MAKING TRACKS: Arlo Guthrie

It’s been quite a year for Arlo Guthrie, what with all the hoopla surrounding the fortieth anniversary of the original Woodstock Music and Art Fair, for which he was one of the headlining performers. And leave it to Guthrie, who’s called the Berkshires home for longer than anyone who attended Woodstock can probably remember, to trip over a relic from that era in his archives and come up with Tales of ’69, recorded in concert on Long Island, New York, just prior to his landmark Woodstock performance.

 

The live recording captures the young Guthrie at his mystical, storytelling best, including renditions of such classics as “The Unbelievable Motorcycle Tale,” “Coming into Los Angeles,” and, yes, a half-hour version of “Alice’s Restaurant,” here called “Alice—Before Time Began,” replete with a retelling of the Exodus story, Russian scientists, Old McDonald, and Scotch tape. Among the five previously unreleased songs included here are the Indian-influenced “If Ever I Should See the Mountain,” the Everly Brothers-flavored “Road to Everywhere,” and an appropriately trippy “Hurry to Me.”

Perhaps Guthrie will feature a few of these unearthed treasures at the Guthrie Center in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on October 2-4, when he kicks off his nationwide “Guthrie Family Rides Again” tour, for which he’ll be joined by son, Abe, daughters Cathy, Annie, and Sarah Lee, the latter’s husband and musical partner, Johnny Irion, and even members of the next musical generation of Guthries. The tour also pays tribute to Arlo’s dad, the legendary Woody Guthrie, with renditions of previously unpublished lyrics put to music by contemporary artists such as Billy Bragg, Wilco, Eliza Gilkyson, Janis Ian, and the Klezmatics. [OCTOBER 2009]

 

THE GOODS

Arlo Guthrie
Tales of ‘69
Rising Son
www.risingsonrecords.com