Jack Takes the Floor

Pure, plain, and simple folk music. Jack Elliott hung out with Woody Guthrie, taught Woody's son his father's music and finger picking style after he passed too soon, and inspired Bob Dylan...his inclusion into the 1001 is cemented in that sentence alone. His voice is probably my only quibble, as he often does too much of a warble with it. However, this was also very much of its time, so take that for what it's worth. *Record is out of print - Found mostly intact by a kind YouTube upload.

Thx for the influence - Bob Dylan will take it from here!

Reminds me of my great-grandfather, Marion “Red” Caudill. Miss him dearly. He used to talk about CCC sites that he worked at in the 30s. He’d sing me and my cousins a little tune such as these. I believe it was an amalgamation of “Big Rock Candy Mountain,” and other Jack Elliot/Woody Guthrie tunes. This just feels like he’s singing to me again.

Wow really good music. Love the spoken introductions to the songs.

This was actually pretty cool. I enjoyed listening and really think I should spend more time with this artist. There should be more of this and less Yes.

Big nope for me. 1/5 San Francisco Bay Blues: 2 Ol’ Riley: 2,5 Boll Weevil: 2 Bed Bug Blues: 1,5 New York Town: 2 Grey Goose: 1 Mule Skinner Blues: 1 Cocaine: 1 Dink’s Song: 1 Black Baby: 1 Salty Dog: 1

Nice historical document. Jackson Browne does a great version of the song Cocaine.

Some old-timey folk music. Interesting music with storytelling. I know he was an influence on Bob Dylan and contemporary of Woody Guthrie. Not my normal jam but definitely recommended.

Imagine my surprise when I looked up Jack Elliott and discovered he's a Jewish kid from Brooklyn, and not a cowboy from out west. This is far more country than it is folk, although the Woody Guthrie appearance certainly lends to credence to this genre designation, as well as his impact on the NYC folk scene. I enjoyed this one quite a bit. It likely won't win over any converts if you have a predilection for hating country and folk.

Definitely a record of its time. If Woody Guthrie is your thing then I reckon you’ll like this

Why this was on the list I don't know. Thankfully it was only around 30 mins long, but it certainly felt longer.

Meh, this is not my cup of tea. I do enjoy the lo-fi quality that comes with the older recording equipment; it has its charm for sure. But this kind of music, I have to be in the mood for it. It's not a bad album, but just not one for me.

I got to cocaine and I can’t see why it’s rated so low… it’s such a fun and refreshing album to hear in 2026. If you take it too seriously then sure it might fall short but come on lighten up. I’m not saying it’s perfect for all occasions but the pacing is good (it actually isn’t rambling) the instrumentation is great and his voice is interesting. What exactly is the problem?

I made the mistake of looking at the other reviews before I composed my own for old Ramblin' Jack. At press time, this sits at two point eight (rounded up), and I can get why people would not feel this. But I would also like to say: C'mon now, show some respect. There are some really wonderful cuts on this album, and Jack even brought out old Woody on "New York Town." Recording is pretty rough when you compare it to its contemporaries (e.g. Frank Sinatra, Fats Domino) but that adds to its charm. Jack is still just the young fella who ran away from home to ride in the rodeo. And one can see how fruitful Jack's music was right away. When you listen to tracks like "East Texas Talking Blues," you can smell him all the way through Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash to Willie and Waylon and in every other country or folk artist who is worth hearing. Jack is worth hearing, too.

I had to go to YouTube for this album. I hadn't heard of Ramblin' Jack Elliott before, but he's got quite the story. Raised by a well-known, respected doctor in Brooklyn, Jack wanted to be a cowboy after seeing the rodeos at Madison Square Garden. However, his parents wanted him to follow his father's footsteps and become a surgeon. So, at age 15, Jack ran away from home to join a traveling rodeo. His parents found him a couple of months later, but by that point, Jack had already seen his first singing cowboy. Once back home, Jack taught himself guitar and performed on the streets for a living. Eventually, Jack got together with Woody Guthrie, of all people, and Guthrie took him under his wing. This connection eventually led to Jack touring the UK and recording folk records for the UK label Topic Records, including this one, Jack Takes the Floor. Yes, that last statement feeds into the UK bias that Robert Dimery and his editorial team tend to lean on for inclusions in the 1001 Albums book, but I do see the merit in including Jack Elliott. The lengths to which he went to pursue his dreams, disavowing his wealthy upbringing, are admirable and lend credibility to Elliott developing as a singer-songwriter in his own right. Make no mistake, Jack could yelp and holler with such fervor through his songs of roughing it out and trying to make ends meet, alongside some humorous storytelling. Sure, this album's a bit cheesy, the lyrics are admittedly underdeveloped for his original compositions, half of the songs are covers, and the production is grainy. But I do recognize the grit and good performance from a man with his guitar, and I'm willing to be a little lenient, given that this is a folk record released in 1958. In short, I respect Ramblin' Jack Elliott for what he accomplished by going against the grain, culminating in an album like this that made for a nice listen, albeit abbreviated and dated. I'm not surprised that the likes of Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, and even Woody Guthrie's son Arlo were happy to have Elliott in their company.

++: San Francisco Baby Blues, Ol' Riley, Boll Weevil, New York Town, Grey Goose, Mule Skinner Blues, Dink's Song +: Bed Bug Blues, Black Baby, Salty Dog +-: Cocaine 9,0/10

This album is by no means a must-have! It’s yet another one that makes you wonder why it’s on this list - at least it’s not country, so that’s something :-(

It’s good. Not life changing. Just good.

didn't listen to it

6,5/10

I know he’s a legend and also influential on Bob but this may be a case of the student being better than the master. I was gunning for a lower score but a few repeated listen brought it back to baseline.

Rambling on the good ol' gueeetar. Felt like listening to a semi-drunk dude dicking around on his guitar by the campfire. Not sure it deserved to be on this list. It gets a point because it's the kind of country I can tolerate a little more -- the kind that screams Americana and feels more "cultural" than the modern junk. 2*

its great and all but i thought he'd be ramblin' a bit more!

".....Honey let me be your Salty Dog". now i know where The Darlings got this song to play on the Andy Griffith Show. Such a great album. One of the albums that exploded folk music in NYC.

This seemed pretty representative of the 50s folk movement. Nothing special to me, but very nostalgic. Felt like I was in the wild west around a campfire or something. Fun listen. Don't need to again.

A cross between Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Hank Willian and the Darlings. Enjoyed. Can picture myself sitting on a deck or around a fire and smiling while listening. A nice change of pace

Salty Dog… need I say more. Stolen from the Darling’s and Ernest T. Bass! Haha. Typical 1950’s folk music.

I'd be much mor excited to find this record in a bargain bin than I would be to listen to it. He's one of those dearly beloved folk giants whose appeal escapes me.

I love this fundamentally American story: A guy runs away from home and joins the rodeo to avoid following in his father’s footsteps as a doctor, teaches himself guitar, meets up with Woody Guthrie and ends up being foundational to the career of Bob Dylan. The songs reflect that boho adolescence, from the hardships of farmers (“Boll Weevil”) or odes to blind street preachers in Harlem (“Cocaine”). It mixes folk with Delta Blues traditions and prefigures the 60s counterculture and even the street-level storytelling of hip-hop decades later.

Fine but inessential.

Nah, that's alright. Pass.

I'm nowhere near american enough to get this.

This guy has such an intense bed bug infection it caused him to yodel.

no me gusto

Can't stand the talking drawl over guitar music. This must've been inspiration for Bob Dylan. 2/5

So folksy, much yodeling

* really bad vocals, good instrumental

I think this album is important as you can hear the influence it had on Bob Dylan & other artists. It's a bit of a tough listen as it's certainly dated.

Clearly influential but the production quality is poor. 3/5.

Classic American folk music.

I debated giving this five stars but it never hit that peak of perfection for me. A lot of the songs on here surprised me. It ranged from your standard talking blues country songs, to yodeling and duck noises, capped all off with some catchy ant nuclear jingles. Each song was a delight in its own sort of way.

It's interesting and funny how early Bob is the perfect offspring, in both sound and image, of Woody's politics and Jack's strangeness (plus a little something earnest of his own)--I had no idea before today! I enjoy this as a time capsule, but it mostly makes me want to go listen to one or more Bootleg albums.

Decent folk, but probably won't revisit this one. Favorite track: Grey Goose

im not listeining to this bs

This is pretty standard 50s folk, which definitely sounds more like country to a modern ear. More Johnny Cash than Bob Dylan. And a lesser Johnny Cash should I add. It's not bad music by any metric, but it is kinda dull.

boring shit

*Old timey faux Appalachian from the 30’s voice* Well, I was born on a rainy Tuesday under a full moon the color of corn liquor in the holler of a town that ain’t on no map, to a sharecropper daddy who done lost his leg in the war and a mama who could sing the devil right out of a mule. I took to the road at the age of nine with a bindle on a stick and a heart full of sorrow, ridin’ the rails from ol’ San Antone to the muddy Okacholie, where I met a blind street preacher named Big Jim McGee who done taught me three chords, seven verses of ‘The Roving Gambler,’ and how to tell the difference between a boll weevil and a man who ain’t worth his salt. Well, Big Jim had himself a daughter, Little Sadie, who was courted by a gambler, a ramblin’ man, and a fella named Stagger Lee, all of ‘em wanted for murder in three counties and a parish, and one night they got into a poker game down in Gitchie Goomie with a railroad man from ol’ Muskegee who’d done killed his woman with a rusty razor and buried her in the Cumberland Gap. Now, I don’t rightly know what happened next, on account of the train come through and took my hat, my rust bag, and the last honest dollar I ever seen, but I reckon that’s the way of this wicked old world, where the rich man rides in a Pullman car and the poor man rides in a grease barrel strapped to a one-legged dog, where the river keeps rollin’ and the cotton keeps growin’ and the hammer keeps ringin’ till the judgment day, when the Lord’ll come down from the mountain with a shotgun in one hand and a jug of moonshine in the other and ask us all, ‘Which side are you on, boys?’ Well, I told him I was just a poor boy from the country, tryin’ to get to heaven ‘fore the devil knew I was dead, and he said, ‘Son, you done missed your train.’ So I caught the next one west, bound for Frisco, where the ocean meets the railroad track and the pretty girls wear ribbons in their hair and dance around in circles all day long, and I sang my song for a nickel to a man who’d lost his farm, his wife, his dog, and his only son to the man down at the bank, and he said, ‘Mister, that’s the saddest song I ever heard.’ And I said, ‘Well, mister, you ain’t heard the last verse yet,’ and I sang him a song about a hobo, a banjo, a dead mule, a union man, a crooked sheriff, a lonesome dove, a hard-luck miner, a rambling gambler who never played a hand, a railroad engineer, a mountain girl with coal-black hair, a hard-ridin’ cowboy, a hard-times farmer, a sailor lost at sea, a mother who’d died in childbirth, a father who’d gone to prison, a baby who’d been left on the doorstep of a prison who then was subsequently put into that same prison on that very same day on account of loitering, a dog who’d been shot by the revenuers for a crime he didn’t commit, and a man who’d been hung for a crime he had done but only in a dream but who figured he got what he deserved, and when I finished, the man asked for one more, so I gave him my review of Jack Takes the Floor by Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, and it went a little something like this: This sucks.

Nah, not feeling this today.

It’s calming and pleasant, but kinda went in one ear and out the other

As much as I loathe the genre, for some reason, this album has a charm. Hell, this man is such a good storyteller, he had me engaged in a ballad about Bed Bugs(I know it was the 1950s, but "Black Baby" was a terrible mistake). He also invented a sub-genre of music, so this album rightfully deserves to be on the list. Favorite Track: "Bed Bug Blues".

Rambling all right... This is neither original nor innovative, but just annoying.

Excellent folk by a contemporary of Woody Guthrie. It also just made me think of my grandad who would have loved this album.

Made it to Bed Bug Blues before deciding that I don’t want to spend my time listening to this.

Overall: 8/10 This is that classic folk stuff that I really enjoy. Jack has a great voice and poetic lyrics. I loved it. Fav Song: Dink's Song

Just not my type of music at all, and unlike other similar albums in which the genre is not my type, I just don't like it. Don't like the voice and can't really make out most of the lyrics. Meh

Classic country, all the usual tropes there but the voice and humour is particularly enjoyable. The production was very average even for the time which made this a harder listen, but at least it has a snapshot of Lo fi production from the era

The 1001 Albums We Must Hear Before We Die list could use more like this. Fun.

Ramblin’ Jack sure knows how to ramble.

Quack, quack, big duck.

85

A curious artifact from '58 — interesting to listen to once, but not more than that.

Two different songs about bugs. Cool

- This feels so honkey tonk folk to me, and I'm not into it. - Don't like the wailing and screechiness of his voice... and the annoying out-of-tune yodelling. - I also didn't like the lyrics (including the casual misogyny and racism). I get that everything is all tongue-in-cheek kind of thing, but he's supposed to be a storyteller, and I don't care at all about these "stories". There wasn't any vulnerability here (with his put-on accent, too), and not enough of anything else to make up for that. - The finger picking was the highlight, for sure. - Thankfully, the album is short... and I don't want to hear it again.

I find it hard to rate this album. Sometimes I found Ramblin' Jack's folksiness inauthentic and irritating, and other times I went along with it. Overall, I think he should have left out the chatter.

Waarom moet Ol’ Riley zo diy klinken

This was fine. Not something to get particularly excited about though.

I have to kind of grade this on a curve because Apple didn’t have this specific album on iTunes. So, I just listened to a compilation of his his stuff and got the idea. This is not my music of choice, but I understand why it’s on the list and importance. Ramblin Jack has been around a long time ( still alive! ), and rambling is kind of an appropriate name! Still - I learned something and appreciate his place in music history.

Maybe it’s because I live in Texas and am married to a yapper, but I enjoyed more than I expected to.

not on spotify/5

I appreciated a song or two worth of this but at one point it was just a little too much non-stop folk twang.

No for my taste unfortunately 2/5

Definitely earned the name "ramblin". I don't have a lot positive to say about this one - it's fine, maybe influencial? Every song though could've been two minutes shorter. Not a huge fan (especially Grey Goose... yikes) Rating: 3/10 Favorite Song: Cocaine

I can't think of anything I hated about this album, but I didn't find too much to enjoy either. I always like hearing how music as changed and been influenced upon throughout the decades, but sometimes what comes later is better than the predecessor that that influenced it. I think this might be the case for this album for me. Glad to have heard it, but don't think I'll be coming back for seconds.

mid

Wonderful music, cross between Dylan and Guthrie. However, the album was inconsistent at best.

I never knew country/blues was a thing. And I never knew I need it. the end gets a little too country for my tastes, but good album

Good

It can be hard to buy into a record when the artist starts the first track talking about some other guy who performed it, and with what sounds like a much more interesting backline than whatever is going on here. Jack redeems himself slightly with his hollering, which is generally preferable to his rambling, even if his fake drawl is more stereotypical than Ian Dury’s genuine cockney. Still, the record’s place on this list is questionable, even as a demonstration of Dylan’s lineage, when I believe there is no Woody Guthrie and I doubt there’s any Bobby Vee. 2 I note that Ramblin’ Jack is still alive. I wish him joy of course, but at the same time it does seem a little inappropriate. 2/5

I can appreciate the part Jack and this album may have played in leading to some later music that I absolutely adore, but this one fell right about in the middle for me

Guy is not a good enough singer or player to carry a whole album by himself.

A Jewish Doctor's son from New York who ran away with the rodeo to be a cowboy, Ramblin' Jack seems to have known everyone, from Woody Guthrie and Reverend Gary Davis to Dylan and Arlo Guthrie. A number of the songs he sings were also sung by Lead Belly (who was also fond of a spoken, explanatory introduction, particularly on the Smithsonian recordings) His influence on the early Dylan is obvious. His simple, traditional songs are presented with that spoken intro and some tasty acoustic guitar. It's sort of simple, old fashioned goodness set squarely in an Americana, roots tradition.

Old school traditional folk music, played by one man and his guitar (with one track adding harmonica and another pretending to be accompanied by folk legend Woody Guthrie). It's presented more like an archival recording than a performance; most songs have a few lines of spoken introduction about the origin of the song. This isn't high art; the timing is sometimes sloppy, the pitch is sometimes off, and the songs are old and simple. Also, Elliott grew up in Brooklyn, so I suspect a lot of his folksy charm is a put-on. I think the album is interesting as a historical document, but it's not going onto the listening pile.

He fooled me, I thought he was a less famous but authentic country boy, singing about country stuff. It would have been a three. But I'm docking a star because it's not authentic after all; perhaps that's why the songs aren't great, despite some quality picking.

Кантри и кантри.

<3

This one reminded me of Bob Dylan in styling, but this guy in understandable because he enunciates. I have no idea why Spotify delivered the version they did, because there's a song thrown in there that he didn't even perform on. The music is Americana folk, and on one track he works with Woody Guthrie, which was interesting. Bluesy, cowboy/hobo songs. Not my bag. I would not stick around if I walked into a room and this was playing. My Rating: 3/5

Not my genre.

This was a really cool album to listen to for its historical context. This era of music from the late 50s, especially folk music, is way out of my element, so it’s really hard for me to listen to this in the same context as someone who’s more familiar with this kind of music. But this was a really fun album, especially with the country folk, cowbo song, and blues elements. It almost fits the stereotype of everything you would associate with music like this, especially from this period. If anything, I wouldn’t be surprised if Jack Elliott was one of the artists who actually helped form that stereotype in the first place. Either way, the music is extremely stripped down, mostly just Jack Elliott with his guitar. A lot of what makes it interesting is his clever phrasing and storytelling, and some of his vocal performances are more along the lines of half spoken and half sung.

Couldn't find the album on Apple Music, but listened to some of his other stuff and it was fine.

I would not expect a New Yorker to be that good of an old time folksy cowboy type but well done even if he was cosplaying.

Oh no...!! Not available in my streaming service. I've seen seen the cover and checked the reviews, I'll be fine. Heard before  ❌️ Listened this time ❌️ Revisit ❌️ ★★☆☆☆(4/10) Default Total reviewed : 434 Already owned : 98 Purchased : 21 To buy : 5 Nope : 310

He certainly rambles. I don't really know what to do with this album cause it's not good, and it's also not really like horribly bad. I mean, the fact that he struggles to find a tune at several points is certainly something. Like, there's no way something like this would get released today. There's so much of this album that just feels like the very first thing the mic recorded. And the fact that it keeps peaking throughout the album really adds to that. I think this album is trying to be funny at points, at no point was I laughing with it, but I'm laughing at it instead. And 'Grey Goose', in particular, really sucked. Lawd lawd lawd. Fav Track: San Francisco Baby Blues

Well, not sure I needed to hear that. But there were a couple of good songs on it. I could imagine me and my friends (back in the day) finding this and learning some of the songs to play and sing during our down-time at college.

This wasn't on Spotify or Apple Music. I had to listen to it on Youtube, which is always annoying. It was fine. It was folksy and bluesy with an old country sound. He had a song with Woody Guthrie on it. It was just him and a guitar.

Maybe too much ramblin’ for this time in the morning. Favourite track: Cocaine

Interesting to listen to as an obvious Dylan influence. But not an album that I'd go back to.

If Jack White wasn’t influenced by this guy then what is life? Not my favorite thing to listen to in the realm of alt country….? I don’t know. Country? Bluesy country All that is rolled into this album Nothing to take from the album though. All the songs are just present

Som en kuriositet av historisk relevans? Greit. Men jeg hører ikke på musikk fordi det har historisk relevans. Tilbøyelig for at det har en plass på denne lista dersom det faktisk har historisk relevans; at feks. Bob Dylan hadde en åpenbaring da han hørte J. Elliott for første gang og la en trygg karriere i finans på hylla og løp ut og kjøpte seg en kassegitar & harmonica for pengene han skulle bruke på college tuition. Basert på den snevre wikipedia-artikkelen til albumet, så er det eneste merkverdige med skiva at den er med på denne lista. Men det handler kanskje ikke om skiva, men om mannen? Går i så fall litt vekk ifra listas konsept, som tilsynelatende er album-basert; det er ikke 1001 artister du bør høre før du dør.

Syns jeg hører mye tidlig Dylan i det her, og derfor skjønner jeg ikke helt hva det er som gjør av Freewheelin' Bob Dylan feks kommer så mye bedre ut av det. Kanskje samme grunn som at Freewheelin' kommer bedre ut av det enn det litt bortglemte debutalbumet til Dylan. Det er for det meste coverlåter? Man blir en tolker, men legger seg så tett opp mot tradisjonen at reelt bidrag er bedre opptaksutstyr og eventuelle preferanser på vokal og gitar. Freewheelin kopierer mye av trad-låtene, men det føles mer som adaptering enn cosplaying av Woody Guthrie. Men jeg liker uttrykket til Elliot, for all del.

On paper, I should hate this - but the innovative guitar, the charming delivery, the remarkably modern lyrics for a 50s recording, I actually found incrediblu charming. Right on the 4/5 boundary, the lofi recording probably just keeps it as a 4, but only just...