The Essential Ramblin' Jack Elliott

The Essential Ramblin' Jack Elliott

The Essential Ramblin' Jack Elliott

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
In terms of song selection, this is, indeed, the essential Ramblin' Jack. Originally released as a two-LP set, this 23-song collection is split into studio and live halves. The studio portion consists of a bracing assortment of traditional tunes that Elliott picked up from his many travels. He was, after all, Woody Guthrie's last road companion, and the highlight of the first dozen tunes is Guthrie's dramatic "1913 Massacre." The last section of the CD was recorded in concert at the Town Hall in New York City. The Ramblin' Jack of 1965 was a versatile, likable performer as adept at essaying old cowboy tunes ("Buffalo Skinners," "Night Herding Song") as then-contemporary folk tunes (protégé Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right"). One complaint, though: liner notes explaining this linchpin folkie's role as a bridge between generations of troubadours would make The Essential all the more indispensable. --Steven Stolder

The Essential Ramblin' Jack Elliott,Ramblin' Jack Elliott,Vanguard Records,Cowboy,Folk,Folk & Traditional,Folk Revival,Folksongs,Pop,Traditional Folk,Yodeling
The Essential Ramblin' Jack Elliott
Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  • Horses
  • Great But Not Quite Essential
  • I really like the way he plays guitar.
  • JACK ELLIOTT IS AN AMERICAN ICON
 The Essential Ramblin' Jack Elliott
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
Manufacturer: Vanguard Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

CowboyCowboy | Country | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | Folk | Styles | Music
Traditional FolkTraditional Folk | Folk | Styles | Music
RevivalRevival | Folk | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | Folk | Indie Music | Stores | Music
Similar Items:
  1. Inside Dave Van Ronk
  2. I Stand Alone
  3. Kerouac's Last Dream
  4. Hard Travelin'
  5. Dave Van Ronk: The Folkways Years, 1959-1961

ASIN: B000000ECA
Release Date: 1993-03-20

Tracks:

  1. Roving Gambler
  2. Will The Circle Be Unbroken
  3. Diamond Joe
  4. Guabi Guabi
  5. Sowing On The Mountain
  6. Roll On Buddy
  7. 1913 Massacre
  8. House Of The Rising Sun
  9. Shade Of The Old Apple Tree
  10. Black Snake
  11. Portland Town
  12. More Pretty Girls
  13. San Francisco Bay Blues
  14. Buffalo Skinners
  15. Sadie Brown
  16. Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
  17. Blind Lemon Jefferson
  18. Ramblin' Round Your City
  19. Talkin' Columbia
  20. Tennessee Stud
  21. Night Herding Song
  22. Love Sick Blues
  23. I Belong To Glasgow

Amazon.com

In terms of song selection, this is, indeed, the essential Ramblin' Jack. Originally released as a two-LP set, this 23-song collection is split into studio and live halves. The studio portion consists of a bracing assortment of traditional tunes that Elliott picked up from his many travels. He was, after all, Woody Guthrie's last road companion, and the highlight of the first dozen tunes is Guthrie's dramatic "1913 Massacre." The last section of the CD was recorded in concert at the Town Hall in New York City. The Ramblin' Jack of 1965 was a versatile, likable performer as adept at essaying old cowboy tunes ("Buffalo Skinners," "Night Herding Song") as then-contemporary folk tunes (protégé Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right"). One complaint, though: liner notes explaining this linchpin folkie's role as a bridge between generations of troubadours would make The Essential all the more indispensable. --Steven Stolder

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Horses.......2006-07-16

I met Ramblin' Jack in 1967. He had come to Tampa to do a gig at a tiny coffee house. He was late. (Yeah, so, what's new.) He had driven from NC and was frazzed. He proceeded, after a glass of water, to give it his all, for hours.

After the show, knowing he was a rodeo cowboy, I asked him if he would like to stay with me and meet my barrel racing champion Appaloosa stallion -- Snapper. Say no more.... We've stayed in touch as we wandered through our lives over almost 40 years.

What Dylan learned, he learned and Jack is totally giving as were all the folks who came to Woody's. He was a sponge, a user who drifted through. A musical wizard who was predisposed to Woody's stuff. It would be nice if he were to acknowledge those who formed him. Since he is not nice, he won't.

Jack has faithfully taken Woody's legacy and has, not as a writer, but a performer, become a treasure, a peer to his mentor.
He has only gotten better in the last, what, almost 60 years.

His body hurts, but his mind is free. He and Pete Seegar are the greatest living people's musicians.

5 out of 5 stars Great But Not Quite Essential.......2003-02-26

The essential Ramblin' Jack Elliott is to be found on CDs released on labels other than Vanguard. Nonetheless, this is the best on CD from RJE's middle period, the years when he almost became a star but with considerable effort on his own part managed to avoid it (for which we owe him thanks unending) after teetering on a dangerous brink at Warner Brothers in 1967. This package CD includes two vinyl Vanguard albums that have little to do with one another but certainly give us lots of slices of RJE at a very good price. The first dozen songs are studio takes that appeared on the 1964 Vanguard LP "Jack Elliott," also repeated on the mildly interesting Vanguard CD "The Vanguard Years." The various tracks include accompaniment by Bob Dylan on guitar and mouth harp, aliasing as Tedham Porterhouse, and Erik Darling on banjo ("Will the Circle Be Unbroken"), Ian & Sylvia, Eric Weissberg, John Herald and Monte Dunn ("Guabi Guabi"), John Hammond on mouth harp ("Roll On Buddy") and bassist Bill Lee on several numbers. No, don't look for this or any other information in Vanguard's liner notes. There aren't any liner notes. These studio takes - as one might expect with such helpers on board - made for the liveliest of all RJE's studio sessions up to that time. However, one only gets 100% of Ramblin' Jack when he's playing to an audience, and that's what he does on this CD's last 11 tracks, all taken from his superlative April 30,1965 concert at New York City's Town Hall. When RJE begins Track No. 13, Jesse Fuller's "San Francisco Bay Blues" in concert, the atmosphere begins to glow. In a sense, all 11 live pieces are highlights. If so, the first among equals are Leadbelly's "Blind Lemon Jefferson," Hank Williams' "Lovesick Blues" and Scottish comedian Will Ffyfe's "I Belong to Glasgow," which is one of several high points in the RJE discography, far better than the 1961 studio version for Prestige International, now on the Fantasy CD "Ramblin' Jack Elliott." If you're a Ramblin' Jack fan, you'd be downright foolish to avoid acquiring this CD.

5 out of 5 stars I really like the way he plays guitar........2001-11-28

The song selection on this disc is superb. My favorite song, "Guabi Guabi" is the only one that he gets credit for having written, and that doesn't make sense, because he is singing it like it is written in a foreign language. At one point in the song, he even gives up and says that he couldn't keep up, it goes too fast for him. That happens to me all the time when other people are using a language that I don't really know, but Jack makes it seem like anybody's brain could do that all by itself. The only Bob Dylan song here is "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" and this is the perfect kind of album for that song to be on, since practically everybody likes to know at least one song right off the bat. Jack gives a couple examples of Huddie Ledbetter introducing some songs, and it's too bad he didn't have some kind of historical introduction for "Black Snake," a song which must have come from somewhere vaguely familiar, but this album doesn't say where. I like the pitiful part of Jack's version of "Shade of the Old Apple Tree," and I doubt if all of that is in the traditional way it is usually done. I even bought music for "Shade of the Old Apple Tree" without getting anything that is as funny as the way Jack does that song. "Sowing on the Mountain" is not a funny songs, but I think it is a song that people should know, like "San Francisco Bay Blues," which is one of the reasons that I bought this album. I don't listen to this every day, but this music is solid. He picked these songs well.

5 out of 5 stars JACK ELLIOTT IS AN AMERICAN ICON.......1999-11-18

I REGRET THAT I WAS FORTY YEARS OLD BEFORE I EVER HEARD RAMBLIN' JACK. I WAS USED TO LISTENING TO THE BEATLES, STONES, ETC. BUT JACK ELLIOTT KNOWS THE PROPER WAY TO DELIVER A SONG. A FRIEND OF WOODY GUTHRIES, HE LEARNED WELL. THIS ALBUM CONTAINS SONGS THAT WILL MAKE YOU LAUGH, AND MAKE YOU CRY. HOW DOES HE PLAY THE GUITAR SO WELL? EAT YOUR HEART OUT CLAPTON, SANTANA, ETC. ETC. THIS ALBUM IS A MUST FOR ALL MUSICIANS AND ALL MUSIC LOVERS.

Music Review:

  1. The Girls Won't Leave the Boys Alone
  2. The Green World [Enhanced]
  3. The Leo Kottke Anthology [Box set]
  4. The McGarrigle Hour
  5. The Newport Folk Festival 1963: The Evening Concerts, Vol. 1 [Live]
  6. The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death
  7. The Very Best of David Wilcox
  8. Those Were the Days [Import]
  9. Weaver Of Visions: The Kate Wolf Anthology
  10. What We Did On Our Holidays [Original recording remastered] [Import]

Music Review

music review

Recommended Music:

Kaleidoscope World [Import]

PALESTRINA Masses:Assumpte est Maria, Papae Marcelli - Pro Cantione

Symphony 7/Symphony 104

Live Around the World: Where We Come from Tour 1998-1999 [Live]

The Best Part of the Symbols: The President Recordings 1966-1968

Soulful Christmas 2: Wmxd 92.3 FM Detroit Michigan

Songs For Children

String Quartets 8 & 13

The Legend of Johnny Cash

Rakata [CD-single]

Telegram

Roha Band Tour 1990

People Make the World Go Round [Import]

The Music of My Life

Nilsson Sings Newman