This is a funny little album. He's got one of those hillbilly voices and plays a country/bluegrass guitar with that interwoven strumming and picking technique. It's done well. The songs have humour and he does these spoken intros over the opening vamps. It's quirky and it's early enough that I could believe he was one of the first to do this. There's something reminiscent of A Boy Named Sue about the delivery and it's pretty enjoyable although I wouldn't ever put this on out of choice. But I'll certainly makes a note of it cuz it could be useful as background music for a film or a show.
And speaking of Johnny Cash, there's a track on here called Cocaine. The first time I heard this song was at a Swansea open mic when a guy called Ian (I think they call him the Reverend Ian) played it. I don't recall him citing Ramblin Jack Elliot as the writer at the time but this is obviously where he got it. Then some years later I saw Walk The Line and Joaquin Phoenix plays it near the end of the film.
While trying to identify which film I'd seen this in, I discovered this really useful site. It doesn't just list songs on the official soundtrack, it identifies songs used anywhere in the film.
So where the Louvin Brothers left me cold, Ramblin Jack left me with a smile on my face. Groovy.
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