Arlo Guthrie will be fighting for stage time Sunday night when three generations of his family perform at Harrisburg's Whitaker Center.
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"There's quite a bit of an age range here, everything from 2 to me, which is 62," Guthrie says during a telephone interview from his home in Washington, Mass. "Depending on the capacity of the person to actually perform, whoever can do it better gets a little more airtime."
He will get some competition from his family members, including daughter Sarah Lee Guthrie and her husband, Johnny Irion; daughter Annie Guthrie, who also is his manager; son Abe Guthrie, who has played guitar in his dad's band for about 25 years; and grandson Krishna Guthrie, a drummer who has toured with his grandfather.
It's doubtful, however, that any of his progeny can match Guthrie, one of the most personable, engaging performers on the planet, when it comes to charming an audience.
Guthrie made his reputation on the back of three songs: "Coming into Los Angeles," which he performed at Woodstock; his cover of Steve Goodman's "City of New Orleans," his sole Top 40 hit; and "Alice's Restaurant Massacree," his 18-minute satirical protest of the Vietnam War-era draft.
He has maintained his career, however, on the strength of his touring, which he's been doing for well over 40 years.
And now he's happy to have his family along for the ride.
The Guthries are a close-knit bunch, with most of them living in close proximity on a large farm in Massachusetts. He says daughter Cathy — a ukelele player who lives in Texas and plays in a group called Folk Uke with Willie Nelson's daughter, Amy — is thinking about moving closer to home.
"It's fun being near each other as the grandkids are coming along," Guthrie says.
He says the death of his father, iconic folk singer Woody Guthrie, convinced him his children had to learn about the music business, even if they didn't become performers themselves.
"When my father passed away, the lawyers called us in to go over the paperwork," he says. "I looked at my mother and I realized she had no idea as to how much my father had contributed and how the business worked. Not a clue. Years later, we realized how much we'd been ripped off. I said, 'That's not going to happen to us.' "
The Guthries are pretty much a self-contained musical unit. As well as the creative side of making music, they also handle the business side, including being the owners of their own label, Rising Son Records.
That made it easy for Guthrie to release "Tales of '69," a live album of a 1969 concert, earlier this year. Guthrie says his kids discovered it while they were rummaging through old tapes scattered around his home.
"They say, 'Pop, we've got to put this out,' " Guthrie says. "I said, 'I don't think so.' They said, 'Yeah man, you were ridiculous; we have to do this.'
"At this point in my career, I can't ruin it."
The Guthrie Family Legacy Rides Again
Sun. 7 p.m. $45
Sunoco Performance Theater
Whitaker Center, 222 Market St.
Harrisburg. 214-ARTS
www.whitakercenter.org
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