Author: olddudejournal

On Thanksgiving Day, hundreds of radio stations across the country will play Alice’s Restaurant Massacree in it’s entirety. First released in 1967, this song has become almost as much of a Thanksgiving tradition as turkey itself. On Thursday, Arlo will help serve The Guthrie Center’s annual free Thanksgiving Dinner at the Old Trinity Church in Great Barrington, Mass.  — the church famously mentioned in the song. On Saturday, he will perform his annual Thanksgiving concert at Carnegie Hall.

I was 14 in the summer of 1964, living in Acton, Mass.  One Friday evening several of us rode our bikes to sleep over at a friend’s house.  He lived on a small farm in the next town of Boxborough, at the time a rural community comprised of mostly woods and some farmland. Our friend’s parents were away for the weekend, so his 18 year old brother was having a party with twenty or so of his friends. When we got to the house, the party was in full swing — Dylan’s When the Ship Comes in was playing in the background — groups of three to five people were sitting or standing in the dimly lit living room, talking, laughing, and passing joints around. Others were just zoned out, listening intently to every word Dylan sang.

That became the night I had my first experience with pot, and, for the first time in my life, really noticed just how unbelievably breathtaking a full moon can be as it beautifully lights rolling pastures and trees, while sounds of the night add an almost magical, musical background to an already perfect picture. Yup. I was 14 — high for the first time in my life and, I have to say, it was pretty cool.

While the four of us were sitting in a patch of grass next to the barn, staring at the sky, hoping to spot a UFO, and debating whether or not we wanted one to scoop us up and take us on an adventure, our friend’s brother approached and said that, for a dollar, he would sell us each a charter membership to a place called Club 47 in Cambridge, and that our charter membership would entitle us to see any show at the Club for $1.00— forever. We each bought a membership.

The music scene in Boston and Cambridge was fabulous in the early and mid 1960’s. Club 47 in Cambridge, Pall’s Mall, the Jazz Workshop and Unicorn Coffee House were, for the most part, non-alcohol venues that featured both established, plus up and coming folk, blues and jazz artists. With two shows nightly — I think 7:30pm and 9:00pm — the clubs’ performance schedules allowed us to see an early show on Friday or Saturday, and still make it home, 25 miles away, by curfew.

There was always someone to go see!  Joan Baez, Tom Rush, Judy Collins, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Elvin Bishop (with, and after he left Butterfield), Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Ramblin Jack Elliot, Bonnie Raitt, Sonny Terry & Brownie Magee, Odetta, Joni Mitchell, Blind Doc Watson, Tom Paxton, James Cotton, John Mayall, Rich and Mimi Farina, John Prine, Dave van Ronk, Phil Ochs, Tim Hardin, and John Lee Hooker were a few of the names performing on this circuit on a regular basis. Jose Feliciano, long before Felice Navidad was a hit, performed acoustic sets at Pall’s Mall, with his seeing eye dog onstage.

Club 47, Joan Baez

Paul’s Mall / Jazz Workshop

Sometimes, after pooling our resources to pay 25.9¢ a gallon for gas to get to Ipswich, we wouldn’t have enough money left over to actually get into The King’s Rook, so we would stand outside, on the walkway, and listen as best we could to the performances inside.

King’s Rook

One of those times, standing outside of The King’s Rook, we met a guy who was a couple of years older, had a guitar, and also seemed to be just hanging around. I can’t quite remember how we got to talking with him — those things just kind of happened effortlessly and naturally in those days. I can’t even remember what we talked about. What I do remember is that he said his name was Arlo, and that he was waiting for something to happen that might give him a chance to play The King’s Rook that night.

I never gave that night a second thought until two years later.  By 1967 our band had become a pretty strong regional force, but, more importantly for this story, 1967 was also the year Alice’s Restaurant Massacre was released, instantly becoming a hit. It was only then that we realized that the Arlo we met outside The King’s Rook was Arlo Guthrie. I do know he never said his last name that night in 1965 — Woody Guthrie’s work was totally on our radar back then.

I have attended quite a few Arlo Guthrie concerts over the past 50 years — many at small venues in the Northeast, like the Groton, MA Center for the Performing Arts and The Colonial Theatre in Keene, NH —  most recently, after moving to the mountains of Western North Carolina, at The Diane Wortham theatre in Asheville. I feel fortunate to have been able to share his concerts with my kids, and my grandson.