Eilen Jewell Shares Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee” and Announces Touring Hiatus

Photo credit: Damu Malik

March 25, 2026 – Northampton, MA – On March 24, acclaimed singer-songwriter Eilen Jewell shared her stirring cover of Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee.” Fans can stream/purchase the new single here. The single follows Jewell’s announcement of an indefinite hiatus from touring after 20 years of life on the road. Please see Jewell’s full statement and remaining tour dates below.

Jewell writes, “I first heard ‘Deportee’ when I was a teenager. I can’t recall which version it was, but I remember I was babysitting a little girl who was about six years old. She put it in the CD player, cranked it up, and started singing along loudly in a sweet and mournful tone. I could tell it really resonated with her, so I listened closely and realized it resonated with me too—the grief in the sudden separation of friends, the ripping away of a shared humanity—it’s haunted me ever since. I’ve heard just about every version of it there is, searching for one as anguished as the one in my memory of that night with the little girl howling along.”

“My search never yielded one that quite fit, so I altered the song a bit by putting it in a minor key and choosing only the verses that felt closest to the bone,” Jewell continues. “It’s disheartening to think that Woody Guthrie wrote ‘Deportee’ nearly 80 years ago and it still rings true. What can I do but join him in fighting fascism the only way I know how—with my conscience, with my guitar, with my voice.”

Jewell released her powerful ninth studio album, Get Behind The Wheel, on May 5, 2023 via Signature Sounds. The 11-song collection pushed Jewell’s trademark blend of vintage roots-noir into more psychedelic territory, with spacious, cinematic arrangements complementing her revelatory explorations of grief, loss, resilience, and redemption. The band’s performances were electrifying, resulting in Jewell’s boldest album yet, a powerful work of artistic alchemy that transformed heartache into genuine creative rebirth. No Depression raved, “Jewell demonstrates her versatility, range, and depth, rebranding familiar sounds while again sharing her distinct voice and poetic bent.”

Eilen’s statement on indefinite tour hiatus:

Twenty years of touring. Twenty years on the road. “My own weariness amazes me,” as Bob Dylan sings to his Tambourine Man. I feel ya, Bob. But the depth of my gratitude amazes me too. I’m humbled by the countless gifts of fanship and friendship throughout the past two decades. I would say it’s been a dream, except I never could have dreamt up most of it. I’ve shared stages and drinks in hotel rooms with my heroes, met children named after me, made friendships rooted in music from Auckland to the Arctic Circle, performed on trains, on boats, for Wall Street men in tuxes and for the muddy denizens of a musk ox farm… Not bad for a lonely rambler girl from Idaho. It was always a nebulous gut feeling that got the show on the road, and so it is now but in reverse.

A gut feeling is telling me to get off the road, at least for now. After 2026, touring and I will part ways for a year, maybe two, maybe fifty…it’s hard to say at this point. I do hope to keep performing in some capacity. Maybe come see me on a weeknight in some Boise dive, playing for potatoes? Or strumming the guitar for a handful of fellow meditators as we contemplate the Dharma and the temporary nature of all things. I need some time for a new exploration, to try to be the kind of mother I want to be, and to stop moving long enough “to let my soul catch up with me,” as my grandma Jeanne used to say. Who knows what will come of that? Maybe on some jingle-jangle morning I’ll come following the next great dream, rested and ready to go anywhere. But until then, suffice it to say…thank you. Thank you, thank you to everyone who carried me forward all this way and in all your different ways. With love, gratitude, and solidarity in music always, –Eilen

EILEN JEWELL 2026 TOUR DATES

MAR 31 TUE — Iridium — New York, NY
APR 1 WED — Sellersville Theater — Sellersville, PA
APR 2 THU — Avenel Performing Arts Center — Woodbridge Township, NJ
APR 3 FRI — The Hamilton Live — Washington, DC
APR 4 SAT — Avalon Theatre — Easton, MD
APR 25 SAT — WMNF’s Tropical Heatwave — Tampa, FL
JUL 31 FRI — HopMonk Tavern — Novato, CA
NOV 15 SUN — Spire Center for Performing Arts — Plymouth, MA
NOV 17 TUE — City Winery Boston — Boston, MA
NOV 18 WED — The Iron Horse — Northampton, MA
NOV 19 THU — The Iron Horse — Northampton, MA
NOV 20 FRI — Levon Helm Studios — Woodstock, NY
NOV 21 SAT — Center for the Arts of Homer — Homer, NY

More About Eilen Jewell: An Idaho native, Jewell built her career the old-fashioned way, touring relentlessly with the kind of undeniable live show that converts the uninitiated into instant acolytes. Over the course of nine albums, she’s crisscrossed the globe countless times and shared bills with the likes of Lucinda Williams, Loretta Lynn, Mavis Staples, Wanda Jackson, George Jones, and Emmylou Harris. Rolling Stone lauded Jewell’s “clever writing,” while NPR declared that she has a “sweet and clear voice with a killer instinct lurking beneath the shiny surface,” and The Washington Post mused that “if Neko Case, Madeleine Peyroux, and Billie Holiday had a baby girl who grew up to front a rockabilly band, she’d probably sound a lot like Eilen Jewell.”