Ramblin' Jack Elliott - Hard Travelin'

Essential

I'm the proud owner of the original "Jack Elliott Sings the Songs of Woody Guthrie" vinyl LP, on the tiny Prestige label out of Bergenfield, NJ. I just picked up this gem for $20 at a record shop in Brooklyn. This is a great cover album; Elliott's voice captures the spirit of Woody on "So Long," "Talkin' Columbia," and "Pretty Boy Floyd." Any Guthrie collector should run out and buy this CD, they won't be disappointed. November 15, 2005

Very Good Cd That You Should Buy!

This is a good cd that you should buy. Jack does some great guitar playing on this album and the liner notes are very good. The first 14 songs are by Woody W. Guthrie and the rest are by other folks. There are some really good songs on this cd. Grand Coulee Dam, So Long It's Been Good To Know You, Candy Man, Railroad Bill ect. they blow me away every time I hear them. This is a cd any Woody Guthrie or Ramblin Jack fan's gotta have! February 3, 2004

Gold-Plated Woody Guthrie Tracks

In 1960, after half a decade in European exile and threatened by the approach of his 30th birthday, perhaps drawn as well by the myth of the Kennedy Camelot on his native shores, Ramblin' Jack Elliott began preparing to return home. Fortunately for fans, the grand master of American folk music, Elliott, landed squarely in the lap of Prestige/International, then the East Coast bellwether label for folk and jazz. On his first exploratory expedition back home, he cut 14 legendary tracks by his ailing mentor Woody Guthrie, whose performing career already had been cut short by Huntingdon's Chorea. The legendary album that resulted was "Jack Elliott Sings the Songs of Woody Guthrie." In June 1961, after returning to the U.S. to stay, he cut another dozen tracks released by Prestige on the LP "Ramblin' Jack Elliott." With the absence only of Ray Charles' "I Love Her So/I Got a Woman," these first two Prestige albums are combined on this CD. The two later 1962 Prestige releases are featured on Fantasy's "Country Style/Live" CD. The Guthrie album was and is worth its weight in gold, enhanced considerably by accompinent not only from Elliot's guitar and mouth harp virtuosity but also by an unnamed country group with fiddle et al, a well-played musical suit followed by Elliott's late friend and fellow Guthrie protegé Cisco Houston for Vanguard three years later. The CD offers a number of Guthrie jewels not found easily elsewhere in Ramblin' Jacks's discography - works like "Tom Joad," "This Land is Your Land" and "Philadelphia Lawyer." In both albums on this combined CD one hears a young but very substantial Ramblin' Jack, making up to some extent in vitality for the still-lacking depth of prime vintage found in his 1980s and 1990s releases of works like "The Cuckoo" or "South Coast." The latter, a Lilian Bos Ros song from the Blacklist days, is best known from the Kingston Trio's "Hungry i" album. Ramblin' Jack spent a long time learning it, doing a yeoman's job in his young days on this CD, teaching it to Doc Watson along the way and then finally defining it for all time on his Grammy winning album of the same name in 1995. It's hard to picture anyone regretting paying the price for Fantasy's re-release of this legendary music. February 28, 2002

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