1,001 Albums [I] Must Hear before [I] Die: 16

Jack Takes the Floor - Ramblin' Jack Elliot

Man, for an album people apparently "must" hear before they die, even with the internet being the vast expanse of media which it is, this album sure was hard to find. And, honestly, I don't think it was really worth all of the searching...

While I am still waiting anxiously for an album that I hate, I certainly don't like this one. I am not a huge fan of "American folk music" in general - it takes a lot for me to like "guy with a guitar music", and this is just that with a Southern twang - and worse than that, it's a fake one.

I had to look up Ramblin' Jack Elliot on Wikipedia, and was shocked to discover that he was a fellow Jew from Brooklyn. When he speaks on this record, he does so with a Southern drawl - the only Southern accent that exists in native Brooklynites is the Coney Island, "'Ey, How you doin' " accent. The flashing lights started going of in my head - neon signs reading, "FRAUD! FRAUD!"

I would hope that if I recorded an entire record in a British accent, people would be smart enough to call me out on my fraudulence. This doesn't come across to me as a person playing a character, it's a person denying who they are. It's disingenuous.

Is it bad, however? Well, it depends on how you define bad. It certainly isn't offensive, to my ears or otherwise - I wasn't running to shut it off or hoping mercilessly that it would just end already. If you define bad as being the absence of good, though - then, yup, it's bad. It's boring, aside from its inherent dishonesty. There's just nothing in it that I find particularly enjoyable. At most points, it's just dull.

(And, risking beating a dead horse to death again - dude, you're a Jew from Brooklyn - the cowboy hat just looks silly on you).

Don't go crazy looking for this one, like I did. It really isn't worth the effort.