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Is it possible to be a one-hit wonder three times? The question is provoked by the recording career of Arlo Guthrie, which is best remembered for three songs in three different contexts. There is "The City of New Orleans," Guthrie's only Top 40 hit, which earns him an entry in Wayne Jancik's The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders. There is also "Coming into Los Angeles," which Guthrie sang at the legendary Woodstock music festival, and which featured prominently in both the Woodstock movie and multi-platinum soundtrack album. And there is "Alice's Restaurant Massacree," the comic-monologue-in-song that gave him his initial fame and took up the first side of his debut LP, the million-selling Alice's Restaurant. Whether these successful tracks make him a one-, two-, or three-hit wonder, they were arguably both flukes in a performing career that was still going strong a full 40 years after Guthrie first gained national recognition and facilitators of that career. With their help, he spent 15 years signed to a major record label, charting 11 LPs, after which he was able to set up his own label and go on issuing albums. More significant, he maintained a steady following as a live performer, touring worldwide year after year to play before audiences delighted by his humorous persona and his musical mixture of folk, rock, country, blues, and gospel styles in songs almost equally divided between his own originals and well-chosen cover tunes.
Arlo Davy Guthrie was born July 10, 1947, in the Coney Island section of the borough of Brooklyn in New York City and grew up there. He was the fifth child of Woody Guthrie, the famous folksinger and songwriter, but the second child born to his father's second wife, Marjorie Greenblatt Mazia Guthrie, a former dancer with the Martha Graham dance troupe who had become a dance teacher; his older sister, Cathy Ann Guthrie, had died in a fire at the age of four five months earlier. After having two more children, Joady and Nora, Guthrie's parents separated when he was four and later divorced; his mother remarried. His father remained an important presence in his life, however, giving him his first guitar for his sixth birthday in 1953. By then, Woody Guthrie had been diagnosed with Huntington's disease, an incurable, hereditary illness; he was hospitalized permanently in 1954, and Guthrie's mother supervised his care.
Guthrie grew up surrounded by his father's friends, including such folksingers as Pete Seeger and Cisco Houston. (Houston brought him up on-stage at the Greenwich Village nightclub Gerde's Folk City for an impromptu performance when he was only ten.) Guthrie later said that he had been unaware of his father's fame until he switched from public school to a progressive private school in the sixth grade and found that students there were singing Woody Guthrie songs like "This Land Is Your Land." Only then did he begin learning his father's music. Nevertheless, he did not expect to become a performer himself, feeling that his introspective personality was not suited to such a career. When he graduated from high school at the Stockbridge School in Massachusetts in 1965, he enrolled at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, MT, to study forestry with the intention of becoming a forest ranger. He dropped out after only six weeks, however. Returning to Massachusetts, he stayed at the home of Alice and Ray Brock, a deconsecrated church. The Brocks were former faculty members of the Stockbridge School who had opened a restaurant called the Back Room. Celebrating Thanksgiving with them, Guthrie and his friend Rick Robbins undertook what he later called the "friendly gesture" of attempting to dispose of a large amount of accumulated garbage for them. Finding the city dump closed, they threw it down a hillside. As a result, they were arrested for littering. Convicted of the offense, they paid fines of $25 each and retrieved the garbage. This proved fortuitous shortly afterward, when Guthrie was summoned for the military draft and judged unfit for service because of his criminal record.
Guthrie took up performing, turning professional in February 1966 with a debut at Club 47 in Cambridge, MA. His repertoire included a 16-bar ditty he had written that constituted a musical commercial for the Brocks' eatery, with a chorus that went, "You can get anything you want/At Alice's restaurant." The song, however, was the least of the performance, as Guthrie told a fanciful and comic version of his adventures in littering and at the draft board, spinning it out to what amounted to a 20-minute comedy routine with a tune wrapped around it. He performed what he called "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" (idiosyncratically pronouncing the last word "mas'e-kree" instead of "mas'e-ker," hence the extra "e") at Carnegie Hall as part of a folk song festival sponsored by New York radio station WNYC, and another local station, WBAI, began airing a tape of the song in the spring of 1967, to popular response. Guthrie attended the Newport Folk Festival and found himself promoted to the closing-night concert on the main stage, performing "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" to 20,000 folk fans on July 16, 1967. That provoked interest from Warner Bros. Records, which signed him and issued Alice's Restaurant on its Reprise subsidiary in September 1967, only weeks before Woody Guthrie's death on October 3. The album entered the Billboard magazine Top LP's chart on November 18 and rose steadily, peaking at number 29 on March 2, 1968, and staying on the chart 65 weeks. (Although the title song dominated attention, the LP also contained a second side of original Guthrie compositions including "Highway in the Wind," which was covered by Hearts and Flowers and Noel Harrison soon after, and by Kate Wolf later.) The success of the album and of "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" went well beyond sales, however. First, it established Guthrie not only as a star, but also as a figure separate from his father, always a tricky thing to accomplish for a child following in the footsteps of a famous parent. Despite Woody Guthrie's renown as a progenitor of the 1960s folk revival, he himself did not perform after the early '50s, and his son presented a distinct, if related persona to a young audience that only vaguely recalled his father, if at all. Second, as a highly entertaining live recording, "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" immediately transformed Guthrie into a concert attraction; he came off as a wry, yet gentle and charming hippie able to puncture the pretensions of "the establishment" with comic hyperbole.
Guthrie appeared at a memorial concert for his father held on January 20, 1968, at Carnegie Hall that was later released on disc as A Tribute to Woody Guthrie, Pt. 1, featuring his performances of "Do Re Mi" and "Oklahoma Hills," and reached the charts. (A second concert at the Hollywood Bowl on August 12, 1970, produced another LP, A Tribute to Woody Guthrie, Pt. 2, on which Guthrie performed "Jesus Christ" and participated in a version of "This Land Is Your Land"; it also charted.) Alice's Restaurant was still selling when Reprise released Guthrie's second LP, Arlo, in October 1968. It was a live album recorded at the Bitter End nightclub in Greenwich Village, and it featured more of Guthrie's zany humor, along with original songs. Overshadowed by Alice's Restaurant, it peaked at number 100 in Billboard, although it got to number 40 in rival Cash Box magazine.
Guthrie agreed to have "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" adapted into a motion picture and to star as himself in the film. Veteran director Arthur Penn (The Miracle Worker, Bonnie and Clyde) was brought in, and he co-wrote the screenplay with Venable Herndon, elaborating on the song's story to create a virtual screen biography of the 21-year-old Guthrie. Alice's Restaurant the movie premiered at the New York Film Festival on August 24, 1969, to favorable reviews, earning Penn an Academy Award nomination for Best Director. Alice's Restaurant the album promptly jumped back into the charts. It was certified gold on September 29 (the same day that Guthrie appeared on the cover of Time magazine) and achieved a new peak in Billboard at number 17 on November 15. Ultimately, it spent a total of 99 weeks in the Billboard chart, and it was certified platinum in 1986. United Artists, the distributor of the film, released a soundtrack album featuring a different, two-part version of "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" along with instrumental music by Guthrie on its record label in September. Simultaneously, Reprise released Guthrie's third album, Running Down the Road. Given this glut of product, it is striking that both albums sold fairly well. The soundtrack album peaked at number 63 (number 58 in Cash Box), and Running Down the Road got to 54 (33 in Cash Box). (Reprise also released as a one-off single "Alice's Rock & Roll Restaurant," a shortened, re-recorded version of the famous song, and it charted briefly.)
Nevertheless, Running Down the Road did not attract as much attention as it deserved. Produced by Lenny Waronker and Van Dyke Parks and featuring such prominent session musicians as James Burton, Ry Cooder, and Clarence White, it was Guthrie's first album without any comic monologues, and it combined some excellent new originals, including the psychedelic rocker "Coming into Los Angeles" (a tale of dope smuggling) and the tender ballad "Oh, in the Morning" (later covered by McKendree Spring), with covers of old folk and blues standards like Woody Guthrie's "Oklahoma Hills" and Mississippi John Hurt's "My Creole Belle." (Whether due to his own inclinations or the demanding one-album-a-year schedule of his record contract, Guthrie from this point on would cut as many covers as original songs for his LPs.) Prior to the release of Running Down the Road, Guthrie had appeared at the Woodstock festival on August 15, 1969, where, as part of his set, he performed the then-unreleased "Coming into Los Angeles." When that performance turned up in the Woodstock movie and soundtrack album in May 1970, the tune became one of his signature songs.
In October 1969, Guthrie, who had bought a 250-acre farm in Stockbridge, MA, married Alice "Jackie" Hyde, with whom he would have four children: Abraham (Abe), Annie, Sarah Lee, and Cathy. Abe Guthrie became a musician and worked with his father. Sarah Lee Guthrie also went into music and became a recording artist.
Guthrie released his fourth album, Washington County, in October 1970. Although it included covers such as Bob Dylan's relatively obscure "Percy's Song," it was dominated by Guthrie originals, notably "Gabriel's Mother's Hiway Ballad #16 Blues" (later covered by Jackie DeShannon) and the single "Valley to Pray," which charted in Cash Box. The album hit number 33 in Billboard, number 29 in Cash Box. An unusually long time (for the early '70s, that is) passed before the release of Guthrie's fifth album, Hobo's Lullaby, 19 months later in May 1972, and when it appeared it was largely devoid of original compositions. One of the covers was Steve Goodman's "The City of New Orleans," a song about a train of that name with the catchy chorus line "Good morning, America, how are you?" Released as a single, it peaked at number 18 in the Billboard Hot 100, number four in the magazine's Easy Listening chart, and Hobo's Lullaby went to number 55 (number 35 in Cash Box), remaining in the chart for 38 weeks. Last of the Brooklyn Cowboys, Guthrie's sixth album, was released in April 1973. It was another effort largely given over to cover material and performed with the cream of Los Angeles session musicians. The single "Gypsy Davy" (another Woody Guthrie song) reached the Easy Listening chart, and the LP peaked at number 87 in Billboard, number 63 in Cash Box.
With the decline of the singer/songwriter movement of the early '70s and the rise of disco, Guthrie's record sales fell off after Last of the Brooklyn Cowboys, which became his final album to hit the upper half of the Top 200 bestsellers. Subsequent releases struggled to spend a few weeks in the bottom half of that list, or did not chart at all. This commercial decline was first apparent with the release of his seventh album, Arlo Guthrie, in May 1974. The sales were especially disappointing given the quality of the LP, which increased the number of Guthrie originals to include the scathing "Presidential Rag," a reflection on the current Watergate scandal about to drive President Nixon from office; "Children of Abraham," an examination of the Arab-Israeli conflict; and "Last to Leave," a personal expression by a man who had spent his entire life wondering whether he carried the disease that killed his father. (Guthrie refused to be tested to determine whether he had the gene that causes Huntington's disease, but as he aged and showed no symptoms, it became apparent that he did not.)
Despite his dropping record sales, Guthrie remained a potent concert attraction. He teamed with Pete Seeger for a series of concerts that resulted in a double-LP live album, Together in Concert, released in May 1975. That fall, he hired a local Massachusetts band, Shenandoah, as his regular backup group for shows. For his next album, Amigo, however, he stuck with L.A. session musicians. The disc contained more originals than usual, among them "Victor Jara," an account of the death of the Chilean singer/songwriter who was slaughtered in his country's CIA-backed military coup in 1973 that was later covered by Christy Moore, and "Patriot's Dream," which later served as a title song for an album by Jennifer Warnes. When Amigo was released in September 1976, it garnered strong reviews from rock critics because it rocked more than Guthrie's albums usually did, notably on a cover of the relatively unknown Rolling Stones song "Connection." But the positive notices did not help sales. That fall, Guthrie joined Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue for some shows, leading to an appearance in Dylan's film Renaldo and Clara, shot during the tour.
Another of the originals on Amigo was a song called "Darkest Hour," a poetic and personal statement by Guthrie, who was questioning his spiritual ideas at this time. In 1977, he formally converted to Roman Catholicism. (He later explored Hinduism and Buddhism, adopting a more ecumenical view of religion.) His next album, One Night, released in October 1978, was a live recording with only one original song, a return to comic storytelling, called "The Story of Reuben Clamzo and His Strange Daughter in the Key of A." Shenandoah backed Guthrie on the disc, and he also took the band into the studio for his next album, Outlasting the Blues, which followed in June 1979. This LP consisted mostly of originals, some of which reflected his religious beliefs. Again, it attracted strong critical reaction, although it did not sell well enough to reach the charts.
Guthrie's last chart album was Power of Love, released in June 1981. It was another disc consisting largely of cover material. After its release, Guthrie went on another tour with Seeger, resulting in a second double live album, Precious Friend, released in February 1982. Guthrie prepared a new album for submission to Warner Bros., but the label rejected the disc, asking for changes the singer declined to make. Warner was rethinking its roster at the time and cut a number of veteran acts, including Bonnie Raitt, Van Morrison, and Guthrie. Guthrie simply continued to tour as he always had, deriving most of his income from his concert work. In 1984, he teamed again with Seeger as well as the duo of Holly Near and Ronnie Gilbert (like Seeger a former member of the Weavers) in a quartet dubbed HARP after the initials of their first names; concert performances led to a HARP LP issued on Near's Redwoods Records label in 1985. Also in 1984, Guthrie narrated a documentary film about his father, Woody Guthrie: Hard Travelin', and appeared on the soundtrack album. In 1986, Guthrie launched his own label, Rising Son Records, and put out the album he'd submitted to Warner three years earlier, Someday. He also set about licensing or acquiring his out-of-print Warner/Reprise albums for reissue. Notwithstanding the major label's objections, Someday was a strong collection, led by the Guthrie original "All Over the World" (which had debuted on HARP) and the amusing post-hippie lament "Oh Mom," with lyrics by Terry Hall and the tag line, "Mom, your universal love is such a drag."
Guthrie had another chance to sing music of his father's era on Folkways: A Vision Shared, an all-star album of Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly material recorded as a benefit for the new Smithsonian Folkways label that was released in August 1988 and peaked at number 70 in the charts. In 1990, he released his first children's album, Baby's Storytime, along with a home video, on Lightyear. All Over the World, released by Rising Son in 1991, found Guthrie re-recording some of his old songs.
In January 1992, Guthrie bought the deconsecrated church in which the Brocks had lived and converted it into the headquarters of Rising Son Records and a nonprofit community service center. Son of the Wind, which appeared in 1992, was a collection of Western and cowboy music. On August 25 of that year, Guthrie briefly returned to Warner Bros. for the release of Woody's 20 Grow Big Songs, a collection of Woody Guthrie's children's songs on which he, his brother and sister, and their children overdubbed Woody Guthrie's original recordings or recorded new versions of the tunes, as an accompaniment to a songbook of the same name. The project was billed to Woody & Arlo Guthrie & the Guthrie Family. It was nominated for a 1992 Grammy Award for Best Album for Children. The same year, Guthrie had a small part in the film Roadside Prophets.
Rising Son issued a third Guthrie/Seeger double live album, More Together Again: In Concert, in March 1994. At the same time, Guthrie returned to acting, taking a role in the television series Byrds of Paradise. (He later appeared on episodes of the shows Relativity [December 1996] and Renegade [January 1997].) In October 1995, he collaborated with Alice Brock, who illustrated their children's book, Mooses Come Walking.
In January 1996, Guthrie released Mystic Journey, his first studio album of new material since Someday in 1986. It was co-produced by his son Abe Guthrie. He marked the 30th anniversary of Alice's Restaurant, the one album he had not been able to buy back from Warner, by re-recording the entire disc and releasing the new version on June 17, 1997, as Alice's Restaurant: The Massacree Revisited. The same year, Rounder Records released This Land Is Your Land, another album on which Guthrie overdubbed his voice onto recordings by his father. The album earned him another Grammy nomination for Best Musical Album for Children.
Guthrie toured as part of Judy Collins' Wildflower Festival along with Eric Andersen and Tom Rush, resulting in a live album and video released in 2003. He released a double-disc concert album, Live in Sydney, on August 9, 2005. On this album, he was accompanied only by Abe Guthrie and Gordon Titcomb. But since 1998, he also had been performing with orchestras, including the Boston Pops, resulting in an appearance on PBS' Evening at Pops and a 2001 Fourth of July show on A&E with the Pops. On July 10, 2007, his 60th birthday, he released another live album, In Times Like This, recorded with the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra, as he embarked on a yearlong solo concert tour. A long rumored bluegrass outing with the Dillards, 32¢/Postage Due, also appeared in 2007, followed by Tales of '69 in 2009.
from Wikipedia:
Arlo Davy Guthrie (born July 10, 1947) is an American folk singer. Like his deceased father, Woody Guthrie, Arlo is known for singing songs of protest against social injustice. One of Guthrie's better-known works is "Alice's Restaurant Massacree", a satirical talking blues song about 18 minutes in length.
Early life
Arlo Guthrie was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of folk singer and composer Woody Guthrie and his wife Marjorie Mazia Guthrie. His sister is Nora Guthrie. His mother was a one-time professional dancer with the Martha Graham Company and founder of the Committee to Combat Huntington's disease, the disease that took her previous husband's life in 1967. His maternal grandmother was renowned Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt. Guthrie's mother was Jewish, and he received religious training for his bar mitzvah from Rabbi Meir Kahane, who would go on to form the Jewish Defense League. "Rabbi Kahane was a really nice, patient teacher," Guthrie later recalled, "but shortly after he started giving me my lessons, he started going haywire. Maybe I was responsible." Guthrie attended Woodward School in Clinton Hill Brooklyn 1st through 8th grades and later graduated from the Stockbridge School, in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in 1965, and briefly attended Rocky Mountain College. He received an Honorary Doctorate from Westfield State College, in 2008.
As a singer, songwriter and lifelong political activist, Guthrie carries on the legacy of his legendary father. He was awarded the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience award on September 26, 1992.
"Alice's Restaurant"
His most famous work is "Alice's Restaurant Massacree", a talking blues song that lasts 18 minutes and 34 seconds in its original recorded version. Guthrie has pointed out that this was also the exact length of one of the famous gaps in Richard Nixon's Watergate tapes. He has been known to spin the story out to forty-five minutes in concert. The Alice in the song is Alice Brock, who now runs an art gallery in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
The song lampoons the Vietnam War draft. However, Guthrie stated in a 2009 interview with Ron Bennington that the song is more an "anti-stupidity" song than an anti-war song, adding that it is based on a true incident. In the song, Guthrie is called up for a draft examination, and rejected as unfit for military service as a result of a criminal record consisting in its entirety of a single arrest, court appearance, fine and clean-up order for littering and creating a public nuisance on Thanksgiving Day in 1965, when Arlo was 18 years old. On the DVD commentary for the film, Guthrie states that the events presented in the song all actually happened.
For a short period of time after its release in 1967, "Alice's Restaurant" was heavily played on U.S. college and counter-culture radio stations. It became a symbol of the late 1960s and for many it defined an attitude and lifestyle that were lived out across the country in the ensuing years. Many stations across the States have made playing "Alice's Restaurant" a Thanksgiving Day tradition.
A 1969 film, directed and co-written by Arthur Penn, was based on the true story told in the song, but with the addition of a large amount of fictional scenes. This film, also called Alice's Restaurant, featured Arlo portraying himself. However, the part of his father Woody Guthrie was played by an actor, Joseph Boley.
Despite its popularity, the song "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" is not always featured on the set list of any given performance.
Popular and critical reception
In 1972 Guthrie made famous Steve Goodman's song "City of New Orleans", a paean to long-distance passenger rail travel. Guthrie's first trip on that train was in December 2005 (when his family joined other musicians on a train trip across the country to raise money for musicians financially devastated by Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, in the South of the United States). He also had a minor hit with his song "Coming into Los Angeles," which was played at the 1969 Woodstock Festival, and success with a live version of "The Motorcycle Song." Guthrie's 1976 album Amigo received a 5-star (highest rating) from Rolling Stone, and may be his best-received work; unfortunately that milestone album, like Guthrie's earlier Warner Bros. Records albums, is rarely heard today even though each boasts compelling folk and folk rock music accompanied by top-notch musicians such as Ry Cooder.
Shenandoah
In the fall of 1975 during a benefit concert in Massachusetts, Arlo Guthrie performed with his band Shenandoah in public for the first time. They continued to tour and record throughout the 1970s until the early 1990s. Although the band received good reviews, it never gained the popularity that Guthrie did while playing solo. This band is not to be confused with the popular country music group Shenandoah, an entirely different group that had musical hits from 1986 to 2006. Arlo Guthrie's band Shenandoah consisted (after 1976) of David Grover, Steve Ide, Carol Ide, Terry A La Berry and Dan Velika.
A number of musicians from a variety of genres have joined Guthrie on stage, including Pete Seeger, David Bromberg, Cyril Neville, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, Judy Collins, John Prine, Wesley Gray, Josh Ritter, and others.
Acting
Though Guthrie is best known for being a musician, singer, and composer, throughout the years he has also appeared as an actor in films and on television. The film Alice's Restaurant (1969) is his best known role, but he has had small parts in several films and even co-starred in a television drama, Byrds of Paradise.
Guthrie has had minor roles in several movies and television series. Usually, he has appeared as himself, often performing music and/or being interviewed about the 1960s, folk music and various social causes. His television appearances have included a broad range of programs from The Muppet Show (1979) to Politically Incorrect (1998). A rare dramatic film part was in the 1992 movie Roadside Prophets. Guthrie's memorable appearance at the 1969 Woodstock Festival was documented in the Michael Wadleigh film Woodstock.
Guthrie also made a pilot for a TV variety show called "The Arlo Guthrie Show" in February, 1987. The hour-long program included story telling and musical performances and was filmed in Austin, Texas. It was broadcast nationally on PBS. Special guests were Pete Seeger, Bonnie Raitt, David Bromberg and Jerry Jeff Walker.
Politics
A registered Republican, Guthrie endorsed Texas Congressman Ron Paul for the 2008 Republican Party nomination. He said, "I love this guy. Dr. Paul is the only candidate I know of who would have signed the Constitution of the United States had he been there. I'm with him, because he seems to be the only candidate who actually believes it has as much relevance today as it did a couple of hundred years ago. I look forward to the day when we can work out the differences we have with the same revolutionary vision and enthusiasm that is our American legacy." He told The New York Times Magazine that he is a Republican because, "We had enough good Democrats. We needed a few more good Republicans. We needed a loyal opposition."
About once a month, Guthrie posts short writings to the Announcements area of www.arlo.net, often sounding libertarian themes. However, on February 1, 2011, his post was to promote the cause of the public employee unions being opposed by Wisconsin Republicans, and to favor the cause of labor unions in general. Previously Guthrie had made comments in public disparaging musicians' unions and stating that he had refused to join one.
In earlier years, at least from the 1960s to the 1980s, Guthrie had taken a decidedly leftist approach to American politics. In his often lengthy comments during concerts his expressed positions were consistently anti-war, anti-Nixon, pro-drugs and in favor of making nuclear power illegal. However, he apparently regarded himself as more an individualist than the major youth culture spokesperson he had been regarded as by the media, as evidenced by the lyrics in his 1979 song "Prologue": "I can remember all of your smiles during the demonstrations, ... and together we sang our victory songs though we were worlds apart."
In 1984, he was the featured celebrity in George McGovern's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in Guthrie's home state of Massachusetts, performing at rallies and receptions.
Legacy
Like his father, Woody Guthrie, Guthrie often sings songs of protest against social injustice. He collaborated with poet Adrian Mitchell to tell the story of Chilean folk singer and activist Víctor Jara in song. He regularly performed with folk legend Pete Seeger, one of his father's longtime partners.
In 1991, Guthrie bought the church that had served as Alice and Ray Brock's former home in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and converted it to the Guthrie Center, an interfaith meeting place that serves people of all religions. The center provides weekly free lunches in the community and support for families living with HIV/AIDS as well as other life-threatening illnesses. It also hosts a summertime concert series and Guthrie does six or seven fund raising shows there every year. There are several annual events such as the Walk-A-Thon to Cure Huntington's Disease and a "Thanksgiving Dinner That Can't Be Beat" for families, friends, doctors and scientists who live and work with Huntington's disease.
Family
Guthrie and his wife Jackie reside in the Town of Washington, Massachusetts. Guthrie's son Abe Guthrie and his daughters Sarah Lee Guthrie and Cathy Guthrie have also become musicians. Annie Guthrie writes songs and performs, and also takes care of family touring details. Sarah Lee performs and records with her husband Johnny Irion. Cathy plays ukulele in Folk Uke, a group she formed with Amy Nelson, the daughter of Willie Nelson. Abe Guthrie was formerly in a folk-rock band called Xavier, and now tours with his father. Abe Guthrie's son, Krishna, is a drummer and toured with Arlo Guthrie on his European tour in 2006 and played guitar for the 2009–2010 Tour. Krishna plays drums in Modest Me and aspires to be the lead of his own band some day. Arlo Guthrie is a grandfather of Abe's son Krishna and daughter Serena, Annie's son Shiva Das (Mo) and daughter Jacklyn, Sarah Lee's daughters Olivia Nora and Sophia Irion and Cathy's daughter Marjorie Maybelle Midwood.
In fiction
Arlo Guthrie is mentioned in Tim Winton's novel The Riders – shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1995. A character in the novel overhears locals in the small Irish town of Shinrone, recount the night Arlo Guthrie came to play. The actual event occurred in February 1988, when Arlo played the local gymnasium in Shinrone, County Offaly. The concert was organised by a local postman, Tom Stapleton.
