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
We are thrilled that we have been able to make some small dent in all that is wrong down here.
I wasn't very reliable. People like Pete Seeger would show up there, obviously needing somebody to accompany him on the guitar while he went over some new songs. All of the office work just got left.
With all of the history that he'd had with the Weavers, he really was a connection between my dad's era and the world of the late 60's.
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.
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.
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.
It's about the time I was riding my Motorcycle, going down a mountain road at 150 miles an hour, playing my guitar.
We went back, afterward, after the show was over that night, I took my kids backstage and said, "You know what? I know my dad's songs...
I froze in time! And I thought "My God......I'm free!