Customer Reviews

Arlo

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Not just as a live album, but any album of Arlo's for that matter. I personally enjoy any one of his(albums) but this may be my favorite. The best on this CD are "Motorcycle Song"(of course), "Meditation (Wave Upon Wave)", and "The Pause Of Mr.Clause." I strongly recommend it.

In answer to one of the questions, yes, this is the album which was recorded live at "The Bitter End Cafe"; and it has the long version of "The Motorcycle Song" on it. Although I think "The Motorcycle Song" is terrific, "The Pause of Mr. Claus" is still my favorite. Just transferred the album to CD (complete with the small "pops" and "clicks" you get with a record...nothing like it). Am now getting rid of all albums (space considerations).

Arlo Guthrie's second album was a live effort, a follow-up to his curious 'Alice's Restaurant' debut. The album was recorded at the famed Bitter End Cafe, located on Bleeker Street in New York's Greenwich Village, the quaint home-away-from-home for many folk artists of the 1960's. While most live sophomore releases are replete with covers of tunes from the debut disc, Guthrie only offers one cover, and that's a more desirable, extended version of 'The Motorcycle Song', so the album actually stands on its own merits. And while sophomore discs are often rushed into production and are inferior to their predecessor, Arlo Guthrie's second album actually expands on both the artist's first impression as a humorous storyteller, and his budding career as a serious folksinger and composer, a symbolic nut that did not fall far from father Woody's tree.

The album opens with the extended version of 'The Motorcycle Song', a humor-laden dash down a mountain at 150 miles per hour, featuring a catchy chorus and storyline playing on the anti-establishment, counterculture values Guthrie espoused in that most liberal of era's. In case you happen to forget where Arlo is coming from, the album closes with a simliar exposition of the New Left mindset in the entertaining 'The Pause of Mr. Claus', being an unusual blend of liberal indoctrination and Christmas carol. Sandwiched between are four new Arlo Guthrie compositions, and a cover of honky-tonk singer Ernest 'ET' Tubb's 'Try Me One More Time', also cloaked in humor as Arlo introduces it as a Lyndon B. Johnson theme song, drawing laughs from the first lyric, "Yes, I know I've been untrue", to the last, "Won't you take me back and try me one more time".

Among the new Arlo compositions are two standouts. The hypnotic and aptly named 'Meditation (Wave Upon Wave)' features ethereal lyrics such as "Wave upon wave of life within me, Give me the strength to go on, Wave after wave of love all around me, Give me the time to catch on". Another lovely ballad, both in music and lyrics, 'Standing at the Threshold', follows. The other two compositions are less noteworthy, especially 'John Looked Down', which features an unusual cadence, and even more unusual lyrics, which I'm still trying to understand.

Because 'Arlo' was released early in the artist's career, it may be more commercially oriented than discs that were issued after Guthrie felt more established as an artist. This disc was originally released in 1969, and prepared the way for what I believe was Guthrie's finest moment, the wonderfully textured 'Washington County', released in 1970. There is hardly a disc in Guthrie's career, however, that isn't worth investigating by any serious appreciator of Twentieth Century folk music. Guthrie possesses enormous taste, talent, and a tradition few cutting-edge artists from the 1960's and 70's can lay claim to. This disc comes nicely packaged with Henry Diltz photography and printed lyrics.

I think Arlo is a great person. I also think he'd never boast about it or even realizes his greatness. His songs are insightful and some are silly, but always good. He sings songs other people wrote and ones that he himself wrote. When he sings songs written by his father you get a whole new perspective on that particular song. I myself have been listening to Arlo for 30 years. I have been to two live shows and one of them was with Pete Seeger. Right now at this moment I could put on any one of his albums and when it's over I will have felt many emotions. I will also feel like I have learned something new about humanity.

There is no doubt this is one of the best albums ever released by Arlo, who is a "talking blues" genius and wrote some of the most memorable folk songs of the '60's, including "Alice's Restaurant". However this CD (his second entitled "ARLO") is NOT out of print and can be ordered from his website for $13.50 --- which is less than 1/2 of what CD Ltd charges for
the same CD (a digitally remastered reissue on Arlo's own label Rising Son Records). Looks like CD Ltd bought a bunch from Arlo's website and is advertising them on Amazon as "rare and out of print". I ordered it from CD Ltd only to later find I could get it at Arlo's site but CD Ltd does not accept refunds or returns.

As always I feel as if I am a personal friend of Arlo's When ever I hear him, recorded or live.

My favorite song on this CD was the 'Pause of Mr. Clause'. A lot of sharp wit here!

This is Arlo Guthrie's second best album after Alice's Restaurant. The song Meditation, wave upon wave, is worth the price alone. This has actually become a fairly hard album to locate in recent years. Glad I found it again.

I heard this record for the first time when I was 11 in the seventies when my father picked it up at a garage sale. I still feel sorry for the folks that let this go for a buck that day. You know when you have found a piece of gold when you hear a song start, your brow furrows, and you say "What's this?" only to hear yourself humming for days until you head back to the source for more. While just a kid I remember my father looking at me and smiling as he listened to the Motorcycle song, as I, for the first time. He must have seen the wonderment in my eyes and together we just stopped what we were doing and listened. This album adds punctuation to my life and includes them all: quesion marks, exclaimation points, parenthesis, commas (to ponder of course) and even the .....(and so on dots?!?).

How special is that? Does that happen a lot in my life these days? This album is special for so many reasons summed up in the smile I have to this day listening to it. Arlo, I hope you smile knowing that you helped me and my father celebrate life together that day. As I grew I found that I was listening to the album with musical fondness as I learned to pick at guitar. The vocals are unique, thank you, and I remember playing this for my college roommate who then fixated on Genesis, asked me "what the heck is that?". I told him "why it's the motorcycle song of course. You know, the song to that wacky claymation video I played on our college TV station." Yes, there was a video created who knows when of the song put to claymation characters. I guess throwing the real Arlo off of a cliff didn't make sense at the time.

I did not see an Arlo concert (with Shenandoah) until ~1982 at Nazareth College in NY. I was treated to Alice's Restaurant for the first time in my life, live. My dad prepared me well with this album.

My kids are now listening to Arlo (this album), though digitally of course and I can't wipe the smile off of my face, though they think it is because of the silliness of the lyrics. Perhaps now I better understand my own father's face. I still have that vinyl and will never let it go. I hope to see Arlo again soon someday but until then the spirit in his music will have to suffice.

By-the-way, check this one out. A little happiness is worth the ticket. Peace.

What a gem. Forgotten or hidden in space. Arlo brings humour to his fans with his Motorcycle song, his political satire with Try Me One More Time (LBJ) and poignant view on the era of police attitude to protestors with The Pause of Mr Claus, and his jibe at the FBI with Standing at the Threshold. I recommend this to anyone with a satirical bent to their music appreciation.