from Star-Telegram.com
Ramblin’ Jack Elliott lives up to his name
By PUNCH SHAW
Special to the Star-Telegram
FORT WORTH — There’s a reason he is not known as Concise Jack Elliott.
Folk legend Ramblin’ Jack Elliott’s performance at McDavid Studio on Friday night was short on songs but long on stories that tended to take on lives of their own.
ramblin' jack elliott - legend, giant, man-god who yet walks among us.
But all of it was golden. Because spending an evening with Elliott is like an immersion course in the history of American folk music. He has known and/or influenced all of the greats since Woody Guthrie, and he has at least one good story about every one of them.
The audience of 122 heard tales of Elliott’s running away from home to join the rodeo, touring Europe aboard a Vespa motor scooter, hanging with Jerry Jeff Walker in Austin (last night), and an early encounter with Bob Dylan in New York City, punctuated with occasional clarifying points such as, “But that’s not about this. This is about that.”
The few songs that did make it to their conclusions before making the mistake of reminding Elliott of another story included some of the most durable chestnuts of the genre, such as Old Shep and Stewball.
The 77-year-old singer-guitarist, who wore a cowboy hat atop his full mane of silver hair and sported a bandanna around his neck, talked as much as sang the numbers, and cracked notes abounded. A capo, which Elliott initially insisted had been left in his dressing room before ultimately finding it in his shirt pocket, spent most of the night being moved up and down his fret board for no apparent reason.
But then, to close his two-hour show, Elliott launched into a sharp, focused rendering of Dylan’s Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right, and it was like standing in the light of the dawn of the 1960s folk-rock movement.
So, as a raconteur, Elliott lived up to his name (and, boy howdy, you can sure see where Arlo Guthrie learned his yarn-spinning skills). But, in addition to being highly entertaining, his appearance allowed a small gathering of the faithful to touch the roots of some of the most enduring music our culture has ever produced delivered by a man who has lived it all.
