The Show with Arlo

First thing first! I am totally humbled when I learned about Arlo Guthrie’s tour schedule. He has done thousands of shows in his lifetime. From 1969 to 1973 he did well over 150 shows. That is a total commitment that I am in awe of! He is truly an Icon and worthy of the fame he has earned! Even without his father before him!

I have to be honest… When it comes to being a tour bus traveling show guy, I am just a wanna-be. As you may or may not know I love being on the road. White line fever is a sickness I would have welcomed in my younger years. Meaning the post-hitch-hicking years. I wish life had dealt me a different hand. I wish I had been on the road writing and playing music as my total focus throughout my life. But I didn’t! I made one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make in my life.

I’ll never forget the time I had just finished up a sound check at a large club near Philadelphia sometime in 1981. Sitting on the edge of the stage, looking out over the empty seats and tables before the doors opened. The smell of the alcohol spilled carpet. The low lights, and the frantic sound of the wait staff running about, preparing for the show. It had such a seductive dark allure to it. I suddenly felt nauseous and was completely overwhelmed with despair. In front of me, I saw two roads. One was rock and roll Glory and one was to find my wife and one-year-old boy that I had left for the rock and roll glory.

I choose to take the hard road and worked very hard to reunite my family. You know there was always the Wild one talking in your left ear and the Wise one talking in your right. The wild one would badger me saying, I gave up a lot of amazing, fun, and outrageous times. All those lavish moments I could have had. All those women. All the drugs, booze, and overindulgence. What a waste.

Instead, I checked out. I chose a life that made me work my ass off. Even like a dog sometimes. That voice kept telling me it was a bad choice! In fact, it sucked! Getting up at 6 am every day and going out into the freezing cold all day in the winters or the brutally hot days of summers. Every day, year after year, it sucked! NOT the life of an artist!

Maybe it was the wise one saying, the music road was too risky. What If I didn’t “make it”? What if I didn’t t have success? What if my songs weren’t worth listening to? Who knows maybe I would have had a hit record. Then it would have been an easy street. As long as I could keep the drugs from killing me and or keep temptation at bay so I didn’t destroy my marriage.

Maybe I really fucked up, as they say! The mind can be very tricky and cunning! Who knows, maybe I had the names of the twins reversed. I choose to have no regrets that I made the right decision. When I watch my children living their dreams that all started on the farm with us living life as a family. This is where I find great personal contentment.

But… that, could of, would of, should of, voice will never leave me alone. Now at this point in life, I have those twins – the Wise one and the Wild one still battling it out in my head. Who wins? Who knows, does it even matter? Life has been lived and it has been a good one! The cherry on top is the great memories! The Show with Arlo was one of them!

It was a beautiful spring day. Early afternoon in the mid-1970s. I was driving my 1969 Ford van full of music equipment out to the Astro Theater in Redding Pennsylvania.

I can still smell the fragrance of spring flowers blooming as I pulled off the pa. turnpike. There was no GPS to lead me to my destination. I had to depend on a road atlas that I had used a few years before, hitchhiking through America. Lin and I had met a year or so before and this was during the time she was collecting herself after her high-school love, David died. It was about two years later that we reunited and started the band Coast to Coast.

Driving through the city was exciting. It was a very cool feeling seeing the John Franklin Band next to Arlo Guthrie up on the marquee at the theater. Boy, I was young. Lots of spark! An uncanny sense of spirit, and very little experience. Everybody’s good-looking when they are young. There’s nothing in the way to hold you back if you believe it. At least that’s what I experienced at that time in life.

Pulling down the alley next to the theater and unloading the gear in the back doors to the stage. This was a task I didn’t need a roadie to perform, I didn’t mind it one bit! I came prepared. Always brought my oriental rugs to put down on the stage along with palm tree plants.

I always had palms at our gigs. There was nothing like plants to help the energy rise.

I remember setting up my 60s black panel Fender Super Reverb amp with four 10” speakers, and my Oliver Lesley speaker that I would put on top of it. Creating a really awesome sound for rhythm. My 1969 Strat along with my two-year-old Augustino acoustic guitar. I also had an SD CURLY electric guitar my favorite! If I could find one today I would buy it in a minute.

They were all the instruments I would need. I watched my brother set up his rig. Classic Fender amp and an old brown, Fender lap-steel guitar along with his black beauty, Les Paul, and his early 70s Stratocaster. Tom had a fender mid-60s Fender Jazz bass. He could wrestle an awesome sound that only he could get out of that thing. He played that guitar like he was making love to a wild woman. Denny had his classic set of Pearl drums. Simple but oh so very smooth, set up and sound.

That was the perfect molding together of music with all of our instruments. We truly had a special sound. There was something about Tom’s Playing, Den’s drumming, and Rick’s lap steel guitar work that gave us an edge. I remember feeling so good about the sound check that we did. I felt like we were really on our way to something very special.

I think we got a pizza and a couple of six-packs for dinner. And hung out in the green room in the back of the stage of the theater. We were wrapping things up for dinner and in walks Arlo Guthrie. I was a big fan of his Washington County album. I listened to it all the time in my collection with Joan Baez and CSN.

What a cool guy! He sat down next to me and smiled. Just about 10 years my senior. That would make him about 32. He asked me how I was holding up. I must’ve looked nervous but he had a way of making me calm down and feel good and relaxed.

We chatted for quite a while. Talked about his farm in Massachusetts, and how he had just gone through a really difficult period with some kind of strange illness that he had had. He was really glad to be back on the road and performing again. I feel like we talked for hours but I’m sure it was only minutes. Maybe 30 or so but it was sweet. And something I will never forget. Although it lives in the back darker corners of my memories, it is still there and I still remember it.

It was a great show, a double. We did a 9:30 and a 7:30. Both shows were sold out, and there seemed to be a great response to our music.

I remember about halfway through the set of our second show. I dropped a hit of LSD. By the end of the show, everything was really nice. I enjoyed that experience. Afterward, we hung out on the street as people were leaving the theater. A beautiful young woman walked up to me and introduced herself, asking if I remembered her.

Of course, I did. We had met in Wildwood, New Jersey in the late spring of 73. We stood outside the theater and chatted for a while when she invited me to come back to her place. I gratefully accepted. I didn’t want to engage in a long trippy ride home, not to mention that I really enjoyed her company.

So were my Glory Days of Rock ‘n’ Roll.