Five questions with legend Ramblin' Jack Elliott

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Five questions with legend Ramblin' Jack Elliott
September 8, 2010
BEN EDMONDS
freep.com

hen 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 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?