Arlo Guthrie Interesting In Performance at SPAC

Marilyn Nason, The Post-Star, June 29, 1968

Arlo Guthrie is an interesting performer. He’s atrocious in appearance with mounds of kinky, curly hair, pale complexion and a lethargic manner, in sharp contrast to the way-out clothes he sports.

He has what comes through as a pretty ordinary sort of voice, plays competent guitar, and yet he has an absolutely delightful personality and an extremely clever mind.

Last night’s performance by young Guthrie at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center was an interesting experience. He came onto a comparatively empty stage (just some musical instruments and a mustached bass player) and proceeded to strum away on his guitar, rather aimlessly at times, talking and singing.

At first, the effect was pretty uninspiring and pointless but the longer he persisted, the more his particular sense of
humor, especially relative to the world today and the so-called Establishment, began to come through.

Along with this, it is obvious that he has a good basic knowledge of the world of folk music. Major disappointment was his “short” version of his biggest hit, “Alice’s Restaurant.” It looked like this would be the highlight of the evening.

He must have spent a good 20 minutes in an extremely clever, interesting half-singing, half-talking introduction to “Alice,” then did only the first chorus and dropped it right there much to the chagrin of the largely youthful audience. Despite the continuing rain and cold (audiences seem to be getting acustomed to it at SPAC, if overheard comments can be believed), an audience of a bit under 3,000 were on hand, a goodly number on the damp lawn.

Some of Guthrie’s word pictures of the current scene were quite good and his entire performance has to be classified as “pleasant” and truthfully a “running chuckle of comparatively clean humor.”

For the second half, Judy Collins, backed by three real kooky musicians, performed. Garbed in a monk-like red velvet gown and beads, she sang and played guitar in a variety of folk songs with a pleasant voice.

Victor Borge with Leonid Hambro and the New York City Ballet Orchestra will perform at 8:30 tonight and again tomorrow.