The Son Also Sings

Twenty-twelve was a big year for Arlo Guthrie. Not only would it have been the 100th birthday of his father, Woody, which came with all the attendant celebrations, in a few of which he participated, but it was the 45th anniversary of the release of the song for which he is best known, Alice's Restaurant, a glorious ramble of a tune chiming in at 18-plus minutes based on the protagonist's attempts to avoid being called up to fight in Vietnam, which became the basis of a very popular movie.

Delivered with all the understated charm of the man himself, there's a lot more to Guthrie the younger, as his back catalogue of nearly 30 studio and live albums and collaborations testifies. But it was that gently subversive humour that stood Guthrie apart from the more earnest singer-songwriters of the day.

“Well, I always thought of my shows as more than just singing a group of songs,” Guthrie explains, on the line from his home in Washington, Massachusetts. “When I was very young I would go to hear singers who never said a word – they just sang one song, picked up another instrument and sang another song, and just kept going like that – and that's what people expected, and I thought, 'Well, why aren't these people doing, like, theatre, where you're engaged, and the whole time you're on stage tells a story?' It's not just individual stories, but they relate to each other in some way, and they do anyway, from a practical point of view, and so why not do it consciously? So I began to sort of weave together not just the stories but the songs as well, and maybe some instrumentals, so that the whole evening would tell a story.

“I really started talking on stage when I ran out of songs I knew. When I started I was very young – I only knew a handful of songs – and I'd get up there and, you know, try to waste some time by telling tales, and pretty soon people would yell out, 'Shut up and sing!' And of course, not very long after that, while doing songs like Alice's Restaurant, they would yell when I was singing, 'Shut up and talk!'” he chuckles. “I realised at some point that you can't please everybody, so to hell with them, do what makes you happy, and I've been doing that ever since.”

While the flow of new material has slowed a little, primarily because Guthrie still tours relentlessly, there's no shortage of live recordings currently being sorted by his son, keyboards player and engineer Abe Guthrie, for release this year, among them some hundred shows that featured three generations of Guthries touring as Guthrie Family Rides Again. On this Australian tour, Guthrie will perform solo and with daughter Sarah Lee and her husband Johnny Irion.

Woody Guthrie succumbed to the degenerative Huntington's disease in 1967 aged just 55, his widow, Marjorie founding the Huntington's Disease Society of America the following year. In 1990, Arlo Guthrie set up the Guthrie Centre to support for families living with HIV/AIDS and other life-threatening illnesses. Various Woody centennial events through last year not only celebrated the musical legacy but raised funds and awareness for both charities.

“My sister Nora, who is the one in charge of my father's estate, put together a number of very large shows,” Guthrie explains. “Some I was able to attend; most of them I was not. So I've continued to do my own little centennial celebration as a solo artist, which is how my dad worked anyway, a lot of the time. I think his songs are particularly poignant when done that way.”

Arlo Guthrie will be playing the following dates:

Friday 1 March - Seymour Centre, Sydney NSW
Saturday 2 March - The Judith Wright Centre, Brisbane QLD
Sunday 3 March - Star Court Theatre, Lismore NSW
Tuesday 5 March - Twin Towns Service Club, Tweed Heads NSW
Thursday 7 March - The National Theatre, Melbourne VIC
Friday 8 - Sunday 10 March - Port Fairy Folk Festival VIC
Tuesday 12 March - Church Of The Trinity, Adelaide SA
Wednesday 13 March - The Octogon Theatre, Perth WA
Friday 15 - Sunday 17 March - The Blue Mountains Music Festival NSW