Guthrie's focus is on music and family

Sarah Lee Guthrie's first brush with her family's legacy wasn't a welcome one.

"When I was 5, my class at school was singing 'This Land Is Your Land' and the teacher tells the class 'Sarah Lee's grandfather wrote this.' They made kind of a spectacle of it and I was
so unprepared for that moment," Guthrie recalls by telephone from Atlanta.

Sarah Lee's grandfather was Woody Guthrie, the songwriter and folk singer who has inspired generations of performers such as Bob Dylan and Billy Bragg.

She had some comfort in knowing that her father, Arlo Guthrie, had gone through the same
thing.

"He didn't know his dad's songs were famous outside the house," Sarah Lee says with a laugh.

Arlo, of course, became a star in his own right in the late '60s, thanks to songs such as "Alice's Restaurant Massacree," "Coming Into Los Angeles" and a remake of Steve Goodman's "City of New Orleans."

Sarah Lee has established herself as well in a duo with her husband, fellow singer-songwriter Johnny Irion.

Arlo is bringing along Sarah Lee, Johnny and about a dozen more from the Guthrie clan on his current tour, which arrives at the Capitol Theatre in Clearwater Saturday.

"We're focused on Guthire family music past and future," Sarah Lee says. "There are four generations of music to celebrate, starting with Woody, of course."

The fourth generation is made up of Sarah Lee and Johnny's two daughters and their cousins, who not only perform but some of whom have written songs of their own.

Some of the fourth generation's work made its recorded debut on "Go Waggaloo," a children's album released last year and credited to Sarah Lee Guthrie and Family.

"They're all over the record," Sarah Lee says of the youngest Guthries, "so it's fitting that they come along and perform these songs."

The Florida dates will be a bit of a homecoming for the Guthries. Sarah Lee grew up in Sebastian, and Arlo "has a place on Indian River which he's been working on for 20 years," she says with a laugh.

ON TOUR

Arlo Guthrie

WHEN: 7:30 p.m., Saturday

WHERE: Capitol Theatre, 405 Cleveland St., Clearwater; (727) 791-7400

COST: $50 and $65