Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Woody Guthrie performing his alternative national anthem, This Land Is Your Land.
The Greatest Songs Of Woody, Woody Guthrie and others, Vanguard Records, 1988
Scene: Brought to mind by the classic Woody Guthrie song and hobo national anthem, This Land is Your Land.
“Hey Josh did you hear that the senior class is going to turn the school gym into a coffeehouse on the night of October 7th and have Ramblin’ Jack Elliot as the featured performer to raise money for their Olde Saco High School Class of 1966 Senior Prom. Cool, right?” yelled Jimmy Jones across the boys’ locker room divider to his best friend and fellow track runner, Josh Breslin. Josh, non-committedly, yelled back just as Jimmy turned on the shower to wash the day’s five mile run sweat away, “Ya, cool.” That particular response reflected (and hid) two important facts. One, Josh, wasn’t exactly sure what a coffeehouse was (other than a place to get coffee which he did not drink because all the latest studies indicated that caffeine consumption was bad, track runner bad, for your performance) and, two, he had not the slightest idea who or what a Ramblin’ Jack Eliot was.
All Josh knew for sure was that a long-legged, short-skirt-wearing (showing those long gams to great effect), long straight black-haired, often peasant blouse wearing Kitty (Kathleen) Saint Just, a girl in his junior English class that he was seriously interested in, very seriously interested in, was seriously into music, although exactly what kind of music he was not sure of except not his jump Rolling Stones be-bop rock ‘n’ roll after she gave him a weird look when he mentioned it one time after class. And most assuredly not Bob Dylan’s music, not his Like A Rolling Stone music that he also jumped to. Same weird look. What he was exactly sure of was that she would, having an older brother, Laurent, in the senior class be attending the concert. And Josh Breslin, handsome Josh Breslin or not, desperately wanted to be sitting next to Kitty, drink of coffee in hand or not, at that concert.
There was only one solution-Billy Monroe, Jimmy Joe’s son and his fellow classmate. For those over the age of twenty-one, for the squares, in the Olde Saco Main Street night, who do not know who Jimmy Joe is without more identification here is his cachet. Jimmy Joe Monroe owes the teenage boss Friday night (hell, and Saturday night too) hang-out on Main Street, Jimmy Joe’s Diner (and another one on Atlantic Avenue but that one doesn’t count because that is for people who want full dinners and stuff like that, not dogs and burgers like real people). And son Billy is the numero uno whiz kid for all kinds of music, and has been since about the fourth grade when he turned everybody on to Jerry Lee Lewis and his High School Confidential which blew Olde Saco Junior High wide open one school dance night. But that’s a story for another time.
Right now Josh needs Billy for a “refresher” course on ABC coffeehouse scenes and singers. So Josh hightailed it over to the Colonial Donut Shoppe (hey. they serve other stuff too not just joe and crullers) where Billy held forth after school. (For those, let’s face it, squares who wonder why Billy doesn’t hang out at Jimmy Joe’s with all the teeny-bopper girls, where have you been, haven’t you heard word one about teen alienation and from who one is alienated numero uno from , Christ.) He caught Billy’s eye and told him of his dilemma.
Billy laughed, laughed loudly, but with no harm in the laugh. He couldn’t believe that Josh was clueless about the old-timey folk scene that had had its minute in New York and Boston about five years before but was now like, well like, ancient history. Josh was surprised to hear that Bob Dylan had made that scene, had been a big-wheel in it, and then blew it off like some bad karma once he moved on to real music, rock music. So Billy gave him the rundown on what a coffeehouse was, no big deal just a place for coffee and, kind of like Millie’s Diner up the road near the old mill where his father used to work and have his coffee and, except darker lit and strictly for kids. Josh thought, sounds kind of cool.
As for the Ramblin’ Jack part this was a little more screwy. It seems there was a big dust-up between Dylan and guys like Ramblin’ Jack over what to be true to. Both had started out kicking around songs by a guy named Woody Guthrie, a folk troubadour Billy called him, songs like This Land Is Your Land, Do Re, Mi, Hobo’s Lullaby and Depression songs, stuff like that. Strictly old-timey stuff. But Ramblin’ Jack stayed true blue and that is why he is working the faux coffeehouse high school prom fund-raising scene in the year of our lord nineteen hundred and sixty-six for coffee and crullers. “Got it now, Josh?,” murmured Billy. Ya.
Josh didn’t think anything of it other than as so much air like Darwin’s theory of evolution and other stuff in school until he called one Kitty Saint Just up on the phone and asked her to go with him to the senior class coffeehouse fund-raiser. She hemmed a little until Josh got the bright idea to mention that Ramblin’ Jack would probably be singing Woody Guthrie’s This Land Is Your Land, and some other songs which he Billy-rambled off. “Oh, Josh, you know about Jack Elliot?,” purred Kitty into the phone. “Well, yes, sure,” answered the now fox-wise Josh.
Dated, no problem, dated up pick me up at seven and as a bonus Miss Kitty is requiring the pleasure of his company this Saturday afternoon to come over to her house and listen to Ramblin’ Jack, Joan Baez, early Dylan (as she made very clear in her offering), Tom Paxton, Tom Rush, Dave Von Ronk and a bunch of other names he did not recognize. And it did not matter that he did not recognize the names because all he had to do was chant the Woody name and he was home free. Ya, this land is my land. Thanks Woody Guthrie whoever you are.
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