Download: CB Brand x Big Freak Mixtape

The band CB Brand DJs Big Freak on Monday and will be playing their first Troubadour show with Vetiver and Waters on Wednesday, so they have made this mixtape to get you ready for their classically cracked ’70s country—fans of Townes Van Zandt, Billy Joe Shaver and even Waylon, Merle and Willie should save some space for a little extra whiskey.

01. Don Rollins “The Good Bartender”
02. Billy Briggs and the XIT Boys “The Sissy Song”
03. John Wayne “You Tell ‘Em, Duke!”
04. John Phillips “Midnight Deadline Blastoff”
05. Michael Kelly Brewer with Steve Scharren “Lord, I Need A Drink”
06. CB Brand “Let’s Go Get Stoned” (Sparky version)
07. Merle Haggard “Rainbow Stew”
08. Marc Benno “Me And A Friend Of Mine”

Working In Tennessee features a variety of tempos and styles from different times he’s perhaps revisiting in his record collection, as well as appearances by his family and a few of Willie Nelson’s family members. Haggard’s wife joins him on a cover of “Jackson.”

Get your download of “Working In Tennessee”

Track listing:
1.    Working in Tennessee (Merle Haggard)
2.    Down on the Houseboat (Merle Haggard, Theresa Haggard, Doug Colosio)
3.    Cocaine Blues (TJ Arnall)
4.    What I Hate (Merle Haggard)
5.    Sometimes I Dream (Merle Haggard, Jenessa Haggard)
6.    Under the Bridge (Merle Haggard, Theresa Haggard)
7.    Too Much Boogie Woogie (Merle Haggard)
8.    Truck Driver’s Blues (Merle Haggard, Tim Howard)
9.    Laugh It Off (Merle Haggard, Theresa Haggard, Doug Colosio)
10.     Working Man Blues (Merle Haggard)
11.     Jackson (Billy Edd Wheeler, Gaby Rodgers)

—Daiana Feuer

Sammy Davis Jr. once called Merle Haggard the greatest country singer since Hank Williams. Haggard was in the audience—as an inmate—during three of Johnny Cash’s performances at San Quentin. He recently released I Am What I Am, his 76th album. We spoke to him as he was driving to his cabin in far-northern California with his wife in the front seat telling him not to forget Jesus. This interview by Daiana Feuer & Gerard Olson.

What is it like having your 17-year-old son touring with you?
It’s very complimentary. It’s inspiring. It makes me very proud. It makes my wife very proud. He’s not there because he’s my son. He’s there because he’s a great guitar player.
Your shows usually don’t have much of a set list—do you ever pull out songs he doesn’t know
No. He’s able to play songs he doesn’t know. He’s like working with a fully trained musician.
What is your reading on the current political situation? You wrote a song called ‘Hopes Are High’ as Obama was about to take his oath of office—how do you feel about him nowadays?
I chose to stay out of politics because I was so disappointed in the first six months. So … that’s all I want to say. Do you feel like there’s hope for the future?
Like I say, I’m just going to stay out of politics. I don’t have any wise words for anybody. I’m choosing to stay out of it.
If there was a lesson you were going to pass on to a younger generation so they didn’t have to wait their whole lives to find it out, what would you pass on?
Honesty. Above all—honesty and being faithful to what you believe in.
Theresa Haggard: And Jesus. And Jesus!
Did you end up installing 100-acres of solar panels at your house?
Yeah … the numbers don’t work out. If I was 30 years old, it’d be a great project. The numbers just don’t work out for a guy my age. It’s a good thing—if you’ve got 30 years to spend, it might be reasonable. But it’s not reasonable for me. It’s always been my desire—since I was 20 years old—to be somewhere off the grid. Somewhere self-sufficient—depending on no one for my existence.
In what ways have you achieved that?
We live in a place where there’s fish and there’s wildlife and there’s all kinds of things to eat, should we have to resort to that. But, mainly, we could be off grid at this moment. I’m pretty happy with it. I have a family and I just trust in Jesus.
What keeps you still wanting to be an entertainer then? It seems like those two things would be separate. Leading a self-sufficient life as opposed to going on the road, doing shows, entertaining people and needing to present yourself to them?
You’ve got to shift gears, don’t you? Well, that’s exactly what I have to do when I go on the road. I shift gears and go into that mode. And when I come home, I try to get back into the fatherly mode and the grandfather mode. The mode of family first.
Do you think you’ll ever give up music?
I hope I’ll always be able to do it. It keeps me younger. It keeps me healthy. It’s like screaming, you know. If you get up there and holler for an hour, you’ll feel better. So it’s good for my health. I’ll do it as long as I can.
Are there any contemporary musicians that you enjoy listening to?
I listen to very little of these things that are new. I have my favorites, I guess. Taylor Swift kind of knocks me out because she pisses everybody else off. I like her cuz she writes her songs. I like Joe Nichols. I like that little fat kid that sings with the—what the hell’s the name? Rascal Flatts. I like them.
You’ve said that Iris DeMent and Jimmie Rodgers do the same thing—they love the song so much that they get lost in the song, and you can see it in their eyes.
They’re both what I call lifers. You can like them or dislike them, but they’re here to stay. They’re not going to leave the business because they do a bad show. They’re here forever because they’re meant to be what they are. There seems to be a difference between people who just sing songs and perform to entertain and people who do it because they have to because they can’t do anything else. That’s probably true with the people you mentioned. Jimmie Rodgers was ill. He was too sick to be a railroad worker.
You escaped from seventeen correctional institutions by the time you were 21. How’d you find the best way to break out of prison?
Well, God—I can hardly remember. It seems so long ago. Things were different then—they weren’t as completely secure as they are now. It was easier to do. And I didn’t want to stay in prison. And I didn’t feel like I deserved to be in prison. So I didn’t stay there. And I escaped. My idol at that time was Willie Sutton. He was an escape artist and a hero of the world. He was my idol and I was going to try to out-escape him.
How did you get away with brewing beer in prison? What did you use?
Well, the prison is like a little city. There’s a kitchen, you know, and all the essential necessities are found there in the kitchen to make the beer. It was no big problem.
What’s the earliest memory from your career that you still hold on to?
You know, I’m still living in today, yesterday and tomorrow. About a three day period. Outside that little bubble, I’d be kind of drinking my own bath water if I spent much time outside that.
What is your best drinking song?
It’d have to be ‘This Bottle Let Me Down.’
What’s your drink these days?
I like to drink George Dickel whisky. It’s a Tennessee mash. It’s what I drink. I don’t drink much of anything, but when I do drink I don’t mess around with beer. Get straight to the point and water back.
Why do you think hearing a sad song makes someone happy?
I don’t know. I’m just the guy that writes the song. I don’t know why people like them. I wish you knew. If you knew the answer to that, I’d ask you. It’s about connecting to something that’s separate from you. It makes you feel that there’s other people out there that are real and feel things. Well, the subject matter is usually one word: love. And love is as big as the universe.
Your new album seems very much oriented around love. It’s very romantic in parts. Do you feel that you’re in a time of your life where you’re full of love?
I have a young wife and I’m taking her to the lake right now. I better be in love!
You said once that when you were growing up in America there was more choice than there is now. What did you mean?
Everything hadn’t been picked over like it is now. Everything’s picked over. There’s somebody living behind every tree. You have to go a long ways west in order to find anything that still resembles what was there 50 years ago. It’s changed and everything looks alike. Every off-ramp looks like the last off-ramp. There’s no character in anything like there used to be.
Have they really ‘outlawed fun’?
Maybe they just camouflaged it to a point where an old man like me don’t see it. It’s probably on the internet or something. I don’t see people out in the yard. I don’t see people gathered around a table playing cards. I see ’em all with some damn thing in front of their face, on their lap, wrapped up in something that I just don’t understand.
At the same time, people are interested in self-sufficiency—raising bees and making beer, listening to older music, as opposed to listening to more dispensable pop. People wish they could experience that time when there wasn’t a house behind every tree.
There’s no choice, though. This is just the way it is right now. The only chance you have of knowing what I’m talking about is if I explain it correctly. Or somebody else explains it.
Do you still get angry?
No. That’s the reason I’ve chosen to stay out of politics. I’m too old to get angry. So I might as well stay out of it.
By the way, how’s your dog?
My dog?
When we were supposed to have an interview on Friday, you had to take your dog to the hospital.
That’s right. We had a dog that lost its eye. We’re going to get it back today or tomorrow.
I hear you have a habit of picking up old dogs that are on their last legs.
They come to us. My family has a lot of love to give. My children enjoy helping things. We’ve got a long history of it and a lot of things to tell. In fact, you can write a book about that— about the children helping different animals. Birds. Ducks and turkeys. My wife giving up her time to keep a damn magpie alive. We live out in the wild and we don’t allow anybody to shoot out here or hunt—we have a virtual paradise where the animals are not afraid of us. They look to us for protection.
What’s the difference between the connection you make with animals as opposed to the one you make with humans? Why are you an animal lover?
Why am I an animal lover? Because I’m alive! Alive! [Laughs] Aren’t you an animal lover? I think most people that are red-blooded are animal lovers.
Is there one goal that you still would like to achieve in your lifetime, as a musician or as a person?
I’m just a songwriter and a husband and a messenger …
TH: A man of God. A man of God.
I’m an uncle and a grandpa and I am what I am.

MERLE HAGGARD’S I AM WHAT I AM IS AVAILABLE NOW FROM VANGUARD. VISIT MERLE HAGGARD AT MERLEHAGGARD.COM.

Download: The Mekons “Dickie, Chalkie And Nobby”

(from Natural out now on Touch And Go)

The Mekons lived Leeds but dreamed Texas and Tennessee and after finding their feet in first-wave punk songs like “Where Were You,” they left the world of Rough Trade for the open range. They are working on a new album tentatively called 100 Years and singer-guitarist-activist Jon Langford speaks as he takes his dog to the vet. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

Is it true that the son of Donald Rumsfeld is a really big Mekons fan?
Jon Langford (guitar/vocals): That’s a good question. It might be true, but he has not revealed himself to us. I never got to the bottom of that but I heard he was wandering around the clubs of Chicago with a Mekons t-shirt on. Donald Rumsfeld sort of wandered around Chicago as well. He was a congressman from here so he was occasionally spotted in sushi restaurants. And I know people who actually know him and I always wonder what I would do if I actually ran into him.
Do you think you could beat him up? Mekon vs. Rumsfeld?
He’s kind of like some sort of crazy cockroach. You’d probably keep treading on him and he’d just get up and run around.
Do you think that might be an effective way for art and music to provoke social change? By specifically targeting the hearts and minds of the children of the rich and powerful?
I’d like to think something of what we’ve been singing about for the last twenty years may have rubbed off on him—he’d probably want to wrestle his dad to the ground as well, you know? But you know what? I think I know about as much about that as you do. I don’t know. Our songs were never particularly aimed at the sons of the rich and famous.
Where were they aimed?
They weren’t really aimed at anyone. They were aimed at ourselves, I think. Most of the songs we made to sort of please ourselves or to exorcise things that are in ourselves. I think a lot of the Mekons songs are quite sad, which is interesting because we’re not necessarily sad people. I think what’s good about the Mekons is that there’s always been a kind of cushion—the fact that there are a lot of people and we all kind of share the duties. There’s never been one person with the whole burden. A lot of the people in the Mekons have been through quite a lot together. I wouldn’t even say our politics are necessarily the same or our life stories are the same but there’s definitely a shared instinctive feeling about the world. Obviously, or we wouldn’t be doing this project together so long.
What is the essential sadness in the Mekons discography?
Well, we don’t come together and act sad. We come together and have a good time. But the music that comes out is often very—I don’t know, maybe gallows humor? We always try to describe the world we live in and anyone with half a brain would find it pretty difficult to write happy songs all the time.
I’ve heard that they did a neurolinguistic study of various genres of music and that country music is overwhelmingly objectively the saddest type of music they found. Do you think there’s anything to that?
Have you ever heard the music from the Bahamas? There’s some traditional vocal and solo vocal stuff that’s mostly unaccompanied that I think is the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. People who are poor and have crap lives will probably make sad music. I guess rich people who have lots of money and an easy life, they might be sad as well—but they probably don’t bother to write songs about their lives. Probably too busy spending their money.
In ‘Big Zombie,’ is the line ‘I’m just not human tonight’ a Chandler reference?
Absolutely. Yeah. It’s an L.A. song and we’ll be playing it. When we kind of started up again in the mid-’80s, we were very interested in Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. We were touring the States a lot and that was our reference for what we thought the States should be like. Dashiell Hammett was our version of San Francisco and Raymond Chandler was our version of L.A. Every time I walked into a room, I’d expect to find a body. Most of the time we didn’t.
What drew you to honky-tonks like Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge when you came to America?
When we first came to the States we got obsessed about music and it was kind of like… most of the cowboy shops we went to seemed to be full of black people, Hispanic people, Asian people and English rock bands. So it was funny—just how you can literally claim a piece of this fantasy mythical America by buying a Stetson or a pair of cowboy boots and then going back home to Leeds and strutting around in your cowboy boots. They’d ask, ‘Where did you get those?’ and I’d say, ‘Aw, I got these in Chicago,’ you know? People would come ’round my house after the pub and I’d be playing Ernest Tubb and Merle Haggard, and these were all people who thought they wanted to go listen to acid-house or something. They thought we’d lost our minds.
There’s a quote from Ernest Tubb I wanted to ask you about. People would say, ‘Aw, Ernest, you’re so flat, anyone could sing the way you can. You just got lucky.’ And he would say, ‘Well, I sing that way on purpose. I want everyone who hears this to think that they could do it. I want them to feel that I’m no different from them.’
Is that from that Peter Guralnick book? Lost Highway? There’s another great quote in there where he says he’s singing for the boys back on the farm but he says by the end of his life the farm wasn’t even there anymore. But he wanted those farm boys to be able to sing his songs. Yeah, that’s a very Mekons-type thing. When I read that, I thought, ‘There is a connection between that and punk.’ It’s been said before that there was a connection between the Mekons and country music and I thought that was ludicrous, but as I listened to that stuff and really began to love it, it became more and more interesting to me. And then to have someone articulate it like that… We always meant the Mekons to be like ‘Anyone can do it.’ Anyone can pick up the guitar. There’s a quote from Mary Harron about the Mekons that kind of sums it up: ‘Rock ‘n’ roll is probably better played by people who can’t play it very well.’ She said the Mekons were the only people to base a band solely on that fact. It was kind of a jab as well as a compliment, but I think that’s true. That really struck a chord with me—I’ve always being drawn to music that was functional rather than virtuoso. Music that kind of has to be made because there was a need to make it.
Who are you thinking of?
Well, actually I was talking to Peter Hammill of Van der Graaf Generator who came to town the other night. I got to hang out with them and I was talking to them about what they were listening to on the bus and they were telling me about Olivier Messiaen who is an avant-garde composer who wrote something called The Quartet for the End of Time while he was in a P.O.W. camp or a concentration camp. As Hammill said, that was music that had to be made. It was a quartet because that’s what he had at the camp and they thought they were going to die, so they wrote this music. I’ve been listening to it and it’s like—you’ve got something as primitive as the Mekons when we first started and then you’ve got Ernest Tubb and reggae music that was there because it was on the street with a message that people could dance to. And then you’ve got Olivier Messiaen which is like music that couldn’t be kept in. It had to come out. It wasn’t anything to do with any commercial desires or all that. It’s just music that had to exist. There’s a lot of music like that and I find that I’m just drawn to it. It was actually great talking to those guys because they’re much older than me. To be sitting on a tour bus with a bunch of old guys drinking wine and talking about things you’ve never heard of—it was really, really cool. Peter Hammill said, ‘Yeah, that’s the secret, as long as you don’t pander.’ ‘No pandering allowed!’ he was shouting. ‘That’s the trouble with all this bloody music nowadays. It’s all just fucking pandering!’ And I thought that was pretty good. That’s what the Mekons do.
Steve Wynn said that it’s better to make a record that is just one person’s favorite in the entire world than to make a record that everyone thinks is just pretty good.
I totally, totally agree with that. I think that something happened to music when the idea was that everyone would like it. I think that’s completely unnatural. When we were on A&M, they told us that 25,000 records sales wasn’t very good and we were like, ‘That’s good enough for us!’ We’d feel very uncomfortable if more than 25,000 people bought our record. That’s more people than ever go to see any of the football teams I supported! But that was a failure. There’s a hierarchy in the music industry where you have all these people floundering around not making a living who are—to me— doing what they should do and doing a good job of it. And then you have these people who managed to hit on the magic formula—finding what it is that everybody wants and it’s all backwards. They should be punished for learning that secret. Paul McCartney should be taken out and punished.
What particular punishment would be appropriate for that?
A good lashing. No, I’m only joking, I’m only joking. Again, the structure of the industry is the problem. That’s what it’s geared to—it’s just not geared to having lots of different types of music for lots of different types of people to enjoy. It doesn’t recognize the fact that people are different—that not everybody wants to listen to the sort of crap that’s on the radio everyday. It’s very hard anywhere in this country when you listen to the radio to find stuff that’s worth listening to. I don’t think that makes me weird.
You said once that ‘society dehumanizes from the top down.’ I’m wondering if that reproduces within pop culture.
Yeah—most of the stuff that I’ve written and the paintings that I’ve made about country and western music, it was kind of about using that as a microcosm for the whole society. The trend is there and you can see it so obviously in what happened to country music. I think that goes through everything. And actually that quote, that’s not me—I didn’t say that. John Peel said that. I might have been quoting him because he said that about ‘God Save the Queen’ when that record came out and everyone was up in arms and he made that quote defending the record. He said it was a pretty simple record and that the message was society dehumanizes from the top down.
I have to commend your memory for quotes.
I know where I pinch all my best stuff from. You know, Peel was a Radio One DJ and to come out with something that profound was pretty powerful. To have somebody in the BBC defending the Sex Pistols when it looked like—when that record came out, you know… they could have been hung from lampposts and the majority of people in the country would have been really pleased. It was a very scary time for a little while.
Have you seen that kind of response to anything else in music?
Ice-T’s ‘Cop Killer’ was kind of interesting as well. It brought up an interesting debate about whether he really wanted to kill a cop or talk about someone else. It brought up the debate about what you can write about. Why is a song always in the first person? People always think when you write a song that it’s you talking. I had that problem singing ‘Cocaine Blues’ which, you know, is a Johnny Cash song. Obviously I’m not someone who takes cocaine and kills people, but it’s still a great song. The history of those songs is old and ancient.
Someone once asked you if there was a light at the end of the tunnel and you said that now that you have kids, you’re going to hijack the train, turn it around and drive it back.
I just felt like a lot of people tell me to shut my mouth because I’m not from here. I’ve got that a number of times. Mostly in hate mail, especially when we were doing the anti-death penalty stuff. I really got some quite extraordinarily vicious and unpleasant stuff. But I just felt like having kids was definitely a galvanizing moment for me. It made me feel like this is when you have to get involved. I can’t just be like non-American anymore and just shrug my shoulders and go, ‘Oh yeah, they’re just all fucking crazy.’ Because I’m one of you now.
What kind of world do you want to build for your children?
We need to dismantle what was created over the last fifty years, really. The food industry for a start. It’s a fucking hideous Frankenstein that’s killing us all, you know? I really believe that. I don’t think I’m some kind of freak. I’m not some kind of hippie vegetarian. Not that there’s anything wrong with hippie vegetarians, to be honest. I was always prejudiced against people who had, like, strong views about things like that. Now it’s kind of like, ‘Fuck, things are really, seriously wrong.’
How do you avoid becoming discouraged?
I see a lot of people feel the same way. I see the election of Obama, which I thought was impossible, you know? I’m encouraged because it wasn’t just me sitting in my bedroom. Wow, that’s change. That’s real serious change. A lot of sort of naysaying cynics that I know were like, ‘Aw, it’s never going to happen in America. The only reason this happened is because he’s just the same as the other people.’ I don’t think he is, you know? I don’t think he can be. It’s got to change, you know?

THE MEKONS ON SUN., JULY 26, AT McCABE’S GUITAR SHOP, 3101 PICO BLVD., SANTA MONICA. 9:30 PM / $16 / ALL AGES. MCCABES.COM. AND ON MON., JULY 27, AT THE ECHO, 1822 SUNSET BLVD., ECHO PARK. 8:30 PM / $12-$14 / 18+. ATTHEECHO.COM. VISIT THE MEKONS AT MEKONS.DE OR MYSPACE.COM/THEMEKONS.

Download: Ramblin’ Jack Elliott “Soul Of A Man”

(from A Stranger Here out now on Anti)

Ramblin’ Jack Elliott’s first job was a rodeo hand after he ran away from his childhood home in Brooklyn. Not long after, he apprenticed under Woody Guthrie. Not long after that, Bob Dylan apprenticed under Jack. He’s only written four songs in his entire life, but one of those songs was a personal favorite of Townes Van Zandt. His newest album A Stranger Here (out now on Anti) is made up of blues standards and features Van Dyke Parks on piano. He had his hip replaced just last week. This interview by Kevin Ferguson.

Can you still do the 45-second yodel at the end of ‘Muleskinner Blues?’
I haven’t sung ‘Muleskinner Blues’ in a couple of years. But actually I was going to get a lung test at the hospital one day. The doctors put me on this machine and they told me that I had a problem with my lungs—that it wasn’t reading good. And I thought, ‘Well, I’ll show you guys!’ So I looked at the clock on the wall and I waited ‘til the second hand came up the twelve and I started my yodel which I believe was supposed to be 45 seconds long. But under the added stimulation of having two young doctors watching me and the clock and all—and having just done the lung test, which was like a warm up exercise—I held that note for sixty seconds! A couple of years later I went back to the hospital for another lung test and I had two new doctors—but the same machine, the same old story. I did the test and they said it wasn’t a good reading and I said, ‘OK, I’ll show you guys, too!’ And I looked up at the wall for the second hand again and I started my sixty-second yodel again, but that time I held that note for seventy seconds! But I haven’t tried it much since then. And of course they repeated their diagnosis about what they thought was wrong, and I thought, ‘You guys are a bunch of spoilsports! I ain’t going back here!’
Does the yodel require practice?
I’ve never been known to do any practicing of the guitar or singing—the only practice I get is when I’m on stage. I’m gonna be practicing again soon though, because I need to learn these new songs that I recorded almost ten months ago. I recorded them last June—they’re on a new album that’s just coming out in a few days now? I don’t know any of those songs. I didn’t learn them when I went down there. I was just reading them off the paper.
How did you choose the songs for that album?
I didn’t choose them. The record company suggested them to me—they had this concept in their mind of me doing these funky old blues songs, and I thought, ‘OK, that sounds like a good idea!’ I didn’t want to be argumentative. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even like about half the songs! I listened to them for three months about five times a day, and I never learned a single one! There was only one that I already knew, and I had been singing it for about fifty years—the ‘How Long Blues.’ But I sang Leadbelly’s version, and this is not Leadbelly’s version. This is a different version—the one by the guy that wrote it. I think he was a piano player. The only reason that record so good is because the musicians who were backing me up are a bunch of geniuses! They had done their homework—they knew the songs pretty well, and we did it like a huge jam session. That too is unusual for me because I don’t normally do jam sessions. The best way you can learn and improve your technique on guitar is to work out with other musicians—to play live. I did a lot of that for the first ten years or so that I was playing guitar. But after I got to traveling around and playing professionally more and more, I sort of lost interest in going out and jamming all the time. I love playing with those guys! They were great. Jay Belrose on drums—Van Dyke Parks on piano. And I knew Van Dyke from about twenty years back—we were drinking buddies in L.A.!
What has been the biggest revelation in your life?
Biggest revelation! I had a marvelous time last night. I just got out of the hospital about ten days ago—had a new hip put in, and I just started to walk back to normal. I’m walking with a walking stick. A friend of mine told me that Kris Kristofferson and Merle Haggard were playing in a theatre near where I lived, so he drove me over there in my truck because I’m not ready to drive yet. I got a special cushion I can sit on ‘cause it’s kind of painful to sit in a car. I got about two more weeks to go—I’ll be ready to go on the road. But right now I’m just barely getting used to having this new hip in me, and it gets a little painful sometimes. But I walked a mile a day before yesterday, and that was a little bit too much. It took me an hour and a half to get the mail! But I went to see Kris Kristofferson and Merle Haggard last night! They did a great show. Joel Selvin was there from the San Francisco Chronicle, and he had just written a big story about them… so a good time was had by all, and I’m starting to like get ready to face show biz and being on the road again. So—the greatest revelation! Well, I guess it was when I climbed the rigging in an old whaler in a museum ship in Mystic, Connecticut. I’ve always loved boats—water and clipper ships. So I met some people who sailed in these old square riggers, and I was memorizing a lot of information about boats and navigation. I went and climbed up the rigging that cold winter’s day. My hands were so cold I could only go up about one third of the way! So then I climbed back down to the deck to warm my hands. It took me three separate climbs—about an hour—to gradually work my way up to the whale lookout about 125 feet above the deck on this old sailing whale ship called the Charles W. Morgan. That was kind of an exercise in control of cold and fear of heights, and learning to accept being alone in the cold. A lot of my heroes were singlehanded navigators, and I’d read about it. But I myself have never done a long trip solo. I had a small sailboat in the Atlantic Ocean about a mile offshore from when I was about 16 to when I was 20. When I’d sail it in the wintertime, they’d call that ‘frostbite dinghy sailing.’
Frostbite dinghy sailing?
Warmly dressed, of course. You’d wear ex-Navy foul-weather gear—wool and such. It was very fun. But then my first performance was playing for World War II survivors in a hospital in New York. These guys were pretty fucked-up from being in the war and they lost legs and arms and stuff—they didn’t make a very good audience. Some were laughing, some were crying, some were cussing, some were telling jokes, and some were even listening and enjoying the music! That was my first schooling in handling an audience. But I have never been able to handle drunks very well. My L.A. gigs are a bit trying, too, because the audience at McCabe’s guitar shop are mostly elderly people and they’re serious fans and they’re dead quiet—sort of like in church! I’ve been known to go asleep on stage in that venue! So I have to be a stand-up comic at the beginning. Get them out of their reverent worshipful mood that they’re in and wake ‘em up! Of course, there’s about a hundred guitars up on the wall there—people are afraid to clap for fear that they might start a guitar avalanche off the wall!
Do you still play your old Gretsch?
Well, it was stolen and it was missing for 23 years! I got it back—I had a local guitar maker take it back and glue it all together again. He did a pretty good job. It’s got a lot of scars of battle on it. I asked him to please not make it look any prettier than it did before I lost it. It’s been over the Alps on the back of a motor scooter in a blizzard, all over Europe for about three years! So I don’t need to kind of expose it to any more travel—it’s a museum piece. The other day, I hauled it out in its case and showed it to a friend who’s a boat builder. He stomped on it and he was amazed—I was amazed—how good the Gretsch still sounds and holds up despite all of the glue that’s been added to it. Because I got it back from this thief because he saw me singing with Kris Kristofferson in the same theater where I was last night to see Kris. He must have had a pang of guilt when he saw me playing on stage without it—he knocked on the stage door later and he said his name, said he was a friend of so-and-so. He gave me his number and I called him and went up to visit at his farm and got my guitar back. It looked like he carefully removed the guitar from the case, put it on the ground, and rolled over it with a tractor two or three times! It was a mess! Totally wrecked! He said a friend of his gave it to him and stuff like, ‘I didn’t know where you were. I thought you were out of town, Jack! Here’s the guitar—take good care of it.’ I was very tempted to say, ‘Why didn’t you take good care of it?’ But I thought it wouldn’t be polite. Especially when I’m sitting in his house drinking his wine and he’s treating me like a guest. I really think that kid stole my guitar. It took a couple of years for my guitar-maker friend to glue that thing back together again! You know, I loaned that guitar to the Experience Music Project museum and they had it travelling all over America for two years as an exhibit of early Bob Dylan influences. They had it in a glass case along with some pertinent information about the guitar because that was the guitar I had played on my first early recordings that Bob had gotten from some friends in Minneapolis when they first turned them on to Woody Guthrie and then to me.
Did you ever really call him your son?
No! I never did! The press called him ‘son of Jack Elliott.’ They thought it was kind of a cute way to announce the arrival of a new talent on the scene. And I was very proud of it because he was very obviously imitating me, although other people saw it more plainly than I could see it. I’d sing a song on stage and a minute later Bob would jump on and start doing something that he just noticed that I was doing—totally unabashedly! It used to piss people off—they didn’t understand why I was allowing it. They thought I ought to crack down on the bastard! But I liked him. He was my friend—sort of unofficially like a student. That’s the way I learned from Woody, too. I was out hanging out with Woody for about four years, starting in 1951. He just told me a lot of stories and we’d play music together. I learned a lot about guitar playing with Woody.
What was the first song he taught you?
Actually, I learned it off a record of his—it was called ‘Hard Travelling.’ I actually knew it by heart when I first met Woody. I’d been listening to that record for about two months before I finally called him one day. I got his phone number through a friend of mine. I called him up and said ‘I’ve been listening to your records, and I sure like your music.’ And he said ‘Well, come on over—bring your guitar! We’ll knock off a couple of tunes together! Don’t come today, though—I got a bellyache.’ And indeed, he almost died. He had appendicitis.
What’s the worst indignity about travelling by air?
Having to give them my guitar and put in baggage where they can break it! I was very lucky they’ve never broken it. But I’ve had many, many friends who had their valuable guitars broken by airlines, Earl Scruggs had his banjo broken by one of those airlines, and so he bought an airplane to learn how to fly on his own! I’ve had my suitcase lost four or five times—always got it back a few days back. I remember when they used to have beautiful stewardesses and nice food and silverware. Metal silverware! That was the old days when the plane stunk of cigarette smoke and coffee, and I didn’t mind!
How did it feel knowing that ‘912 Greens’ was one of the last songs Townes Van Zandt ever heard?
Well, it felt very good that night—I didn’t know that he was going to die. He didn’t even let me know that he had a broken hip. He had tripped over a tree stump the day before and he was frightened to go to a hospital. But he needed to get a surgical operation to get his hip fixed. He put it off ac couple of days before his loved ones finally talked him into going to the hospital. Now, my father was a surgeon. When you operate an alcoholic, you have to give them alcohol. Otherwise they’ll die of shock! And those doctors must’ve not known that. You know, there are a lot of doctors who just don’t know anything nowadays. Isn’t that funny? I don’t know what they teach in medical school. There’s a lot to be found out about the medical profession. He said he liked ‘912 Greens.’ I know he did because every time I talked to him he mentioned that. And I thanked him and I said, ‘You have a nice New Year’s.’ He died about eight hours after that.
What do you think America lost with the death of Odetta?
She had a great powerful voice and a lot of spirit. She was a wonderful, wonderful woman and I just don’t think they make a lot of people like that anymore. She sang Leadbelly songs and old folk songs. She sang a lot of Leadbelly songs. We did five or six concerts together, spread out over two years time. When she died they had a big tribute to Odetta, so I made a videotape and they played it on a big screen.
Is it true that her mom was the first person to call you ‘Ramblin’?’
That’s correct! I like to tell a lot of stories, you know—long stories. I had just met Odetta about a month before and she lived across the street from a man that had several Model A Fords. I had just purchased a Model A and I went to see the man about fixing this and that I because he was an expert. The first time I visited Odetta, her mother answered the door and said, ‘Odetta is in the bathtub—you can wait here in the living room.’ So I waited and I waited and I waited—I could hear the water splashing in the bathtub. I could hear Odetta singing to herself! She seemed very content to be in the bathroom for over a half hour. She’s a large person. Anyway, I got tired of waiting so I went up to the bathroom door and said ‘Hey, Odetta—it’s me, Jack! I’m here!’ and I started telling stories about my adventures. Her mother thought that was odd. The next time I visited Odetta and knocked on her door, her mother looks out the little peephole, saw my face and I heard her holler, ‘ODETTA, RAMBLIN’ JACK IS HERE!’ That was the first time I heard that name. I’ve heard it an awful lot since then!
Was On The Road the only manuscript that’s ever been read to you?
That’s the only one! I’ve read manuscripts for movies and stuff, but that was the first and last time anybody read me their manuscript. We drank some wine, had some other things and we sat on the floor. Jack read to us for three days!
How do you stay awake through that?
I don’t think we had any trouble staying awake—it was such a wonderful story. That was in the year 1953 and the book came out in 1956, or ‘57! Yeah, ‘57—it was four years prior to the publishing of the book. So when it finally came out I was in Paris and I gave a reading of some of the chapters of that book and along with a reading of some of Woody’s writings. I performed, too. I was performing in concert with Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso in Paris.
How do you survive on two dollars a day when you’re a rodeo hand?
Well, it was in 1947—I could get bacon and eggs and a cup of coffee and sometimes still have enough money left over for a malted milk later! But that was it—I was pretty much a one-meal-a-day kid for about three months. Well, the latter part of that time I was on the ranch I was paid 5 dollars a week, but they fed us. I had nineteen flapjacks every morning! The cook made the most delicious pancakes! To this day, I still love buckwheat pancakes—they’re very different. A unique flavor. They taste rich and healthy without being too sweet. It’s sort of like a good bowl of oatmeal!
Is there a trick to make the most money possible while busking?
Aw, I never made much money busking! When I was busking in Paris regularly—practically every night—in the wintertime, we would work for approximately one hour and collect the equivalent of about $8 U.S., which was about enough to pay our room rent and one or two meals. Breakfast was just coffee and a croissant, lunch was a ham sandwich, and dinner was a beefsteak and frites.
When was the last time you rode a horse?
I rode a horse when I was watching Larry Mayham practice roping. It was at a Colorado film festival. Before that, I rode a horse about a year ago on a round-up finding some cattle up in the mountains of Northern California. Bringing them down in a rainstorm and sleeping in a very leaky tent with a cowboy who snored. After about three hours of soaking in my sleep, I apologized to him for abandoning him and went into my Ford truck. There, I had a wool blanket and 2 full hours of good sleep until I heard the cook rustling up the coffee pot. I was up like a flash! We couldn’t even brand the calves—they were too wet! But I like riding horses—I just don’t get to ride them enough. I used to have a horse for twelve years and rode him constantly in the hills of Northern California.
What was his name?
His name was Young Brigham. I had him on a record album cover—the album was named after him, too. The saddle maker that sold me that horse told me, ‘You know, Jack, if you put a picture of Brigham on the cover of your record album, the hay will be tax deductible!’
Is that for real?
It was a good sales point! I was already in love with the horse, anyway.
How do you think your music and Woody’s music fits in with today, as we’re risking a second Great Depression?
I think it fits in perfectly. He was singing about hard times, and he went through the hard times and he saw it and he wrote about it. And now we’re getting ready to have some more. I think people appreciate the music because it means something to them. Back as recently as a year ago, the country was still in a blind bourgeois alcoholic drug-induced Hollywood-induced fog of, ‘Gimme, gimme, gimme! Gotta have a fast car, gotta have a big fat four-wheel drive, just like in the movies.’ We were totally stupid—in a crazed state of mind—which helped to bring about the fall. It’s like the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. Stuff goes up and comes back down again. It’s gravity!
What’s the one lesson we all should have learned from history but never will?
I think that there’s a very good chance that most of the people will never have learned anything. Because it seems like it’s almost built into human nature that it’s easy for certain politicians to exist. As long as the politicians do exist, they’re always going to lie to the public and the deprivation and destruction of schools will continue. And California is the leading state in backwardness for education. It’s still shocking and hard to believe! I was raised on mom, apple pie, red white and blue, ‘America the Beautiful’—I was very patriotic in my heart, although I was lucky enough to not have to go to war. I was too young for World War II and later I just fell through the cracks. I probably would’ve had to be a draft dodger or refuse to go. I don’t approve of warfare and I don’t like killing animals or people. Although I used to love a good steak!
So you’re a vegetarian?
I’m part idealist and part hypocrite. I’m part yogi and part bull-rider. I’m all things good and all things bad! No, I’m not, Hitler was! No, I’m not a vegetarian. But I am trying to cut down on meat as I’ve found out that red meat is not as good for you as I had once supposed that it was. And yet I crave it! But I’m starting to eat more lamb. I love lamb curry and I love lamb chops. I like Indian food a lot, too. Theoretically, I’m much more a vegetarian than I am in practice. And I don’t smoke cigarettes. I did smoke cigarettes for about twenty years. I started when I was fifteen, rolling my own cigarettes at the rodeo ranch. I thought that was cool! Then I started smoking Camels and Luckys and all that trash. I was very lucky that I didn’t get seriously addicted to tobacco. One day I decided I was really tired and bored with it, and I just stopped buying and smoking cigarettes. I didn’t have a difficult time quitting tobacco. I know that most people have a hard time—they say it’s harder to kick than heroin!
What was it like getting an award from Bill Clinton?
Well, of course I don’t ever rehearse what I’m going to say. It seems like it comes out better ad-libbed, in the style of Woody Guthrie and Will Rogers. They never rehearsed or planned out what they were going to say. And so here comes the president and he’s about to shake hands with me in the White House. I said, ‘It’s wonderful to meet you, Bill! Is it ok if I call you Bill?’ And he said, ‘Of course, Jack.’ And I felt like he was my friend! I like him! And I had come in with no preconceived notion about him. I just looked in his eyes and I thought, ‘This guy is OK. Good man.’ When I met his wife, I said, ‘I’m Ramblin’ Jack!’ and she just hollered, ‘I KNOW YOU, RAMBLIN’ JACK!’ It reverberated down the hall of the White House! It was as if she was back in Arkansas knocking on the back porch to borrow some sugar. I thought, ‘These guys are down home folks!’
What was the most memorable time you sang the national anthem?
As a matter of fact, I sang it the one time we were being serenaded by some musicians on foot who were in blue. It was the U.S. Marine Corp band, and they were playing all these tunes, mostly patriotic songs. So I chimed in with them on, ‘America, America, God shed his grace on thee.’ I had had ONE shot of scotch and two glasses of red wine, which is about enough. I was a little bit in my cups—as they say—but I didn’t dare look but my wife sitting next to me peeked over. I was singing a little too loud because I was carried away with patriotic fervor. Bill was looking right at me, grinning broadly. He just dug it! And later after the dinner was over, immediately I had to scooch over and allow Bill to sneak past me, ahead of some other people. As he walked by me, I put my hand up to my mouth as if I had a secret to whisper to him. And in fact the G-Men by the other wall couldn’t see what I was saying, and I told Bill, ‘I heard a rumor that Bob Dylan is in town tonight and I thought we could dress you up in a disguise and sneak you over there.’ He threw his head back and laughed, ‘That would be fun!’

RAMBLIN’ JACK ELLIOTT ON FRI.. APR. 17, AND SAT., APR. 18, AT McCABE’S GUITAR SHOP, 3101 PICO BLVD., SANTA MONICA. 8 PM / $20 / ALL AGES. MCCABES.COM. RAMBLIN JACK ELLIOTT’S A STRANGER HERE RELEASES TUE., APR. 7, ON ANTI-. VISIT RAMBLIN’ JACK ELLIOTT AT RAMBLINJACK.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/RAMBLINJACKELLIOTT.