Precious Friend


Precious Friend is a double album by Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger with Shenandoah. The album, Guthrie's final record on Warner Bros., is a compilation of songs from when Guthrie and Seeger toured together. John Pilla produced the recording.

Background

Precious Friend is a compilation of songs from when Guthrie and Seeger toured together. was recorded in 1981 at the Poplar Creek Music Theater, Pine Knob Music Theatre, Greek Theatre and Concord Pavilion.
The songs on the album include "Kisses Sweeter than Wine", made famous by The Weavers, "If I Had a Hammer", and a multi-religious "Old Time Religion". The duo also perform three of Woody Guthrie's songs. Some tracks, rather than songs, are Guthrie or Pete telling stories or thinking out loud. The track Sailin' Up, Sailin' Down is based on Seeger's Hudson River Sloop Clearwater to clean up the Hudson River in the 1960s and beyond.

Track listing

Side One
  1. "Wabash Cannonball"
  2. "All My Life's a Circle"
  3. "Hills of Glenshee"
  4. "Ocean Crossing"
  5. "Celery-Time"
  6. "Run, Come See Jeruselum"
  7. "Sailin' Up Sailin' Down"
Side Two
  1. "How Can I Keep from Singing"
  2. "Old Time Religion"
  3. "Pretty Boy Floyd"
  4. "Ladies Auxiliary"
  5. "Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone"
  6. "Precious Friend, You Will Be There"
Side Three
  1. "Do Re Mi"
  2. "Tarentella"
  3. "The Neutron Bomb Story"
  4. "I'm Changing My Name to Chrysler"
  5. "St Louis Tickle"
  6. "Wimoweh "
  7. "Will the Circle Be Unbroken"
Side Four
  1. "Garden Song"
  2. "Kisses Sweeter than Wine"
  3. "Raggedy Raggedy"
  4. "In Dead Earnest"
  5. "If I Had a Hammer"
  6. "Amazing Grace"

Critical reception

The album was praised upon its release by Rolling Stone as "more than a collection of old folk memories... memory made alive." Stereo Review also ran a positive review, writing that it worked better than most other live albums because of Guthrie's and Seeger's "nice, decent, eternally optimistic" personalities. A later All Music Guide' review was more mixed, claiming some of the tracks "lost much of their initial charm" over time''.''