​Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant 50th Anniversary Tour

Jan 26, 2015 7:00 pm Commemorating the 1967 song that shot him into stardom, singer-songwriter and folk legend Arlo Guthrie will perform “Alice’s Restaurant” in its entirety for the first time in over a decade. Alice’s Restaurant 50th Anniversary Tour will feature the eighteen minute-long anti-war anthem and Thanksgiving favorite as well as a number of other Guthrie classics, from “Massachusetts” to the Woodstock hit “Coming into Los Angeles.” Born in Coney Island in 1947, Arlo Guthrie was raised by his mother, a professional dancer, and his father, the famous folk musician and political activist Woody Guthrie. As a child, Arlo was inspired by many of his father’s fellow folk artists and friends, including Lee Hays, Ronnie Gilbert, and Pete Seeger. Well acquainted with the development of folk music in the early to mid-twentieth century, Arlo Guthrie quickly developed his own style, bridging generations of folk music to bring folk to a 1960s audience. Guthrie recorded arguably his most famous song in 1967, “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” at the tender age of 19. A spoken monologue set to guitar, the song documents an incident in Guthrie’s life in which the young activist was able to avoid the Vietnam War draft by committing the minor crime of littering. The 1967 album enjoyed wide popular and critical success, becoming a platinum-selling album and eventually being made into a feature-length motion picture in 1969. After his initial success, Arlo Guthrie continued to develop his reputation as the voice of a new generation of folk musicians. Guthrie performed at Woodstock in 1969, where he showcased his famous release “Coming into Los Angeles,” which was also included on the platinum-selling Woodstock album and film. Arlo Guthrie’s beloved song “Massachusetts,” which celebrates the state in which the artist lived for most of his life, became Massachusetts’s official state folk song in 1981. In 1983, Guthrie became an independent artist, establishing the record label Rising Son Records, one of the first indie labels ever created. Since its inception, Rising Son Records has released over twenty of Guthrie’s recordings. Aside from his prolific music career, Arlo Guthrie has appeared in television and film roles, including recurring roles in the television series The Byrds of Paradise and Relativity. Guthrie is also an accomplished photographer and the author of three childrens books. For the five decades since “Alice’s Restaurant” was released in 1967, Arlo Guthrie has embarked on an anniversary tour every ten years. This latest tour, beginning in January of 2015, marks the 50th anniversary, and fifth anniversary tour, since the song’s release. Due to the excessive length of “Alice’s Restaurant.” the anniversary tour performances are the only times when Guthrie performs the song in full to a live audience. Once the two-year tour is over, the song is again removed from the performance roster. As Guthrie jokes, “I’ll do it again for the 60th anniversary, or I’ll be dead. Whichever comes first.” The once-in-a-decade opportunity to see Arlo Guthrie’s live performance of “Alice’s Restaurant” is coming to The Lyric Theatre this January.

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