Shortly after, folk singer Pete Seeger, a friend of Woody Guthrie, began performing the song at concerts, and it was Seeger's rendition that popularized the song during this time. In the poem, Guthrie assigned symbolic names to the dead: 'Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita adiós, mis amigos, Jesús y María.' A decade later, Guthrie's poem was set to music and given a haunting melody by a schoolteacher named Martin Hoffman. Unaware of the extensive local coverage of the disaster, Guthrie responded with a poem, which, when it was first written, featured only rudimentary musical accompaniment, with Guthrie chanting the song rather than singing it. However, the local newspaper, The Fresno Bee, covered the tragedy extensively and listed all of the known names of the deportees.

Guthrie lived in New York City at the time, and none of the deportees' names were printed in the January 29, 1948, New York Times report, only those of the flight crew and the security guard. Reaching back 30 years to his days with The Weavers, Seeger offers a brace of tunes by his old friend and partner Lee Hays, including such lesser-known gems as “Raggedy, Raggedy” and “In Dead Earnest.” The Seeger/Hays standard “If I Had a Hammer” is presented as a joyous sing-along.The genesis of 'Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)' reportedly occurred when Guthrie was struck by the fact that radio and newspaper coverage of the Los Gatos plane crash did not give the victims' names, but instead referred to them merely as 'deportees'. The setlist features traditional material like “Hills of Glenshee” and “Tarentella,” gospel favorites like “Amazing Grace” and “Old Time Religion” (the latter rewritten to include nearly all the world’s faiths), and topical numbers like Tom Paxton’s “I’m Changing My Name to Chrysler.” Guthrie shines on a spirited take of his dad’s “Pretty Boy Floyd” and “The Neutron Bomb,” his own wry satire on Reagan-era militarism.

The onstage chemistry between the two singer/songwriters reflects their long history together (Arlo’s father, Woody, was Pete’s mentor), as well as their shared affinity for social commentary, timeless folk tunes, and whimsical storytelling. A warm camaraderie runs through the tunes found on Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger’s Precious Friend, a double-disc live album taken from 1981 concerts in California, Illinois, and Michigan.

Arlo guthrie and pete seeger