CoronaVinyl Day 287 (G): Alice's Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie

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Today's CoronaVinyl category is "G," and we're going with a '60s folk classic, Arlo Guthrie's 1967 debut album Alice's Restaurant.

Guthrie, of course, is the son of folk icon and political activist Woodie Guthrie, and Arlo became a prominent folk singer and activist in his own right.  In the mid '60s, he began playing the folk circuit, and on the strength of his song "Alice's Restaurant Massacree," he got his first record contract.  The song is an 18+-minute talking blues anti-Vietnam protest song, initially inspired by his arrest in 1965 for illegally dumping garbage (while staying at the home of some friends, one of whom was named Alice, who did, in fact, own a restaurant).  The song comprises the entire first side of the album, and it became Guthrie's signature song, as well as a popular counterculture song.  It also inspired a movie of the same name in 1969.  

The remainder of the album is straight late '60s folk and folk rock.  I imagine people of my parents' generation (though not my parents themselves) sitting in a circle in someone's living room while listening to this album and smoking grass.  That's what they called it back then.

The album reached #17 on the Billboard album chart, and it eventually went platinum in the U.S., making it his highest-charting and best-selling album.  The single version of "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" (cut down to 4:43) snuck into the Billboard Hot 100 at #97, but it was the only charting song on the album.

Guthrie went on to play at Woodstock.  In 1972, he hit #18 with "City of New Orleans" (his only Top 40 hit), his 1976 song "Massachusetts" is now the official folk song of Massachusetts (presumably The Standells' "Dirty Water" is the overall official song of the commonwealth), and he continued to make music relatively steadily until the mid '90s and continued touring until last year.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Alice's Restaurant Massacree"
It's the only song on the side, so it was hard to not go with this one.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "The Motorcycle Song"
I like this song because it's quirky and it rhymes "pickle" with a mispronunciation of "motorcycle."