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50 Years After ‘Alice’s Restaurant,’ Guthrie Singing It Live
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant – including Arlo Guthrie.
The celebrated folk singer is performing live this week at the former Old Trinity Church, where a ticket he got for littering 50 years ago inspired the 1967 runaway hit song “Alice’s Restaurant.”
Guthrie was booked for Monday and Tuesday nights at the church, which now houses The Guthrie Center.
On Thanksgiving 1965, Guthrie was visiting a friend, Alice Brock, and her husband at their home in what used to be a church. To do them a favor, he took out their trash but wound up dumping it off a cliff and getting a citation.
Photo: Gillian Jones/The Berkshire Eagle via AP
Performing “Alice's Restaurant” at the Guthrie Center in Great Barrington, Mass.
His police record made him ineligible for the Vietnam War draft, and the incident inspired the comical protest ballad.