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
I've written quite a variety of songs, everything from kids songs to political satire, and my dad covered a fairly large range, also.
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.
We are thrilled that we have been able to make some small dent in all that is wrong down here.
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.
With the advent of radio and recording, music became an industry rather than just a tradition.
We would turn everything into songs in those days.
I thought I would be governor of Massachusetts. I stood on a pile of my old albums and said, 'I'm the only one with a record to stand on.'
Thank God that the people that run this world are not smart enough to keep running it forever. You know, everybody gets a handle on it for a little while.
Along with a sense of humor, my songs have to be sincere, and they have to be sung from a position of inner conviction.
My only description for me is that there's no throwaway people. That's the creed that I live by. It doesn't matter if I'm singing or not. That's the kind of person that my father and mother wanted me to be. The end obligation is to make people feel good about who they are.
Folk music is music that everyday people can play, and it inspired a lot of people to make their own music. That trailed into making your own pop music, and that's why garage bands started springing up everywhere.
My mother had introduced me to a lot of my father's friends because she believed that I would get to know the guy my dad was better through his friends than just in the hospital visits.
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.