Dear Catters,

The motion picture Ballad of Ramblin' Jack was a *great* documentary. It furnished wonderful insights into the 1950's and 60's New York folk scene and Jack Elliott's role. Hey, he coulda been a surgeon, but he chose to make folk music for all of us.

My only quibble with the film is that none of the music in this documentary can touch any of the tracks recorded by Ramblin' Jack in 1960 and 1961, recently released on a CD called Hard Travelin' on the Fantasy label. Jack's guitar technique, as reflected in the numbers recorded for the film, is well below the performance abilities that he had demonstrated years earlier. If you have only seen the documentary and have never heard any of these early tracks, then you don't know Ramblin' Jack's art. I first heard these tunes on vinyl in 1962 and they still blow me away. This, IMHO, is the ultimate in folk music.

--Finn McC