With all due respect to the person who wrote the following, it is not a true story.

"Actually, my name is really, Joseph Paul Katzberg. My friend Elliot Adnapoz, and I both decided about the same time, that in 1946, no one wanted to hear the kind of music we wanted to sing by a couple of guys named AdnapoZ and Katzberg, so he adopted a stage name, as I did. He became, "Ramblin' Jack Elliot" and I became "Stumblin" Joe Gibson."

In 1946, Eliott Charles Adnopoz was only 15 years old. In 1948, he changed his name to Buck Elliott when he decided he wanted to be a rodeo cowboy. Hanging around the rodeo, he began to play cowboy songs and soon realized that he'd be less banged up as a musician than as a rodeo cowboy.

He says that around 1950 or 1951, he changed his name from Buck Elliott to Jack Elliott and that Odetta's mother named him Ramblin' Jack around 1954.

With Jack's cooperation, I am currently writing his biography. We're hoping that it will ready for publication in 2002.

Paul White