IN CONCERT
Arlo Guthrie and the Guthrie Family Reunion
Where: Butchart Gardens
When: Tuesday, 7: 30 p.m.
Tickets: Included in park admission, $29.90 for adults, $14.80 for youth and $3 for children under 13, at butchartgardens.com or at the venue
Embarking on a 12-date concert tour with family is surely many musicians' vision of fresh hell.
But for Sarah Lee Guthrie, who is performing a round of summer shows with 14 members of her famously musical brood, the experience has been a remarkably peaceful one.
"We, amazingly, get along really well," says the 33-year-old musician, daughter of folk singer and family patriarch Arlo Guthrie. "Of course, there's challenges to it, but usually the music helps that.
"There's a real camaraderie that happens. Yes, you're brother and sister or mother and daughter, but it seems when you're out on stage, it levels the playing field. The family hierarchy doesn't really exist."
Perhaps the co-operative vibe shouldn't come as a surprise. Under the Arlo Guthrie and the Guthrie Family Reunion banner, the clan is touring in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of troubadour Woody Guthrie - Sarah Lee's paternal grandfather - whose gritty, socially conscious folk anthems influenced musical luminaries such as Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Billy Bragg.
Born in Oklahoma on July 14, 1912, Woody Guthrie wrote lyrics to an estimated 3,000 songs before his death in 1967.
The setlist for Tuesday's Butchart Gardens show will reflect the tour's raison d'être, notes Guthrie, who has built a music career of her own along with her husband, Johnny Irion.
"Johnny and I have a ton of songs that we'd love to do for you guys, but that's not going to happen for this show. It's going to be Woody Guthrie songs for us. Same for [Arlo]. He'll play a couple numbers of his own, but we're mostly trying to step out of ourselves for a minute and tip our hats to the tradition of Woody.
"If we do one of our own," she adds, "I'm definitely inclined to do songs that are in the spirit of Woody."
So what exactly is the spirit of Woody?
The answer depends on whom you ask, Guthrie says.
"The spirit of Woody, to me - vaguely means the same things that people go to church for. To me, it means the same thing that people find in their hearts. It's the peace, it's the love, it's the hope. It's the compassion for humanity and justice for the little guy up against the big machine. He represents a lot to a lot of different people because the spirit has grown beyond what anybody would have thought."
In spite of possible differences of opinion, Guthrie says she's seen her grandfather's music bring people together who might not otherwise get along - even in the most banal of circumstances.
She recalls an instance in July when an appreciative concert-goer approached her after a festival performance in Massachusetts.
"He said, 'I've been coming to this festival for five years and every time the show is over, the parking lot is like every man for himself.'
"This time, after we played our Guthrie Family set with all these Woody Guthrie songs and put that energy out there, he said, 'I had never seen the parking like this before. Everybody was willing to help out the next guy and take their turn.'
"That kind of speaks for itself."
