Saturday Night at the Oldies: Ramblin' Elliot Charles Adnopoz

David Dalton, Who is That Man? In Search of the Real Bob Dylan, Hyperion, 2012, p. 65:

As Dave van Ronk pointed out in his autobiography, many of the people involved in the first folk revival of the 1930s and '40s were Jewish -- as were the folkies of the '60s. Van Ronk reasoned that for Jews, belonging to a movement centered on American traditional music was a form of belonging and assimilation.

[. . .]

"The revelation that Jack [Elliot] was Jewish was vouchsafed unto Bobby one afternoon at the Figaro," Van Ronk recalled.  "We were sitting around shooting the bull with Barry Kornfeld and maybe a couple of other people and somehow it came out that Jack had grown up in Ocean Parkway and was named Elliot Adnopoz.  Bobby literally fell off his chair; he was rolling around on the floor, and it took him a couple of minutes to pull himself together and get up again.  Then Barry, who can be diabolical in things like this, leaned over to him and just whispered the word 'Adnopoz' and back he went under the table."

Lacking as it does the proper American cowboy resonance, 'Elliot Charles Adnopoz' was ditched by its bearer who came to call himself 'Ramblin' Jack Elliot.'  Born in 1931 in Brooklyn to Jewish parents who wanted him to become a doctor, young Adnopoz rebelled, ran away, and became a protege of Woody Guthrie.  If it weren't for Ramblin' Jack, Guthrie would be nowhere near as well-known as he is today. 

Pretty Boy Floyd.  "As through this life you ramble, as through this life you roam/You'll never see an outlaw drive a family from their home."  No?  An example of the  tendency of lefties invariably to  take the side of the underdog regardless of whether right or wrong.  

Ramblin' Jack does a haunting version of Dylan's Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues.  It grows on you. Give it a chance.  Cigarettes and Whisky and Wild Woman.  Soul of a Man. Dylan's unforgettable,  Don't Think Twice.  Here he is with Joan Baez, Leonard Cohen, Buffy Sainte Marie singing the beautiful, Passing Through.

Lyrics below the fold.

I saw Jesus on the cross on a hill called Calvary
"Do you hate mankind for what they done to you?"
He said, "talk of love not hate, things to do - it's getting late.
I've so little time and I'm only passing through."

 

Passing through, passing through.
Sometimes happy, sometimes blue,
Glad that I ran into you.
Tell the people that you saw me passing through.

 

I saw Adam leave the garden with an apple in his hand,
I said "now you're out, what are you going to do? "
"plant some crops and pray for rain, maybe raise a little cane/Cain.
I'm an orphan now, and I'm only passing through."

 

Passing through, passing through . . .

 

I was with Washington at Valley Forge, shivering in the snow.
I said, "How come the men here suffer like they do? "
"Men will suffer, men will fight, even die for what is right
Even though they know they're only passing through"

 

Passing through, passing through . . .

 

I was at Franklin Roosevelt's side on the night before he died.
He said, "One world must come out of world war two" 
"Yankee, Russian, white or tan, " he said, "a man is still a man.
We're all on one road, and we're only passing through."

 

Passing through, passing through . . .

Passing through, passing through . . .

 

Songwriters: Richard Blakeslee

Passing Through lyrics © Princess Music Publishing Corp