Arlo Guthrie

The son of iconic folk musician Woody Guthrie, singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie enjoyed his own long and storied music career, which launched in earnest in 1967 with the release of his sprawling comic number "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" (also known as "Alice's Restaurant"), which endeared him to generations of music listeners. The song landed on the pop music charts a second time in 1969 following the release of Arthur Penn's film "Alice's Restaurant" (1969), which also starred Guthrie in a feature-length version of his misadventures with the Massachusetts police over illegal trash dumping. Guthrie scored a few additional minor hits in the early 1970s, including "The City of New Orleans" (1972) before abandoning chart hits for steady work as a popular live performer. If his subsequent work never matched the initial success of "Alice" or the sainted status of his father's songs, Guthrie could still claim a five-decade career in the service of American folk music and socio-political justice, an accolade enjoyed by only the top echelon of the genre's performers, of which he was clearly a member.