rangers disliked, and elsewhere up and down the Teton Range. Fun times.

Bob

Subject: RE: Deportees - seeking original Woody recording
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 21 May 09 - 05:15 PM

I can add a tiny piece to the puzzle.

I never knew Martin Hoffman personally, but in 1959 when I was traveling in the west with Brigger (Bill Briggs), in Colorado I think, someone sang us "Deportee" with Martin Hoffman's tune, together with "Pastures of Plenty," which went to a beautiful major tune, not the one I have heard since. Whether that tune was also Hoffman's, I don't know.

It's true that the tune as now familiar is essentially like, though slightly changed from Hoffman's, though I wouldn't know how to say just how they differ.

The person who sang us the two songs said Martin Hoffman was known as "The Roadrunner." I gathered he was secretive and mysterious, and did not get out much. But he was a great seeker-out, I was told, of unusual and out-of-the-way folk material.

One thing I can do is confirm that the timing was earlier than the '60s. Hoffman's Deportee tune was circulating in summer 1959.

I wish I had inquired further at the time, but, you know, in those days I learned everything in passing, on my way to somewhere else. I wish I remembered who sang us those two songs, but I no longer do.

Ever since that summer I've wanted to know more about "The Roadrunner." I never knew Judy Collins had written a song about him, but then, what I was hearing was more in the traditional field recording and oldtime line.

I always honored The Roadrunner for that tune.

Bob

Subject: RE: Deportees - seeking original Woody recording
From: GUEST,Doc John
Date: 21 May 09 - 04:25 PM

Woody Guthrie recorded some 200 titles for his music publisher, The Richmond Organisation, in the late 1940's and it is possible that 'Deportees' was one of them; this needs further research. Only one of these titles has been released - 'I've Got To Know'. It is possible that he shows the signs of his developing illness on the recordings.
Yes, 12-stringer it is in Greenaway's book - composed Feb 3rd 1948.
It seems that although Woody Guthrie's diction and motor coordination were beginning to fail, he could still composed excellent long and strong ballads.
Doc John

Subject: RE: Deportees - seeking original Woody recording
From: GUEST
Date: 21 May 09 - 03:25 PM

How did I change from Steve Shaw to Guest? Advice welcome!

Subject: RE: Deportees - seeking original Woody recording
From: Declan
Date: 20 May 09 - 08:35 PM

By pure coincidence my MP3 player shuffled around to the Arlo version from "Together in Concert" recorded with Pete seeger as mentioned by Joe in a post not too far above this but a long time ago. Having read the thread earlier today I paid particular attention to Arlo's lyrics. He definitely sings Rotting at the end of the first line, not rotten or rottnin'.

I recently got a copy of a CD Called Classic Folk Music from Smithsonian Folkways which features Deportees sung by Barbara Dane, among many other tracks. The liner notes say that the song was "written down by Woody Guthrie, but never recorded by him".
I'm not saying this is definitive, but you would imnagine if there was a recoring by Woody that Folkways would be aware of the fact.

Subject: RE: Deportees - seeking original Woody recording
From: GUEST
Date: 19 May 09 - 08:17 PM

There have been versions of this song recorded by Christy Moore, who does his usual great job but who leaves bits out and changes words here and there, and by Rory McCleod, who, in my opinion, did a wonderful version. The latter was on a tribute to Woody Guthrie vinyl album with contributions by various luminaries. My vinyl is long-fossilised so I can't be specific, but the Rory McCleod is well worth a listen.

Subject: RE: Deportees - seeking different folk recording
From: GUEST,Kegan
Date: 19 May 09 - 07:58 PM

I just wanted to jump in off-topic for a second. I've read this thread from top to bottom, and am amazed at the fact that it's gone on for twelve years.

I'm looking for a particular version of the song that opened with a male singer reading part of the AP article. I think the group had a woman in it as well. I heard it a few years ago on YouTube, but it's been removed I guess.

Possible help is appreciated, thanks.
Kegan

Subject: RE: Deportees - seeking original Woody recording
From: 12-stringer
Date: 24 Apr 09 - 07:33 PM

The Hootenanny mag that was published in 1963/4 (the one that Robert Shelton was connected with) had an article by John Greenway in its 2nd or 3rd issue, about Woody's last active years. No idea where my copy is (it's the only one I still have), but I'm pretty sure that in the article Greenway speaks of having heard a (taped?) performance of the song by Woody which came (he might have said "eerily") close to the melody later written by Hoffman.

My memory of this is fuzzy, as I haven't looked at that article in a good 35 years, if not longer. Did Greenway publish the lyrics in American Folksongs of Protest?

Subject: RE: Deportees - seeking original Woody recording
From: GUEST,jOhn
Date: 24 Apr 09 - 07:12 PM

The woody Guthrie recording is available for free on Spotify.

Subject: RE: Deportees - seeking original Woody recording
From: GUEST,jOhn
Date: 24 Apr 09 - 07:02 PM

Wikipedia has a page on this, it mentions the creosote dumps, and says the price of fruit was kept artificially high, by spoiling surplus crops, seems a shame that excess fruit could not be given to the poor instead of been poisoned with creosote.

we had similar situation in Europe a few years ago, were farmers were paid to destroy surplus crops, not sure if this still happens.

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: Wolfgang
Date: 27 Jan 06 - 01:44 PM

I think in this case, c&p from that site is interesting enough:

Douglas DC-3 NC79055, certificated for 32 passengers, had been scheduled for the flight. The crew however took NC36480 by accident, certificated for 26 passengers and 7 hours overdue for a 100-hour inspection. The flight to Oakland was uneventful. At Oakland, 28 passengers boarded the DC-3, leaving three of them sitting on luggage without seat belts. While en route at 5000 feet, the no. 1 engine caught fire. Following an explosion, the left wing, including the engine, separated from the fuselage. The aircraft crashed out of control.
It appeared that the gasket in the engine driven left fuel pump was broken and the 4 studs holding the castings of the pump together were loose. Under pressure, gasoline probably sprayed from the pump, then being ignited by the exhaust. The aircraft was carrying Mexican deportees and a US Immigration & Naturalization Service guard.

PROBABLE CAUSE: "The Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the failure of the left wing in flight as a result of damage by fire which had its source in a defective left engine driven fuel pump."

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: Wolfgang
Date: 27 Jan 06 - 01:22 PM

From this site (accident dated 29th of Jan 1948, Fresno, even the number of casualties is correct, so it must be this one):

Douglas DC3, Registration NC36480

With that information I could find a better description:

here

I'm not completely sure but I think that's it.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Deportees
From:
Date: 24 Jan 06 - 06:49 PM

I am interested in this thread if anyone has more information about the crash itself.

I'm doing some research on Public Aircraft safety, and have been having trouble finding more than the article mentioned above. If anyone has any active links to newspaper articles or to an accident report it would help considerably.

I would be most interested in the type of aircraft, and especially the reason it crashed if a cause of the accident was determined.

I was unable to find an accident report, which is not a surprise if it was flying as a public aircraft. Until 1994, the NTSB (or its predicessors) were not required or expected to investigate accidents on aircraft flown by federal, state or local governments.

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 13 Dec 04 - 07:59 PM

On this months copy of Uncut music magazine, their is a free CD , that includes Deportees, it's sung by UK folk singer Billy Bragg, it is the first time that it has been released on CD.
Free CD also includes tracks by
Douglas Ritter
Josh Ritter
Warren Zevon
Tom Ovans
Richie Havens
John Prine
Buddy Miller
and Steve Goodman etc
Uncut magazine is £4 and worth it, just for the free CD!
if your local magazine place doesent sell it, try WH Smiths.

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: GUEST,Porky
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 11:40 PM

OK, I think some of you are taking this a little too seriously... I realize this conversation has gone on for five years, so I thought I'd add an entry for 2003.
As for the content of the newspaper article, I've read so many versions that edit out various parts, it's hard to tell what's what. In any case, although the AP article doesn't mention LG Canyon by name, one doesn't need to be a rocket scientist to have a look at a map (I'm assuming Woody had these in 1948) and see what's to the west of Fresno. Woody being who he was, maybe he didn't need a map... perhaps he was familiar with the area... Fresno County is the breadbasket of California. Also, just because Woody wrote "the radio said...." absolutely does not mean that was his source of info... c'mon guys, there's a number of musicians here, anyone consider artistic license? For all we know, someone told him about this over a pool table. Woody wrote for the common man, and in terms the common man understood. I don't think he spent a heck of a lot of time picking nits.
In modern times, that bus ride from Oakland to the border (Mexico, Mexican... who cares?? Do you sing the exact same thing every time you do a song? I don't...) is about 10 hours... in 1948 it probably would have been an overnighter, with that stop in Bakersfield. However, even that is luxurious in comparison to what these people went through in order to get here in the first place.
This is one of my favorite all time songs, it sends a powerful message about the plight of the migrant farm worker, and it's hard to believe that this is 55 years old; it could have been written yesterday. Bruce Springsteen sings what could be considered the sequel to this song in "Sinaloa Cowboys."
Oh, yeah, and "rottning" just sounds illiterate, I've only found one transcription that used that word, and there were other blatant errors in it.
Thanks to Joe for a lot of good info, if he's still around.

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 Mar 02 - 02:30 AM

Hi, spaw - I wondered about the Mexico/Mexican question, too. Cisco Houston sings it "Mexico border," and that's the way I prefer to sing it. I can't recall where I got the text above - I believe it was one of the Sing Out! reprints. Genie has promised to post her transcription of an early Woody version of the lyrics. Maybe her transcription will give us an answer. I sent her a personal message to remind her.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: jup
Date: 01 Mar 02 - 02:12 AM

Thanks,Spaw, I'll give it a run tonight,I have a CD with it on around here someplace. Jup.

Subject: Chords Add: DEPORTEE (Woody Guthrie)
From: catspaw49
Date: 28 Feb 02 - 04:58 PM

VERSE:
         E                                  A                E
    The crops are all in and the peaches are rotting
         (E)                               A          E
    The oranges piled in their creosote dumps
            A                                     E
    They're flying them back to the Mexican border
                (E)                      A                E
    To pay all their money, to wade back again


CHORUS:
         A                   E      
    Goodbye to my Juan, good-bye Rosalita
       B7                        E                   E7         
    Adios mes amigos, Jesus and Maria
         A                                              E
    You won't have your names when you ride the big airplane
                                             A       E
    All they will call you will be deportee

Or whatever key you like....Throw in a few bass runs and you're all set.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: jup
Date: 28 Feb 02 - 04:21 PM

Great thread,everyone.

I am motivated to learn this song,it is ,like a lot of folk music, still apropriate today.

CAN I HAVE THE CORDS PLEASE.

THANKS,JUP.

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 28 Feb 02 - 03:13 PM

I second Deckman. I want to thank all of the people in this thread. I do not play or sing, but listen and appreciate. Appreciation is not understanding however, and that is what you all have. You, and the song in discussion along with Mudcat have brought me closer to a better level of humanity. Thanks.

P.S. The Byrds version was one of the first I heard back four decades. Also, I have the Billy Bragg/Wilco CD's and they are quite good and provide some insight into the craft; Of course Bragg and Wilco are good in their own right(write)

Subject: Lyr Add: SONG FOR MARTIN (Judy Collins)
From: catspaw49
Date: 28 Feb 02 - 02:36 PM

Hi Guest......What you're thinking about is "Song for Martin"...It's a beautiful song, quite painful, but too personal to be covered well by anyone else.


SONG FOR MARTIN
Words and Music by Judy Collins
Universal Music Corp. (ASCAP)/ Rocky Mountain National Park Music, Inc. (ASCAP)
(Administered by Universal Music Corp.)

In Rough Rock, Arizona he lived for many years alone
A gangly kid from Colorada, who could sing the sweetest songs
I first heard Woody's songs from him in a cabin in the snow
Seems like it was yesterday but it was years and years ago

He moved to Arizona in nineteen sixty-one
Got a job at the Indian school - he was livin' in the sun
My life was movin' fast by now, I was always on the run
My country life was far behind and the circus had begun

Marty, I know it got lonely out there
Coyotes cryin' at midnight in the cold desert air
The heart that sorrow broke in you can never be repaired
Mart, I know I let you down somewhere

I knew that me and Marty, we should have been good friends
I always knew the paths we walked were meant to cross again
We talked on the telephone once or twice a year
His voice was so familiar, his memory was clear

I'll never know what brought him to where he finally stood
A shotgun pointed at his head in a cabin in the woods
But somehow I could hear it, it struck my heart as well
For the unknown man who needs a hand
For the friend I'll never know

Marty, I know it got lonely out there
Coyotes cryin' at midnight in the cold desert air
The heart that sorrow broke in you can never be repaired
Mart, I know I let you down somewhere

Spaw

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: GUEST,GUEST, Foe
Date: 28 Feb 02 - 01:39 PM

In 1961 I went to Tucson AZ to grad school at UA and ended working for a while at the Park Theater on Campbell (long gone as UA expanded) The manager, Jerry, a law student and also folk music lover, told me his friend Martin Hoffman wrote the music to Deportees. I met Martin once at Jerry's house where Martin played tapes of Navajo children reading from english textbooks. He taught on the reservation and the tape was made in September after the kids got back to school after spending the summer only speaking Navajo. Later Martin's wife left him and Martin did himself in. I heard Judy Collins sing a song that she wrote to Martin with the words something like, "Martin, if I had only known." Her tribute to him.

Subject: RE: Deportees-lyrics correction
From: catspaw49
Date: 28 Feb 02 - 09:56 AM

Say Joe, once again exploring this thread because of a current one, I was reading more closely your set of lyrics to correct the DT and comparing notes, so to speak. Looks good, except for the last two lines in the first verse. I think the lines are:
They're flying you back to the Mexico border
To pay all your money to wade back again

The real difference is in that my lines which I use (and got from Arlo's version) are in the same story mode as the song....Could be wrong and not a big deal....Just happened to notice it.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: Genie
Date: 06 Oct 01 - 01:53 AM

BTW,
I didn't catch this in the responses above, so let me mention that the travelling Smithsonian Woody Guthrie exhibit (which, I think, has been held over in Tacoma, WA) through the end of this year), has Woody's original first-draft manuscipt of this song, hand printed in pen in a lined notebook. Somewhere I have that version, as I copied it down at the museum.

Genie

P.S.
I can't help thinking of this song when I hear reports of plane crashed in which famous people die along with others. For example, when the singer Aliyah (sp?) was killed recently, I heard numerous news reports, all of which said things like, "...Aliyah and [8?] other passengers and crew were killed... ."

One might sing, "You won't have a name when you crash with a pop star... ."

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: Joe Offer
Date: 05 Oct 01 - 03:26 AM

Good point, Spaw. I have yet to hear the two albums of Woody Guthrie songs that Billy Bragg did. As I understand it, Bragg wrote tunes for a number of Woody Guthrie lyrics that had never been sung. My kids introduced me to Billy Bragg - I'm glad they did.

I spent the afternoon at the library, and I found three more articles from the Sacramento Union and the Sacramento Bee - it made the front pages of those newspapers on January 28 and 29, 1948. On January 30, the papers were full of stories about Gandhi's assassination.

The articles confirmed that the crash took place in Los Gatos Canyon, outside Coalinga, California. I'll post the articles when I can - I don't think Mr. Scanner can read them, so I'll have to type them.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: catspaw49
Date: 04 Oct 01 - 11:23 PM

Isn't it kind of interesting that what are considered to be some of Woody's best are the ones he had the hardest time putting tunes with or ones he just carried around for awhile? Woody wrote songs right and left and stole more tunes than Willie Sutton did Sawbucks and yet this one and "TLIYL" and "Pastures" and a few others he sat on for quite awhile. I dunno' whether that means anything or not....just interesting I guess.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: Deckman
Date: 04 Oct 01 - 10:42 PM

Thanks to everyone ... especially Joe. This is what thrills me about MUDCAT. I can't add anything new, but I'm following this thread with great interest. CHEERS, Bob

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: Suffet
Date: 04 Oct 01 - 08:56 PM

When I say I gleaned information regarding Woody Guthrie's "Deportees" from three sources, I mean the following:

1. Joe Offer's posting to the rec.music.folk newsgroup of the New York Times account also posted above, along with his comments.

2. Joe Klein's book, "Woody Guthrie: a Life," pages 362-363 of the paperback edition. Say Mr. Klein: "The song, as he wrote it was virtually without music -- Woody chanted the words -- and wasn't performed publicly until a decade later when a schoolteacher named Martin Hoffman added a beautiful melody and Pete Seeger began singing it it concerts."

3. Personal conversations I have had with Harold Leventhal over the past several years. In one Harold said that Woody might have performed the song, in a near monotone, at a hoot in New York.


Let's all be thankful for Martin Hoffman!


--- Steve

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: GUEST,karen
Date: 04 Oct 01 - 06:29 PM

Thanks Joe...so, about 15 hours total.? Paints a bleak picture from any angle. In your post after the much appreciated information you comment on the "some of us." I always took that to be where Woody's mind expanded out to the 'greater picture'. At first he is focused on only the ones involved in the plane crash but in this verse he is thinking on all the ones he's met along the way and identifies himself with. I thought I read or watched documentation that Woody spent some time as a picker, in the migratory tent camps in his younger days?
Sounds like you had a lot of good to go with the bad in your career. That's good so that as McGrath says, things balance out. I tend to wonder how people that get locked into the negative with no variance are able to stay sane. I agree that we can't overlook the bad but we also can't let it steal the good from us. S'pose we will ever find the good medium? Seems to me that everytime people try (and I know lots of people do try) the thing gets more tangled, the deeper they go, and the results are so frustratingly limited in the end that it causes premature burn-out. I would think it would be particularly hard for persons from other than the US to do that job...there'd be that heavy aspect of wondering what line divided in many instances.

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Oct 01 - 04:31 PM

About the tune - in the thread about the song he wrote about the NYC Firefighters, InOBU was discussing the tune he put to it, "Lough Hospitasl"(aka Locke Hospital) and he said "By the way Deportee is very like Lough Hospital, which is also Bold Robert Emmitt, and Beat the Drum Slowly and Play the Pipes Lowly, and Streets of Laredo."

Which is true. And the older tune fits very well to the words of Guthrie's song.

"Nothing really changes" - as you said karen, sometimes they get worse. Sometimes they get better as well, but it all balances out, and on the whole "nothing really changes". We get rid of polio, and along comes Aids. Still, if you don't keep on trying to make it better, it'd just get worse.

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: catspaw49
Date: 04 Oct 01 - 04:18 PM

Wolfgang, I would never have thought of the lack of names in that way. To me, I thought Woody was saying that we (Americans) viewed the illegal immigrants, and basically all Mexicans and migrant workers, as something less than human and therefore they were just nameless, faceless, nothings......"just" deportees......no big deal. It seems to speak to the prejudice and bigotry more than anything else (IMHO).

Spaw

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: Joe Offer
Date: 04 Oct 01 - 03:46 PM

There's some interesting additional information on this site (click). It's part of the "History in Song" site maintained by Manfred Helfert.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: Joe Offer
Date: 04 Oct 01 - 03:15 PM

In another thread, Steve Suffet gave a nice summary of his research on the song. Since it's the only message in that thread about that particular song, I'm going to paste a copy here. I don't have the Joe Klein biography he refers to, and I'm not shure which Leventhal book he's talking about Leventhal edited a collection of Woody's writings called Pastures of Plenty, but that book makes only passing mention of "Deportee."
-Joe Offer-

---

Thread #29549   Message #374302
Posted By: Suffet
14-Jan-01
Thread Name: El Do Re Mi
Subject: RE: El Do Re Mi

By the way, if you don't know the story of "Deportees," here is a brief (?) summary courtesy of information I gleaned from Joe Offer, Joe Klein, and Harold Leventhal.

On January 28, 1948, a chartered airplane crashed in Los Gatos Canyon, about 20 miles west of Coalinga, California. All aboard perished, including the crew, several immigration agents, and 28 Mexican farmworkers who were in the process of being deported. Woody Guthrie claimed that he heard a radio broadcast report of the crash in which someone stated that the 28 Mexicans were "just deportees" and did not give their names when the names of the crew and agents were announced. In response, Woody wrote the song that he called variously "Plane Wreck at Los Gatos," "Deportees," and "Goodbye to My Juan." Woody performed the song as at least one of the Peoples' Artists hoots in New York, but his original tune was almost a flat monotone and it (the tune) was not well received.

About 10 years later, a young folk singer named Martin Hoffman wrote a new and hauntingly beautiful tune to go with Woody's lyrics. Cisco Houston, Woody's old sidekick, soon recorded "Deportees" for Vanguard using Hoffman's tune. So did Judy Collins, and the song quickly became an American folk standard.

By that time, however, Woody was seriously ill with Huntington's disease, and he was confined to a mental hospital. It is doubtful that he ever sang the Hoffman tune himself, but it is pretty well established that others sang it to him.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: Wolfgang
Date: 04 Oct 01 - 02:22 PM

Well possible, Kevin: the N.Y.Times article has (AP) as the source which doesn't mean they printed every bit of that information. 'Los Gatos Canyon' might have been too detailed for a New York reader. Good guess is there was a single source for all kinds of reportings about that crash and we have one version coming from that source and Woody heard another.

I understand that song better after 11/9 of this year. I read and saw in TV that the names of all passengers from the four planes were mentioned. This would never be done in Germany. In our culture, you leave it to the relations whether they want to make it known or not. From my cultural background, I never really could understand what was so bad about only calling the dead 'deportees', for that is what I would have expected from a similar report in Germany. In a German report, no name at all would have been mentioned, even the known persons would have been 'crew' and nothing else.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: Joe Offer
Date: 04 Oct 01 - 02:19 PM

Good thinking, Wolfgang. You're almost as good as Sandy Paton at goading me to honest research. I read somewhere that Woody wrote the song in 1948 after reading an article in the New York Times - now, I wish I could remember where I read that. If the story is true, Woody must have had an additional source of information - maybe he fabricated a little information himself (or maybe the article I read was more complete in another edition of the newspaper). The Times article said only that the crash was about twenty miles west of Coalinga. On my map, I'd say Los Gatos Canyon is ten to fifteen miles west-northwest of Coalinga, in the Coastal Range of mountains that separates the Central Valley of California from the Pacific.

I'm working on checking the Fresno and Sacramento Bee newspapers for more information. Coalinga has never had much of a newspaper. Fresno, the county seat, is about 70 miles east of Coalinga. Fresno is miserable, and Coalinga is worse. Both places have blistering heat in the summer and depressing fog and overcast during the winter - but spring and fall are tolerable. I visited Coalinga once during an infestation of crickets - cars were skidding on streets all over town, sliding on cricket carcasses. One winter night, I drove home forom Coalinga to Fresno in fog so thick I couldn't see the road. Just north of Coalinga is an oilfield - all the rocking pump arms are decorated to look like animals. A big annual event in Coalinga is the Horned Toad festival (although the animal is now called a horned lizard).

I last visited Coalinga in 1999, when I spent a day doing interviews at the police department. I'll say this about Coalinga - the cops were young, innocent, and delightful. They thought it was pretty cool to be interviewed by a federal agent.


In his book Where Have All the Flowers Gone?, Pete Seeger says Woody made up "Reuben James," "Deportees," and "Isaac Woodward" from seeing short items in some paper. The Sing Out! Reprints (pink book) says the following:

A few years ago the newspapers reported the crash in Mexico of a plane which was flying home a large group of Mexican "wetback" workers who had entered the United States illegally - induced by promises of good-paying jobs from unscrupulous agents of the large fruit orchards in California. Woody Guthrie immediately wrote the following song. The tune by Marty Hoffman has been slightly adapted by Pete Seeger.

I'd question the accuracy of this. I think Woody was more correct in saying "some" of the deportees were illegal, because there was a program at the time that allowed farmworkers to enter the U.S. legally to do seasonal work.

OK, so back to work on more research.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Oct 01 - 02:00 PM

I was thinking that too, Wolfgang - since Woody said radio, he probably meant radio.

But I'd imagine that the radio and the newspaper would have used the same wire services, so the actual radio report would probably have been very similar, but maybe with extra details, like Los Gatos Canyon. Anyway, Joe's find gets us a lot closer to the event itself, and how it must have felt. After September 11th I think it's a bit easier to tune in. (There is an echo of it in the fact that there were probably large numbers of dead in the Towers who will never be known or identified, because they were illegals in borderline employment.)

And that first line - I think rott'ning, as quoted by rich r is actually more vivid than rotting. Going rotten. I think I'll use it any time I sing the song.

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: Wolfgang
Date: 04 Oct 01 - 01:20 PM

It's a great find, Joe, and praise for the post. However, though the picture of Woody Guthrie reading the very same words as we can above is compelling, it just may not be true. First, the radio said they are just deportees is Woody's own claim as to the source of the information, and, second, the site of the crash, Los Gatos Canyon that Woody included in the lyrics and the title, is not mentioned in the article above.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 04 Oct 01 - 01:06 PM

In the UK, Jon Brindley does a version which is quite beautiful. generally I have heard this with quite a quick strong rythmn, but Jon's version is much slower and very ballady -anyway, its an extraordinary song which ever way it's played.

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: iamjohnne
Date: 04 Oct 01 - 12:57 PM

I first heard this song sung by Vince Martin back in the Coconut Grove days in Miami Fl. He had an voice like honey. I think he used the lyrics that Judy Collins used. It is still a great song, and the tune is as memorable as the lyrics.

Johnne "Goin where the weather suits my clothes"

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: Joe Offer
Date: 04 Oct 01 - 05:57 AM

Well, Karen, the Immigration Service was only one of many agencies I serviced. It was lots of fun doing clearances on astronauts and political appointees, and I got paid to spend weeks in the national parks, clearing law enforcement park rangers.

The employees of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) have a dismal, frustrating job. Generally, they're overworked and underpaid, because they're not a "glamor" agency. A large percentage of the employees are foreign-born or have foreign spouses - that helps, because they have to be able to speak at least two languages.

The Border Patrol is a separate law enforcement division within the INS, and their working conditions are generally better. The daily bus starts way up in Northern California, and drives four or five hours to the Border Patrol Sector at Livermore, just southeast of San Francisco. From there, it's another three or four hours south to Bakersfield, where some detainees are temporarily housed in the county jail (a federal subsidy of impoverished Kern County). From there it's four to six hours to El Centro or San Diego. The drivers go from one stop to the next, and then go back on the northbound bus.

I don't know how the actual deportation takes place. I know that some are flown to Central Mexico or beyond, but I think that many just are escorted as they walk back across at the border crossing to Mexicali or Tijuana (and some of those go back to the States the very same night).

The INS recognizes that most of the detainees are not criminals, and their treatment is generally humane - but still pretty dismal. Yeah, I occasionally came across employees who were abusive - there are a few bad apples in every bushel, and it was my job to try to cull them out.

Now I'm retired, goofing off full time - but I had 25 very interesting years working as a federal investigator. I felt like I had my finger on the pulse of California all that time (with occasional trips outside the state).

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: GUEST,karen
Date: 04 Oct 01 - 05:24 AM

Thanks for the information, Joe....how long (time wise) would that trip take if going by bus? How many fuel stops along the way and so forth? If you know, that is...don't want to seem demanding.:) Hope you moved on to a more pleasant job.

Subject: RE: Deportees
From: Joe Offer
Date: 04 Oct 01 - 03:57 AM

Hi, Karen - there have always been loopholes in U.S. immigration law that allow some people to stay in the U.S., but the Immigration and Naturalization Service has always found ways to deport lots of people. some of those on the fated airplane were in the U.S. legally as seasonal farm workers - but their work contracts were up, and it was time to move on. They were being shipped from Northern California to the El Centro Deportation Center on the border. The Immigration officers round the people up and ship them down to deportation centers along the border. Nowadays, though, they go by bus down Interstate 5.

I did employee background checks in the deportation center in El Centro for three weeks in the summer of 1996. Not a happy place, although the employees had great carne asada cookouts on their days off. The employees, by the way, are mostly hispanic.

-Joe Offer-