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Maturing Arlo ‘terrific9
in Mac Court show
By MARTY WESTERMAN
Of the Emerald
The childish Arlo Guthrie of Woodstock and
Alice's Restaurant is gone, and in his place is a
maturing musician who gave a terrific, mellow
performance for an audience of nearly 3700 at Mac
Court Monday night.
f Arlo shared the spotlight with Ry Cooder, a
pretty much unknown but excellent guitarist and
mandolin picker, who opened the show. Prom the
first, Cooder had the audience with him. “We’ve
(the musicians) been on the road now for seven
weeks, and I’d like to play this song to describe how
your hands feel after seven weeks on the road.” Ry
launched into a song called “Pig Meat,” then did
about 40 minutes erf blues and country music,
switching from acoustic to electric guitar, then to
mandolin, and back. He played slide tunes equally
well on both electric and acoustic guitar, though the
techniques are quite different.
Cooder will have an album craning out in
January called “Into the Purple Valley," on which
will appear “How Can Ya Keep On Movin’ ” and
“Denomination Blues,” which he performed at the
concert.
He also did a tune on mandolin called “Goin’ to
Brownsville,” a blues number he picked up from a
sleepy black blues player he had studied in
California. As he worked into “Brownsville,” he
became the man he had studied—shouting out the
lyrics and stamping his feet, holding out a word note
here and there to get back in tune with his mandolin,
then going back off into the blues.
When Arlo came on stage, Cooder played
backup with Arlo’s band.
“There’s a change cornin',” Arlo’s backup
pianist, Jimmy Dickinson explained. “Arlo is too
good to just stick with Alice’s Restaurant all his life.
His music is improving all the time and his style is
changing with it. He’s wanted to do Jimmy Rodgers
(music) for six years now, but he’s never felt he was
up to it until now ... Instead of ending (the concert)
with some pounding elephant rock now he does a
mellow concert and lets the audience down easy.
He’s trying to help ’em.”
There was no overpowering music from a
stupendous sound system; there were no brash
performers. For the first time this year at a Mac
Court concert the audience’s applause was louder
than the sound system.
Arlo started off with a country-western number,
moved to the piano for “Days Are Short,” which will
appear on his next album, “Photograph,” then
played a tune called “1913” which his father Woody
composed to describe the shattered Christmas of
coal miners in Calumet, Mich, during a time of
union tension.
Other highlights of the evening were Arlo
favorites like “Stealin’,” “Ring Around the Rosy
Rag,” (my friends got arrested for doin’ ring
around-the-rosy in a Philadelphia park wading pool
when I wasn’t with ’em—usually I get arrested with
my friends—so I wrote down this song as a protest),*
“Coming’ into Los Angeleez,” Jimmy Rodger’s
“1000 miles Away From Home,” and “Don’t Think
Twice.”
Arlo made his reputation in New York as an
excellent guitar picker, and “Don’t Think Twice”
demonstrated this fact. He began the song solo,
picking carefully but rapidly at his guitar, and one
by one his backup men joined in—Gimmer
Nicholson on bass, Ry Cooder on mandolin, John
Craviotte on drums, John Pillow on acoustic guitar
(who also did harmony), and Jimmy Dickinson on
piano.
Most of the selections Arlo played were either
from his “Washington County” album, or from
“Photograph,” which is to be released early next
year.
He wore blue denim jeans and a work shirt,
orange glasses, and calf-high eskimo boots. When
he sang he would keep time by alternately tapping
the toe of one foot while he tapped the heel of the
other, so it looked as if he was dancing to his own
music. Before going on stage he said, “I don’t like
anybody interpreting the music I do. I just do it. I
have an outline in mind of what I’m gonna do but I
never know for sure ‘til I get up there (on stage).’’
He was agitated before his performance, as a
number of his old friends were iu the audience—
among them Ray Brock, of Alice’s Restaurant
fame, who now lives just outside Eugene. But as the
concert progressed, he loosened up, he played more
relaxed, and he talked more.
Listening to Arlo’s reedy voice spin yams was
as much fun as hearing him sing. For the first
few numbers he just made staiall comments as
background, but after the Jimmy Rodgers’ number,
he talked about bringing dope back from Europe,
and being paranoid on the plane. He noted that there
were people for and against dope, and that the man
at customs was just waiting to bust people coming
in with dope. “What are ya gonna do when you
suddenly get paranoid on the plane?” Somebody
from the audience shouted, “Eat it!” and Arlo said,
[ Review
“That’s fine if you only got a little, but how about if
you’ve got this much?” and he held his arms out.
“You’ gotta start eating as soon as you get on the
plane in Europe.”
Then Arlo moved onto the “dope crisis begins at
home,’’ describing the typical dope crisis
household, where brother is sealed in the upstairs
bathroom smoking, mom is in the kitchen with
bottles marked “Mom’s Dope” on the windowsills,
sis is downstairs with the guy next door (“that's not
actually part of the dope crisis") and dad is out in
the garage where he has been for the past four
years—“nobody knows what he’s doin’ out there,
but he always comes out talking fast about
something with his eyes shinin’." The remedy, in
such a situation, Arlo explained, was to get
everything out in the open—get all the crisis stuff
put on the kitchen table—even sis and the guy next
door—and have the family gather round for ar. open
discussion and sharing session. “It might not solve
the crisis but it’ll get ya a lot of free dope," he ad
ded.
"Lay Down Little Doagies,” off the
“Washington County” ablum, was described by
Arlo as an “animal recycling ballad." “The
cowboys would sing to their cattle as they drove for
two months up the trail to the stockyards. They
knew and loved their cattle—talked to them, even
gave 'em names. But they never told the cattle
where they was going. This song is about a cowboy
who told his cattle where they was goin’,” he said.
Then the band struck up the introduction—for about
two minutes. “These fellows was out on the range
for two months,” Arlo broke in, strumming away,
“and this is about all they had to do.”
The applause and cheers brought Arlo, Ry, and
the band back for one encore, a number off the
“Photograph” album which Arlo didn’t name. Then
they all left. But the audience could have sat
through another two hours of encores.
The concert was low-key, and pleasant on the
ears . . . about as loud as your stereo when you are
listening to an album Surprisingly there was no
trouble with the infamous Mac Court acoustics
perhaps that’s because when there is no over
powering sound you don’t get overpowering echo
and distortion.
See pages 1,6, and 7 for related story.
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