Folk singer Arlo Guthrie releases new record that has historical roots with a powerful message today

"A folk singer's job is to comfort the distressed and distress the comforted:" Arlo Guthrie covers a song from the 1800s that is still relevant today.

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Thursday, October 1, 2020
Arlo Guthrie records his first music in a decade
Singer Arlo Guthrie is releasing his first new music in 10 years. He's re-recording a 166 year old song that has a message that resonates today: songwriter Steven Foster's classic 'Hard Times Come Again No More.'

HOLLYWOOD -- Singer Arlo Guthrie is releasing his first new music in 10 years. And he chose to re-do a 166 year old song to talk about what's going on in our world today. Steven Foster, who wrote "Oh Susana" and "My Old Kentucky Home" also wrote this one: "Hard Times Come Again No More." Guthrie woke up one day in April and knew this piece from long ago was relevant now.

"Everybody's going through a hard time and I loved that he had written this same feeling over 150 years ago," said Guthrie. "My father used to say that a folk singer's job is to comfort the distressed and distress the comforted. And I thought it was appropriate to do--to bring this old song that had the suffering of everyday people and bring it up to date."

The song is being submitted for Grammy consideration. And Guthrie is also doing something he's never done before: a virtual concert. It's through the website, Performance Tonight, with tickets starting at 15 dollars for an at-home evening of entertainment.

"To sing in front of a camera and pretend that there's an audience there is... I was never really good at that," said Guthrie. "So I'm nervous about this coming Sunday. That's crazy to me. I remember hearing the stories of Frank Sinatra in a recording studio with cut-out silhouettes of people so that he had somebody he could pretend to sing to because it