The Afterword

Colin H on Last of the Brooklyn Cowboys (1973)

In 1999, I had the great pleasure of interviewing Arlo Guthrie (at a hotel bar in Belfast) for a ‘Mojo ‘Buried Treasure’ feature. Arlo gracefully retired last month, which prompted me to unearth it. Arlo’s ‘Last of the Brooklyn Cowboys’ album had long been a favourite – first heard on 8-track cartridge when I was 11 or 12, I think, circa 1980, and later bought on import vinyl from Caroline Music in Anne Street, Belfast, in the mid 80s. I loathed the 80s, and this record – from the music to the gatefold sleeve to the Reprise label’s sepia-tinted inner sleeve of photos from ‘old Burbank, California’ – seemed to be the gateway to a magical place in the recent, but irretrievable, past. It was fascinating to hear from Arlo, unprompted, that he too had been trying to capture, in 1973, a kind of magical, mythical place from the past at that time, when he recorded it. The album only came to CD in 1998, so that was the hook to hang this feature on. It remains a singularly brilliant album. Shortly after the interview, I sought out a (second-hand vinyl) » Continue Reading.