last summer i saw arlo guthrie perform a free concert outside of lincoln center. it was quite incredible. i found the event mentioned in metro ny or am ny . i dont remember which. i didnt even realize arlo was going to be there i just honed on the part about it being a sixties music concert. as i listened to the songs i realized that i knew most of arlo's songs, but didnt know that he was the one who sung them. im embarrassed to say that i mostly knew of him and his father woody guthrie from crossword puzzles. the passage of time was quite apparent because many of the audience members were in their late fifties and early sixties. they knew all of the songs. they were no longer the youths of the woodstock generation.
after the concert i found some woody guthrie cds and learned that he sang 'this land is your land' . months later i found a hannukah cd of woody guthrie's songs at barnes and noble. i was shocked. although i later learned , after speaking with my mom , that woody guthrie's wife was jewish , making arlo jewish. recently i listened to 'wonder wheel' which is a cd full of woody's lyrics set to music by the klezmatics. its superb. inside the cd it tells a little bit about woody's history. its quite interesting to see how woody guthrie, as american as apple pie, ends up married to a jewish woman and explores judaism(though he doesnt convert as far as i can see) and even collaborates with his jewish mother-in -law , the yiddish poet, aliza greenblatt.
all these insights were reached because i read am ny/metro ny .
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