Susan Cross Interviewing Arlo Guthrie, June 2009

I conducted this interview for a cover article which was printed in GRAND Magazine in August 2009 to commemorate the 40 year anniversary of Woodstock. If I have to explain to you what Woodstock was or who Arlo Guthrie is, you probably won't be interested in the interview. This is just an excerpt targeted at the magazine's market, grandparents. The remainder of the interview has not been published but I may transcribe and publish it on the blog at a later date if response to this one is large enough. So read along with me, remember young Arlo at Woodstock and get to know him as he was one year ago.

Arlo Guthrie Interview – May 5, 2009

Susan Cross: How many members of the family will be touring with you?

Arlo Guthrie: Well that tour begins in October so they’re not with me yet. But when we do get together, there’ll be 4 kids, Abe’s got 2 so that’s 5, 6, Annie’s got two, so that’s 7,8 and Cathy’s got 2 so that 9, 10. Anyway, there’s 7 grandkids and they will all be with us, not all of them [performing]. Obviously some of them are too young to do much but we will incorporate them all in the show and uh the major portion of the show will be handled by me and Abe, Krishna is 18, he’s a great player, and Johnny [Irion] and Sara.

Susan Cross: What are their names and ages?

Arlo Guthrie: Abe is my oldest, and his oldest is Krishna, he’s 18; Serena is Abe’s daughter. She stole my 50th birthday so I always know how old either I am or she is because it’s exactly 50 years to the day. She is 11 at this point. She will be 12 by the time the tour starts. Then my daughter, Cathy, she has a little daughter, Marjorie. Marjorie is about 2 so she’s not going to be doing a whole lot but she’s going to be dancing around the stage somewhere. My next daughter is Annie and her oldest is Mo and Mo is or will be about 16 and I could have these wrong by the way. And Jacklyn is also Annie’s daughter and she’s about 8. And then Sarah Lee has a daughter, Olivia and Olivia is the same age as Jacklyn and they also have a little daughter Sophia who is the same age as Marjorie. That’s it, all 7 grandkids.

The small ones will make an appearance at some point but we may have to get some cattle prods. We’ll get them out there just to dance around at the end but most of the work will be handled by the older ones. 

Read More

I think I've traveled back in time...40 years later

And now for something a little bit different...This picture is of Arlo Guthrie (registered Republican with Libertarian leanings), his children and grandchildren in 2009. Doesn't look that much different than a family from 1969 does it?

Happy 40th Woodstock Anniversary

I'd like to extend my happy anniversary wishes to all of the Woodstock attendees with whom I shared a mud puddle 40 years ago. A lot of things have changed since then. A lot!

Other things haven't changed quite so much. We're engaged in a different war but it's also undeclared. Racial issues have evolved to a point that we never dreamed possible. Having a black man elected President was not even on our radar; we would have been happy just to stop the discrimination and segregation. People are protesting political policies and we now recognize new cultural differences that require some attention.

Teenaged boys are growing their hair long again and the stores are full of tie dyed clothing with peace signs on them. Everyone uses the word love, a little too loosely in my opinion. It's one thing for a parent to say "Love you" at the end of a phone conversation with a child, but when an American Idol contestant says, "I love you all" at the end of a performance, it occurs to me that they may not understand the concept. Nobody 'likes' anymore; everybody 'loves' now.

At the last concert I attended, a no smoking event, at the end of the show everyone held up their cell phones as if they were lit matches to show their sincere thanks to the musicians. We didn't have cell phones 40 years ago and if we did, we probably wouldn't have had any reception due to the weather conditions out in the middle of nowhere. Our matches kept going out due to the rain, but we just lit more matches.

Reminiscing is good. If you really want to take a look at how things have changed, refer to GRAND Magazine's cover article for the August issue. GRAND is a webzine targeted at baby boomer grandparents. What better way to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the event that affected so many cultural changes than to feature an interview with Arlo Guthrie written by, none other than -- Susan Cross (shameless plug).

http://www.grandmagazine.com/

By the way, Arlo has 4 children and 7 grandkids and is a card carrying Republican. That alone should tell you that anything is possible -- even me meeting my deadline 10 days from today!