Happy Birthday Arlo Guthrie
Arlo Davy Guthrie was born July 10, 1949 in Brooklyn, NY. Really? Brooklyn!? We were not expecting that. His father of course, is legendary musician, Woody Guthrie, but did you know his maternal grandmother was the renowned Yiddish poet, Aliza Greenblatt? Her most famous poems include, ‘Bubby Mcgee’ & ‘Ode to a Gefilte fish’. The family moved to Massachusetts when Arlo was a teen.
Alice’s Restaurant chronicles Guthrie’s Thanksgiving Day arrest for littering. The song details being handcuffed to a bench with mother rapers and father rapers. Hilarity ensues. Arlo is still in touch to this day with some of the father rapers and last year there was a big reunion and they all attended his concert in Des Moines.
Who could forget Arlo’s performance at Woodstock and his memorable speech. A visibly stoned Guthrie announced, that he had been “rappin’ with the fuzz (can you dig it?)” and had heard there were “supposed to be a million-and-a-half people here by midnight,” and that the New York State Thruway was closed man, “Lotta freaks!” This was followed by a lot of “Groovy’s” & “Far Outs”.
Guthrie had his own TV variety show in 1987. The hour-long program included story telling, puppet shows, Topo Gigio, tap dancers and the muppets. Musical guests included Donny & Marie, Billy Idol, Pete Seeger and Rufus featuring Chaka Khan.
Guthrie still resides in Massachusetts where he lived with his wife of 43 years until her death in 2012. They had 4 children together. Abe, Annie, Sara Lee & Cathy are all working musicians.
