Arlo: Highway in the Wind

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Most everyone with some music background knows that Arlo Guthrie is the son of Woody Guthrie. Most everyone knows that he wrote <Alice's Restaurant> if not the fact that it was an exaggerated "Massacree". But, the times being such as they were (Vietnam War, Nixon and more) ... the song gained a foothold in the popular imagination.

Before he breaks into the song here/above, Guthrie opens with an entertaining story about an early trip out West when he stayed with Ramblin' Jack and when/where he first saw his wife to be. Possibly, you have to have been a contemporary to fully appreciate the humor, but the audience seems to be in tune. But it is a wonderful example of how the Guthrie musicians were able to (a) place their songs within a relatable socio-economic time-frame and (b) draw in said audience.

Perhaps a word or two about Ramblin Jack Elliot is warranted - Guthrie mentions that his dad (!) and Ramblin Jack had been on the road together. Born in 1931 and scheduled to play this week in Santa Cruz and the following week in Texas [ramblinjack.com], the man is has been mentor to many musicians, ranging from Bob Dylan to The Grateful Dead.

Back to the lyrics of this one ...
Seems to me that the first phrases of the song show the lingering effects of the night before (not that I've ever been there myself, but there's something in the choice of words that suggest to me  that ... a change... a revelation ... has occurred.)

Says he:

Sail with me into the unknown void
That has no end
Swept along the open road
That don't seem to begin

Versions:

Kate Wolf above

Hearts and Flowers

Mothers: I Had A Good Mother And Father

Washington Phillips: I Had A Good Mother And Father (circa 1928)

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Kate Wolf: I Had A Good Mother and Father (1979)

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Palace Brothers: I Had A Good Father And Mother (1993)

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Gillian Welch: I Had A Real Good Mother & Father (2003)

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Newcomers to the folkworld may believe this song is a Gillian Welch original, and it's true that Welch and her partner David Rawlings have a powerful tendency to make the songs they perform their own. But older folkies like myself know it as an old gospel spiritual, first recorded and possibly penned by Washington Phillips in the midst of the Great Depression, which flows down to us through the folkways in many hands and voices, and with variation in the title.

Kate Wolf, for example, takes Phillips' own listing and makes it her own through gentle, loving acoustic treatment in her inimitably beautiful voice. Meanwhile, the Palace Brothers reverse the titular parents and twang it up a bit, adding old timey banjo and slide over guitar strum patterns more akin to that of Phillips' original handmade chord-zither. Alongside these, Welch's slow-picked dustbowl rendition aches with yearning for the promise of Heaven's reunion.