Alice Brock, who helped inspire Arlo Guthrie’s classic ‘Alice’s Restaurant,’ dies at 83

NEW YORK (AP) — Alice Brock has died at age 83. Her Massachusetts-based eatery helped inspire Arlo Guthrie’s deadpan Thanksgiving standard, “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree.” Guthrie announced Brock’s death, just a week before Thanksgiving, on the Facebook page of his own “Rising Son Records” on Friday. In 1966, Alice Brock was running The Back Room restaurant in Stockbridge, and Guthrie was a rising star. His breakout song was an 18-minute talking blues that recounted his arrest and how it made him ineligible for the draft. The chorus was a tribute to Alice — whose restaurant was not called Alice’s Restaurant. Countless fans have since memorized it.