Arlo Guthrie

By the time Arlo Guthrie became part of the national consciousness by debuting his master tome, Alice’s Restaurant, as a 20-year-old at the 1967 Newport Folk Festival he had been playing guitar and writing music for years. His performance at Woodstock two years later solidified his reputation as a stand-out singer/songwriter aside from being the son of one of the true legends of American music (and perhaps America). The son of Woody Guthrie and his second wife, Martha Graham dancer Marjorie Mazia, Arlo survived the hippy ’60s, the anti-folk backlash and a commercialized lock-down of the music industry by writing and recording great songs and building a major following worldwide. Now, his tours include his son, Abe, and often his daughter, Sarah Lee, and her husband Johnny Irion ” rising Americana stars in their own right. At the 2006 Folk Alliance conference in Austin, TX, Jim Blum sat down with Arlo for a rousing discussion of the music industry (including the saga of acquiring the rights to his Warners back catalog), the happy marriage of music and the Internet, and Arlo’s train tour to New Orleans that raised money for victims of Hurricane Katrina (inspired in part by his classic recording of Steve Goodman’s City of New Orleans.