I'll Be Here in the Morning: The Songwriting Legacy of Townes Van Zandt

Ramblin' Jack Elliot

ramblin’ Jack elliott Ride the blue wind high and free She’ll lead you down through misery —TVZ, “Rex’s Blues,” from Flyin’ Shoes r amblin’JackElliott,bornElliotCharlesAdnopoz,onAugust 1, 1931, in Brooklyn, New York, has been a rodeo rider, street musician, student of Woody Guthrie, and mentor to Bob Dylan. At eighty, he retains a steel-trap memory. Elliott can recognize a city by area code, recite concert venues within its ZIP codes, and recount tales about guitar retailers by name.1 However, his first encounter with Townes Van Zandt remains tellingly murky. “I can’t remember when we met, but we might’ve both been drunk,” Elliott says. “I know he was. I’ve never seen him sober.”2 Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Kerrville Folk Festival, Kerrville, TX, 2006. Courtesy Susan Roads rAMBlIn’ JACk ellIoTT 77 Elliott’s close apprenticeship with Guthrie and its link to an aspiring Dylan secured his place in history well before meeting Van Zandt. As a twenty-year-oldcollegedropout“fascinatedbyhorses,cowboys,andthe mythical West,” young “Buck” Elliott bonded with Guthrie at a Brooklyn hospital in the early 1950s. Elliott sang songs for the ailing activist and folksinger until he became Guthrie’s “perfect mimic.” Guthrie was flattered by the attention and invited Elliott to bunk with his family for morethanayear.“Ithink[myfather]wasgratefultohaveaprotégéright there,” Woody’s daughter Nora Guthrie says. “I think my dad was happy to hand over everything he knew and everything about himself that he could pass on.”3 Elliott remained close to the family as Guthrie suffered from the Huntington’s disease that claimed his life in 1967.4 LegendaryfolksingerPeteSeegercalledElliott“oneofthefinestpickers and singers and all-around entertainers I’ve ever seen on a stage.” Seeger observed that Elliott adapted his entire way of living, including wearingcowboyhatsandbootsandexpertlyplayingtheguitar,tobecome theembodimentoftheguitar-slingingcowboyhe’ddreamedofbeingas a young man.5 Several of Elliott’s earliest recordings, including Woody Guthrie’s Blues (1955), Ramblin’ Jack Sings the Songs of Woody Guthrie (1960), and Songs to Grow On by Woody Guthrie, Sung by Jack Elliott (1961), directly saluted his mentor and established Elliott as one of Guthrie’s foremost interpreters. Elliott became a beacon of the thriving 1950s and 1960s folk music scene. During that time, he “liberated” a young Bob Dylan to change his name from Robert Zimmerman, and frequently introduced Dylan as his son onstage at gigs in New York City’s Greenwich Village. In turn, Dylan, who achieved unparalleled fame during the 1960s, invited Elliott to be a part of his acclaimed Rolling Thunder Revue tour (1975), a union of highly regarded folksingers including Joan Baez, Roger McGuinn, and Joni Mitchell. Elliott’s campfire singing style, an approach that has remained the same throughout his sixty-year career, well suited the outing . In fact, there was no “debate about including Ramblin’ Jack, whose cowboy-errant lifestyle . . . paralleled the Revue’s vagabond ideology.” Some believe including him in the Rolling Thunder Revue was Dylan’s 78 I’ll Be Here In THe MornInG wayofpayingbackthesignificantdebtheowedElliottforhelpinglaunch his career.6 After spending the majority of the 1970s and 1980s away from the recordingstudio,Ramblin’JackElliottenjoyedacreativecomebackwith such albums as the Grammy-winning South Coast (1995), Friends of Mine (1998), and The Long Ride (1999). Elliott dedicated Friends of Mine to the recently deceased Townes Van Zandt, who in 1981 had opened Elliott’s fiftieth birthday show at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica, California .7 Elliottincludedawistfulversionof“Rex’sBlues”withVanZandt devotees Nanci Griffith and Emmylou Harris on the album. “Recording ‘Rex’s Blues’ was Emmylou Harris’s idea,” Elliot says. “She liked that song.”8 ElliottbroughthistoryfullcirclebyclosinghisrecentcollectionIStand Alone (2006) with “Woody’s Last Ride,” a spoken-word story that details a nearly penniless cross-country road trip with Guthrie. The journey detailed ultimately mirrors Elliott’s philosophy as a singer. “I think to be a good song interpreter,” he says, “you have to have lived enough to understand where the person who wrote the song is coming from.”9 • • • ramblin’ Jack elliott I liked Townes’s musicianship and his style and mood and his way of expressing himself. He was a true poet. He also was a gambler, which I admired but appreciated from a distance, because I’ve never been a successful gambler. I don’t know anything about card playing, and he was obviously a master at it. He tried to get me in a game like liar’s poker every time I’d see...