With a plethora of albums and nearly 3,000 song lyrics, it may come as a surprise to learn that Woody Guthrie has never been heard in concert except by those who actually attended a show. It was thought that a live recording of Woody Guthrie was non-existent until 2001 when a suspicious package turned up at the Woody Guthrie Archives containing two spools of wire recordings.

The Associated Press reports that Paul Braverman was cleaning out his closet when he found the recording he had made of a Newark, NJ, Guthrie concert he attended when he was a Rutgers student in 1949. Through a painstaking process and not without a fair share of complications, a team of professionals restored the tape and transferred it to digital format in order to recreate the sound as accurately as possible.

For the Guthrie family the recording is more than just a historical glimpse of twentieth century Americana. "This was the first time I had ever had a chance to hear a live performance of my dad," says Arlo Guthrie, a legend in his own right—famous for tunes such as “Alice’s Restaurant” and “The Motorcycle Song” among others.

The 18-track collection is now available and has been dubbed The Live Wire: Woody Guthrie in Performance 1949. It is packaged in a 72-page hardcover book complete with rare photographs and texts. All proceeds from album sales go to the Woody Guthrie Foundation.

The album has been nominated for the Best Historical Album Grammy award.