With Arlen Roth, it’s all about the guitar. Having shared stage or studio with Bob Dylan, John Prine, Paul Butterfield, Loudon Wainwright III, Ry Cooder, Rory Block, Eric Andersen and many others, Roth has been long established as a “go to” session man or sideman on tour.
Originally from New York City, Roth started a rock band while studying at University of the Arts in Philadelphia in the late sixties. After college he started a fabled career as a session man. But in addition to being on speed dial from artist ranging from Dylan to the Bee Gees, Roth had a solo career that started with Guitarist, his first album on Rounder Records back in 1978, followed by Hot Pickups in 1980, Lonely Street in 1985, and his self-titled album in 1987. He continued to record regularly right up through his Slide Guitar Summit in 2015, which included duets with the likes of Johnny Winter and Sonny Landreth.
But the majority of that stuff was electric. With Playing Out the String, Roth shows what he can do with an acoustic guitar. It’s got some great interpretations on classic blues and folk, including Norman Blake’s “Church Street Blues” and “Randall Collins,” a fine instrumental version of Townes Van Zandt’s classic “Pancho and Lefty” (the greatest country song ever according to Ken Burns), and he evokes memories of Mississippi John Hurt on Bill Pinkney’s “Gonna Move Across the River” and Sam Theard’s “You Can’t Get That Stuff No More.” It’s a great album that reminded me of a gentler cousin to Ry Cooder’s 1974 classic Paradise and Lunch, and as Cooder did before, Roth even included Blind Blake’s “Diddy Wah Diddy” in the collection. You can check out Roth’s living room performance (not the album version) of “Walk Right In” below.
About the author: Bill Wilcox is a roots music enthusiast recently relocated from the Washington, DC area to Philadelphia, PA and back again.