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rest of my life fell into place. I fell in love
with him and with songwriting at the same
time, just one package. We were playing
music, and within a week or two we were
together and in love, and making harmonies
and melodies together.”
Part of the appeal was that Irion was very
different from the musicians she’d known
before, mostly the passel of singer-songwriters
who passed through the Guthrie compound
in the Berkshires while she was growing up.
“He was such a Southern gentleman.
I’d never met anyone like that before. I was
completely taken.”
Irion remembers the differences in
family social styles between proper Southern
etiquette and the more laid-back Guthrie
oeuvre really becoming apparent when he
got ready to propose.
“I asked Sarah Lee’s dad if I could marry
his daughter, expecting this whole ‘What are
your plans?’ line of questions,” he says. “And
Arlo just shrugged and said, ‘Yeah, sure’.”
The musical perspective took a little
more ironing out, given Guthrie’s folk-
singing roots and Irion’s fervent classic rock
leanings.
“I’d never gone the folk route at all,”
Irion says. “But when Sarah Lee came back
after that first Christmas with all these
Woody records and some Pete Seeger, I really
got to see what it sounds like. I’ve always
wanted music to be positive or at least tell a
story. But you have to be careful and learn
how to write. (Seeger) said you don’t want
to be too preachy-teachy. There’s a fine line.
You have to
edu-tain
.”
Still, things worked out rather naturally.
“When we got together, it all seemed
to meet at a really cool old-school country
Americana way that was just beginning to
happen at the time,” Guthrie recalled. “We
totally meshed our styles and made a real
signature sound together, especially with our
harmonies. It was awesome.”
Although they’d already started a family,
Sarah Lee & Johnny began making records
and playing lots of shows, including several
in the area at the music club SOhO, the
Sings Like Hell series at the Lobero Theatre,
and the Tales From the Tavern concerts
in Santa Ynez. The family more or less
PROFILES
