Arlo Guthrie's 'Alice's Restaurant' Is A T-day Tradition. But This Year The Real Alice Needs Help

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

Arlo Guthrie's rambling, spoken-word tune “Alice's Restaurant” is a Thanksgiving Day tradition on radio stations across the country. Over the course of about 18 minutes, the folk singer unfurls a true tale involving himself and his hippie friends in 1960s Western Massachusetts.

Now — more than 50 years after the iconic song hit the airwaves — its namesake has fallen on hard times. But Alice's friends have launched a crowdfunding campaign to help her stay in the only place she's ever really wanted to be: Provincetown on Cape Cod.

When asked to introduce herself for our audio interview (which is standard procedure in radio journalism) Alice Brock didn't miss a beat. “Well, kids, this is Alice,” she said, “the famous living-legend, Earth Mother, Alice of 'Alice's Restaurant.'”

The nearly 80-year-old's wry wit continued as she recalled how Guthrie immortalized her Stockbridge diner and the deconsecrated church where she once lived. In his song, the musician describes returning to Alice's home/crash pad after throwing a truckload of her trash off a cliff because the dump was closed for the holiday.

“Drove back to the church, had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, went to sleep, and didn't get up until the next morning when we got a phone call from Officer Obie,” Guthrie recounted in his song.

/snip

The rest at https://www.wbur.org/artery/2020/11/26/arlo-guthrie-alice-help?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=2057&fbclid=IwAR1WeWHIPR7x07n1o2jrVY2qWcIA7wNr62Je3PO7IsXS96yurrsnOHANuBE with links.

[rsdsharp]

1. For some reason, I didn't know Alice's Restaurant

was in Stockbridge. The village’s most famous resident was Norman Rockwell, which begs the question: Did Norman Rockwell ever eat at Alice’s Tire Restaurant?

Now that would have been a culture clash.

[The Genealogist]

2. According to the wikipedia article for the song, the restaurant was underneath Rockwell's studio

So they must have known each other.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice%27s_Restaurant

[Blue_true]

3. One would guess that he would have had breakfast or lunch there on occasion.

That is a rare event, two world famous people associated with the same place before their fame became massive.