Arlo Guthrie - Biography
Arlo Guthrie’s last name could have been a blessing or a curse. Son of Woody Guthrie, the man who almost single-handedly invented the American art of the protest song, it seemed unlikely that he would ever surpass his father’s accomplishments. Happily, Arlo was his own man and with his low-key charisma, goofy sense of surrealistic humor, and major songwriting chops, he carved out his own unique niche in the world of folk music. Guthrie has two Grammy nominations, three gigantic mainstream hits—“Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” “Coming Into Los Angeles,” and “The City of New Orleans”—a gold album in Alice’s Restaurant (1967 Reprise; reissued 1986 Rising Son), a platinum album in Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More (1970 Cotillion; reissued 1994 Atlantic), his own record label, and an international reputation as one of our finest folksingers, songwriters and comedians. Some 40 years after Guthrie came on the scene, he’s still going strong.
Arlo Guthrie was born on July 10, 1947, in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Woody Guthrie and Woody’s second wife, Marjorie. His parents divorced while he was still a child, but Arlo remained close to his dad. Woody gave Arlo a guitar for his sixth birthday in 1953. Needless to say, Arlo grew up surrounded by folk music and legendary performers like Pete Seeger and The Weavers, Cisco Houston, Lead Belly, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. Although he was a gifted guitarist and budding songwriter, Arlo had his heart set on becoming a forest ranger. He studied forestry at Rocky Mountain College in Montana but, perhaps as a sign of the times in the ’60s, he dropped out and moved back to the East Coast. Once there, he crashed with friends Ray and Alice Brock, who were in the process of opening Alice’s Restaurant. The couple asked Guthrie to drive a load of garbage to the dump, but he tried to dispose of it on private property, got caught, busted, and paid a fine. This was the criminal record that kept him out of the draft and Vietnam, an event that also led to his most famous song, “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree.”
Guthrie performed his own songs as well as those from his father’s repertoire at folk clubs in New York and Boston. In 1966 he was part of a multi-artist folk concert at Carnegie Hall. Station WBAI began playing his rendition of “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” and the phones lit up, and the exposure won him a gig at the Newport Folk Festival, where he sang the song on the closing night stage. Guthrie was signed to Reprise, and the label released Alice’s Restaurant in the fall of 1967.
“Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” was the album’s hit, but since it clocked in at 17 minutes long and took up one whole side of Arlo’s debut, radio stations didn’t play it. Still Alice’s Restaurant climbed the pop charts and stayed on the charts for almost two years.
His second album, Arlo (1968 Reprise; reissued 1986 Rising Son) was a live concert from New York’s Bitter End folk club and included another hit, “Motorcycle Song.” Later that year, director Arthur Penn (Bonnie and Clyde, Little Big Man) turned Alice’s Restaurant into a movie starring Arlo as himself. Penn was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Director category for the film, and the recognition sent Alice’s Restaurant, the album, back up the charts to win a gold record.
Guthrie’s third album, Running Down the Road (1969 Reprise; reissued 1997 Rising Son) included the pro-pot anthem, “Coming Into Los Angeles.” The record came out just after Arlo appeared at the Woodstock Festival, and when the Woodstock soundtrack was released, the song became a radio hit.
Washington County (1970 Reprise; reissued 1997 Rising Son) followed, which contained a cover of Woody’s “Lay Down Little Doggies,” and then Hobo’s Lullaby (1970 Reprise; reissued 1993 Rising Son) shortly thereafter—both of which hit the album charts. Arlo’s cover of Steve Goodman’s “City of New Orleans” off Lullaby became an AM radio hit.
The Last of the Brooklyn Cowboys (1973 Reprise; reissued 1997 Rising Son) and Arlo Guthrie (1974 Reprise; reissued 1997 Rising Son) were the last of Guthrie’s albums to make an impression on the pop charts, but at that point he had already solidified himself as a legend on his own terms.
He put out Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger: Together in Concert (1975 Reprise; reissued 1986 Rising Son), a record that encapsulated America’s folk revival from the ’30s to the ’70s in the persona of two great singer/songwriters. That was followed by Amigo (1976 Reprise; reissued 1998 Rising Son), which was a little more folk rock in character that his previous work and garnered some of the best reviews of any Guthrie album. Even still, Amigo was deemed a commercial failure. Later that year, Guthrie did a few dates with Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Review.
In 1978 Guthrie put together a backing band called Shenandoah, with pickers drawn from the folk, jazz and bluegrass worlds—although for his albums he used mostly session players. He finished his Reprise association with One Night (1978 Repirse; reissued 1998 Rising Son), Outlasting the Blues (1979 Reprise; reissued 1998 Rising Son) and Power of Love (1981 Reprise; reissued 1998 Rising Son). Guthrie also released another two-LP set cut live with Pete Seeger—Precious Friend (1982 Reprise; reissued 1999 Rising Son.)
In 1986 Guthrie launched his own label—Rising Son Records—and put out the album, Someday. While he set about acquiring the rights to his back catalog from Warner/Reprise, Guthrie bought the former location of Alice’s Restaurant in Massachusetts, at that point a church, and turned it into the offices for Rising Son Records and The Guthrie Center. The center is a non-profit foundation that provides HIV/AIDS services and sponsors an annual Huntington’s Disease walk-a-thon to raise awareness and money for the cause.
On Baby’s Storytime (1990 Lightyear) Guthrie narrated 15 favorite children’s tales and received a Granny nomination for Best Children’s Album. A year later, on his own label, he released All Over the World (1991 Rising Son) followed by, Son of the Wind (1992 Rising Son). Guthrie took part in 20 Grow Big Songs (1992 Reprise; reissued 2005 Rising Son)—a collection of Woody’s children’s songs. Arlo himself, along with his daughter Sarah Lee and assorted friends and relations, added their overdubbed voices to Woody’s original recordings. The album garnered another Best Children’s Album Grammy nomination.
Guthrie recorded less frequently during the early ’90s and into the 2000s. Alice’s Restaurant—The Massacree Revisited (1991 Rising Son) recreated the original album 25 years later. He released Mystic Journey (Rising Son) in 1996, which was his first album of mostly original tunes since Someday. This Land Is Your Land (Rising Son) came out a year later, in 1997, as a collection of his father’s hits. It would be a decade before In Times Like These (2007 Rising Son) would come out, a live recording with Guthrie at the piano and backed by a full symphony orchestra. A performance by Guthrie at Boston’s Symphony Hall, with orchestra conducted by Keith Lockhart, was aired on PBS’s Evening at Pops in 2007, and shows up often on fundraising marathons. In 2008 he released 32 cents Postage Due, followed by Tales Of 69' in 2009.
Arlo Guthrie continues to tour the world both as a solo artist and with an orchestra.