Who better to soothe our frayed nerves in such chaotic times than Arlo Guthrie. He has been doing just that practically his whole life. Born to a dust bowl minstrel who fed the everyday people words of hope and truth, the son of Woody Guthrie spoke his mind in such a way that you connected with him instantly. Funny, down home, caring, outspoken, a doer in a world that would sometimes sit back and wait for a leader to show them the way, Guthrie calmed us, assured us, encouraged us. He got us through Vietnam, shady presidents, gas shortages and nuclear worries, and even a minor case of littering. And now he is once again projecting his voice, so calming and strong, through our current worldwide worries with an old song called “Hard Times Come Again No More.”
Written in the 1850’s by Stephen Foster, best known for such giddy diddies as “Oh Susanna” and “Camptown Races,” “Hard Times Come Again No More” is hymnal in both spirit and melody. Guthrie has kept it solemn intentionally, choosing not to make it into a boisterous rally cry, and added a lyric of hope at the end. With pianist Jim Wilson, the two composed a gentle arrangement that carries on the wind. Add in Vanessa Bryan’s voice, Stanley Clarke on bass and Andy McKee on guitar and the song simply falls into place beautifully.
Released at the end of July, Guthrie woke up one morning and knew what he was going to do. “I grew up in a family that cared about the hardships of others,” Guthrie explained in a press release. “My father was well known for writing and performing songs to offer hope. ‘Hard Times Come Again No More’ resonates with me, and I know it did as well with Woody. Though it was first released around 1900, the message endures with the calamities of today being utterly unjustifiable. We must come together not only as a country, but all across the globe in this dire moment.”
Guthrie’s first big moment of fame came in 1967 with the release of his rambling ode to litter and criminality, “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree.” He sang “Coming Into Los Angeles” off his Running Down The Road album at Woodstock and pretty much became a national treasure in his own right with his version of “City Of New Orleans” from 1972’s Hobo’s Lullaby. “I needed to sing and have my voice offer solace to those on the front lines,” Guthrie said. He has never strayed from those front lines, although coronavirus has certainly put a halt to any touring in the present and near future. So having a song out on the airwaves has been the next best thing.
From his home in rural Massachusetts, Guthrie talked to me a few days ago about his new song, an old song and the power of everyone’s voice.
So Arlo, what have you been doing besides interviews?
Well, I am in my home for the last fifty years, which is up in the western part of Massachusetts. We’ve been here since 1969 and I’m not doing too much. Interviews is one thing and some fixing up the place. We’ve got the whole summer to do it cause we’re not going anywhere (laughs).
You’ve just released “Hard Times Come Again No More.” It was a song written way back in 1854, so why was this song the right song for you to record and release for these times?
Well, I think there are a number of reasons I wanted to do it and most important is to remind people that we have been through difficult times in the past and we’ve got through it, and not just the times the song was written in. Obviously, we don’t have many photographs for imagery from that period but we did have some of the Great Depression that my father experienced and we have, obviously, a better photographic record of the times that we’re in. So we’ve used as much imagery as possible [in the video] from all these difficult times to first of all show that we’ve been through these before and we’ll get through them again.
What gave you the idea to bring in Jim?
I first heard of Jim probably almost ten years ago. There was a song of his, or a melody of his, an arrangement, that was playing on the radio at that time that I really loved and I wrote to him and I said, “You don’t know me, and you’re probably too young to remember me, but I just wanted to say I’m a musician myself and I appreciate the work.” And he wrote back and he said, “Of course I know who you are.” And that was it. It was just a nice way of sending somebody some love, you know.
Then about four or five months ago, I woke up one morning and this song was on my mind for some reason and I thought to myself, who could do an arrangement of this, and Jim came to mind. So I wrote him and I said, “Jim, you haven’t heard from me for about a decade but I think you’d be the perfect person to take on an arrangement of this song, if you’re up to it.” And he wrote me back and he said, “I’m on it!” He sent me some arrangements and I sent him some old midi files that I’d been collecting for about thirty years and we worked out an arrangement and I finally got one that I said, “You know what, this is good. Let me put a vocal track down and then we’ll build the song from there.” And that’s exactly what we did and we finally got done about three weeks ago.
Was he familiar with the song?
I don’t think so. I mean, I think everybody has heard it in their background at least once, but I don’t think he was familiar with it. He didn’t seem conversant in it musically but, you know, he’s a scholar of an arranger and he and I worked together to create what we thought was the best representation of the original. Other people had done different versions of it, some of whom I really loved – Mavis Staples does a great version of it – and there were others. Ry Cooder, my old buddy, I heard do it back probably in the mid-seventies or so and I loved his arrangement. But I wanted to do one that stayed as true as possible to the structure of the song as Stephen Foster had envisioned it. So we started there and we added in an extra lyric verse in order to project a hopeful future. It worked out great as far as I was concerned.
Why do you think a quieter song, like this one, can calm during chaotic times?
Well, I don’t know that it can but it’s my response. It’s obviously not a pop song; it’s obviously not meant for the charts; it’s not a formula and it’s not part of the standard music industry fare. It’s an old song and it has an old style and an old school feel to it and I felt comfortable with it. I think there was a time when I was eighteen and I was nineteen and I was out on the streets, I don’t know that anybody of an older generation could have written or sang a song that I would have responded to. So I wasn’t looking for that. But I think to a lot of people my own age, of my era, the song is calming in the sense that it’s tough too. There have been tough times and they were real.
Sometimes these difficult times are man-made and some of them are natural. If an earthquake hits or a meteor strikes or there’re floods or famine, that’s natural disasters and we all deal with that. But the disasters that we tackled in this song are man-made disasters. They didn’t have to happen; they happened because of the stubbornness of some people, of all people, actually, involved, and I thought this resonated with that kind of disaster.
Did your father talk to you about the normal, everyday people he came across during his travels and do you recognize any similarities with the normal, everyday people of today?
Yeah, absolutely. My dad’s songs, for the most part, were all about reminding people that they were important as individuals and only as individuals could they become powerful as a group. He didn’t like sheep mentality and he became belligerent when anyone suggested that he conform to some group or other and he remained as individual as he could. I’m sure he agreed with some people some of the time, disagreed with others at different times, just like people today. So people are people and they aren’t any different today than they were fifty, sixty, seventy years ago; or 150 years ago when this song was written.
You’ve never seemed intimidated by the legacy of your father.
Well, I was either too dumb or just too busy but I never let it become a weight.
And what do you hope your grandchildren will inherit from you?
I have no idea (laughs). I’m not really thinking about it but I think, you know, every generation succeeds in dealing with their heritage. I went from inheriting the heritage of my father, my mother and all of my grandparents and had to deal with them. I mean, they weren’t always right or good but for the most part they tried their best. I expect, at this point, my grandkids know that about me. Wasn’t always right but I gave it a good shot, did my best and hopefully didn’t intentionally make it more difficult for them.
You do a wonderful version of “St James Infirmary.” How did you discover that song and what did you love about it?
Oh wow, I think the first time I heard it was from my father’s best friend, a guy named Cisco Houston. Cisco had recorded it sometime probably back in the late 1940’s or early 1950’s, and I would listen to those records and I heard that song. I loved it because it told a story of an average guy in an average situation. I love those kinds of songs. I like the old cowboy songs, the old ballads that are story songs, songs about people and places and times and things that happened. I like those kinds of songs. I’ve written them myself, I’ve written them about myself, I have written them about other people and it always appealed to me as one of those great songs when you hear it you can put yourself in the shoes of the guy that’s singing it.
I’m sure you’ve heard the Louis Armstrong version
Yeah, I’ve heard a bunch of versions of it, although it’s been a while. But it’s a standard, especially down in New Orleans, of course, and we’ve performed it down there at the Jazz & Heritage Festival a number of times. It’s something people can relate to down there for sure but everywhere else as well, because the song has populated itself and become a standard around the world.
Do you have a favorite memory of New Orleans?
Oh man, now you’re putting me on the spot (laughs). I’ve got really good memories and I can’t talk about them but it’s always been fun to be in New Orleans. I remember after Katrina, we did a fundraiser for some of the musicians down there who had lost everything and I remember coming down on the train, we took the City Of New Orleans, Chicago and we did a few shows along the way and we ended up at Tipitina’s for three nights with Willie Nelson and a whole bunch of others. But the thing that stays in my mind is coming into New Orleans on the train and looking out the back – they had given us a couple of the old City Of New Orleans train cars – and there was a sign just along the train tracks that said, “Arlo, Thank You.” And I thought, you know what, somebody went out of their way to paint that thing and put it up there in the hopes that we would be happening to be looking out the window or something at that time as we went by. It was an anonymous person, we have no idea who that was.
And another guy that met us on the way down said, “I heard you’re collecting instruments for musicians.” I said, “Yes, I am.” He said, “Well, I got a truckload of pianos.” And I said, “What the hell do you want me to do with them?” (laughs) “I can’t pick them up and put them on the train.” It’s nice that he collected them but I didn’t know what to do with them. I said, “I tell you what, I’ll meet you down there.” And sure enough, we raised some money and we raised some instruments and we tried to help out some not-for-profit organizations that worked down there. We’ve still got a little project we’re working on with a place called Project Lazarus down there and we’re trying to raise some money for them. So we have been in constant contact with friends and neighbors and people that we know over the years and all by chance all because, nothing was arranged, nothing was structured, it just worked out and I love that.
You re-recorded Alice’s Restaurant. What were you not satisfied with the first time?
Well, the first thing was, the first time we recorded it we recorded it live with a studio audience in New York City and everybody that got invited, which not by me by the way, but everyone that was invited had already heard the song at least fifty times so there was nothing funny about it to the people who were sitting there. I mean, it was putting a smile on their face, don’t get me wrong, but they weren’t reacting like a person who had never heard the song. Not only that, when we went to do the other songs on the record, we had to do it in front of a live audience. There was no take two, there was no, why don’t we learn the song.
Everything about that first record was a disaster, although it remained popular from a musical point of view; from a technical point of view it was just awful. So I wanted to re-do it the first chance I had in front of a real live audience that hadn’t heard it, or at least would respond better. And we wanted to take time in the studio to do the songs on the second side. We finally had a chance, I think on the 30th anniversary. We also recorded it on the 40th anniversary and we recorded it again on the 50th. So every ten years is enough and I guess the next time I’ll have to try and remember it. It’s still a few years off so I’m okay for a while (laughs).
What song that you have written do you remember taking you the longest to get like you wanted?
That’s a good question and I have no answer for you (laughs). I can’t remember. The last studio album we made was a long time ago. We have put out some other releases but mostly of previously recorded material. Because after the age of sixty-five, your voice starts going downhill a little bit and the playing ain’t quite like what it used to be and now, I just turned 73, the older you get the harder it is to have the same energy and the same ability, either vocally or guitar-wise. That doesn’t make for great records or great songs although you do the best you can obviously.
So I can’t remember. Mystic Journey is the last one that I remember being done in the studio and that came out in 1996.
[At this point, Guthrie’s daughter Annie reminds him that he recorded an album called 32¢ Postage Due with The Dillards in 2008]
Do you know who The Dillards are? You remember the Andy Griffith Show? It used to have a band called The Darlings that would show up from time to time, a bunch of hillbilly pickers, and their real name was The Dillards and they were friends of mine. They made their fame and fortune under a different name, which didn’t really help them in the long run (laughs). But they were great. They were five pickers from Missouri, from the Ozarks, and Doug Dillard was a dear friend of mine throughout his entire life. Rodney Dillard is still around. I think one or two of the other ones are gone now; there used to be four of them. But they were the first band that played what I would call progressive bluegrass. They took the old traditional style and they pushed it forward into the pop world and that’s what got like The Byrds started and the Eagles and all of those guys. They heard The Dillards and said, “Oh yeah, we can do that.” The Dillards are really great and their stuff holds up today.
What do you think the world is most in need of today?
A longer view. I think a lot of stuff that is going on right now is only possible if you’re not able to see the forest for the trees. There are people who don’t have the wherewithal to see that twenty years from now, fifty years from now, the world is going to be different; it’s going to be different whether you want it to be or not; whether you vote or not; whether you are right or left or center or whatever your position is, it’s going to be different. And it’s the young people who have most to gain by making that different be better. So I think that’s the most important thing to have right now is a bigger view, a better picture.
And can Arlo Guthrie still change the world with his music?
I think everybody that breathes changes the world a little bit. That being said, some people change it more than others and some people make it worse and some people make it better. It’s going to change anyhow. The question is, what can you contribute to making it change for the better. And I think that’s why we record the kind of music that we record, like “Hard Times,” to remind people that there is light at the end of the tunnel and we’ll get through this just like we’ve got through other things and that’s taking a longer view.
Portrait by Eric Brown; live photo by Mary Andrews
