Previous:
https://thoobasa.blogspot.com/2025/03/next-legacy-with-guest.html
STEVE: Your suggestions really helped, and I'm so thankful.
HOOKER: No trouble at all.
BEAR: What did you end up doing?
STEVE: Nothing's public yet, but I'm putting as much of his work as I can, including published work, onto a website I'll call "A Literary Archive."
HOOKER: Excellent.
STEVE: At another website I'm publishing something short every month.
BEAR:'Something short?
STEVE: Poems, short stories, journal things.
BEAR: Sounds like you're going to be busy.
STEVE: I found software that will do everything for me. I just have to input things in the order I want.
HOOKER: I was going to suggest using software.
STEVE: So Hooker, thank you, thank you, thank you.
HOOKER: You're very welcome, welcome, welcome.
(Pause.)
STEVE: So how did you guys meet?
HOOKER: Oh boy ...
BEAR: We've been friends since grad school.
HOOKER: Mid sixties at U of O in Eugene. Over half a century, ago Bear.
STEVE: Wow.
BEAR: We were both very active in the folk music scene.
STEVE: As performers?
BEAR: Often, yes. But we didn't really take performing seriously until we both ended up at Portland State in mid career.
STEVE: Did you play professionally?
BEAR: Depends on how you define it.
HOOKER: Sometimes we got paid and sometimes we didn't.
STEVE: Did you make any records?
BEAR: No, we didn't.
HOOKER: But we could pack the house at coffee shops and student unions.
BEAR: We were a trio. I played banjo, Hooker 12-string and harmonica on a rack, and we had a fiddle player. He died a few years ago.
HOOKER: The Faculty Four Minus One.
STEVE: Who was the fourth player?
HOOKER: There never was a fourth player. We just liked the sound of the name.
BEAR: THEY liked the sound of the name. I was out-voted, 2-1.
STEVE: When did your trio stop performing?
BEAR: Are you ready for this? Our last gig was over the July 4th weekend in 2010.
HOOKER: Of course by then we might play only half a dozen gigs a year.
STEVE: That's still awesome history. And you stayed good friends.
HOOKER: Unlikely as this is.
STEVE: Why is that?
BEAR: I'm conservative and he's progressive.
HOOKER: Bear's a Republican and I--
BEAR: There is no Republican party today. And an Independent like yourself who always votes Democratic, might as well be a Democrat.
HOOKER: I have a big problem with Democrats today. I disagree with their position on trans women in sports.
BEAR: I'm shocked. Let's talk about that soon.
STEVE: What I'm hearing is, your musical bonding is more important than politics. I like that.
BEAR: Our most important musical bonding happened when we discovered we had the same favorite folksinger.
HOOKER: Ramblin' Jack Elliott.
STEVE: I'm not familiar with him.
BEAR: Oh boy. You take it, Hooker, you know more about him than I do.
HOOKER: Much has been written about young Bob Dylan visiting Woody Guthrie in the hospital. Well, Elliott was treating Guthrie like a mentor when Woody was still healthy. He traveled with Guthrie, visited and stayed with his family, which Arlo remembers with great fondness. In the end, Elliott came out sounding more like Woody Guthrie than Guthrie himself, according to Pete Seeger and others.
STEVE: Amazing.
BEAR: The thing is, all this was happening before the folk music craze. Elliott had to go overseas to find an audience.
HOOKER: He became popular in England and elsewhere, cut a few records, teaming up with a banjo player, and had quite a reputation by the time the folk music craze hit America.
BEAR: His return home was anticipated like the return of a hero.
HOOKER: Which it was. In New York, young Bob Dylan was sometimes billed as "the son of Ramblin Jack Elliott."
BEAR: And this has an ironic twist. Years later Elliott was asked why he had stopped playing harmonica on a rack. He said he was tired of being accused of imitating Dylan.
STEVE: I can't believe I never heard of this guy.
BEAR: There's lots of his music on YouTube. Other things, like when he won a Kennedy award.
HOOKER: Stream the documentary film made by his daughter. The Ballad of Ramblin Jack. Tells you everything you need to know.
BEAR: Another twist. Elliott does "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right"--
STEVE: I love that song.
BEAR: Elliott does it better than Dylan!
HOOKER: He's a master on guitar.
STEVE: And digging him so much solidified your friendship?
BEAR: After grad school we kept meeting at concerts and folk festivals.
HOOKER: And we both ended up at PSU. Still and always, Ramblin Jack Elliott fanatics.
STEVE: Is he still alive?
BEAR: And still performing.
HOOKER: Which I hate. He's nothing like he used to be.
BEAR: Only a few folk performers survive aging. Mississippi John Hurt.
HOOKER: I would agree.
STEVE: This has been great but I' ve got to go. I' ll check out YouTube. Thanks again for everything.
BEAR: No problem.
(Steve leaves.)
HOOKER: Think he'll look up Elliott?
BEAR: Fifty fifty.
(End)
Comments
Post a Comment