Nighttime Ramblin' Man

[Guest blogger August Brown can't wait to be 70 and just not care anymore.]

Part of being a country-influenced musician is that you have to be crotchety before your time. Scamps like Conor Oberst, Jeff Tweedy and Ryan Adams put on airs that a life of hopping trains, slugging Old Granddad and chasing black-hearted women left them beaten into the dust by the age of, what, 24? Sorry dudes, dating Winona Ryder and/or Parker Posey is a pretty instant disqualification from playing that card.

Maybe when you get to be Ramblin' Jack Elliott's age (born 1931, natch), you'll have earned the right to sit by your lonesome on a stool in the Mustang Stage and tell meandering stories about Spanish gambling and kicking it with Woody Guthrie. Among old-guard folkies still living, there is Elliott and there is everyone else. His work influenced everyone from Dylan to Springsteen to Pete Seeger, but today his songs are almost beside the point compared to his treasure trove of stories and happily haggard charisma. Elliott can stop a song mid-verse to say "now this song is where that song came from" and start a whole new tune without losing a beat or the audience. He even kicked out an obnoxious photographer who lingered to long at the front of the stage. A singer who doesn't like his picture taken? Youth sure is wasted on the young pearl-button crowd.