Once homeless tramp, folk singer -- Health, Arlo Guthrie, Nevada

U. Utah Phillips, a Grammy-nominated folk singer, rabble-rouser and anarchist whose wild white beard recalled his years as a tramp, died of heart disease May 23 at his home in Nevada City, Calif.

[Len Strazewski]

One of the first folk singers I ever saw perform live, probably in 1969 or so at the Earl of Old Town. Ed Holstein was the MC and warm-up. I memorized "Moose Turd Pie," one of his classic stories and told recited it at parties. Never go me a date. I wonder why <g>?

[uncle otto]

i never saw arlo but heard a bootleg tape with pete seeger i think they were in Wash or Philly where he told a great story( how unusual)about sneaking into the pentagon and i want to hear it again does anybody know of arlo storys?

[local Arlo fan]

I saw him a bunch of times, mostly during the '70's at our local (long gone) music emporium, The Shaboo in Mansfield, CT.

As Mansfield is but a short drive from Arlo's hang out at the old former Alice's Restaurant (even more formerly the Old Trinity Church) he would drive himself down for the show, parking his black Checker Cab (no "taxi" stuff on it, just a shiny black Checker) out front of the Shaboo.

For a long time there, he had stopped singing that 18 1/2 minute saga of his, but by the '80's he returned to relating the entire tale, with added chapters concerning the amazing coincidence of the 18 1/2 minute gap in the Watergate tapes...

On a small market MA television station, sometime during the late '70's, he was interviewed by a local reporter. Arlo related his Advice For Living A Good Life, which, although heard by me many years ago, has been one of my guiding directives ever since. Something along the lines of "Ya just gotta listen to yer inner voice, and follow it, and the heck with what anyone else thinks about it. As long as you are honest and real with yerself, you'll do yerself real proud"

p.s. in April '09 it was announced that the most famous trash in the world will soon be on display at the at the Smithsonian's Museum of American History in DC. The actual envelope containing the incriminating evidence will be part of a display for a program on American Popular Song. Also on display will be the "27 8x10 glossy photos with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one..."