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."
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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