Alice's Restaurant [50th Anniversary Edition]

by Arlo Guthrie

Overview

As an album, the original soundtrack to Alice's Restaurant -- like a lot of movie soundtracks -- is something of a dud, bound for collecting dust after a few listenings; for most buyers, its greater value is its collectible potential as a piece of Arlo Guthrie memorabilia, and not as a listening experience. Fans of the movie will likely find the soundtrack more a letdown than it logically should be: it doesn't include some of the movie's most memorable musical moments, such as Arlo's kazoo-blowing coffeehouse rag, his duet with Pete Seeger on Woody Guthrie's "Car Song," or the emotional guitar arrangement of "Amazing Grace." The title story-song, "Alice's Restaurant Massacree," is reproduced here in a new, two-part version which pales in comparison with the original -- indeed, its weakest points sound almost like a parody of the more famous performance. The record is filled out by a few short, folk-rock instrumentals composed by Guthrie or the album's producer, Garry Sherman; an a cappella, congregational "Amazing Grace"; the guitar solo "Crash Pad Improvs," which cropped up with lyrics a year later as "Gabriel's Mother's Hiway Ballad # 16 Blues"; a throwaway honky tonk vocal (sung by Al Shackman) that is either a send-up of or tribute to classic country, or both; and Joni Mitchell's painfully dated "Songs to Aging Children," sung by Mitchell impersonator Tigger Outlaw. It can be said in favor of the album that it boldly went where few movie scores had gone before, abandoning typical Hollywood orchestrations for banjos, harmonicas, and electric guitars, and the resulting instrumentals are good if unexceptional. Still, the soundtrack fails to do justice to the score you actually remember from the movie, and the original LP is best left to the die-hard fans and collectors. Fortunately, when Rykodisc reissued the album on CD in 1998, it included the missing stuff, making for a much more satisfying listen. ~ Burgin Mathews

Product Details

Release Date:	08/23/2019
Label:	Omnivore / United Artists Records
UPC:	0816651017409
Rank:	77261

Tracks

1. Traveling Music
2. Alice's Restaurant Massacre, Pt. 1
3. The Let Down
4. Songs to Aging Children
5. Amazing Grace
6. Trip to the City
7. Alice's Restaurant Massacre, Pt. 2
8. Crash Pad Improvs
9. You're a Fink
10. Harps and Marriage

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Arlo Guthrie   Primary Artist,Vocals
Tigger Outlaw   Primary Artist,Vocals
Gene Shay   Primary Artist
Pete Seeger   Primary Artist,Vocals
Al Schackman   Primary Artist,Vocals
Garry Sherman   Primary Artist
Trigger Outlaw   Primary Artist
Arthur Penn   Director
James Broderick   Featured Artist
Patricia Quinn   Featured Artist

Technical Credits

Traditional   Composer
John Newton   Composer
Cheryl Pawelski   Compilation Producer
Greg Allen   Design,Reissue Art Director
Gene Shay   Producer
Joni Mitchell   Composer
Woody Guthrie   Composer
Arthur Penn   Screenplay
Public Domain   Composer
Arlo Guthrie   Arranger,Composer,Producer
Lee Lodyga   Project Assistant
Michael Graves   Mastering
Cathy Guthrie   Compilation Producer
Garry Sherman   Arranger,Composer,Producer,Music Supervisor
Annie Guthrie   Compilation Producer
Audrey Bilger   Project Assistant
Dorothy Stefanski   Editorial
Hillard Elkins   Producer
Dutch Cramblitt   Project Assistant
Lee Zimmerman   Liner Notes
Brad Rosenberger   Project Assistant
Peter Strand   Project Assistant
Joy Graves   Project Assistant
Joe Manduke   Producer
Marc Miller   Project Assistant
Venable Herndon   Screenplay