ARLO ON THE MENU

Arlo Guthrie‘s LP Alice’s Restaurant — particularly the (near-) title track — became a counterculture touchstone when it was released in 1967, the same year as director Arthur Penn’s heralded film Bonnie and Clyde. Two years later, Penn would bring Alice’s Restaurant to the big screen, starring none other than Arlo himself. Penn received an Oscar® nomination for his direction.

The soundtrack featured a new recording of “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” as well other songs and music cues from the movie. It was expanded on CD in 1998 with even more material. For the film’s 50th anniversary, Alice’s Restaurant: Original MGM Motion Picture Soundtrack (50th Anniversary Edition) returns on both a further CD and 2-LP set, due out on Omnivore Recordings on August 23, 2019.

This new version contains all of the material from the 1969 and 1998 editions (while retaining the 1969 sequence), but also adds a previously unissued, live, 24-minute take, “Alice’s Restaurant: Multi-Color Rainbow Roach Affair,” from 1968. That’s 12 tracks making their vinyl debut!

Packaging contains photos, images from the film, and liner notes by writer Lee Zimmerman (author of Americana Music: Voices, Visionaries & Pioneers of an Honest Sound), and features a new interview with Arlo. While Arlo is perpetually on tour, one can be sure he’ll play some of the favorites from this release as he celebrates this milestone anniversary of the film and album.

Says Guthrie in the new interview, “I never expected it to be so popular. ‘Alice’s Restaurant’ was a surprise. An 18-minute song doesn’t get airplay. You can’t expect that. So the fact that it became a hit was absurd on the face of it. It wasn’t part of the calculation, but it did take me for surprise.”

You can get everything you want on Alice’s Restaurant: Original MGM Motion Picture Soundtrack (50th Anniversary Edition).