BY KAREN BOSSICK
Grammy Award-winner Ramblin’ Jack Elliott is considered one of the last true links to America’s folk music tradition.
He was rambling the country carrying the seeds and pollens of story and song long before Elvis, Bob Dylan, the Beatles or even Led Zeppelin.
And countless musicians—from Johnny Cash to Bonnie Raitt, from Bruce Springsteen to The Rolling Stones—have paid homage to him.
Ramblin’ Jack Elliott will appear live in concert at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 2, at the Sun Valley Opera House at Sun Valley Resort.
The concert is being produced by Sun Valley Records, the brainchild of Don Zimmer and Elizabeth Hendrix.
Elliott’s songs are timeless songs that outlast whatever current musical fashion strikes today’s fancy, says none other than Bob Dylan, who called Elliott “King of the Folksingers.”
“His tone of voice is sharp, focused and piercing. All that and he plays the guitar effortlessly in a fluid flat-picking perfected style,” said Dylan. “Most folk musicians waited for you to come to them. Jack went out and grabbed you.”
“Nobody I know—and I mean nobody—has covered more ground and made more friends and sung more songs,” said the late Johnny Cash. “He’s got a song and a friend for every mile behind him.”
Elliott learned how to play the guitar from a cowboy after running away from his Brooklyn home at 14 to join the rodeo. He met Woody Guthrie in 1950, moved in with Guthrie’s family and travelled with Guthrie from the redwood forests to the Gulf Stream waters.
He so completely absorbed Guthrie’s inflections and mannerisms that Guthrie once remarked, “Jack sounds more like me than I do.”
In time, Elliott learned the blues from Leadbelly, Mississippi John Hurt and other kings of the blues tradition. And he was a founding member of Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue.
Ramblin’ Jack has received four Grammy nominations. He earned the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album for “South Coast” in 1995.
President Bill Clinton awarded him the national Medal of the Arts in 1998, proclaiming him “an American treasure.” “The Ballad of Ramblin’ Jack” produced by his daughter Aiyana Elliott won a Special Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival in 2000.
Elliott’s guest opener will be Graham Guest, a writer, musician, philosopher, professor and lawyer who has been singer and guitarist for the band Moses Guest. The band has won Best Improvisational Band in the Houston Press Music Awards and other honors.
For tickets, visit www.sunvalley.ticketfly.com or call Sun Valley Resort at 208-622-2135.