POP REVIEW : A Guthrie Repast of Tunes, Tall Tales

Is America ready for a sequel to “Alice’s Restaurant,” the movie?

In concert at the Coach House Friday, Arlo Guthrie jokingly hinted that in light of recent events, a sequel to the affable counterculture film might be in order.

That 1969 movie was adapted from Guthrie’s 18-minute song/monologue, “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” a rambling, twisting novelty ditty that centered on a church in Stockbridge, Mass. Guthrie recently bought the building immortalized in the song and film, winning the approval of neighbors when they thought he would just be using it for business.

But when Guthrie said he might also use the building as a meditation center for AIDS patients, folks in the neighborhood got a tad upset. “It’s OK to do business there, but it’s not OK to bring God back into the church,” mused Guthrie, ever the ironist. “It’s almost like a movie’s developing. . . . There’s something karmic about me and that church and the movie business.”

“Alice’s Restaurant,” an album released before Guthrie was even out of his teens, contained all the seeds of the career that followed. The “Massacree,” taking up all of side one, showcases Arlo the folksy monologuist; side two embraces his straight-ahead songwriting skills, from whimsical (“The Motorcycle Song”) to affecting (“Chilling of the Evening”).

Although the basics have changed little over the ensuing 25 years, Guthrie has somehow carved himself a comfortable groove without falling into a rut. His rambling intros and tall tales, alternately funny and poignant, remain fresh and entertaining. While the stories tend to dominate his live shows, Guthrie demonstrated Friday that he still knows his way around a tune, playing mostly in a mid-tempo, folk-pop vein but also ranging into acoustic blues, full-out rock and a gospel-tinged “Amazing Grace.”

The singer has managed to keep a hold on his ‘60s hopefulness, undercut with enough irony and self-deprecating wit to keep the proceedings from getting treacly. Guthrie, with his great mane of gray hair, continues to relish his role as shaggy-dog outsider.

Introducing his drug smuggler saga, “Coming Into Los Angeles,” Guthrie said he had stopped performing the song years ago, until he was reintroduced to it by his son Abraham’s band, Xavier, which has backed him on the last two tours. “I remembered a long time ago how annoying I was to a lot of people,” he said Friday. “I missed those days.”

Guthrie emphasized his musical side in the early going, opening with “Chilling of the Evening” and moving to Bob Dylan’s “When the Ship Comes In.” It wasn’t until the fourth number, the children’s folk standard “Garden Song,” that he launched into one of his trademark monologues.

The lines “Inch by inch, row by row,” from the song’s chorus, sparked a minor digression into the impact of the metric system on songwriting. “Most of the world doesn’t know what an ‘inch’ is anymore,” Guthrie complained. “ ‘Kilometer after kilometer’ just isn’t the same as ‘mile after mile.’ ”

Guthrie, who hasn’t released an album since 1986, unveiled only one new song Friday, an unsentimental paean, “Wake Up Dead,” to a friend who died of AIDS. The rest of the set was split fairly evenly between covers and originals. For the record, Guthrie did not perform “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” despite insistent pleas by one fan (“That’s why we put it on a record,” Guthrie finally answered).

Highlights included the two opening numbers, dad Woody’s classic “Ain’t Got No Home,” a bluesy number from his last album, “Unemployment Line,” and a hilariously twisted yarn built around the creation of “The Motorcycle Song,” which he introduced as “the most embarrassing song I’ve ever written” (sample line: “I don’t want a pickle, I just want to ride my motor-sickle”). A sing-along rendition of Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love” was a nice touch near the end of the almost two-hour set.

“Ain’t Got No Home” and “Unemployment Line,” among many songs in the concert, displayed the timeless value of the best folk, and Guthrie invested enough of himself in the proceedings to do the material justice. Guthrie manages to be a polished entertainer without selling short his humanity; his shows break no new ground, but he turns the resulting familiarity into an asset.

“This may sound like an old song,” he sang at one point, “but I swear it’s always new.”

Xavier opened the concert with a set of ‘70s-style melodic hard rock that was competently performed, but that sounded more dated than the following set by the gray-haired Guthrie. The band shifted gears to provide supple if undramatic backing for Arlo’s set.