Re:RAMBLIN' JACK ELLIOTT THREAD 13 Years, 10 Months ago
PSB wrote:
QUOTE: The Dylan Newport story is a bit, well, strange, whether on Elliott's part of Bream's part. Dylan's version of "House of the Rising Sun," came from Dave Van Ronk, not Jack Elliott. Elliott's own version of the song came from Woody Guthrie and is played with major chords, not minor ones and the melody as a result is slightly different, though obviously the same song. Also the one album Elliott recorded the song on, "Jack Elliott" on Vanguard, if it was even out yet, assuming this was the summer of 1964 when the song was a hit may not have been released yet.
Strange? Oh yes. Of course it's strange. How could it be anything else?
Jack's "stories" that he does in his shows often change venues, or the people in them are different or they happened in different eras or maybe never happened. The old air conditioner routine has been done at every show for the past 20 years and it could be that he tells it about being on the plane, or in the airport or right where he is now explaining why his voice isn't up to par. Add to that the fact that we know Dylan makes up shit all the time (maybe one thing he really learned from Jack) and it's hard to find something that isn't strange about their stories and/or relationships. Actually between the three players (I don't know anything about Bream) I'd tend to believe Van Ronk, but then we can't check with him any more.
Re:RAMBLIN' JACK ELLIOTT THREAD 13 Years, 10 Months ago
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Ftr, the Hugh's Room dates, above, may not be accurate. While the venue has Elliott performing on both the 11th and 12th, his web site has him down for the 11th. To confuse matters, his agent's site has him listed for the 12th.
For any of you Toronto/Southern Ontario ppl, know that David "Honeyboy" Edwards is to be at Hugh's Room on AU 9th:
Now in his 96th year and still doin' gigs.
And on this day, August 1st., Ramblin' Jack enters his 80th year.
Re:RAMBLIN' JACK ELLIOTT THREAD 13 Years, 9 Months ago
Ramblin' Jack lived up to his name, entertaining the crowd with his stories almost as much as his songs Sunday afternoon at the Ottawa Folk Festival at Britannia Park. Photograph by: Julie Oliver, The Ottawa Citizen
OTTAWA - Folk music legend and veteran storyteller Ramblin' Jack Elliott proved true to the foot-loose part of his name at the Ottawa Folk Festival Sunday night.
Elliott was scheduled to play the main stage right before the Jim Cuddy Band until the rain forced the closing of the main stage and a lineup shuffle. Cuddy wound up taking the stage after press time, while Elliott was shifted to an earlier slot in the dance tent.
No matter. At 79, Elliott is clearly unfazed by life's vagaries.
Accompanying himself on acoustic guitar and playing to an attentive audience, he led off with San Francisco Bay Blues. Elliott then got into full rambling mode by playing a few notes from Reuben James, commenting on it briefly, then somehow segueing into "Diamond Joe" after explaining how he learned the song from a cowboy in Belgium and later taught it to Ian Tyson.
A few minutes later, he was telling us about eating fish and drinking tequila with Cat Stevens, drunkenly falling off a horse, and getting his Martin guitar stolen in Florida. "That has nothing at all to do with this song, does it?" he observed before breaking into the Carter Family's "Engine 143."
Other tunes included a stirring rendition of the Rev. Gary Davis' "Death Don't Have No Mercy," from Elliott's 2009 album A Stranger Here, and his encore tune "The House of the Rising Sun."
We also got stories about his now-departed dog, songs about troubled times, and Elliott's still-strong voice and infectious fondness for life.
The world will be a poorer place when Elliott finally rambles off the stage for good.
Re:RAMBLIN' JACK ELLIOTT THREAD 13 Years, 9 Months ago
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Thanks for this, 4th.
For those who might be wondering what these segments are about, they consist primarily of a telephone interview with Elliott that took place this past Sunday, AU 29th 2010. The interview, from Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, is in Segments 2, 3, & 4, with Segment 1 being primarily background. Each segment averages about 14 minutes.
Because the interviewer speaks of Hibbing Days coming up in May, my guess is that some of the non-interview talk was done last year, sometime, before Jack had to cancel a tour to have bypass surgery done. But again, the interview itself was done this past Sunday as Elliott talks about Bob doing a show in San Francisco that evening.
The most interesting segment for a Dylan fan is #3, where the subject matter is mostlty about the Dylan-Elliott relationship. And #4 has some good stuff about Woody's impact on a young artist (Elliott) and the musical mentor-mentee relationship. Also, there's a detailed account by Ramblin' Jack of the intersection of a (roughly) 12 year-old Mick Jagger and Elliott on opposite railway platforms in a station in Mick's hometown.
Just one last note: The interviewer (who was quite effective, in my view) spoke of Dylan covering a Jack Elliott song, "Diamond Joe," the cowboy version (as opposed to the "riverboat" version on Masked and Anonymous). Elliott did not write either of those. He did have a hand in popularizing the cowboy version that Bob plays on Good As I Been To You.
Re:RAMBLIN' JACK ELLIOTT THREAD 13 Years, 8 Months ago
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In the film Don't Look Back, Dylan is holding court in a London hotel room. Among those present, is Derroll Adams. When Bob realizes Adams is there, he greets him excitedly and speaks of having listened to records by him and Jack. The Rambing Boys album, from 1957, is mentioned. The songs on that original 10" album (above) were reisssued with additional songs as an LP, in 1963, titled Roll on Buddy.
Side Two: It does not list "The Death of Mr. Garfield," by Adams, but it is cited in the Topic Records Discography. Some of these songs were re-recorded by Elliott and Adams, a few years later. These above-mentioned albums are not available in CD format.
Re:RAMBLIN' JACK ELLIOTT THREAD 13 Years, 8 Months ago
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From The Detroit Free Press:
Posted: Sept. 9, 2010
Five questions with legend Ramblin' Jack Elliott
When Walt Whitman said "I hear America singing," he could have been describing the voice of Ramblin' Jack Elliott. Elliott is more than an American original, he is a living testament to this country's ability to deliver on its promises of reinvention, redemption and an open-ended highway of possibility.
Demonstrating that the cosmos has a keen sense of humor, Elliott was born a doctor's son in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1931. At age 14 he ran away to join a rodeo and has been running ever since.
A love of cowboy songs led him to an association with songwriter, activist and working man's poet Woody Guthrie. Originally Woody's sidekick, he became a human repository for Guthrie's songs and stories as the older man slowly succumbed to a debilitating neurological disease.
After spending much of the 1950s spreading the gospel of American folk music throughout the UK and Europe -- helping kindle the passions of future musicians like Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney and Rod Stewart -- Ramblin' Jack returned to find that an American folk resurgence led by Bob Dylan had anointed him a legend in absentia.
Though initially revered as a living link to Guthrie, over the decades Elliott has come into his own inimitable voice, one that seems to contain all that is good about America and its music.
After more than half a century of distinguished, if occasionally erratic and certainly under-appreciated, service, Elliott has finally begun to receive the laurels he so richly deserves. He won a 1995 Grammy for best traditional folk album, and was presented the National Medal of the Arts by President Bill Clinton in 1998. His most recent album, "A Stranger Here," produced by Michigan native Joe Henry, won a 2009 Grammy for best traditional blues album.
Elliott, now a robust 79, comes to the Ark in Ann Arbor on Tuesday. Speaking from his home in northern California, the singer offered a typically freewheeling interview that followed its own careening course through a lifetime of roadwork, friends, experiences and adventures. What follows is but a tiny sliver of that conversation. It was a delightfully dizzying reminder that they don't call him Ramblin' Jack because he travels a lot.
Question: You're obviously no stranger to the blues. How did the album come about?
Answer: Owing to the world situation, my record company thought it might be an appropriate time for an album like this, and I agreed. I've always had a few blues songs in my repertoire. I've hung out with some of the great blues men, and was profoundly moved by their personalities as well as their music. Men like Brownie McGee, Sonny Terry, Big Bill Broonzy, Muddy Waters.
I met Josh White through a friend I was rodeo-ing with named [? Native makes more sense.] Peter LaFarge. Peter later wrote "The Ballad of Ira Hayes," made popular by Johnny Cash. He introduced me to Josh in 1949. I remember it distinctly because it was the same time I first attempted to ride a bucking horse. Peter was competing in the national rodeo finals at Madison Square Garden, and though I'd never been on a bucking animal in my life I agreed to give it a shot for $10. That was no place to learn, I'll tell you.
Everybody drew the name of the horse they'd ride out of a hat. I didn't know it, but they had something special planned for me ... a joke they arranged for me to draw a horse named Pennywise. I thought that was a good omen, because I was pound foolish.
He turned out to be the fastest spinning horse in the world. I was only on him for the duration of maybe half a turn before he ejected me, but my left foot got stuck in the stirrup and I was left swinging like a helicopter blade. I guess he completed three or four turns before my boot came off and I was thrown. I was lucky I didn't get killed.
Later we jumped in Peter's car -- Peter LaFarge may have been the only cowboy who drove an MG -- and I was taken to Greenwich Village to be introduced to Josh White and his blues. I tried the bucking broncs twice more that week, with only slightly better results.
Q: Like most great blues records, on yours we really get the feeling of being in the room.
A: There was very little artificiality. No splicing tricks if there was a mistake. None of that stuff. Incidentally, I didn't choose the musicians, but if I'd known 'em I woulda picked 'em. It was a brilliant job of casting by my producer, Joe Henry. We recorded 11 songs in four days. I guess I'm known for taking my time, because the record company said that if I went over five days they'd charge me a thousand dollars a day for studio time out of MY pocket. So I recorded the 11 songs in four days, and by the fifth day I was back at home.
Q: What are you listening to right now?
A: I'm having a sentimental moment. I was recently in a local bookstore and saw a CD with a beautiful picture of Nico from the Velvet Underground. I had a mad crush on Nico at one time. I once got a gig playing guitar with the Velvet Underground one weekend at a place called the Dom in New York. I spent a very long night with the guitar player Lou Reed teaching me the chords to their songs. I tried to tell Nico how I felt about her, but she told me in no uncertain terms that she was in love with Tim Hardin. For my two days' work they gave me a check for $75 signed by that artist who painted Coke bottles, Andy Warhol. With his signature that check would probably be worth $75,000 now. I cashed it the next day, of course. I needed the 75 bucks.
Q: You were among the first of your generation to recognize and encourage new writers like Tim Hardin, Phil Ochs and of course Bob Dylan.
A: Well, I'll tell you something about that. I remember being at one Newport Folk Festival many years ago. At the end of the festival I went to find Bob Dylan to say good-bye. We were sitting in Bob's old blue station wagon. He turned the radio on and punched a button, and there were the Animals singing "House of the Rising Sun." We were startled, but simultaneously we pointed at the radio and said, "That's MY version!" We were both wrong. It wasn't my version and it wasn't Bob Dylan's version. It was the Animals' version. That's how it's supposed to work.
Q: When was the last time you were in Detroit?
A: I'm not sure I rightly recall. I usually come through Ann Arbor these days. The first time I was performing at the Checkmate, and I stayed with Chuck Mitchell and his wife, Joni. I remember Joni Mitchell at the living room table late at night, working very hard on songs the world hadn't heard yet. They were very nice to put me up, and put up with me. The next time I was at a little bar in the dead of winter and nobody came to see me except an art teacher, his wife and their 10-year-old daughter. I ended up sleeping on their couch, next to a 500cc Velocette motorcycle.
Those may be the only two times I've played Detroit, but I have one other memory. I went to see a camera dealer in another city with a friend of mine who was into Leica cameras. We knocked, and the guy jerked the door open and said "Ramblin' Jack!" It turned out he was a fan of mine. He and the guitarist were doing their camera business when the phone rang. It was a friend of his from Detroit who was also interested in Leica cameras.
"You'll never believe this," he tells his friend, "I've got Ramblin' Jack Elliott in the store," and hands the phone to me.
"Hello Jack," this voice says, "my name is Eric and I make beer. If you're ever in Detroit, c'mon out and I'll buy you a beer."
Look forward to it, I said. I thought, wow, this Eric Stroh is sure a nice fella. But I haven't been back to Detroit since to take him up on it. Do you think I can still get that beer?
Re:RAMBLIN' JACK ELLIOTT THREAD 13 Years, 4 Months ago
. Crawdaddy! reviews Elliott's 1964 Vanguard album, Jack Elliott:
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
Jack Elliott
(Vanguard, 1964)
Ramblin' Jack Elliott's voice is one of the natural wonders of the folk music world. When he cut Jack Elliott in 1964, he was in his prime, possessing a flexible tenor that had chilling power. His vocal lines on this album are often stretched to the breaking point with wailing wordless accents that combine the high, lonesome sound of a bluegrass singer, the forlorn melismas of a down-and-out bluesman, and the painful, alcohol-fueled madness of a country boy. Hank Williams comes to mind in the latter regard, with Elliott using the same kind of keening, not-quite-falsetto high end that manages to convey desperation and self-destructive jubilation in the same breath.
Not all the songs on Jack Elliot are laments, but with the exception of "Guabi Guabi," they are the tunes that leave the strongest impression. His performance of Woody Guthrie's "1913 Massacre," the story of a Christmas celebration that turns into a horrible tragedy, is one of his finest moments. He stretches syllables to the breaking point to mirror the sobbing of parents as they view the bodies of their dead children. "Diamond Joe," the tale of cowboys laboring for a dollar a day, is not without its ironic humor, but the misery of working long hours for almost no pay is palpable. His howling rendition of Blind Lemon Jefferson's "Black Snake Moan" still sends chills down my spine, with Elliott's forlorn warble wordlessly implying the world of pain he feels at being betrayed by his woman.
On the upside, he gives us "Shade of the Old Apple Tree," an absurd vaudeville tune about bathing and marriage, and the aforementioned "Guabi, Gaubi," which was the album's big hit on folk radio. Elliott wasn't a world music artist, but he found "Guabi, Guabi" on an album of Zulu guitar music recorded by the South African folklorist Hugh Tracey. The original guitarist's name was George Sibanda and the tune is a well-known Zulu children's song that talks about buying sweets and bananas for your girlfriend. It was a hit in England in the late '50s, which is when Elliott probably heard it. Sibanda combined Zulu rhythms with ragtime, and Elliott copied Sibanda's syncopated picking almost note-for-note on his version, adding a long outro featuring a guitar jam with folk heavies John Herald (Greenbriar Boys,) Ian Tyson (Ian & Sylvia), and Monte Dunn, a folk session player who also backed up Judy Collins, Phil Ochs, Buffy Sainte-Marie, and eventually Cher. "Guabi Gaubi" is one of the most exuberant tunes Elliott ever cut, one of his greatest hits, and it's still an impressive bit of guitar work.
Elliot went on to make more than 40 albums for dozens of labels, all mining his extensive knowledge of folk, blues, cowboy songs, early country, and old time music, but Jack Elliott may be his best album. The song selection is flawless, the recording quality pristine, and these songs still appear almost every time Elliott plays a live set.
In case you need a little bit of back-story to put this all in context: Elliott was a cornerstone of the '60s folk revival and a close pal of both Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan. Guthrie once famously remarked "(Elliott) sounds more like me than I do." Dylan went from being a Guthrie clone to being an Elliott clone before settling into his own unique style. Elliott grew up playing guitar and wanting to be a cowboy. He worked in a rodeo after dropping out of high school and went on the road with Guthrie for a few years, eventually landing in Topanga Canyon. Elliott met his wife June in California, and they moved to London in 1955. The Brits loved Elliott's authentic cowboy style, unaware of the fact that he'd been born in Brooklyn and learned his cowboy moves from Gene Autry movies. He made his first recordings for the legendary Topic Label in 1955, and toured extensively in Europe before returning to the US in 1961. He probably heard "Guabi Guabi" in London.
Back in the US, he met Dylan in Guthrie's hospital room in 1961 and helped Dylan get into the musician's union. The folk scene was just starting to take off, driven in part by the people Elliott was drawing into the folk clubs of Greenwich Village. When Columbia signed Dylan, he tried to get Elliott a deal with the label, but they were only willing to take a risk on one folk singer at a time. Dylan's producer, the legendary John Hammond, helped get Elliott his deal at Vanguard, the label that helped fuel the folk revival with albums by the Weavers, Joan Baez, Ian & Sylvia, the Greenbriar Boys, Buffy Sainte-Marie, and the Rooftop Singers.
The songs on Jack Elliott are the backbone of Elliott's live set, tunes he's perfected with countless performances over the preceding years. He'd made good albums before, but Vanguard's attention to sonic purity made the music on Jack Elliott really stand out and resonate. Forty-five years later, Jack Elliott still sounds fresh, one of the best albums to come out of the folk revival. Elliott is still playing gigs, although he's cut down some on his ramblin'. Today he lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Btw, the album is available in its entirety on The Essential Jack Elliott (Vanguard) label, which also includes a first-rate concert performance, ca. 1964.
Re:RAMBLIN' JACK ELLIOTT THREAD 13 Years, 4 Months ago
That may be Jack Elliott's all-time best album, which I've owned since it came out in 1964. The notes by Shel Silverstein are a riot. But what the review neglects is the appearance on one Tedham Porterhouse playing harmonica on "Will The Circle Be Unbroken?" Also on that track is the great Erik Darling (of the Tarriers, the Weavers and the Rooftop Singers). Elliott returned the favor to Mr. Porterhouse the same year by showing up to the session for the only album recorded in one session and singing "Mr. Tambourine Man" with him. I really don't know about Monte Dunn playing with all the people mentioned, especially since the people he did play with namely Ian & Sylvia aren't included in the list of people he played with. He did record two albums, "Northern Journey" and "Early Morning Rain" with them for Vanguard.
And while "The Essential" Ramblin' Jack Elliott doesn't have the Silverstein liner notes, nor the great cover pic of Jack, or the musician credits, what it does have is 10 songs from Jack's 1965 Town Hall concert in NYC, which to this day is the only full length concert in a concert hall Jack Elliott gave in his home town. I happened to attend that concert, and go backstage and meet Jack, since he was amazingly enough married to the sister of a kid in my class in junior high school. At the time, I happened to be one of maybe four people in the town who knew who Jack Elliott was. Elliott, who stood up in those days, had to perform sitting on a stool, since he'd broken his ankle the week before skate boarding in Dallas. Jack does an amazing Leadbelly impersonation on "Blind Lemon Jefferson" and it also has Elliott's first the first recording of a song associated with someone very close to Mr. Porterhouse, "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright." Vanguard had a bunch of great acts, and put out some great records. But they could take forever to put out albums. In the case of Jack Elliott at Town Hall, it took them 11 years to stick it onto the Essential album.
Re:RAMBLIN' JACK ELLIOTT THREAD 13 Years, 4 Months ago
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I wonder who came up with that Tedham Porterhouse alias for Bob.
Explore the connections between cowboy music, poetry and the Blues
Elko, Nev.
Hard work, scarce pay, lonesome nights, heartbreak and death-common themes of the blues and of the songs, poems and stories of the cowboy. Cowboy culture is a blend of traditions and influences; blues and other African American cultural traditions have been a major influence on the evolution of western music. The 27th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, Jan. 24-29, in Elko, Nev., will explore the connections between traditional cowboy and western music and traditional African American blues music.
Among the blues programs at the Gathering, legendary folk singer Ramblin' Jack Elliott will perform music from his GRAMMY Award-winning album, A Stranger Here. After last year's Gathering, Jack headed to Los Angeles to receive the GRAMMY Award for Best Traditional Blues Recording for A Stranger Here. At this Gathering, Jack will share a sampling of this blues music - all pre-World War II tunes that Jack loved. He will be joined by a few of the revered musicians featured on his award-winning album, including pianist Van Dyke Parks.
Zydeco music is a synthesis of traditional Creole, Cajun and African-American music including R&B, blues, jazz and gospel. Geno Delafose and French Rockin' Boogie will perform their special brand of foot-stompin' zydeco from the bayou country of southwest Louisiana. And Sourdough Slim and Robert Armstrong will present blues and old-time music reminiscent of the 1920s and 30s, including Jimmie Rodgers songs.
The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering is the nation's largest annual celebration of cowboy culture. For six days in January the community of Elko welcomes thousands of cowboys and cowgirls, poets and musicians, artisans and scholars, rural and city people-all of whom share a love of the American West and the artistic traditions of ranching and cowboy culture. More than 60 poets and musicians from the U.S., Canada, Australia and Hungary will perform on eight stages at five different venues throughout Elko.
Additional highlights include cowboys from Hungary, the Marshall Ford Swing Band (featuring Emily Gimble, granddaughter of Texas fiddle legend Johnny Gimble), Ian Tyson, The Quebe Sisters, Wylie and the Wild West, and renowned cowboy poets Waddie Mitchell, Baxter Black and Wallace McRae. Tickets to the 27th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering can be purchased by calling 888-880-5885.
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