Arlo Guthrie
Arlo Guthrie
Arlo Davy Guthrieis an American folk singer-songwriter. Like his father, Woody Guthrie, Arlo is known for singing songs of protest against social injustice. Guthrie's best-known work was his debut piece "Alice's Restaurant Massacree", a satirical talking blues song about 18 minutes in length that has since become a Thanksgiving anthem, and his lone top-40 hit was a cover of Steve Goodman's "City of New Orleans." His song "Massachusetts" was named the official folk song of the state in which he...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCountry Singer
Date of Birth10 July 1947
CityConey Island, NY
CountryUnited States of America
My dad's songs were really written to make certain people feel as though they had some kind of value. Because they were told from where they work and from the countries they had immigrated from that they did not.
at the festival in 1969. ''I would love to see it just called the Newport Folk Festival, and you wouldn't have to change the name every few years.
Probably my two biggest musical influences were the Everly Brothers and the Beatles, in chronological order. Both of them have had a very simple-sounding musical style that's actually quite complex as far as popular songs are concerned.
Music is a nice friend to have around, whether it is just for yourself or for other people. If you can enjoy it, being professional is almost secondary.
I think of my parents as a single unit, and it's interesting because they shared so much, and they were totally opposite. My mother, a Martha Graham dancer, had a classical background; my father had a back-porch background.
Everywhere I go, I see all kinds of people at my shows - conservatives, liberals, new-agers, teen-agers, old pensioners. And for those people to have something in common is real interesting to me.
Yes, I was born in Coney Island. The Holy Land.
I'm not just a singer-songwriter doing songs in the key of me.
I left the entertainment industry part of my life behind in 1983, when we decided not to work with major record companies anymore.
A lot of people think 'Alice's Restaurant' was an anti-war song. It's not. It's an anti-idiot song,
I don't do anything on stage that allows me to become a trained seal, where you're just doing the same thing over and over.
I've written quite a variety of songs, everything from kids songs to political satire, and my dad covered a fairly large range, also.
If you do anything for 40 years, you can do it comfortably. And it will always be good. But unless you're willing to risk it being bad, it can never be great.
People were talking about songs of the common man in order to make the common man. With Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly, they were so common it was just uncommon.