Bassist Bob Arkin

Bassist Bob Arkin

Bassist Bob Arkin

Bob Arkin is not as famous as his older brother, actor Alan Arkin. Bob lives and  works as a jazz bassist in New York City.

This younger Arkin also played bass with Arlo Guthrie at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair on August 15, 1969. That misty night. The night that Arlo gleefully announced from the stage that “There’s supposed to be a million and a half people here by tonight. Can you dig that? The New York Thruway is closed, man.”

While neither of those declarations are true, they have become part of that festival’s lore. And though Arlo’s presence at the festival is also remembered, he and his band mates, drummer Paul Motian, guitarist John Pilla, and Arkin, rarely are. Such is the fame of back up musicians. Just ask any member of the Wrecking Crew or the Funk Brothers.  This Arkin has a minuscule internet footprint compared to his famous brother. It may be deliberate as the blogger Jack Lokensky wrote about the time in that he went to the club Arkin was playing and wanted to ask Arkin to sign a poster:  After about an hour or so, the band took a break. I walked up to the performance area, as I progressed I took my poster from its protective tube. I reached the stage like area and standing there with his well worn black suit was Bob Arkin. I placed my poster on the piano and said, “Excuse me, Mr. Arkin?” “Yes”, he replied. “May I please have your autograph?” It was only he and I standing there. I was shocked when he said “no”. The thud that my jaw made when it it the floor resounded around the 1/2 empty club that only had space for 100 people. As I crestfallenly replaced my poster in the tube and turned to walk away, Mr. Arkin said ” sorry” almost as an afterthought. When I returned to the table, I saw Bob Arkin getting a drink from the bar and chatting and laughing with some people at the bar.  Someone commented on that piece: I grew up with Bob Arkin in Los Angeles.  I never knew him as an adult, only in Junior High and High School.  He was always dedicated to his instrument, the bass, and I would see him walking by my home during the week lugging that full sized bass home, a distance of about three miles from school.  We played as young men and I never knew him to be anyting [sic] but respectful of others.  He came from humble beginnings like I did.  I do not have any idea how he fared as an adult but know him as a kind young man. According to the Spirit fan site, from January and February 1967, Arkin was in the pre-Spirit band called Spirit Rebellious #1.  The cdbaby site lists Arkin as having four albums:

  • Notes from in Between the Middle Men
  • Great Expectations
  • String Theory

  • from The Resurrection of Cyrannocio

Bassist Bob Arkin

Nowadays

bassist bob arkin

According to a 2014 New York Times article, Arkin continues to play regularly with a then 91-year-old cantankerous bandleader, Sol Yaged at Grata, a restaurant on East 59th Street in Manhattan.  To keep calm, Arkin walks between sets and chants to himself.

To read more about the Guthrie band at Woodstock, follow this link to Wade Lawrence’s WoodsTALK blog.B

Youtube doc…Intimate look at Bob Arkin’s music life.

His site has more information.

Bassist Bob Arkin

John Pilla Guitar Woodstock

John Pilla Guitar Woodstock

John Pilla Guitar Woodstock
John a “few” years ago

John Pilla’s internet footprint is a small one and what there is is usually associated as a guitarist with Arlo Guthrie. The reason I am doing a piece on John is because he played with Arlo at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair.

John Pilla Guitar Woodstock

Incidental references

There are some incidental references such as that made by Dr Eugene Beresin from a June 2012 Psychology Today post: “Growing up in the Philadelphia area, I spent a number of years working as a member of the grounds crew for the Philadelphia Folk Festival. As a teenager, I went to the Philly Folk Song Society, frequented the Main Point, and took guitar lessons from John Pilla, who backed up Doc Watson and Arlo Guthrie among others. In fact, I bought my first real guitar through John who got it from Fred Neil. John said it was an old beat up 1935 Martin, but I found out much later it was really made in 1956.”

John Pilla Guitar Woodstock

John Pilla Guitar Woodstock

All Music dot com

John’s AllMusic credits are also mainly associated with Guthrie, but not just as a guitarist. Pilla has also done photography for albums (e.g., Eric Andersen), engineered albums (e.g. 3 Penny Needle), and produced many of Arlo Guthrie’s albums. The discogs.com site has a similar description of John’s discography.  And an news article from years ago: John Pilla, also a native Philadephian, has, in his nine years as a guitarist, evolved from rock ‘n roll player to one of Philadelphia’s finest folk guitarists. John, who is also a songwriter, has just made a record with Doc Watson (who performed at Central last year) and it due to be released shortly. Previous to his becoming a solo performer and his work with Doc Watson, John was a member, along with Jerry Ricks, of the Johnson City Three. Locally, John has appeared at the 2nd of Autum, the Second Fret, and the Main Point, where he is now appearing with Doc Watson.

Bethel Woods

Bethel Woods has a piece on Arlo Guthrie at its site which includes Pilla. Apparently, John died in 1988 of a heart attack, but if anyone has any more recent or expanded information about John, please comment below or email to woodstockwhisperer@gmail.com

John Pilla Guitar Woodstock

In 2024, John’s son Chris posted a comment for this post. It’s below, but perhaps readers don’t always get to those.

I’m including his comment here as well because someone might have another personal story about John and Chris can see it. A kindness that would certainly be welcome.

My name is Chris and I am John’s son. He and my mother divorced while I was very young and I didn’t reconnect with him very much until I was in my late teens and he was finding out about his heart condition. I love reading some of these because I get to know him a bit more with each story.

Guitar Woodstock, 

Early 20th Century News Music

Early 20th Century News Music

Early 20th Century News MusicI once did a project on what is usually called protest music of the 1960s. What I quickly discovered was that protest music is not limited to the 1960s (as much as we Boomers would like to think it is since we “invented” it–insert funny face emoji).

Eventually, I also realized that protest music comes in a variety of approaches. The 1960s protest music was typically obvious in its approach: Masters of War, I Ain’t a’Marchin’ Anymore, Eve of Destruction, et cetera.

Earlier versions were equally powerful in their own way and I eventually settled on the term “News Music” to describe the genre. I’m not sure whether it is be best description, but one of the things that the songs and songwriters seemed to share was a reaction to current conditions. In other words, they were reacting to a current situation far more often than a past occurrence. Thus “News Music.”

Here are some examples of what are early 20th century news music:

Early 20th Century News Music

Harry Dixon

Around 1920:  Harry Dixon (1895 – 1965) wrote “This Little Light of Mine” as a gospel song. It became a common one sung during the civil rights gathering of the 1950s and 1960s. It continues to be a song of hope today. (BH, see January 4, 1920)

Early 20th Century News Music

Fats Waller

Early 20th Century News Music

In 1929: composed by Fats Waller with lyrics by Harry Brooks and Andy Razaf, Edith Wilson (1896 – 1981) sang “(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue.”. It is a protest song that did not speak of how something should change so much as it spoke of what life was like for those who suffered inequities.

Early 20th Century News Music

Blind Alfred Reed

Early 20th Century News Music

In 1929: Blind Alfred Reed (1880 – 1956) wrote “How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?” The song describes life during the Great Depression.

Early 20th Century News Music

Florence Reece

In 1931: Florence Reece (1900-1986) “was a writer and social activist whose song ‘Which Side Are You On?’ became an anthem for the labor movement. Borrowing from the melody of the old hymn ”Lay the Lily Low,” Mrs. Reece wrote the union song…to describe the plight of mine workers who were organizing a strike in Harlan County, Ky. Mrs. Reece’s husband, Sam, who died in 1978, was one of those workers. Pete Seeger, the folk singer, recorded the song in 1941. It has since been used worldwide by groups espousing labor and social issues.” New York Times Obituaries, August 6, 1986. (Labor, see March 3; Feminism, see Dec 10)

Early 20th Century News Music

Brother Can You Spare a Dime

In 1931:  “Brother Can You Spare a Dime” by lyricist E. Y. “Yip” Harburg and composer Jay Gorney., the song asked why the men who built the nation – built the railroads, built the skyscrapers – who fought in the war (World War I), who tilled the earth, who did what their nation asked of them should, now that the work is done and their labor no longer necessary, find themselves abandoned, in bread lines.

Harburg believed that “songs are an anodyne against tyranny and terror and that the artist has historically always been on the side of humanity.” As a committed socialist, he spent three years in Uruguay to avoid being involved in WWI, as he felt that capitalism was responsible for the destruction of the human spirit, and he refused to fight its wars. A longtime friend of Ira Gershwin, Harburg started writing lyrics after he lost his business in the Crash of 1929.

Early 20th Century News Music

Jimmie Rodgers

In 1932: Jimmie Rodgers (1897 – 1933) was born in Meridian, Mississippi worked on the railroad as his father did but at the age of 27 contracted tuberculosis and had to quit. He loved entertaining and eventually found a job singing on WWNC radio, Asheville, North Carolina (April 18, 1927). Later he began recording his songs. The tuberculosis worsened and he died in 1933 while recording songs in New York. In 1932 he recorded “Hobo’s Meditation.”

Early 20th Century News Music

Lead Belly

In 1938: Lead Belly (born Huddie William Ledbetter) (1888 – 1949) sang about his visit to Washington, DC with his wife and their treatment while in the nation’s capitol in his song, “Bourgeois Blues.” (BH, see Nov 22)

Early 20th Century News Music

Woody Guthrie

“Do Re Mi”

In 1939: During the Great Depression, Woody Guthrie (1912-1967) wrote many songs reflecting the plight of farmers and migrant workers caught between the Dust Bowl drought and farm foreclosure. One of the best known of these songs is his  “Do Re Mi.”

Tom Joad

In 1940: Woody Guthrie wrote Tom Joad, a song whose character is based on John Steinbeck’s character in The Grapes of Wrath. After hearing it, Steinbeck reportedly said, “ That f****** little b******! In 17 verses he got the entire story of a thing that took me two years to write.”

Early 20th Century News Music

This Land Is Your Land

February 23, 1940: Woody Guthrie wrote the lyrics to ‘This Land Is Your Land‘ in his room at the Hanover House Hotel in New York City. He would not record the song until 1944. It was a musical response to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America”: “We can’t just bless America, we’ve got to change it.”

Early 20th Century News Music

In 1941: the Almanac Singers (Millard Lampell, Lee Hays, Pete Seeger, and Woody Guthrie) released Talking Union, an album containing pro-union songs. One was Florence Reece’s Which Side Are You On? Another was I Don’t Want Your Millions, Mister (written by Jim Garland), a song that was used  by Occupy Wall Street protestors.

During World War II, Guthrie printed the words, “This Machine Kills Fascists” on his guitar as a sign of his support of the war cause. Shortly afterwards, Pete Seeger printed the words, “This Machine Surrounds hate and Forces It to Surrender” on his banjo. Current guitarist, Tom Morello, often uses a guitar with the words, “Arm the Homeless” printed on it.

Early 20th Century News Music