The Best of Arlo Guthrie [Import]

Arlo Guthrie | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Warner Bros
• ASIN: B000002KI3
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #39,880 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #62 in Music > Imports > Folk

Track Listings

1. Alice's Restaurant Massacree

2. Gabriel's Mother's Hiway Ballad #16 Blues

3. Cooper's Lament

4. Motorcycle (Significance Of The Pickle) Song

5. Coming Into Los Angeles

6. Last Train

7. City Of New Orleans

8. Darkest Hour

9. Last To Leave

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Though several of Guthrie's records contain hidden gems well worth seeking out, his best-known songs are fairly obvious and easy to assemble on a single greatest-hits package. A hefty chunk of this record is taken up by the epic "Alice's Restaurant," which clocks in at 18-and-a-half minutes. Yet--while it's a definitive element of late 1960s counterculture--it's not his best song, either as writer or as performer. For the latter, his version of Steve Goodman's classic "City of New Orleans" remains the pinnacle of his career; among his own songs, it's hard to surpass the somewhat lesser-known but equally beautiful "Darkest Hour." Other highlights here include the rockin' "Comin' into Los Angeles" and the comedic "Motorcycle Song." --Peter Blackstock

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Guthrie's Best A Tidy Folk Feast That Couldn't Be Beat, November 10, 2000

By 

Anthony G Pizza "trivialtony" (FL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Best of Arlo Guthrie (Audio CD)

Considering Arlo Guthrie's estrangement from modern record-making (especially for his former employer, Warner Brothers), "The Best of Arlo Guthrie" may be the only hits collection we get from this folk troubadour. Even so, it's a tidy best-of from someone often neglected today among Sixties folk's earth-movers (Dylan, Baez, Phil Ochs).

"The Best of Arlo Guthrie" contains the artist's touchstones: Steve Goodman's bittersweet "City of New Orleans" (featuring Crusader Wilton Felder on bass; the late songwriter no doubt would have been amused by its recent inclusion in a laxative commercial), the Woodstock anthem "Coming Into Los Angeles," the silly sing-a-long "Motorcycle Song" (which Guthrie prefaces by saying, "It's amazing that someone could get away with singing a song this dumb for that long,")

Then you get the evergreen "Alice's Restaurant Masacree." A decade before Elvis Costello sneered, "I used to be disgusted/now I try to be amused," Guthrie turned two then-common hippie brushes with authority into a moving, absurd masterpiece. It satirizes small town/big country bureaucracy too well to spin only every third Thursday in November. Yet thankfully, Guthrie's consistent performances and devotion to folk style (incorporating gospel and political protest music within it, always with humor) kept this anthem from swallowing his career as 1971's long and winding "American Pie" did Don McLean's.

"Alice's Restauarant Massacree" is essential to any Sixties collection, and this set is the most cost-effective way to get it. New fans should then check out 1967's original "Alice's Restaurant," Guthrie's duet LPs with Pete Seeger, or 1976's "Amigo" for the best from this second-generation folk icon.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Arlo is a great entertainer, June 15, 2000

By 

Delania Deshetler (Rockledge, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Best of Arlo Guthrie (Audio CD)

This is one great album! Arlo Guthrie is so funny. "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" and "Motorcycle Song" will have anyone laughing everytime they listen. Guthrie is a true entertainer. I would highly recommend this album to anyone!

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific Compilation Of Arlo's Early Work!, September 2, 2000

By 

Barron Laycock "Labradorman" (Temple, New Hampshire United States) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Best of Arlo Guthrie (Audio CD)

I am often stunned to find how few people are still unfamiliar with Arlo Guthrie and his wonderful music. This collection of his greatest hits and the best of his several terrific albums illustrates in one work what incredible talent, diversity and intelligence this sometimes slapstick and even vaudevillian singer has. Arlo really is one of a kind, a true artist who often covers sour subjects with a sugary satirical style, thus making these bitter pills about life more tolerable and acceptable to discuss and think about.

Here our perpetually young and impish Mr. Guthrie shows all of his sides, sometimes serious, often impish, and always sporting a twinkle in his eyes, from the silly and perhaps immortal "Alice's Restaurant", Arlo's true (if somewhat embellished) account of how the irony of the "Establishment's" bureaucratic rules inadvertently allowed him to avoid the military draft to the equally diverting and amusing "Motorcycle Song" or as we who love it refer to it, "The Pickle Song". He shows his more serious side with wonderful entries like "Darkest Hours" and "City Of New Orleans". Probably the greatest thing about most of these songs is that they weave their way into your subconscious memory, so you may find yourself humming or singing one of them involuntarily next time you're in the shower and feeling pretty good about the world.

My biggest regret concerning this album is that the lovely ballad "Massachusetts" about his adopted state, as well as the evocative "Manzanillo Bay" about that unspoiled seaside Mexican paradise, are not included here. Both of these songs are from his virtually unknown but spectacular album "Amigo". This is indeed a wonderful album by someone often assumed to be a lightweight because of his inordinate success with novelty songs like "Alice's Restaurant" and "The Motorcycle Song". Yet anyone familiar with Guthrie the man and his continuing good works in rural western Massachusetts as a sort of self-appointed one-man project on helping those in need, he is obviously much more than that, and anyone taking a close listen to this album as well as the terrific album "Amigo" will discover the true depths of his quite considerable singing and songwriting talents as well. Enjoy.