Download: Justin Townes Earle “Mama’s Eyes”

(from Midnight At The Movies out now on Bloodshot)

Coming off the success of 2008’s The Good Life, the high-lonesome killer of an album that is Midnight at the Movies ought to efface forever the words “in his own right” from any further consideration of Justin Townes Earle’s recording career. J.T. inherited a double-barreled name from roots-rocker dad Steve and his mentor, the late great Townes Van Zandt, but little else. Tall and courtly like some 1950s Nashville idol, Earle’s brand of C&W insurgency is highlighted by a spooky knack for raising the ghosts of traditional America inside a context deeply colored by our 21st-century blues. He’s had his own tussles with that old devil substance abuse and displays the candor and cheery truculence country fans expect out of anybody named “Earle,” but gives testament below to durable values and a serious sense of fun. Our chat a few hours before New Year’s Eve 2009 finds him emphatic, funny and dealing well with being a Southern boy in the East Village. This interview by Ron Garmon.

I just finished Midnight at the Movies and the title song sounds based on something pretty specific in the way of memory.
Justin Townes Earle: When I was 18 years old, I got obsessed with the Beat Generation. You know—how people like Gregory Corso and others gravitated around Times Square in the ’40s and ’50s. It was kind of just the imagery of dirty movies and peep shows. This record is my Beat album.
Did you ever actually see 42nd Street before the theaters were shut down?
Justin Townes Earle: I never got to see that and I think that’s why it took me so long to process it—because it was purely an act of imagination. This is purely an imagination record.
What does the old-time honk and trad country I used to hear as a kid in the hollows of Appalachia have to say to the flat-busted America of the present moment?
Justin Townes Earle: I think we still speak in a common barebones way. It’s the English language at its most rudimentary, but still gets its point across very well. Americans still aren’t far from being the insanely churchgoing people they were up until the 1950s and there’s still some memory of that. That old-time church music has just been, well, swallowed up.
Someone once described early R&B as ‘God’s music and the devil’s lyrics.’ ‘Shout’ by the Isley Brothers is an old spiritual reappropriated to make people do the Gator on the honky tonk floor. Who are your influences as vocalist?
Justin Townes Earle: That’s a cool question. I learned a lot from watching old tapes of Porter Wagoner. I saw him at the Grand Ole Opry when I was a kid. That’s how I learned to work a microphone around my stature. I try to be like Chet Baker and sing as soft as I can and really use the microphone. He was definitely my favorite. Whenever I think of contemporary vocalists, I always think of him because he’s so great and different and soft and cool.
Listening to the delivery, I thought of Hank Sr., Dave Dudley, even Whispering Bill Anderson—just the kind of inflected simplicity you hear on their old sides.
Justin Townes Earle: I think the important thing is putting it across properly. In my vocals, I go all over the place from, as you say, Hank to fuckin’ Shane MacGowan and back when I want to. The beautiful part of being an artist is you get to have the whole fuckin’ thing.
I like how in your version of ‘John Henry,’ the figure songwriters associate with worker heroism is seen by you defeated and in death.
Justin Townes Earle: I wrote that song for my grandfather. After he passed away, it hit me really hard. I needed a way to pay homage to my grandfather without writing another bullshit teary I-miss-you song because nobody needs another sappy bullshit I-miss-you song. The world has plenty of those. Those were stories he always told—he knew a million old John Henry and Joe Hill stories, and they are always in my head. All these stories about powerful males were there before me in flesh-and-blood in my grandfather.
‘My Mother’s Eyes’ speaks to a few attitudes you don’t share with your father.
Justin Townes Earle: I’ve had the idea for that song for a very long time, but it took me almost ten years to figure out what to do with that idea. It came right down basically to just that I was raised by my mom. I’m asked about Steve Earle constantly. He’s my father and I love him, but it was my momma busted my ass when I was a kid. That was one of the things I wanted to do, for her sake if nothing else.
That’s another longstanding trope in traditional music.
Justin Townes Earle: Woody Guthrie laid the groundwork and Bob Dylan showed us how to pay homage to that. Rarely are there authentic original artists. There are very few of them. Woody was one and we all follow what he did.
Talking of ancestors, what do you think about the talk in some of the reviews incessantly comparing your music with your father’s—even though the two aren’t much alike and you’re well up to the mark in any case?
Justin Townes Earle: Actually, I don’t read reviews and I follow the example of a few before me who did and made asses of themselves over it. I decided I never would. I never felt any need to … Steve Earle and Townes Van Zandt are amazing songwriters, but I know the dirt. I was there. All the fans of my father see him as an infallible poetic genius and Townes as being tormented and I’m like, ‘Yeah, yeah.’ Sometimes the great songwriter is not the best of men.
All the stories one hears about Townes tend to be about how endearingly silly he could be.
Justin Townes Earle: Yes. He was a very sweet man when he was his mother’s child and in his natural state.
Talking of eminent forebears, how did you come to cover the Replacements’ awesome ‘Can’t Hardly Wait’?
Justin Townes Earle: If you were a kid mid-to-late ’80s and early ’90s and you knew hip people—and my mother was no exception—you had access to Replacements records. A lotta people say they hate all the horns and strings, but I fuckin’ love ’em! Whenever that song comes on the air, it’s like when ‘Born to Run’ comes on. It’s one of those songs that make you feel safe.
I understand you have some tart thoughts on American Idol …
Justin Townes Earle: It’s just another opiate for the masses. It’s something else to get all the common people to shut the fuck up. We’re just lucky we don’t have to worry about them hitting us with their cars when American Idol is on.
I agree with you that everyone needs a vice. What’s yours?
Justin Townes Earle: Well, I’m a hippie and I smoke a lotta reefer. I’m really bad about buying clothes and spending all my excess money on dope. I have more money now than I would have during my previous $200-a-day habit. I can get a nice pair of shoes or a nice shirt. I’m now a total girl when it comes to shopping.
Well, now ya know why junkies all dress like shit!
Justin Townes Earle: Exactly! Now it’s rock like a god and shop like a girl!
What are you reading now?
Justin Townes Earle: I’m in kinda an in-between phase right now, but just started Black Boy and I’m only a few chapters in. Usually I read a lot because when nothing goes in, nothing comes out. But I’m writing a record right now so I’m more focused about getting it out than putting it in.
What can you tell us about it?
Justin Townes Earle: Well, that I’m a verse away from being finished with it. I’ve always shot for keeping my feet planted in traditional forms of music, but you never want to make the same record twice, so this one will be more pre-war blues and gospel oriented in the feel. Those will be the accents we shoot for, instead of country and western.
Higher and more lonesome.
Justin Townes Earle: Yeah. It’s gonna be a lonesome record and it’s gonna be dark.
Has the old America vanished yet?
Justin Townes Earle: No. You see examples every day. But it is slowly going away. In Nashville, we had the old stately neighborhood called Belle Meade, with all the Rolls-Royces and Bentleys parked outside the houses. Now it’s all Hummers. That’s one sign of the death of the old-time America. But as long as families gather around their fried okra and fried chicken, it will always be there; old America will stay around.
Is work a replacement for addiction in the artist?
Justin Townes Earle: Definitely. I don’t think even my father would deny that. I think I will always be runnin’ from somethin’, only I don’t run so hard these days.

JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE WITH JOE PUG AND THE HI-HOS ON THUR., FEB. 11, AT THE ECHO, 1822 SUNSET BLVD., ECHO PARK. 8 PM / $10-$12 / 18+. ATTHEECHO.COM. JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE’S MIDNIGHT AT THE MOVIES IS OUT NOW ON BLOODSHOT. VISIT JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE AT JUSTINTOWNESEARLE.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/JUSTINTOWNESEARLE.

Download: L.A. RECORD mixtape by Leslie and the Badgers

Leslie and the Badgers are currently in residency at the Echo every Monday night, and L.A. RECORD will be sponsoring their final night on Sept. 28 with Sian Alice Group, Paperplanes and Best Coast. Bassist Ben Reddell delivers this mixtape revealing what a badger might think about on its last beer late some Sunday night.

Crazy Horse “Dance, Dance, Dance”
Just a damn good song. Crazy Horse of course went on to back up Neil Young on a number of his efforts, but this was them when their venom was fresh and potent. The band used to practice at the bottom of Laurel Canyon in a garage not too far from where it hits Hollywood Blvd., where a young Neil Young chanced upon hearing them.

The 13th Floor Elevators “(I’ve Got) Levitation”
I grew up in Kerrville, Texas, where this band for the most part originated. Melody Corner—the only music shop in town—used to keep 13th Floor Elevators drummer John Ike Walton in its employ. He used to tell me to get the fuck out of Kerrville and never look back. I will always be in his debt for that sage advice.

Townes Van Zandt “When She Don’t Need Me”
“My Friends are leaving/she says don’t worry/they’re only leaving/there is no party.” Anytime I have friends over, the same feeling goes through my head: “What do you mean you’re leaving? 7-11 is still open for 12 minutes!” (Much to the disdain of my girlfriend who’s been ready for bed for at least the past two hours.) Oh Townes, you and I are birds of a feather.

Kinky Friedman “People Who Read People Magazine”
The ultimate fuck you to the philistines of this world. John and Kate Plus 8? Really? America, what’s wrong with you!? You see, Kinky Friedman has been saying this for almost forty years. Mike Judge’s Idiocracy is the future regrettably, but at least we have this song to pass the time until that day.

Little Feat “Dixie Chicken”
Lowell George and his amazing band were fucking shit up in L.A. during my favorite part of our fair city’s musical history. Just picturing some party where you might see J.D. Souther, Linda Ronstadt and Lowell George shooting the shit on a balcony looking down on the city is heaven to me.

Levon Helms “Hurricane”
I had just finished watching Spike Lee’s When The Levee Breaks when by chance I heard this song. When the song was over, I was openly crying. I think the thing that struck me the most was how proud and optimistic the song is. Yet at the same time, it has a warning to it: “It’s hard and it’s cold and it’s mean.”

Band Of Annuals “Echo”
Band of Annuals were supposed to be playing with us for the residency, but schedules regrettably conflicted. This song is written by Salt Lake City troubadour Dave Williams, and executed by his near and dear friends quite amazingly. Of all of the Badgers’ contemporaries, Band Of Annuals are by far my favorite.

Don McLean “Winter Wood”
Leslie’s writing style reminds me of Don McLean—very beautiful melodies coupled with smart lyrics and rendered with stark simplicity. I think that’s what drew me to her music initially. I grew up with American Pie—it’s my father’s favorite record. Of course everybody knows the song “American Pie,” but the rest of the record is amazing as well, and this song is my favorite.

Warren Zevon “Desperados Under The Eaves”
This is the greatest down-and-out song about Los Angeles. You can feel the August heat as you stumble down Gower to your drug dealer’s house. Not that I’ve ever done that—I always took El Centro.

LESLIE AND THE BADGERS IN RESIDENCY EVERY MONDAY NIGHT IN SEPTEMBER AT THE ECHO, 1822 SUNSET BLVD., LOS ANGELES. 8:30 PM / FREE / 21+. ATTHEECHO.COM. L.A. RECORD PRESENTS LESLIE AND THE BADGERS WITH PAPERPLANES, BEST COAST AND SIAN ALICE GROUP ON MON., SEPT. 28, AT THE ECHO. LESLIE AND THE BADGERS’ ROOMFUL OF SMOKE IS AVAILABLE NOW FROM LESLIE AND THE BADGERS. VISIT LESLIE AND THE BADGERS AT MYSPACE.COM/LESLIEANDTHEBADGERS.

Download: “Oh Yes, Los Angeles” mixtape by When You Awake

Jody from the fantastic blog When You Awake—your sympathetic destination if homesick, lonesome, riled, fiery or any mindstates in between—presents us with this week’s mixtape, dedicated to cosmic cowboy/cowgirl rock songs about the city of Los Angeles. (City of doom and freeways, too.) Listen to Jody’s radio show Mondays 2-4 PM on Little Radio and go see her DJ at Gold Dust at Footsie’s in Highland Park one lucky day each month! And now to the tape…

1. John Mayall “Vacations”
“Ten hours in a plane – England left behind / Back here in L.A. – Wonder what I’ll find / Summertime, my plane is coming down / I’m a wandering man and this is gonna be my town.” An ode to Los Angeles from the man that gave us Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac and more.

2. Gene Clark “Los Angeles”
Gene Clark was one of the original Byrds who ended up leaving the group because of—get ready for the irony—a fear of flying. Roger McGuinn famously (or infamously) told him, “You can’t be a Byrd, Gene,
if you can’t fly.” He went on to release a number of amazing solo records and some amazingly beautiful and haunting songs that have been covered by everyone like “Through The Morning, Through The Night” (which also happens to be one of my favorite songs ever) and “Train Leaves Here This Morning.”

3. Jim Ford “Working My Way To L.A.”
Country soul! Kentucky born Jim Ford was living in New Orleans when he decided to make the move out to L.A. I, too, moved to Los Angeles from the South (Nashville, Tennessee, to be exact), so this tune holds a
special place in my heart.

4. Flying Burrito Brothers “Sin City”
Nothing says Southern California Country quite like Gram Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers. Sing it, boys.

5. Arlo Guthrie “Coming Into Los Angeles”
I’ve always loved the way he says “Los Angeleeeeze”. It’s like that Swiss Dairy ad I see all around town: you can’t say “Los Angeleeeeze” without smiling. Forced L.A. positivity!

6. New Riders of the Purple Sage “L.A. Lady”
I’m a total sucker for male/female vocals and the background vocals on this tune by Grateful Dead member Donna Jean Godchaux are no exception. She’s kind of low in the mix and only comes in for a short stint right at the end, but she straight-up sounds like a young Loretta Lynn with the way she sings “cry.”

7. Leslie and the Badgers “Los Angeles”
The only song on this mix recorded post-1980, this beautiful tune was released last week on their first full length record, Roomful of Smoke. When I truly like a song, it goes on repeat in my car, on my
computer, everywhere and well…let’s just say I’ve only had it for a week and it’s already in my Top 25 Most Played Songs in iTunes.

8. Guy Clark “L.A. Freeway”
I first heard this song in the movie Heartworn Highways, which is a must-see documentary that covers a handful of country troubadours like Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle, David Allan Coe and more. All versions of this tune are great, but I much prefer Clark’s understated version that appears at the beginning of the film to his proper studio recording or Jerry Jeff Walker‘s version.

9. John Phillips “Topanga Canyon”
Papa John Phillips (of the Mamas and the Papas) wrote a number of love songs to Los Angeles, including “California Dreamin’” and “Twelve Thirty”, but I decided to choose this from his 1970 solo record John The Wolf King of L.A. which focuses on Topanga Canyon. I love how this song builds from a single guitar to a full on sing-a-long.

10. Jimmy Payne “L.A. Angels”
When I was putting this mix together, I found that a number of musicians have a love/hate relationship with L.A. There are so many songs about coming to L.A. to find fame and fortune and then failing and moving home. My experience of L.A. has been so different, however, and I really wanted to end this mix with a song that perfectly describes my feelings for this vastly underrated town. I mentioned this desire to my friend Chad Brown (of local L.A. band C.B. Brand), and he told me he had just the track to ease my troubled mind. Ease it he did with this brilliant little gem of a tune. I just want to say, I love you L.A. Thanks for all the wonderful years.

Other notable L.A. tunes:
The Beatles’ “Blue Jay Way”, the Kinks’ “Celluloid Heroes”, Joni Mitchell’s “Ladies of the Canyon”, Rosewood Thieves’ “Los Angeles”, Chuck Berry’s “Promised Land”, Neil Young’s “L.A.”, Love’s “Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark And Hilldale.”

One-Reel Comedy: Last week was the 80th anniversary of the first sound movie by the deathless duo Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, a secular miracle celebrated later that same Wednesday evening at the Hollywood Heritage Museum on Highland. The first show was sold out, with amazed staff blinking owlishly at an unprecedented turnout for Stan and Babe, two clowns from gentler times whose small local cult seems to all know each other by sight. While awaiting the promised second show, I faded up the stairs to the small park above, loping right a trio of surly methheads making threatening sounds. I smiled, showed them my can of pepper spray and was soon wrapped in splendid solitude, enjoying some pre-credit skempy and mumbling Dukenfield imprecations at a Tinseltown where gentlemen of the arts can’t even get decently high anymore. Turns out Men o’ War, the boys’ second sound movie, was shot in Hollenbeck Park, not far from my crib in dear old Boyle Heights. Before this delightful artifact rolled, a speaker urged us to never, ever go there after dark.

Sharpe Dressed Men: Well, what to do after dark downtown is an abiding question that ArtWalk answers only one Thursday a month. Part market for recession-wracked artists, part roving singles meat-rack, part experiment in social Darwinian set design, this event now features more music and more public mating rituals than ever, along with an uptick in cops and panhandlers, with the latter looking much better-heeled than the human scarecrows kept penned along the Nickel a few blocks away. I was in work mode, but every other unattached male had his game on, with even the most faux-negligent hipster-dude got up like Prince’s pet horse. The party shrank to a still-formidable throng holed up inside the Regent Theater and Art Walk had been over a couple of hours by the time headliners Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes took the stage. The temperature was already approaching sauna level as the heartland-indie ensemble sweated to squeeze big-sky theatrics into a sound system like a high-end transistor radio. Sharpe is gifted Ima Robot frontman Alex Ebert’s rebirthing exercise and, as self-recreation, beats all kinds of fuck out of Buster Poindexter. The mostly male crowd in the back was wilting when I left, but the kids up front were having quite the time, as Ebert led them with customary ease and charisma. Outside was the usual post-11 p.m. crypt, with even the panhandlers as gone as if officers had picked them up and mailed them to Arizona.

Imagine There’s No Cops: Contrast this with the near-total absence of duly-constituted authority encountered last Saturday night. May 16 came with a nice assortment of temptations, from the Doves/Wild Light hullabaloo at the Wiltern to favorites Dead Meadow supporting Mogwai at the Orpheum to a fancy private party with sexy girls galore at supersecret boho digs somewhere in Lincoln Heights. Still, I’d played with a new short story until the day was well along, not starting my weekend at all until the first cubensis sprig went down the hatch at the New Beverly Cinema while a program of vintage science-fiction movie trailers throbbed on the screen. The non-Keanu original of The Day the Earth Stood Still followed, and then I adjourned to the Wilshire Boulevard Metro stop, stepping off the 720 at Central and legging to the Plump “May Flowers” party already in progress at the usual secret hideout a mile away on S. Santa Fe Ave. Dallying until the small hours in the company of sexy pals and the spun action-adventure soundtrack of Shylock, DMT Underground and more, I did a shroom-laden Technicolor wobble home through a curiously active Wholesale District with nary a sign of cop, fire marshal or security guard. Only the sweaty togs worn by bus drivers reminded me uniforms existed at all.

Friedman, Fowley, and Monsters of the A-List: The Cult of Ruby gets a little larger with each Viper Room appearance, with La Friedman herself giving a dazzling glimpse of stadium-sized ability during the near-routine course of blowing the doors off the place Monday the 18th. She’s a kind of ultimate rarity -a dazzling chanteuse with a nuanced view of the world you can jump up and down to. She puts on the kind of shows people blog about on Facebook as life-altering experiences and so I felt refreshed enough even for Silverlake Lounge, arriving in time for a last kandy-koated taste of Amusement Parks on Fire. The Nottingham shoegazers are in town recording a new album, so this is perhaps not the last of such hole-in-the-wall appearances. I missed the next act pacing the alleyway in back chortling with producer/songwriter/icon Kim Fowley on my cell. In the course of giving a Molly Bloom-like “yes” to an L.A. Record interview, the Man Who Invented Everything brought me up to date on his return to Hollywood, finally unloading summary judgment on the pimps and no-neck johns lurking at A-list watering holes these degraded days, seeking whom they may bore. I fingered the nozzle on my pepper spray idly and agreed it all sounded perfectly frightful—the sort of thing one takes up wandering to miss.

—Ron Garmon

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.

(from The Living And The Dead out now on Anti)

Jolie Holland wears a belt with her old nickname on it but leaves her guitar strap blank. She hasn’t had a room of her own since 2005, but her new album The Living And The Dead is out now on Anti. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

What are you looking at right now?
This hat with a raven’s feather in it. My best friend watched it fall out of the nest.
What is the symbolic significance of a raven’s feather fresh from the nest?
Well, they say ravens travel between worlds.
So what does that do if it’s on your head?
I don’t know. I just think about how time is an illusion—in a sense, we’re all everybody all the time. But we normally don’t really have a consciousness of that. Maybe the mythology associated with the feather is a reminder that that’s true? I don’t know.
This is like 13th Floor Elevators liner notes. Have you read that book?
No, but I did just read a really good book about Townes Van Zandt written by John Kruth. To Live’s To Fly. One of my favorite parts in it is they talked about how they mixed a posthumous record, and there was poltergeist activity in the studio. And that meant a lot to me because when I made The Living And The Dead there was some poltergeist activity. It was really freaky. It happened twice—once I didn’t see it. And then it happened with me. It was all about the second song—about a friend of mine that killed himself. So the lights were going off and on above the performers, but not all of the lights. Just the white lights. And there would be red light in the room. I was upstairs and they came up and told me. It was so weird and freaky that I didn’t know what to think. Have you ever been around ghosts?
Not yet.
I think one of the weird things is that it’s actually not scary. It’s more scary to think about it then for it to actually happen. I saw a ghost with somebody else for 45 minutes straight one time.
Waiting for a bus?
It was standing outside the house in broad daylight and I was 13 and she was 16 and there was four people there in the same room—playing a game of Scrabble, so we were sitting there a long time. At first I was like, ‘Why is this white shadow out there?’ It’s not like I was unfamiliar with the space—I sat there and had breakfast every morning. My friend saw it and my mother and my sister didn’t. My twin sister. But it wasn’t scary.
What was it like?
It was just fucking weird.
Is there any unexplained audio on that song on The Living And The Dead?
There’s weird wooshy noises on the vocal track, but it could have been the table or something. But the same thing happened when we were working on that track in New York. The first time was in Portland. It was only when we working on his song. The lights were going off and on and off and on above my head when I was singing.
Can you walk under streetlights and turn them off?
No—like people who break their own watches and shit? I’m not one of those people. I think we’re all—I think there are mechanisms we don’t understand culturally. I think other cultures have better understanding of stuff like that. We don’t have a whole lot of language to talk about that stuff. I have a friend who was on the verge of death and she was going to the best Chinese doctor in San Francisco and just came back from the brink. She had to have surgery, and the doctor was working on her, but he told her one day that she had to move out of her house. And she was like, ‘What are you talking about? I’m so sick. It’s gonna suck to move out of my house.’ ‘Well, you have a ghost in your house and you need to move.’
And then she got better?
Yeah. And she didn’t tell him there was a ghost—he could just tell. She knew her house was haunted. Her friend had died in the house.
Are you used to these kinds of experiences?
I’m really curious about it. If something crazy like that happened to you when you were thirteen, it would definitely change your life.
Have you ever one of your songs played at a wedding?
I think my songs are pretty gloomy. I know they’ve played them at a funeral. My friend’s daughter’s funeral.
If America goes into a new Depression, who will be the new Rose Maddox?
There could never be another.
You said the best music comes from the hungriest mouths—what were you thinking about?
I was just being a snob because I was dirt poor.
Do you feel different now?
No.
Are you still dirt poor?
I’m pretty dirt poor. I don’t know. I’m dirt poor but I have accountants.
That sounds like a Webb Pierce lyric.
I live on the road so I can’t pay my bills or anything.
Didn’t you once sell puppies to pay bills? What’s the best way to get by?
I don’t know. Getting a job is not that bad. I miss having a job.
What was the last one?
I was a waitress at Howard’s Diner in San Francisco. It was a real sweet family business. Pretty much all the waitresses sang there. It was really nice. The busboy—the 70-year-old busboy from China used to sing to me all the time. We both knew this one Chinese song and we’d sing it together.
Do you think he still thinks of you from time to time?
I hope so. I think about him all the time.

JOLIE HOLLAND WITH HERMAN DUNE ON MON., OCT. 13, AT THE TROUBADOUR, 9081 SANTA MONICA BLVD., WEST HOLLYWOOD. 8 PM / $15 / ALL AGES. TROUBADOUR.COM. JOLIE HOLLAND’S THE LIVING AND THE DEAD IS OUT NOW ON ANTI. VISIT JOLIE HOLLAND AT JOLIEHOLLAND.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/JOLIEHOLLAND.