If you think Bob Dylan was the be-all and end-all of the folk movement, then you need to get this four disc 100 song collection by the man who REALLY started it all, even before Pete Seeger, namely Ramblin’ Jack Elliot. What you get here are selections from his early albums, which will just make you want to get them all, but that’s ok.
This stuff is so earthy and bohemian, that the first songs from his 1957 debut include takes of “Pretty Boy Floyd” recorded from a Greenwich Village apartment. (was it positively 4th street?) From there, songs by Woody Guthrie like “Ludlow Massacre” and “Talking Dustbowl Blues” set the ball rolling. Traditional pieces like “John Henry” and “Mule Skinner Blues” as well as “ Cocaine” have become staples of the blues/folk/rock tradition. A 1958 London Concert includes “Sadie Brown” and “Chisolm Trail” like you’re sitting by the fire. During the protest days of the era, Elliot put out an album of pacificsm that included”Brother Won’t You Join In The L ine?”. Getting overlooked due to Dylan’s tsunami, Elliot then went country (anticipating Mr. Zimmerman there as well) with a rich album of him yodeling on “ Lovesich Blues” and the simple mix of voice, guitar and harmonica getting rootsy before there was such a thing as “roots” music on “Wreck of the Old ‘91”. No posing allowed here..