Before Robert Zimmerman moved to New York, changed his name to Bob Dylan, and claimed to be a dyed-in-the-wool folk troubadour, another young Jewish man, born Elliot Charles Adnopoz, left his comfortable Brooklyn home and reinvented himself as the train-riding, horse-roping, cowboy singer Ramblin' Jack Elliott. The man is the direct link between Woody Guthrie and Dylan, and I'd argue that without him, Dylan would've found much more resistance from the Greenwich Village folk purists. Aside from playing with or influencing just about everyone who has ever picked up a guitar, Ramblin' Jack is a two-time Grammy winner, and in 1998 Bill Clinton presented him with the National Medal of Arts (something presidents have to give you if you live long enough). Ramblin' Jack is less a songwriter than a storyteller, and with 87 years and countless miles behind him, the man's got more than a few stories.

by Santi Elijah Holley