“Alice's Restaurant”
Album cover for the original 1967 album, Alice's Restaurant
Single by Arlo Guthrie
from the album Alice's Restaurant
Released 1967
Genre Talking blues
Length 00:18:34
The former church
where the story begins, located in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. The building later became the Guthrie Center. The restaurant itself is roughly six miles north in Stockbridge, Massachusetts."Alice's Restaurant Massacree" [sic] (commonly referred to simply as "Alice's Restaurant") is one of singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie's most prominent works, a musical monologue based on a true story that began on Thanksgiving Day 1965, and which inspired a 1969 movie of the same name.
The song lasts 18 minutes and 34 seconds, occupying the entire A-side of Guthrie's 1967 debut record album, also titled Alice's Restaurant (Warner Reprise Records). It is notable as a satirical,
first-person account of 1960s counterculture, in addition to being a hit song in its own right. The final part of the song is an encouragement for the listeners to
sing along, to resist the draft, and to end war.
Contents [hide]
1 The song
2 The real restaurant and people
3 The church, now the Guthrie Center
4 The movie
5 References
6 Further reading
7 External links
[edit] The song
The song is a talking blues,
which recounts a true but
comically exaggerated Thanksgiving Day adventure as a satirical, deadpan protest against the Vietnam War draft.
The Alice in the song was restaurant-owner Alice M. Brock, who in 1964, using $2,000 supplied by her mother, bought a deconsecrated church in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, where Alice and her husband Ray would live. It was here rather than at the restaurant, which came later, where the song's Thanksgiving dinners were actually held.
On that Thanksgiving, November 25,
1965, the 18-year-old Guthrie and his friend Richard Robbins, 19, were arrested by Stockbridge police officer William "Obie" Obanhein for illegally dumping some of Alice's
garbage after discovering that the town dump was closed for the holiday. Two days later they pleaded guilty in court before a blind judge, James E. Hannon; the song describes to ironic effect the arresting officer's
frustration at the judge being unable to see the "27 8-by-10 color glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us". In the end, Guthrie and Robbins were fined $50 and told to pick up their garbage.
The song goes on to describe Guthrie's
being called up for the draft, and the surreal bureaucracy at the New York City induction center at 1 Whitehall Street. Because of Guthrie's criminal record for littering, he is first sent to the Group W Bench (where those draftees wait who cannot be inducted except under a "moral waiver") then outright rejected as unfit for military service. The ironic punchline of the story's denouement is that, in the words of Guthrie, "I'm sittin here on the Group W bench 'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough to join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug?"
The final part of the song is where Arlo
tells the audience that should they find
themselves facing the draft they should walk into the military psychiatrist's office and sing, "Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant," and walk out. Thus is born, "the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacree Movement, and all you got to do to join is to sing it the next time it comes around on the guitar."[1]
"Alice's Restaurant" is regularly played on Thanksgiving by many classic rock radio stations and has become a tradition.[2] It is not often otherwise aired, due to its length. The original album rose to #17 on the Billboard chart.[3]
Guthrie revised and updated "Alice's Restaurant" years later to protest Reagan-era policies, but this second version has not been released on a commercial recording. He sang a third version during the Bush
Administration years that was recorded and released by the Kerrville Folk Festival.
The 1997 rerecordingGuthrie later wrote a follow-up recounting how he learned that Richard Nixon had owned a copy of the
song, and he jokingly suggested that this
explained the famous 18½ minute gap in the Watergate tapes. Guthrie rerecorded his entire debut album for his 1997 CD Alice's Restaurant also known as Alice's Restaurant: The Massacree Revisited, on the Rising Son music label, which includes this expanded version.
[edit] The real restaurant and people
Sign to restaurant"Alice" was restaurant owner Alice M. Brock, who with husband Ray Brock lived in a former church in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, where the song's Thanksgiving dinners were actually held. She was a painter and designer, while Ray was an architect and woodworker. Both
worked at a nearby private academy, the music- and art-oriented Stockbridge School, from which Guthrie (then of the Queens, New York City neighborhood of Howard Beach) had graduated. As of 2005, Alice Brock lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and owns an art studio and gallery at 69 Commercial Street.[4] She illustrated the 2004 children's book Mooses Come Walking, written by Guthrie.
Alice's restaurant (formally known as the "Back Room Rest", named for its location down an alley behind a grocery store at 40 Main Street in Stockbridge, Massachusetts) was roughly six miles from the church — though true to the song, it was "just a half-a-mile from the railroad track". Formerly Maluphy's Restaurant, it ran the length of the building from front
to back along the side alley. Owned by Alice for only a year before she and Ray divorced, it was, as of 2005, Theresa's Stockbridge Cafe, where a hand-painted sign indicates its former identity. The building's front as of 2006 is The Main Street Cafe.
A restaurant named "Alice's Restaurant", for which Mr. Guthrie was partially credited, opened and closed in 2008 at the short-lived Hard Rock Park theme park in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
[edit] The church, now the Guthrie Center
The church, originally built as the St. James Chapel in 1829, was enlarged in 1866 and renamed Trinity Church. Ray and Alice Brock purchased the property in 1964 and made it their home. The building has had several owners since the early 1970s. [5]
In 1991, Guthrie bought the church that had
served as Alice and Ray Brock's former home, at 4 Van Deusenville Road, Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and converted it to the Guthrie Center, a nondenominational, interfaith meeting place.[6]
The church's exterior is covered with white vinyl siding with the original cornerstone dedications still intact. There are two public entrances, a ramp for disabled guests on the side of the building and another consisting of two large wooden doors. The entrance from the side leads directly into the chapel. The front entrance leads into a living room with couches
and a kitchen to the left. Bathrooms are located down a straight hallway to the right. Above this hallway is a sign that says " One God - Many Forms / One River - Many Streams / One People - Many Faces / One Mother - Many Children -Ma".
In the main chapel area there is a stage for performances set up with microphone and other audio inputs. On the stage, in the rear center, Officer Obie's chair sits as a reminder of the arrest. In the rear of the chapel there is a set of stairs and a loft which holds a shrine dedicated to multiple religions and also contains a viewing loft. Also, there is a door that leads to a set of private rooms in which Alice and Ray once lived.
In recent years, the Guthrie Center has become a popular folk music venue, hosting the Troubadour Concert series annually from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Musical guests have included John Gorka, Jaane Doe, The Highwaymen and, of course, Arlo Guthrie. The annual "Garbage Trail Walk",
retracing the steps of Arlo and folksinger Rick Robbins (as told in the song), raises money for Huntington's Disease research. On Thanksgiving, the Center hosts a "Thanksgiving dinner that can't be beat" for people in need from the local community.
[edit] The movie
Main article: Alice's Restaurant (film)
The song was adapted into the 1969 movie Alice's Restaurant, directed and co-written by Arthur Penn and starring Guthrie as himself, Pat Quinn as Alice Brock and James Broderick as Ray Brock, with William Obanhein ("Officer Obie") appearing as himself and the real Alice making a cameo appearance.
The movie was released on August 19, 1969, a few
days after Guthrie had appeared at the Woodstock Festival. A soundtrack album for the film was also released by United Artists Records. The soundtrack includes a studio version of the "Massacree", which was originally divided into two parts (one for each album side); a CD reissue on the Rykodisc label presents this version of the song in full, and adds several bonus tracks to the original LP.
