"'He said, "I not only want you in my life, I need you in my life." To me, that was when we made a real commitment to each other.'... He had been performing the 18-minute monologue at Carnegie Hall every Thanksgiving for 49 years when he had another stroke days before the 50th anniversary show in 2019. This time, he was hospitalized. But he defied doctor’s orders and played anyway. 'Even if I died onstage, I was going to be there,' he said. A few days later, he woke up at his home in Sebastian, Fla., and had a third stroke. Ms. Ladd... nursed him through his recovery. By the end of the year, he was back on tour. Then came Covid.... Ms. Ladd and Mr. Guthrie were... quarantining in Massachusetts when Ms. Ladd had a stroke on Oct. 3, 2021.
At first, Mr. Guthrie didn’t know what was happening. 'When she was talking to me it sounded like gibberish,' he said. 'I thought she was fooling.'... On one of her first nights home [from the hospital], she tried to say the word 'apocalyptical.' 'It came out "Popsicle,"' she said. 'Arlo was cracking up.' Underneath his amusement over her verbal stumble, though, was a welling of emotion about the woman who, for nearly a decade, had shepherded him through his own crises. 'My father always said be true to your own life and your own reality,' Mr. Guthrie said. His reality, and Ms. Ladd’s, had become anchored to a sense of life’s fragility.... On Oct. 22, Mr. Guthrie proposed at the farm, over morning coffee at the kitchen table. 'I said, "I’m going to take care of you the way a man wants to. I want to marry you."'"
From
"They Could Be Anything They Want (Together)/The folk singer Arlo Guthrie and Marti Ladd, who met 20 years ago, forged a long lasting friendship that started over Guinness beer and his grandmother’s cheese blintzes" (NYT).
Arlo Guthrie was married to his first wife, Jackie, for 46 years. She died in 2012. Marti Ladd was a friend who became closer after Jackie's death.
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sounds like they deserve each other ( i mean that in the good way)
John henry said...
I remember from the 60s that arlo was not expected to live into the 70s because of hereditary Hodgkins(?) Disease. Glad the doctors were wrong.
I was just reading last night about Arlo and Alice's Restaurant. He developed the song on the air on Bob fass's rather eclectic overnight radio show on WBAI.
He did multiple live adlibed takes on the air over about 8 months. Some producer heard it and got him into a studio.
Something in the Air: Radio, Rock, and the Revolution That Shaped a Generation by Marc Fisher
Great book about radio
John LGBTQBNY Henry
Lovely story...warmed my heart. Made me go off on a google search to make sure neither one of them had passed and that's why they were in the news. Couldn't get the whole story via the link because of the paywall. Seemingly, they are both alive and enjoying marital bliss.
One of the first cycle of songs I learned for guitar wayyyyy back in the day was the intro to "Alice's Restaurant", the "Motorcycle Song" and "The Pause of Mr Claus" from a discarded guitar songbook someone didn't want. Arlo was always the coolest. What lovely stories are late life friendship and love affairs.
I'm in one now.
OT but for our hostess:
Bob Dylan's first on air experience was on Bob Fass's show. He didn't sing
Fass developed regulars—artists, activists, and Village people who came by to pass the night. As Dylan became a folk hero, he made the show a regular habit, performing not only his comic monologues (his characters included Rory Grossman, Rumple Billy Burp, Elvis Bickel, and Frog Rugster) but his new songs.
One night, Dylan fielded calls from listeners for a couple of hours. A starstruck high school student begged Dylan to endorse his decision to wear his hair long in violation of school rules. Nothing doing, the rebel replied—do as you're told. Dylan grew hungry and hijacked Fass's show to implore any and all cabbies who might be listening to bring food to the WBAI studios. (Several showed up.) The singer chastised a listener for tuning in to noncommercial radio “just to make yourself feel better.” Throughout the night, Dylan cajoled the few female callers into describing their bodies in ever more glorious detail.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
Pretty cool story. I cannot get to it behind the paywall, but it sounds like a good story. A good way to start the year.
From my experience, nothing is as wonderful as being married to your best friend. I'm glad they found happiness.
Would that we all focused more on what brings us together and makes us happy.
Arlo's dad died of Huntington's Disease. It used to be the ultimate genetic bad hand to be dealt. You are OK for your young and early adult years, and just when you've started your own family your brain starts to disintegrate. Woody died at age 55. The genetics are a bit more complicated actually, but in general think of it as a 50:50 coin toss. Heads: horrid death. Tails: no problem.
There are now genetic tests so you can find out if you have drawn "Aces 'n Eights" before you reproduce.
That being said....Lordy this little story has a lot of strokes in it. I'm enough years retired now that I've not seen the lit in a while but perhaps milder, later forms of Huntington's are out there? Alternatively I understand musical types smoke a lot of cigs and sometimes ingest other substances what ain't good fer ya...
Tacitus
I hope he recovered enough from the strokes to get an 18 minute long record out of them.
This was interesting:
Guthrie received religious training for his bar mitzvah from Rabbi Meir Kahane, who formed the Jewish Defense League. "Rabbi Kahane was a really nice, patient teacher," Guthrie later recalled, "but shortly after he started giving me my lessons, he started going haywire. Maybe I was responsible." Guthrie converted to Catholicism in 1977, before embracing interfaith beliefs later in his life. "I firmly believe that different religious traditions can reside in one person, or one nation or even one world," Guthrie said in 2015
Arlo got in trouble for supporting Ron Paul and had to find a way to wriggle out of it by nuzzling up to the right causes afterwards.
In any event, it's nice that this stuff appears in a wedding notice. Usually it's an obituary, and that's what I thought it was when I started reading.
I wonder if Arlo was jealous of Bob Dylan. Sibling rivalry? Also if Dylan was jealous of Bruce Springsteen, when he became the new Woody Guthrie.
Rambling Jack Elliott is jealous of both Arlo and Bob.
Screw the AP Stylebook - there's something fundamentally wrong with calling Arlo "Mr. Guthrie." Just sayin'. He's "Arlo" - and there's only one of note - to anyone who has any interest in that story.
Flyin’ into Lost Angeleese
Bringin’ ina couple a keys
I googled to see where Arlo’s farm was and did you know he’s got a Facebook- that’s how I say it.
I looked at many pictures he’s got posted and read his accounts of each: what a really lovely man.
Flyin’ into Lost Angeleese
Loved the Woodstock version of that song when it came out. I was in HS at the time and didn't smoke anything. After HS, at 17, I moved to Los Angeleese. Inspired by Arlo's song, among many other songs, I starting smoking pot and buying Keys to support my new hobby. That was my first introduction to the metric system as I needed to know how many ounces were in a kilo. When I got into Hash, I learned that there were 28 grams to an ounce. Luckily, I stopped, more or less, and exited there.
They lived in Florida and had a lot of strokes.
Must be terrible golfers...
He didn't get the Huntington's Corea gene from his father. That made him a lucky man, who understands how lucky he is. I saw him once in the late '70s. At that time he was taking the position he wouldn't get tested because he'd rather be surprised to have it than to know for years it was coming.
It was a great show. He encouraged a lot of audience participation, including joining in the "I want to kill" chant from Alice's Restaurant draft board scene.
Beautiful story
I get the metric system, but never understood WTF a Lid of Weed was. Anyone... anyone...
Mr. Guthrie proposed at the farm, over morning coffee at the kitchen table. 'I said, "I’m going to take care of you the way a man wants to. I want to marry you."}}}}
Reading that line, right there, I felt my ovaries bloom.
I get the metric system, but never understood WTF a Lid of Weed was. Anyone... anyone...
A lid was about an ounce. It was also called a dime bag in LA in the 70's because it cost $10 for average Mexican weed. It was usually sold in a plastic baggie, filling most of it .
Paywall for me, so I can't see, but as I recall Arlo's farm is up north of Beckett, MA soemwhere. I was born in Pittsfield and lived in Great Barrington about the time of all the commotion Arlo was causing. My friends lived just down the street from the church. I remember seeing people through the weird side window of the church from time to time when we drove by...
We'd see Norman Rockwell on the street in Pittsfield once in a while, too. I remember him because he looked a lot like my grandfather with those glasses of his...
An ounce for ten bucks. Sounds like lawn clippings.
There seem to be a lot of retired folks who regularly make thoughtful comments about what is going on in their lives right now and have interesting long-ago stories to tell.
I like these comments a lot. Often wise, sometimes quirky, usually kind of random, and more-than-sometimes touching.
Please keep them coming y'all.
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