Legendary singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie — and his family — comes to Birchmere
Arlo Guthrie — “The Guthrie Family Rides Again!” featuring Arlo, Abe, Cathy, Annie, Sarah Lee and Johnny
Where: Birchmere, 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday
Info: $55; this show has sold out, but tickets may be available through various online resellers.
In the short list of singer-songwriters whose reputations precede them, Arlo Guthrie ranks high.
Of course we know he’s the son of the legendary Woody, and he’s the creator of many songs. (A version of the much-loved “Alice’s Restaurant” — plus plenty of social commentary — is on his latest release, “Tales of ’69.”)
“I know what a cool family I have,” said musician Sarah Lee Guthrie, Arlo’s daughter. “A lot of stars wouldn’t include their families because it hurts their images. My dad never worried about that.”
From the time Arlo Guthrie hit the public consciousness in the late 1960s, he was loved for his narration-filled songs that protested social injustice. Now a registered Republican who told The New York Times he considers himself part of “loyal opposition” to the Democrats, Guthrie clearly still is a renegade.
“I remember the days after I parted Warner Brothers [Records] after 15 years, and no one was looking over my shoulder when I was making records; no one had any expectations,” he said. “The first record I made was of old cowboy songs [“Last of the Brooklyn Cowboys”] because I loved them and wanted my kids and grandkids and great-grandkids to hear them. I put them out with no promotion, just for sale on my Web site … and the right people found them.”
The same, Guthrie predicted, will be true with “Tales of ’69.” The nine songs recorded live at an unknown venue in Long Island, N.Y., just before Woodstock capture a young Guthrie at his most fun loving.
His children discovered the audiotapes in Guthrie’s basement and prodded him to release them.
“It’s totally bizarre,” Guthrie said. “It’s not really a record. I think of it like a gift to all of those who loved what we did then. Every stoner will hear it at least once.”
The album has nine songs but they’re almost asides to Guthrie’s social commentary about the Vietnam War, Nixon administration and other topical issues.
Revisiting that time, Guthrie said, makes it seems as if the recording was made by someone else.
“It is really somebody I really don’t remember,” he said. “I’m a different person. That was a very different place and time.”
For now, Guthrie is concentrating on writing and performing the music he loves and watching the next generation of Guthries begin musical careers.
“Our music was never made for the Billboard charts or Top 40. My dad’s music was the same way,” he said. “The fact that we can do this as a business is fabulous, but the truth is if I was a bartender, we’d still be doing it. Music is a life for us, not a business.”
