playing out this month – july calendar

I Meet Ramblin’ Jack Elliott

I enjoyed a great evening of music from Ramblin’ Jack Elliott at the Beachland Ballroom last Friday evening July 6th.

Ramblin’ Jack looked good, sounded good and did a solid hour with an encore. His voice was strong and his guitar playing was solid and tasteful.

Ramblin’ Jack’s set opened with his own San Francisco Bay Blues and followed with songs from the Carter family, Hoagy Carmichael, Bob Dylan, traditional ballads and cowboy tunes.

The best parts of the set were listening to Ramblin’ Jack share his wry observations on his own career, airline travel, cars, guitars, the process of modern recording and teaching a dog to drive.

Ramblin’ Jack mentioned that he is seventy-seven years old. He wears his age well. He is tan, fit and gives the impression that he has damn-well earned every single line on his face and wrinkle in his hands. His eyes are bright and penetrating; his voice is strong and the nasal tenor is unmistakably that of Ramblin’ Jack. There is a confident, comfortable, familiar aspect to his demeanor.

I think he, Ralph Stanley and Bob Dylan are three singers whose voices are getting stronger, more idiosyncratic and more expressive as they get older.

Ramblin’ Jack still reaches for those high, yodely notes. He hits some of them about an octave lower these days in a very cool rough, growly sort of wail.

I think I have listened to The Essential Ramblin’ Jack Elliott about ten thousand times. Beyond the individual tunes and beyond the mechanics of the performances there is this absolute sheer joy at being alive and great good humor that jumps out of my speakers with every word he sings. Ramblin’ Jack brought the same enthusiasm with him to the Beachland last Friday evening.

My good friend Michael Sean McDonald had opened a show for Ramblin’ Jack two years ago in the Beachland Tavern and I had an idea that I would see him in the house prior to the Friday evening performance.

I saw Michael in the audience before the show and spoke with him for a bit. Michael bought me a whiskey and told me how much he was looking forward to the performance. After the encore he walked me back into the green room and introduced me to Ramblin’ Jack in the flesh. (Thanks, Michael! I owe you big-time.)

Ramblin’ Jack was gracious and charming and made a few moments for me as he did with each of the number of other people who had stopped backstage to pay their respects.

The Ohio Hills/Quaker City Folk Festival

I’ll be heading down to Guernsey County this Saturday to visit the Ohio Hills/Quaker City Folk Festival.

I’ve attended the Quaker City festival for almost 14 years now. I could spend the rest of my life down in southern Ohio, it is so beautiful. I still have family down through Noble and Guernsey counties, and as a matter of fact, my great-grandfather worked at the old sawmill (it is now a lumber yard) in Quaker City many years ago.

The Quaker City festival is an archetype of exactly what a rural southern Ohio summer folk festival should be. There is a flea market, a rough and rowdy carnival, a “Parade of Queens” featuring homemade floats, antique tractors and this year’s Ohio Hills Folk Festival Queen. There are more kinds of carney food than you could eat even if you tried REALLY hard (…and I give it my best effort, believe me).

Every church and community service organization in the county has a booth or concession selling huge sandwiches or rib dinners or barbeque or roast sweet corn. The volunteer fire department has more homemade biscuts, cookies, pie, cake and ice cream than you imagine people could make. There are quilt displays, buskers, art shows and an antique/custom car show. The smell of charcoal and fry oil hangs over the entire festival from one end to the other.

The Quaker City festival is a genuine expression of Americana and a joy to attend and participate in.

The real attraction for me is the big performance tent directly behind the VFD. The tent is active all day with an open stage, contests and performances of all kinds. There are Methodist church ladies strumming hymns on their lap dulcimers. There are autoharp, fiddle and banjo competitions, buck dancers and traditional singers from the morning into the late evening. Instrument makers, musicians, dancers and folk fans will float through the tent all the day and right into the night.

I am returning fiddle champion this year, and I know I will have a real fight to hold on to my crown. I have taken a few third and second places over the years at Quaker City, but last year was my first win.

The competition is always stiff. Fiddle contests are funny in that they depend as much on who the judges are and how they evaluate the performances as on the performance itself. Some judges “get” the old-time style of drone, pulse and rhythm; others want to hear a more classically trained violinist playing fiddle tunes with lots of notes and a pronounced vibrato – others want to hear a more aggressive bluegrass style of presentation.

But I don’t care what those other guys play or what the judges want to hear; I am going to play flat-out, unapologetic, cross-tuned, droney, mountain-modal old-time fiddle and we’ll just see happens. I think I’m even going to sneak in one of my tunes – The Sinks of Gandy – in DDAD tuning and see if the judges can dig it.