Hello, My Name Is Ramblin’ Jack
Hello, My Name Is Ramblin’ Jack
Q&A with folk legend Ramblin’ Jack Elliott
IE: You were just in England with Devendra Banhart?
Ramblin’ Jack Elliott: Well, I did one show with him. I wasn’t really with him; he was in one theater and I was in another theater at the same festival [All Tomorrow’s Parties]. Can’t really call it a music festival. I think myself and one other person were the only real musicians in the festival.
IE: How would you describe the rest?
RJE: Noise. It’s become quite popular. I think the British youth have lost or never developed an appreciation for music.
IE: You call your album I Stand Alone, but there’s a number of guests on it.
RJE: As a matter of fact, I didn’t invite those guests, they were invited by the record company. And I don’t call it that, they call it that. My daughter was the one who dreamed up the album in the first place, she wanted to call it Not For The Tourists. I was visiting her apartment down in L.A., and she said “Daddy, do you have some songs I haven’t heard, some songs you don’t usually play in your shows?” I thought back and came up with about five or six of ’em and sang ’em. She liked them and said, “Why don’t you sing those in your show?” I said, “They’re not for the tourists!”
IE: People were outraged when you were left out of the Bob Dylan: No Direction Home documentary. Were you bothered by that?
RJE: In his autobiography he mentioned me five straight pages. I was reading the book on an airplane and I’m usually very slow or lazy about ever scribbling or writing anything down. I grabbed a notebook and I wrote, “If this plane goes down and I don’t make it, Thank you, Bob.” He wrote some really nice stuff about me. It was a tickle. I wasn’t expecting it. Lord knows, he doesn’t go around talking about me all the time, but he sure came through.
— Steve Forstneger
Folk legend Ramblin’ Jack Elliott’s first album in seven years, I Stand Alone, will be released July 11th on Anti/Epitaph. A fall tour is being planned.
Great to hear Jack’s in fine ascerbic form in that interview. And a great inight into his reaction to the five (5!) pages in Chronicles. Good piece. I’m a Jackwatcher and I haven’t heard any of the stuff in this story anywhere else. Nice work.