Thank you to all who joined us to celebrate Mondo's Tenth Anniversary!
Mondo.NYC Speaker
Steve Rosenthal
Owner, Magic Shop Archival and Restoration Studios
Steve Rosenthal owned and operated The Magic Shop recording studio in NYC for 28 years from 1988-2016. The studio was home to hundreds of recording artists like David Bowie, Foo Fighters, Sonic Youth, Ramones, Blondie, Coldplay, Arcade Fire, and many more. Rosenthal is a four-time Grammy winner having produced, mixed and restored archival projects for Woody Guthrie, Alan Lomax, Jelly Roll Morton, Blondie, Harry Nilsson, Sam Cooke, Frank Sinatra, Bob Fosse, The Rolling Stones and Erroll Garner. He has also produced and engineered new music albums for Lou Reed, Natalie Merchant, Suzanne Vega, Dave Van Ronk, Laura Nyro, Charles Brown and Ollabelle.
In 2016 Rosenthal opened a new space in Brooklyn, MARS NYC, Magic Shop Archival and Restoration Studios. Over the last five years, he has worked with The New York Public Library to digitize its Lou Reed collection, The Library of Congress to digitize The Les Paul Foundation’s collection, The Museum of Modern Art, Laurie Anderson, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Richard Hell, Terry Southern, The Matador Record’s catalog and more. In 2023 he was Grammy nominated for producing “Against The Odds”, the new 10LP Archival Blondie box set and in 2024 he was nominated for his restoration work on Lou Reed “Words and Music”.
For seventeen years, Steve and his wife Jennifer Gilson owned and operated The Living Room, New York’s iconic singer-songwriter venue where they also produced a long running Sirius XM radio show.
Photo above: Steve Rosenthal, Nora Guthrie and Anna Canoni with Woody Guthrie's recording machine and tapes.
Mondo 2025 Panels
TRO Essex & Shamus Records Present The Making of Woody at Home: The Process and Backstory of the Landmark Release of Woody Guthrie’s Home Tapes
Friday, October 17, 2025, 3:00 PM
Please join us for a special presentation and listening session into the making of Woody at Home with Anna Canoni, President of Woody Guthrie Publications and Woody’s granddaughter, and GRAMMY-winning producer Steve Rosenthal, as we delve into the process and backstory of the landmark release of Woody Guthrie’s home tapes. This year, home recordings by Woody Guthrie were released in the two-volume landmark collection Woody At Home –- Volumes 1 & 2 via Shamus Records, label subsidiary of TRO Essex Music Group.
Woody at Home is a two-volume secret treasure trove of Woody’s home recordings — recordings that Woody was unable to release in his lifetime, a life cut short by Huntington’s disease. Never intended for commercial release, these raw and intimate home tapes were recorded in 1951-1952 at the family’s apartment in Beach Haven, Brooklyn. Woody made them as his musical introduction to his new publisher. Now, thanks to the leaps made in technology, Woody’s voice, ideas, and recordings are a guiding and candid voice. Woody sings about historic events, stories of the disenfranchised and ignored, love, and of course, the fight against fascism.
The collection contains 22 previously unreleased recordings, including 13 Guthrie songs not heard on any of his other recordings. Woody Guthrie’s original tapes were made in his home using a consumer tape recorder that played and recorded at a very slow speed, 3 3/4 inches per second. The tapes have been restored with as much fidelity and character as possible in a way that matched the tenor and spirit of Woody’s songs. In this panel, the album's producers will delve into the making of Woody at Home. For more information, please visit woodyathome.com, shamusrecs.com or the official Woody Guthrie site at woodyguthrie.org.