{"id":132,"date":"2016-02-13T07:00:23","date_gmt":"2016-02-13T12:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=132"},"modified":"2018-08-04T18:02:53","modified_gmt":"2018-08-04T22:02:53","slug":"railroad-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/railroad-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Railroad Bill (Ramblin&#8217; Jack Elliott)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Railroad Bill\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YTS59tVLICQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>From Woody and Cisco, it was an easy and obvious step to Ramblin&#8217; Jack Elliott &#8212; I don&#8217;t remember how that step got made, but my guess is that I was just thumbing through the records at Minuteman or the Coop, reading liner notes, and this one caught my eye. <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-133 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/ramblin-jack-lp.jpg?resize=250%2C252\" alt=\"ramblin jack lp\" width=\"250\" height=\"252\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/ramblin-jack-lp.jpg?w=250&amp;ssl=1 250w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/ramblin-jack-lp.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/>I still sing eight of the twelve songs on this record, and I&#8217;m still amazed at the quirkiness of Jack&#8217;s taste &#8212; he has been typed as an acolyte of Woody&#8217;s and a ramblin&#8217; cowboy singer, but this album includes hillbilly yodeling, string band trios, a Ray Charles medley, a comic Scots dialect song and monologue, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/san-francisco-bay\/\">San Francisco Bay Blues<\/a>&#8221; &#8212; which most of us heard from Jack before hearing Jesse Fuller&#8217;s version &#8212; and Rev. Gary Davis&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/candyman\/\">Candyman<\/a>,&#8221; which I thought I first heard from Van Ronk, but clearly heard from Jack before that.<\/p>\n<p>Jack remains one of my favorite guitar players, and &#8220;Railroad Bill&#8221; is one of his classic arrangements. I&#8217;m sure I&#8217;ve changed it some over the years, but it was the early pieces that got me comfortable with the rudiments of fingerpicking, and a piece that pretty much every urban fingerpicker learned to play in the generation before mine, right after &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/freight-train\/\">Freight Train<\/a>&#8221; and before &#8220;Buckdancer&#8217;s Choice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I originally suggested Jack&#8217;s source was presumably an obscure black singer and guitarist named Will Bennett, who recorded only two songs, &#8220;Railroad Bill&#8221; and &#8220;Real Estate Blues&#8221; in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1929. That&#8217;s about all I know about Bennett, but I was recently at the Knoxville Stomp, an event celebrating the early recording sessions there, and people seem to be turning over a lot of rocks, so hopefully we will learn more.<\/p>\n<p>A couple of years later, an internet friend named Paul Stamler pointed out that Jack&#8217;s source was undoubtedly Hobart Smith, whose guitar arrangement is obviously what Jack, I, and pretty much everybody else plays. I have no idea if Smith got it from Bennett&#8217;s recording, or Frank Hutchison&#8217;s, or if it was just floating around the Tennessee\/Carolina\/West Virginia region. In any case, it&#8217;s a great song.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Woody and Cisco, it was an easy and obvious step to Ramblin&#8217; Jack Elliott &#8212; one of the most ubiquitous and overlooked influences on folk guitar players of the 1960s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Railroad Bill (Ramblin&#039; Jack Elliott) - Old Friends: A Songobiography<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"From Woody and Cisco, it was an easy and obvious step to Ramblin&#039; Jack Elliott -- one of the most ubiquitous and overlooked influences on folk guitar players of the 1960s.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/railroad-bill\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Railroad Bill (Ramblin&#039; Jack Elliott) - Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"From Woody and Cisco, it was an easy and obvious step to Ramblin&#039; Jack Elliott -- one of the most ubiquitous and overlooked influences on folk guitar players of the 1960s.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/railroad-bill\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-02-13T12:00:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-08-04T22:02:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/ramblin-jack-lp.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/railroad-bill\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/railroad-bill\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Elijah Wald\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"headline\":\"Railroad Bill (Ramblin&#8217; Jack Elliott)\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-02-13T12:00:23+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-08-04T22:02:53+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/railroad-bill\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":377,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/railroad-bill\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/12\\\/ramblin-jack-lp.jpg\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/railroad-bill\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/railroad-bill\\\/\",\"name\":\"Railroad Bill (Ramblin' Jack Elliott) - Old Friends: A Songobiography\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/railroad-bill\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/railroad-bill\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/12\\\/ramblin-jack-lp.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-02-13T12:00:23+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-08-04T22:02:53+00:00\",\"description\":\"From Woody and Cisco, it was an easy and obvious step to Ramblin' Jack Elliott -- one of the most ubiquitous and overlooked influences on folk guitar players of the 1960s.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/railroad-bill\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/railroad-bill\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/railroad-bill\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/12\\\/ramblin-jack-lp.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/12\\\/ramblin-jack-lp.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/railroad-bill\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Railroad Bill (Ramblin&#8217; Jack Elliott)\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/\",\"name\":\"Old Friends: A Songobiography\",\"description\":\"Revisiting the songs that have made a home in my head\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":[\"Person\",\"Organization\"],\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\",\"name\":\"Elijah Wald\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i1.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/12\\\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i1.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/12\\\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i1.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/12\\\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1\",\"width\":70,\"height\":85,\"caption\":\"Elijah Wald\"},\"logo\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i1.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/12\\\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Railroad Bill (Ramblin' Jack Elliott) - Old Friends: A Songobiography","description":"From Woody and Cisco, it was an easy and obvious step to Ramblin' Jack Elliott -- one of the most ubiquitous and overlooked influences on folk guitar players of the 1960s.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/railroad-bill\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Railroad Bill (Ramblin' Jack Elliott) - Old Friends: A Songobiography","og_description":"From Woody and Cisco, it was an easy and obvious step to Ramblin' Jack Elliott -- one of the most ubiquitous and overlooked influences on folk guitar players of the 1960s.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/railroad-bill\/","og_site_name":"Old Friends: A Songobiography","article_published_time":"2016-02-13T12:00:23+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-08-04T22:02:53+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/ramblin-jack-lp.jpg","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"Elijah Wald","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@ElijahWald","twitter_site":"@ElijahWald","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Elijah Wald","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/railroad-bill\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/railroad-bill\/"},"author":{"name":"Elijah Wald","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#\/schema\/person\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9"},"headline":"Railroad Bill (Ramblin&#8217; Jack Elliott)","datePublished":"2016-02-13T12:00:23+00:00","dateModified":"2018-08-04T22:02:53+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/railroad-bill\/"},"wordCount":377,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#\/schema\/person\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/railroad-bill\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/ramblin-jack-lp.jpg","inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/railroad-bill\/","url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/railroad-bill\/","name":"Railroad Bill (Ramblin' Jack Elliott) - Old Friends: A Songobiography","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/railroad-bill\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/railroad-bill\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/ramblin-jack-lp.jpg","datePublished":"2016-02-13T12:00:23+00:00","dateModified":"2018-08-04T22:02:53+00:00","description":"From Woody and Cisco, it was an easy and obvious step to Ramblin' Jack Elliott -- one of the most ubiquitous and overlooked influences on folk guitar players of the 1960s.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/railroad-bill\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/railroad-bill\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/railroad-bill\/#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/ramblin-jack-lp.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/ramblin-jack-lp.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/railroad-bill\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Railroad Bill (Ramblin&#8217; Jack Elliott)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/","name":"Old Friends: A Songobiography","description":"Revisiting the songs that have made a home in my head","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#\/schema\/person\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":["Person","Organization"],"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#\/schema\/person\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9","name":"Elijah Wald","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1","url":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1","contentUrl":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1","width":70,"height":85,"caption":"Elijah Wald"},"logo":{"@id":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1"}}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":603,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/diamond-joe\/","url_meta":{"origin":132,"position":0},"title":"Diamond Joe (Cisco Houston\/Jack Elliott)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"March 21, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"A wry ballad from Cisco Houston and Ramblin' Jack Elliott, about the dubious pleasures of working for a lousy trail boss.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"cisco songbook","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/cisco-songbook-204x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":389,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/east-virginia\/","url_meta":{"origin":132,"position":1},"title":"East Virginia","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"February 29, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the most popular ballads with early rural recording artists, which I picked up from Ramblin' Jack Elliott, who probably got it from Woody Guthrie or the Carter Family, or both.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"ramblin jack lp","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/ramblin-jack-lp.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":351,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/i-cant-help-but-wonder\/","url_meta":{"origin":132,"position":2},"title":"I Can&#8217;t Help But Wonder Where I&#8217;m Bound (Tom Paxton)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"February 24, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"In retrospect, I'm amused by the romanticism of this song and the young me who fell for it, but I did... and for better or worse, I'm still pretty regularly wondering where I'm bound.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Paxton ramblin boy","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Paxton-ramblin-boy-297x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":428,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/hard-travelin\/","url_meta":{"origin":132,"position":3},"title":"Hard Travelin&#8217; (Woody Guthrie)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"February 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Woody said: This is a song about the hard traveling of the working people, not the moonstruck mystic traveling of the professional vacationist. Song about a man that has rode the flat wheelers, kicked up cinders, dumped the red hot slag...","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"guthrie-bound-for-glory-cover","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/guthrie-bound-for-glory-cover-213x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/cannonball-blues\/","url_meta":{"origin":132,"position":4},"title":"Cannonball Blues (Woody, Carters, Leslie Riddle)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"December 9, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"As I explain in the clip, I've known this since I was a kid, though back then I would have played it with a flatpick. My first musical heroes were Woody Guthrie and Cisco Houston, with Pete Seeger running a close third. In my twenties it occurred to me that\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/FW31010.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5427,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/freight-train-blues\/","url_meta":{"origin":132,"position":5},"title":"Freight Train Blues (Bob Dylan, mostly)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"October 26, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Continuing a spate of Dylan memories, as I wait for the movie... I learned this from Dylan's first album, which only included two songs he had fully composed, but had a bunch of songs he had transmuted in various ways. The notes said he'd learned this from Roy Acuff's record,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Bob-Dylan-LP-e1729798042438.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3925,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions\/3925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}