Ramblin' Jack Elliott - Jack Eliott (1964)

Ramblin' Jack Elliott is an American folk singer, originally an important part of the American folk revival.

This self-titled album was Jack Elliott's only one on the Vanguard label. It came at a time when the American folk revival was coming to an end, and the folk-rock movement was about to take of. A new generation of folk singers and singer-songwriters were on the rise, with Bob Dylan as a reluctant figurehead. It was time for the old folk singers to modernize or fade into obscurity, but Jack Elliott actually did neither. The material on this album was pretty much the same stuff he had been playing for years, indeed most of these songs he had already released on the eleven albums he had put out previous to this. Though many of the arrangements see his guitar backed up by double bass, banjo, or harmonica (played by Dylan on one track), it's still mostly solo.
Though he seemingly refused to change what he was doing as folk music began to transform, Elliott was still a highly respected and much-loved character in the folk world, and on this album he sounds as good as he ever did before, so you can't really complain. The mostly traditional material includes standards such as "Will The Circle Be Unbroken", "Roving Gambler" and "House Of The Rising Sun", as well as Woody Guthrie's "1913 Massacre" and "Portland Town" by Derroll Adams, a fellow folkie who Elliott had recorded and travelled with years before.
Vanguard later re-released the album as The Essential Ramblin' Jack Elliott in 1976 with a second disc of live material.

Country Style (1962) <|> Young Brigham (1968)
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