Article Contributed by Girlie Action Media
Published on 2026-04-08
Photo: Adrian Buckmaster | Design: Anna Nikolaenko
Today, the Grammy-winning Yiddish band The Klezmatics shared their version of Woody Guthrie's ever relevant “Plane Wreck at Los Gatos (Deportee)” featuring Grammy nominated vocalist, songwriter and producer Sofia Rei. It’s the second single from their upcoming new album We Were Made For These Times, due out May 1 via Shamus Records, label arm of TRO Essex Music Group.
Originally written by Guthrie to restore names and dignity to migrant workers reduced to ‘deportees,’ the song remains a powerful act of remembrance, which The Klezmatics’ version carries forward to the present moment. Surviving as one of his most enduring protest anthems, the track has previously been covered by legends of the folk tradition, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and Arlo Guthrie to name a few, and now, The Klezmatics and Sofia Rei have come together to revisit and reframe the track across their shared musical traditions. The reimagined version of “Deportee” features trilingual lyrics (English/Yiddish/Spanish) that amplify the cross-cultural impact of the song's everlasting themes of immigration and workers’ rights. The Klezmatics didn’t approach “Deportee” as a cover—they approached it as a responsibility. Nearly 80 years later, the song keeps returning to the moment we’re living in, with renewed urgency.
Band member, vocalist, accordionist, guitarist, and pianist Lorin Sklamberg expands: “I’ve been singing Woody’s songs since I was a kid, since my mom won a copy of one of his albums of children’s songs in a radio contest. I’ve known ‘Deportee’ for a long time—I never imagined that an 80-year-old song would mean so much more in these challenging times.”
Rei adds: “Collaborating with The Klezmatics, with their deep sense of history and musical courage, felt like weaving many strands of resistance into a shared voice across cultures and borders. Today, ‘Deportee’ asks us to break the silence around human stories and to hear migrants not as statistics, but as fellow travelers on this shared earth.”
The accompanying live video showcases the band and Rei’s time in the studio creating their stunning rendition of “Deportee,” with an additional video featuring Nora Guthrie exploring the historical weight of the track and its connection to the present day.
Next month, The Klezmatics will be heading on tour for live dates across the country, hitting New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, and more. Tickets and more available here.
Pre-Save: We Were Made For These Times
“Plane Wreck at Los Gatos (Deportee)” feat. Sofia Rei
Watch / Listen
Drawing from protest songwriters such as Woody Guthrie, Holly Near, Dovid Edelstadt, and Chaim Zhitlovsky, We Were Made For These Times addresses migration, labor, war, belonging, and collective responsibility. Its title track, inspired by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Letter to a Young Activist During Troubled Times, carries the album’s central affirmation: do not lose heart—we were made for these times.
Joining The Klezmatics on the album are Argentine vocalist Sofía Rei, gospel powerhouse Joshua Nelson, the pioneering Lavender Light Gospel Choir, Crimean Tatar guitar virtuoso Enver İzmaylov, jazz visionaries William Parker and James Brandon Lewis, Janis Siegel of The Manhattan Transfer, and the Colombian percussion collective La Manga. Together, they create a sound that moves fluidly between Yiddish song, Black gospel, Latin American rhythms, avant-garde jazz, and diasporic memory.
The visual language is integral to the project. The album artwork adopts a bold protest-poster aesthetic inspired by hand-carved linocuts, centered around symbolic hand gestures—reaching, resisting, blessing, building. Each single extends this visual vocabulary, creating a cohesive body of work where image and music reinforce one another. The result is not only a recording, but a unified artistic statement.
Released globally on May 1, International Workers’ Day, the album affirms what The Klezmatics have embodied for four decades: that music can protest, comfort, unite, and still insist on joy. For their whole career, The Klezmatics have stood at the forefront of global roots music, transforming klezmer from a preserved tradition into a fearless contemporary language. Emerging from New York City’s East Village in 1986, they fused Yiddish song with punk energy, gospel intensity, jazz improvisation, and global rhythms, creating music that is joyful, defiant, and profoundly human.
They remain the only klezmer band ever to win a Grammy Award, earning Best Contemporary World Music Album for Wonder Wheel - Lyrics by Woody Guthrie, produced by Danny Blume. Over the years, they have released thirteen acclaimed recordings and toured five continents, performing at major halls and festivals including Town Hall, Disney Hall, Carnegie Hall, WOMAD, Colours of Ostrava, Pohoda, Yiddish Summer Weimar, Central Park SummerStage, Pirineos Sur, and Yidstock.
Their work has crossed into theater, film, dance, and television, from Tony Kushner’s A Dybbuk and the Pilobolus Dance Theatre to PBS Great Performances and HBO’s Sex and the City. Millions have encountered their live energy through NPR broadcasts and widely shared sessions such as KEXP, WWOZ, and NPR’s Tiny Desk.
As they enter their fifth decade, The Klezmatics continue to push the genre forward while honoring its roots. Their music channels rhythm, justice, humor, and spiritual fire, insisting that tradition is not about preservation, but participation.
About Sofia Rei:
Grammy-nominated vocalist, songwriter, and producer Sofia Rei is a Buenos Aires–born, New York City–based artist whose work lives at the intersection of Latin American traditions and bold contemporary experimentation, defined by a singular, versatile voice and a creative vision she describes as Folk and Futurism. Praised by The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and DownBeat, Rei draws from classical training, South American folk, punk, jazz, experimental, and electronic music to create a sound that is deeply rooted and strikingly original. She has performed in more than 35 countries, including two acclaimed NPR Tiny Desk appearances, and collaborated with artists such as John Zorn, Bobby McFerrin, Maria Schneider, Mark Ribot, The Klezmatics, Pedrito Martinez, and Susana Baca.
Tour Dates
May 16 — Washington, DC — Theatre J
May 20 — St. Louis, MO — The Sheldon Concert Hall and Art Galleries
May 21 — Chicago, IL — City Winery Chicago
May 28 — Boston, MA — City Winery Boston
June 2 — Philadelphia, PA — City Winery Philadelphia
June 6 — Los Angeles, CA — TBD
June 7 — San Francisco, CA — Jewish Community Center of San Francisco
June 20 — Brooklyn, NY — Crown Hill Theatre
June 21 — Marlboro, NJ — The Falcon
July 12 — Amherst, MA — Yidstock: The Festival of New Yiddish Music
August 14–15 — Fort Ann, NY — JetLAG Festival
