The Power of Story
and Song

When I was growing up there was always music in our house. That’s not to say that I come from a family of great musicians. Rather, I come from a family of average musicians who had really good taste in music.

My dad, especially, had a passion for music that included a wide spectrum of styles from the doo-wop numbers of East Coast rhythm and blues groups to the country songs of Jimmie Rodgers and Hank Williams to the protest ballads of Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs to the psychedelic sound of the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix.

Arlo Guthrie, with his son Abe Guthrie on keyboards in the background, playing at Farthing Auditorium last Saturday. Photos by Leila Pratt Jackson

Johnny Irion and Sarah Lee Guthrie perform at Farthing Auditorium last Saturday during the Guthrie Family Legacy Tour.

From an early age, my parents took my brother and I to see live music events whenever they were scheduled at a kid-friendly time of the day. One of those events sticks out in my mind because of the setting, the crowd and the musician involved.

In 1970 Arlo Guthrie played a concert at the Waikiki Shell Arena in Honolulu. My parents had tried to go to that concert but were turned away, as many people were, because the show was sold out. Guthrie, still quite a young folk singer at the time, was on a hot streak with “Alice’s Restaurant” and other songs garnering constant airplay on FM radio in Hawaii.

When Guthrie learned of the number of people turned away from the evening’s performance, he decided to play a free show the next day at Kapiolani Park across from the Waikiki Shell. I seem to recall that we learned about the free show from one of the friendly island DJs on radio station KPOI. My dad hurriedly threw my mom and us kids in the car and drove from Ewa Beach where we lived to Honolulu to see Arlo in the park.

Kapiolani Park was filled with all kinds of people that day and my brother and I climbed one of the many old trees there for a better view of young Arlo and his acoustic guitar. He played many of his early songs including “Alice’s Restaurant” and “The Motorcycle Song” and regaled the folks in Hawaii with his sparkling wit and boyish charm. For me it was a great introduction to the power of story and song.

Arlo Guthrie’s sparkling wit and boyish charm were fully intact when he performed at Appalachian State University’s Farthing Auditorium last weekend. That’s an amazing accomplishment when you consider how many musicians of his generation have succumbed to disillusionment, substance abuse, and the general degradation of their musical gifts.

Arlo performed as part of the Guthrie Family Legacy Tour along with his son Abe Guthrie, daughter Sarah Lee Guthrie, son-in-law Johnny Irion, and longtime musical partner Gordon Titcomb. The performance was one of the highlights of this year’s An Appalachian Summer Festival, presented by ASU’s Office of Cultural Affairs.

During the three-hour concert, Arlo and his family performed the songs of his father—folk legend Woody Guthrie—plus some Arlo tunes and songs from Johnny and Sarah Lee’s debut album. They also played a moving version of the late Steve Goodman’s “City of New Orleans” and segued that number in with songs and stories about Arlo’s Amtrak Tour last year. That tour played shows at cities from Chicago to New Orleans and raised money for musicians who lost homes and equipment during Hurricane Katrina.

One of the funniest of the many humorous stories that Arlo told during the evening was a retelling of the Biblical tale of Joseph and the coat of many colors, with the point being how one person’s action can effect change in many different directions. It was Arlo’s unique way of telling folks not to give up on important issues such as war and peace, even in the face of great odds.

There were also some incredibly touching moments during the evening as when Arlo sang a song that his father had written about the songs that his mother used to sing to him. He also sang a song called “1913 Massacre” that Woody wrote about a true event that happened in Calumet, Michigan. Union miners and their families were holding a Christmas Eve party at a big place called the Italian Hall when anti-union thugs bolted the doors at the bottom of a long stairway and yelled “fire” through the windows. In the ensuing panic, over 50 children were crushed to death at the bottom of the stairway. It’s one of the saddest songs ever written and Arlo’s performance of it Saturday night was spot-on perfect.

The fact that so many of the Guthrie Family’s songs deal with social issues such as peace, war, fairness, love and prison might be one of the reasons why Arlo and his clan thrive when many of his musical contemporaries have fallen by the wayside. In addition to the music and stories, they have created the Guthrie Center and Guthrie Family Foundation, both housed in the old Trinity Church in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, a setting made famous in “Alice’s Restaurant.” The two organizations present programs such as “The Walk-A-Thon to Cure Huntington’s Disease” and the “Thanksgiving Dinner That Can’t Be Beat” for families, friends, doctors and scientists who live and work with Huntington’s Disease. The church provides free weekly community lunches and there are spring, summer and fall outdoor concerts where Arlo and his musical friends raise money for a variety of good causes.

The church also provides a not-for profit educational foundation and helps provide local cultures with the means to preserve traditional music, stories, medicine, dance and spiritual practices “in the face of an ever-encroaching globalization.”

During Saturday’s concert Sarah Lee recalled an occasion when someone approached her dad about the Trinity Church’s reopening and asked him what kind of church it was going to be.

According to Sarah Lee, Arlo considered the question for a second and answered, “It’s going to be a bring-your-own-God church.”

Amen to that, Arlo. Keep on trucking, brother.