I think I might have seen part of the Alice’s Restaurant movie as the entrance into Arlo Guthrie. Maybe it was on a radio station on Thanksgiving one year. I wish I would have taken better care to recall some of these things. Particularly in a case like Alice’s Restaurant. The album was released in 1967. It was most definately registering on any charts in the early 80’s.
The story of Alice’s Resaurant took place in Stockbridge, MA which was just a couple of hours southwest of Vermont Academy. Maybe htat had something to do with it but I’m going to stick with the movie thing.
As I look at the album cover, I keep thinking about Pauly Shore. Of course, I bought this album for Alice’s Restaurant Massacree and had I discovered it some years later, I probably would not be as familiar with the rest of the songs.
Musically, the Academy Days were all about the album. As I stated before, I believe this had to be due to the nature of the medium. For cassettes more than vinyl albums. It just was not practical to skip songs. Picking up the stylus and dropping back down in the right spot was tedious at best. Cassette decks had yet to develop that track skipping ability. This would all change in a few years when Compact Discs came along and the word shuffle was invented.
As I listen to these Arlo tracks again, there is something simple and unspolied about them. Maybe it was a little 1967 maybe it is just Arlo’s folksy style. One spring, Adam and I saw Arlo Guthrie live in Springfield, MA. James Taylor’s brother Livingston was the opening act. It was an interesting evening a mere stone’s throw away from where Alice’s Restaurant happened so many years ago.
Group W Bench
Alice’s Restaurant Massacree
The Motorcycle Song
Highway In The Wind