WINNEMUCCA - Great Basin Arts and Entertainment's "Music at the Martin" continues tonight at 7 p.m. with Ramblin' Jack Elliott's third performance in Winnemucca.
Elliott set off sparks in London when he traveled there in 1955. The young musicians in England were just starting to investigate American blues and traditional country music. Into their midst fell a guitar-playing cowboy. He showed up in this world of proper gentlemen in his boots, his jeans and wearing his Stetson. He could play flawlessly in the styles they had only heard but never seen. Elliott's time in England and Europe helped prime the British Invasion that showed up on U.S. shores 10 years later.
One of the last true links to the great folk traditions of this country, with over 40 albums under his belt, Elliott is considered one of the country's legendary foundations of folk music.
Long before every kid in America wanted to play guitar - before Elvis, Dylan, the Beatles or Led Zeppelin - Ramblin' Jack had picked it up and was passing it along. From Johnny Cash to Tom Waits, Beck to Bonnie Raitt, Ry Cooder to Bruce Springsteen, the Grateful Dead to The Rolling Stones, they all pay homage to Ramblin' Jack Elliott.
He has recorded 40 albums; wrote one of the first trucking songs, "Cup of Coffee," recorded by Johnny Cash; championed the works of new singer-songwriters, from Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson to Tim Hardin; became a founding member of Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue; and continued the life of the traveling troubadour influencing Jerry Jeff Walker, Guy Clark, Tom Russell The Grateful Dead and countless others.
In 1995, Ramblin' Jack received his first of five Grammy nominations and the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album, for "South Coast" (Red House Records). Elliott was again recognized with a Grammy Award for best Traditional Blues Album in 2009, for "A Stranger Here" (Anti-Epitaph Records).
In 1998, President Bill Clinton awarded Elliott the National Medal of the Arts, proclaiming, "In giving new life to our most valuable musical traditions, Ramblin' Jack has himself become an American treasure."
In 2000, Elliott's daughter, filmmaker, Aiyana Elliott, produced and directed "The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack," her take on Elliott's life and their fragile relationship, winning a Special Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival.
At eighty, Ramblin' Jack is still on the road, still seeking those people, places, songs and stories that are hand-crafted, wreaking of wood and canvas, cowhide and forged metal. You'll find him in the sleek lines of a long haul semi-truck, in the rigging of an old sailing ship, in the smell of a fine leather saddle.
Tickets are $15 each and are available at Nature's Corner, Global Coffee and The Martin Hotel.
This event is presented by Great Basin Arts and Entertainment, a local, all-volunteer grass-roots non-profit, organized to bring world class performances to the community. For more information visit www.gbae.org.
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