Steve Goodman, Bread and Roses Festival, Sept. 3, 1978 Photo by Jon Sievert Steve Goodman was born 75 years ago today. A folk music singer-songwriter from Chicago, Goodman wrote "City of New Orleans," made popular by Arlo Guthrie and Willie Nelson. Born on Chicago's North Side to a middle-class Jewish family, Goodman began writing and performing songs as a teenager, after his family had moved to the near north suburbs. He graduated from Maine East High School in Park Ridge, Illinois in 1965, where he was a classmate of Hillary Rodham Clinton.