The Never Ending Pool

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.