Crítica del álbum

Three years ago in Columbia, Mo., Jack Elliott said, "Here's a little song Bob Dylan wrote for me," and plunged into the sweetest rendition of "Don't Think Twice" I've ever heard. Whether he was kidding about Dylan's having written the song for him or not didn't matter, it sounded as if it was Jack's song alone, as if I'd never heard it before. I once heard Dylan say that he never intended the song to be a love ballad but rather a light, sweet and sour comment on the fortunes of love. Elliott takes it even further, gives it a new expression and comes out sounding almost happy that his reflections are real and not melancholy.

But "Don't Think Twice" isn't the only song with a change of face on Ramblin' Jack Elliott's latest album, Young Brigham.

"Connection," for all the people who've looked at the back of the jacket and said "it couldn't be!" is the most startling piece of country-rock ever laid down. I hope Mick Jagger and Keith Richard have heard this because it'll never be the same again. When Jack sings, "and all I want to do-oo-ooh, is to get back to yoo-oo-ooh," it sounds as if he's caught his leg in a bear trap and is struggling to get free. On this version of "Connection," Ramblin' Jack has sewn buttons of a different color on the Stones' composition.

"If I Were a Carpenter" is sung without the terseness of Tim Hardin's lyric but with infinitely more tenderness. Elliott's "mill wheel grinding" really grinds, his "loneliness" is a howl in the distance. On "Talking Fisherman" Elliott transplants "Talking World War III" to the local fishing hole. "Forget all about it" croons Jack of the world's troubles. Richard Green's strong fiddle accompaniment on "Tennessee Stud" provides the perfect complement to Ramblin' Jack's guitar in this barn dance story of a cowboy's adventures with his Tennessee stallion evading Indians, irate gamblers and more in the finest country yarn tradition.

Prior to the "Night Herding Song" Jack favors his listeners with his favorite imitation (over two minutes long) of a caterpillar tractor. If nothing else, it's certainly a good imitation of a caterpillar tractor. The song is unaccompanied and sounds so much like Almeda Riddle or Maybelle Carter that it's hard for me to believe that Jack Elliott was really born in Brooklyn. "Rock Island Line," the old Leadbelly tune, is given the Elliott treatment and sounds as good as ever.

"Danville Girl" is Elliott at his most relaxed moment. It's a pleasant country song that sounds as if it were composed on Woody Guthrie's back porch. Off "912 Greens," an address, Jack tells us, of a friend's place in New Orleans, he tells a melancholy story of some good times he had back "many years ago" in Louisiana with a three-legged cat, a banana tree and a nude girl dancing in the rain.

Having been a good friend of Woody Guthrie's, it's no surprise that after Woody's death Jack would include a song of his. He ends the album with "Goodnight Little Arlo," a community-sing bedtime song that Woody used to sing to his sons, Arlo and Jody. It is preceded by a personal message from Jack to Arlo, telling him to "get some sleep," and that by looking at the cover photo of Arlo's album, Jack opines, "It looks like you been burnin' the candle at both ends." (RS 7)

BARRY GIFFORD

léelo en rollingstone.com