Florida
Times Union
Last modified Tue., May 18, 2004
- 12:36 AM
Originally created Tuesday, May 18, 2004
By
ROGER BULL
The Times-Union
The
name is Ramblin' Jack Elliott and if you've paid any attention to American folk
music for the past half century or so, you know the name.
He's
playing at the Florida Theatre Thursday night, sharing the bill with Dan Hicks
and the Hot Licks.
But
if you're going to talk to Ramblin' Jack Elliott, you best be prepared to
listen. This is how the conversation began: So, Ramblin' Jack, how is your life
going these days?
"It's
very good. But the Ford people tell me that I put gasoline in my diesel truck,
and it's not covered by warranty. So it's going to cost me $700, to get the gas
out of it. And I'm pretty sick about that. I don't remember ever putting gas in
it. But I've been fighting with the computer, I hate computers. It shows that I
bought gas in a station in Petaluma, but it doesn't say how much. I have to wait
two more days for that. I thought computers were supposed to be lightning fast.
But maybe I can see if it was really gas or deisel . . ."
As
Guy Clark once said, "If you've ever talked with Ramblin' Jack, you know
that they don't call him that because he travels a lot."
But
that's OK, because few musicians -- few people, probably -- have the
stories to tell that Ramblin' Jack does. (And, by the way, you've got to call
him Ramblin' Jack. No one says, "Hey, I heard Elliott is coming to
town.") This is, after all, a guy who first ran away from his Brooklyn,
N.Y., home (he was supposed to be a nice Jewish doctor, like his father) at the
age of 15 to join a rodeo. He rambled with Woody Guthrie, America's greatest
folksinger, before Guthrie got too sick to ramble. He spent half a dozen years
rambling around Europe on a Vespa motorscooter, picking and playing as he went.
He was at the heart of the folk music scene in Greenwich Village in the early
'60s, giving a little more authenticity to "I been doin' some hard
travelin', I thought you knowed. I been doin' some hard travelin', way on down
the road" than, say, the Kingston Trio did. Bob Dylan was once billed
as the "son of Jack Elliott."
In
recent years, near the end of this long career, he's won a Grammy and been the
subject of a documentary.
But
unlike most musicians, he's not as well known for what he sang or for what he's
written as he is for simply who he is and where he's been.
He's
known for being there. Perhaps more than anyone, he has become the prototype of
that singular American icon: A wandering folk singer, armed only with a guitar,
a headful of songs and a willingness to play for anyone who wants to listen.
So
this question was put to him: Tell us about the very first time you met these
people:
Woody
Guthrie: "I was 19, he was 39. I was picking guitar with a fellow named Tom
Paley. He could pick some of the best guitar you ever heard, just like Merle
Travis. He went on to form the New Lost City Ramblers.
"He
knew Woody, and he was going to play with Woody. I asked him if I could come
along and he said, 'No. There's already six of us, and it's a small apartment.
But I'll give you his phone number, and you can call him.' So I waited a few
days and called Woody, told him I was a friend of Tom's, and I'd been listening
to his record. He invited me to come over, 'But not today, I've got a
bellyache.'
"It
turns out he had appendicitis and almost died. But I visited him in the
hospital. And he told me to go over and meet his family. He lived right across
the street from the hospital. So I met Arlo's mother and little Arlo. He was 3
1/2 then.
"That
was in Brooklyn in 1951. I moved in with the Guthrie family and traveled with
Woody in 1951, '52, '53 and '54."
Bob
Dylan: "I was just off a ship from Europe. I got off in November 1961 and
went to see Woody. He was in the hospital somewhere in New Jersey, and there was
this kid there. That was Bob Dylan. He had hitchhiked from Minnesota to meet
Woody. We rode on a bus together back to New York City. And we ended up staying
at the same hotel, for about a year it seems. That was the Earl Hotel, at the
corner of Macdougal Street and Washington Place."
Johnny
Cash: "It was 1962, and he was singing down the Gaslight, a little club
that Dylan, me, Peter, Paul and Mary . . . all the weirdos used to hang out in.
"I'd
been loving his music for years, and I walked in and, bang, there he was. He
wasn't on the bill. He just got up on the stage to sing. He had to stand at an
angle, because he was too tall for that stage. I let him drive my Land Rover. Up
Sixth Avenue, in the winter, Johnny Cash at the wheel."
Jack
Kerouac: "I met him in New York City. I was staying with a gal that was a
friend of his, and he came by to visit her."
Did
he really read On the Road to you before it was published?
"He
read the entire manuscript to me, from front to back. It took three days. We
polished a lot of wine in the process. I never saw him after the book was
published, and he was famous. The last time I saw him, he was getting ready to
hitchhike out to California with a railroad lantern, so he could flag cars down
at night."
James
Dean: The story goes that you played him some songs in a parking lot.
"I
played to him twice. That was in 1955. His ex-girlfriend -- who became my wife,
my first wife -- introduced us. She later became the first traveling road
manager for the Rolling Stones, a little-known group in Europe at the time.
"But
I played to Dean in the parking of Googlie's, a nice little restaurant, kind of
a hamburger joint. It was next to Schwab's Drug Store on Sunset Boulevard, at
the corner of Crescent Heights Boulevard. I know it was Crescent Heights because
we were chased down the boulevard by a sheriff's car one night. I wasn't
driving; a buddy of mine was. He was trying to get me to a gig on time. Now that
was at the Ash Grove. I was supposed to play at 11 o'clock, but I called the
club at 12:30 from the police station ..."
Geez,
is there anything this guy doesn't remember?
"Oh,
yeah. Seems like every week someone comes up to me and says something like
'Remember me? I saved your life. You stayed at my house for three weeks and ran
off with my wife.' And I just stare at them and say, 'No, but it sounds like
something I might do.' "
And
so it goes, so many years, so many stories.
Elliott
is 72 now, living in Northern California. He does about 60 concerts a year, and
his health is good.
"I'm
still riding cutting horses," he said. "I'm out in the country. I've
got cows in the back yard and horses in the front yard."
The
cows aren't his, though.
"I'm
not home enough to feed them," he said. "They're my neighbor's cows,
but he lets me sing to them."
On
stage at the Florida Theatre, he'll play for about an hour, he said. Just him
and his guitar. He'll play St. Petersburg the night before, but he'll get to
Florida a few days early to visit a friend of his over in Tampa.
"His
horse put me in the hospital," Jack said. "But it wasn't his fault. It
had to do with a full moon and an empty bottle of tequila."
And
he'll tell you about that, if you just ask.
roger.bull
@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4296