diff --git a/pywb/__init__.py b/pywb/__init__.py
index 05caf769..caece5a6 100644
--- a/pywb/__init__.py
+++ b/pywb/__init__.py
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-__version__ = '2.1.0'
+__version__ = '2.1.1'
 
 DEFAULT_CONFIG = 'pywb/default_config.yaml'
 
diff --git a/pywb/warcserver/resource/responseloader.py b/pywb/warcserver/resource/responseloader.py
index 6aecbb80..2396da1e 100644
--- a/pywb/warcserver/resource/responseloader.py
+++ b/pywb/warcserver/resource/responseloader.py
@@ -353,6 +353,17 @@ class LiveWebLoader(BaseLoader):
                     v = self.unrewrite_header(cdx, v)
 
                 http_headers_buff += n + ': ' + v + '\r\n'
+
+            http_headers_buff += '\r\n'
+
+            try:
+                # http headers could be encoded as utf-8 (though non-standard)
+                # first try utf-8 encoding
+                http_headers_buff = http_headers_buff.encode('utf-8')
+            except:
+                # then, fall back to latin-1
+                http_headers_buff = http_headers_buff.encode('latin-1')
+
         except:  #pragma: no cover
         #PY 2
             resp_headers = orig_resp.msg.headers
@@ -374,8 +385,8 @@ class LiveWebLoader(BaseLoader):
                 else:
                     http_headers_buff += line
 
-        http_headers_buff += '\r\n'
-        http_headers_buff = http_headers_buff.encode('latin-1')
+            # if python2, already byte headers, so leave as is
+            http_headers_buff += '\r\n'
 
         try:
             fp = upstream_res._fp.fp
diff --git a/tests/base_config_test.py b/tests/base_config_test.py
index bbc83a21..58d75e79 100644
--- a/tests/base_config_test.py
+++ b/tests/base_config_test.py
@@ -22,11 +22,13 @@ def fmod_sl(request):
 
 # ============================================================================
 class BaseConfigTest(BaseTestClass):
+    lint_app = True
+
     @classmethod
     def get_test_app(cls, config_file, custom_config=None):
         config_file = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__)), config_file)
         app = FrontEndApp(config_file=config_file, custom_config=custom_config)
-        return app, webtest.TestApp(app)
+        return app, webtest.TestApp(app, lint=cls.lint_app)
 
     @classmethod
     def setup_class(cls, config_file, include_non_frame=True, custom_config=None):
diff --git a/tests/test_live_rewriter.py b/tests/test_live_rewriter.py
index 68d29cb2..4062e67f 100644
--- a/tests/test_live_rewriter.py
+++ b/tests/test_live_rewriter.py
@@ -1,14 +1,44 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python
+# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
+
 from .base_config_test import BaseConfigTest, fmod_sl
 from pywb.warcserver.test.testutils import HttpBinLiveTests
+
+from pywb.utils.geventserver import GeventServer
 import pytest
 import sys
+import six
+
+
+# ============================================================================
+def header_test_server(environ, start_response):
+    body = b'body'
+    value = u'⛄'
+    value = value.encode('utf-8')
+    if six.PY3:
+        value = value.decode('latin-1')
+
+    headers = []
+    if environ['PATH_INFO'] == '/unicode':
+        headers = [('Content-Length', str(len(body))),
+                   ('x-utf-8', value)]
+
+    start_response('200 OK', headers=headers)
+    return [body]
 
 
 # ============================================================================
 class TestLiveRewriter(HttpBinLiveTests, BaseConfigTest):
     @classmethod
     def setup_class(cls):
+        cls.lint_app = False
         super(TestLiveRewriter, cls).setup_class('config_test.yaml')
+        cls.test_serv = GeventServer(header_test_server)
+
+    @classmethod
+    def teardown_class(cls):
+        cls.test_serv.stop()
+        super(TestLiveRewriter, cls).teardown_class()
 
     def test_live_live_1(self, fmod_sl):
         headers = [('User-Agent', 'python'), ('Referer', 'http://localhost:80/live/other.example.com')]
@@ -58,6 +88,15 @@ class TestLiveRewriter(HttpBinLiveTests, BaseConfigTest):
         assert resp.headers['Content-Length'] == '90'
         assert resp.headers['Content-Range'] == 'bytes 0-89/90'
 
+    def test_custom_unicode_header(self, fmod_sl):
+        value = u'⛄'
+        value = value.encode('utf-8')
+        if six.PY3:
+            value = value.decode('latin-1')
+
+        resp = self.get('/live/{0}http://localhost:%s/unicode' % self.test_serv.port, fmod_sl)
+        assert resp.headers['x-utf-8'] == value
+
     def test_live_live_frame(self):
         resp = self.testapp.get('/live/http://example.com/')
         assert resp.status_int == 200