His most famous work is "
Alice's Restaurant Massacree", a
talking blues song that lasts 18 minutes and 20 seconds (in its original recorded version; Guthrie has been known to spin the story out to forty-five minutes in concert). Guthrie has pointed out that this was also the exact length of one of the famous gaps in
Richard Nixon's Watergate tapes. The Alice in the song is Alice Brock, who now runs an art gallery
http://www.alicebrock.com in
Provincetown, Massachusetts.
The song, a bitingly
satirical protest against the
Vietnam War draft, is based on a true incident. In the song, Guthrie is called up for a draft examination, and rejected as unfit for
military service as a result of a criminal record — consisting in its entirety of a single arrest, court appearance, fine and clean-up order for
littering. On the DVD commentary for the film, Guthrie states that the events as presented in the song are true to real-life occurrences.
For a short period of time after its release in 1967, "Alice's Restaurant" was in frequent rotation on nearly every college and counter-culture radio station in the country — quite an accomplishment for an 18-minute song (albeit in an era not averse to extended
jams). Indeed, it became a symbol of the late '60s and for many it defined an attitude and lifestyle that were lived out across the country in the ensuing years. Furthermore, many stations across the States have made playing "Alice's Restaurant" on Thanksgiving Day a tradition.
A 1969
film, directed and co-written by
Arthur Penn, was based on the story. In addition to acting in this film, also called
Alice's Restaurant, Guthrie has had minor roles in several movies and
television series. Guthrie's memorable appearance at the 1969
Woodstock Festival was documented in the
Michael Wadleigh film
Woodstock.
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