Amigo establishes Arlo Guthrie as the natural heir to the best qualities of the folk movement: its concern for an ethical politics, an abiding sense of place and the preservation of tradition. But for Guthrie, the folk concept extends from Jimmie Rodgers to Buddy Holly to Mick Jagger. Though the album raises a great many issues—the murder of Chilean poet Victor Jara ("Victor Jara"), the possibility of lasting love ("My Love") and one's connection to home ("Massachusetts" and "Manzanillo Bay")—it is more concerned with tone than with issues. And it is Amigo's tone of elusive intimacy and quiet conviction which makes it such a striking and moving album. Even the rockers seem more ebullient than aggressive.

In the past, Guthrie confronted the ghosts of his father and Bob Dylan by becoming one of their best interpreters. On Amigo he exorcises them with his own songs. His father's humor can be heard in "Grocery Blues" and Dylan's passion for imagery in "Darkest Hour," but Guthrie has absorbed their influences without subscribing to them. Despite producer John Pilla's abundant use of strings, Guthrie sidesteps sentimentality; his fragile, twangy voice is too idiosyncratic to be maudlin. Instead, Guthrie speaks with the self-assurance of a man who believes that it is possible to be both a radical and a patriot, a humorist and a romantic. More importantly, Amigo is the work of a performer who uses his past to weld the future—which is exactly what the folk movement has always promised but rarely delivered. (RS 231)

KIT RACHLIS