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<\/p>\nIf you ever have the opportunity to speak with folk legend Ramblin\u2019 Jack Elliott, you quickly learn how he earned the sobriquet \u201cRamblin\u2019.\u201d Ask him a question and you\u2019ll get more than you bargained for. The answer will be in there, but it will come wrapped in vivid, colorful and ceaselessly entertaining packaging, taking the conversation far afield. And that endearing quality is also on display whenever the folk revivalist and icon \u2013 now 92 years of age \u2013 appears in front of an audience.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A teenage Elliott began his life in music circa 1946, after a brief stint in a traveling rodeo. Running away from home and trying to be a cowboy at age 15 \u201cwas a great adventure,\u201d he says, \u201cbut it was a stupid thing to do.\u201d Inspired by bullfighting clowns who played guitar when they weren\u2019t performing, he focused on learning guitar even after being apprehended by his parents and taken back to Brooklyn.<\/p>\n
As he became more proficient on guitar, Elliott started jamming in Greenwich Village with the New Lost City Ramblers; that association led to a fateful encounter with Woody Guthrie. Elliott\u2019s musical persona developed around Guthrie\u2019s style and songs. He would go on to influence a generation of folk musicians, including Bob Dylan. Between his 1956 album debut Woody Guthrie\u2019s Blues<\/i> and his most recent studio release (2009\u2019s A Stranger Here<\/i>), Ramblin\u2019 Jack Elliott has done important work bringing traditional folk music to a wider audience.<\/p>\n
For a figure who\u2019s so revered in the world of folk music, Elliott is notable as an interpreter rather than a songwriter. \u201cI\u2019ve only written two songs,\u201d he says, understating the case: a look at his accumulated songwriting credits suggests a number closer to seven. One of those \u201ctwo\u201d is the celebrated \u201c912 Green,\u201d first heard on Elliott\u2019s 1968 LP Young Brigham<\/i>. \u201cIt\u2019s a long story song,\u201d he says. \u201cA talking blues. It\u2019s about eleven minutes long.\u201d (It\u2019s closer to seven.) \u201cI\u2019d like to write more,\u201d he says, noting that he owns three typewriters. \u201cEverybody recommends me to use a computer, but I\u2019m not good with computers. I\u2019m better with steam engines.\u201d<\/p>\n
The story of how the man born Elliott Adnopoz ended up with the name by which he\u2019s known is in itself a tale. Two tales, in fact. And while the story has been related countless times, the consummate storyteller seems to reveal new details, fresh nuances with each telling.<\/p>\n
Calling himself Buck Elliott, he first headed out West \u201cto be a troubadour like Woody,\u201d landing in San Francisco. There he met a man who allowed him to bunk on his docked schooner. \u201cHe introduced me to his mother as Jack,\u201d Elliott deadpans, \u201cand I didn\u2019t want to embarrass him.\u201d So Jack it would be.<\/p>\n
The \u201cRamblin\u2019\u201d part of his name came \u201cnot because I travel a lot,\u201d he explains without having been asked. \u201cI was telling [folk singer] Odetta a long story about a Model A Ford I bought from a farmer down in Santa Ana for only fifteen dollars,\u201d he says. \u201cSo her mother dubbed me Ramblin\u2019 Jack.\u201d The name stuck.<\/p>\n
Elliott\u2019s inimitable way with a story has won him generations of fans and admirers. \u201cMy artist friends are all very jealous of the fact that I get instant rewards,\u201d he says. \u201c[Audiences] clap the minute I finish singing. Sometimes people start clapping right now<\/i>, before I haven\u2019t even finished the song!\u201d<\/p>\n
As a revered folklorist and performer, Elliott knows a thing or two about how to work a crowd, how to connect with the audience. And he\u2019s forthright when sharing his thoughts on how to do it. \u201cI meet a lot of nice people every day now who seem to remember that they saw me somewhere,\u201d he says. \u201cThey can\u2019t remember exactly when it was or where it was. But they expect me to remember them, and I don\u2019t remember them. But I say, \u2018Oh, you were sitting in the front row, three seats over from the left!\u2019 And it\u2019s bullshit.<\/p>\n
\u201cBullshit is essential to the entertainment business,\u201d he continues, before immediately heading off on one of his trademark stream-of-consciousness tangents. \u201cI rode four bulls, and I was getting better at it,\u201d he says, recalling his days in the rodeo. \u201cI was losing a little bit of my fear; not all of it. But it was a big thrill, and I was getting to be a better bull rider. But I figured, \u2018Bull number five is probably going to kill me,\u2019 So I quit while I was winning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nearly 80 years after pivoting to music, American treasure Ramblin\u2019 Jack Elliott is still winning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you ever have the opportunity to speak with folk legend Ramblin\u2019 Jack Elliott, you quickly learn how he earned the sobriquet \u201cRamblin\u2019.\u201d Ask him a question and you\u2019ll get […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26504,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,41],"tags":[5290],"class_list":["post-26503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-folk","category-interview","tag-ramblin-jack-elliott","cat-30-id","cat-41-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26503"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26505,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26503\/revisions\/26505"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}