Arlo Guthrie: Comes into Los Angeles

By Thomas Dimopoulos

It was a horrifying thought: Arlo Guthrie — humanitarian, world-traveled musician, and son of American folk hero Woody Guthrie — was stuck inside of a Los Angeles hotel room waiting for the phone to ring.

Guthrie had just landed stateside, returning from a successful Australian tour and spending a few days in southern California to shake off the jet lag before heading east for tonight's performance at the Albany State Museum.

Securing the name and phone number of Guthrie's hotel was easy enough.
When the switchboard operator answered the phone however, the guessing name game as to what pseudonym the musician was traveling under was proving to be a challenge. Traveling musicians always use aliases.

“Good morning and thank you for calling,” answered the voice from behind a hotel desk somewhere in southern California.
It was a friendly enough welcome although given the circumstances, you couldn’t help but think that an opening round of “Good Morning America, how are you?” might have made a more apropos greeting.

“How can I help you?” it asked.
“Um, Officer Obie, please.” Obie seemed a reasonable guess for an alias;
Officer Obie being a character pulled from the Arlo Guthrie tune “Alice's Restaurant.”

“Sorry, we don't seem to have any Obie listed,” said the voice.
“Hmm. Do you have a listing for Fasha the Dog perhaps?” Another name culled from the Guthrie songbook.

“Uh, afraid not,” said the voice. No problem. There was a whole list of possible names
the singer could be hiding under, each of them culled from any number of songs he has performed.
“Uncle Jeff?”
“Uh, No.”
“Utah Carroll?”
“Sorry.”
“Victor Jara?”
“Nope.”
“How about Eli? Juan? Rosalita?”

It was only 9 a.m. in Los Angeles and you could sympathize with the growing weariness of the hotel clerk's voice, recognition of fatality that says ‘oh boy, this is just going to be one of those days.’

A sense of desperation finally delivered the magic phrase: “Arlo Guthrie, please?” And sure enough, seconds later Arlo is on the phone. All the gossip mongering about the pleasant, groovy and down to earth manner of the man is crystallized in the first few minutes. He even uses his real name.
Guthrie shares his happy road memories of Australia — “It's the third time I've been there and it's great” — as well as talking about how he is looking forward to tonight's appearance in conjunction with the “Spirit of Woodstock” exhibition in Albany.

“I think it’s a great idea for a series,” Guthrie says. "We’re looking forward to getting back to the east coast and we're looking forward to playing there, it should be great.”

Guthrie performed a handful of tunes at the 1969 Woodstock festival and also had one of the film’s most memorable lines. “Like I was rappin' to the fuzz, alright, can you dig it?” he says. “The New York State Thruway is closed man.”

He performed a set that included “Walking Down the Line” a version of “Amazing Grace” and the song “Coming into Los Angeles.” The song's line “Don’t touch my bags if you please/ Mr. Customs Man,” raises a chuckle from Guthrie to this day, when passing through airport security. The recognition of him is more as a songwriter than a young hippie kid who has got something to hide.

“I get in (to the airport) and they say — Oh, that’s the guy that did that song,” he laughs.
Guthrie spends most of his time on the road but makes his home in Massachusetts, in the town that spawned his most popular song, “Alice’s Restaurant.”

Alice, as the song says, “lived in the church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower.”
That site, the 19th century chapel of the Trinity Church, was founded in 1991 as the Guthrie Center, an interfaith church foundation providing a wide range of local and international services, outreach services and dedicated to raising awareness and funds for a cure for Huntington’s Disease— the degenerative disease that Arlo’s father Woody Guthrie suffered from until his passing in 1967.

Arlo's dad used his voice, guitar and unconquerable spirit that inspired awareness
and a culture of music throughout 20th century and in no small way inspired a legacy carried forward by everyone from Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen to Ani DiFranco.

In 1940, the elder Guthrie sat down in a run-down Manhattan hotel room and wrote a protest song in response to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.” To this day, the song “This Land is Your Land” is known to everyone from schoolchildren to grandparents all across the country. Even though the tune's most protesting lyrical verses are usually omitted from sing-a-long versions, Arlo still thinks the popularity of the tune is pretty amazing. He remembers learning it first hand nearly a half-century ago.

“It was back in 1950-something when my dad taught me the verses of the song,” he says. “And I think my dad would think it’s great how the song has become a part of the fabric of the country.”

Later this month, Guthrie will be heading to his dad’s hometown of Okemah, Oklahoma to take part in a three-day music festival celebration on the anniversary of Woody Guthrie’s birthday
Arlo Guthrie's appearance at another three-day music festival in 1969 almost never took place due to the large crowds. Woodstock swelled to as many as 10 times the number of people originally anticipated.

“It was (scheduled as) a normal gig. We knew it was a big festival and we thought 50,000 people would be there, or something like that,” Guthrie says. “But the day we were going there, we nearly didn’t make it. On the radio they were saying that it was turning into a ‘historic event.’ In those days whenever you had large groups of people there was usually riots and confrontations. But that — it turned out just great,” says Guthrie, before getting on to his normal morning routine.

This includes getting some coffee and checking out the Message Board on the Web site,
arlo.net. “I read them every morning. I know at least half of the people (personally),” Guthrie laughs.
Then he will make his way across the country where he can be found traveling, guitar in hand and with a song to sing. A stand-up guy, and with no need for an alias.

July 1, 2004