Mississippi Fred McDowell in particular went way back. Here's his Wikipedia entry:
Mississippi Fred McDowell - Wikipedia
He was born in 1904 and died in 1972, just a few years after this festival. He actually was a farmer most of his life. But about ten years before this, musicologists discovered him while doing field recordings in the Southern U.S. Only then did he become a professional musician and start putting out records.
Joan Baez was the featured musician of the previous album in this festival series. But this album took place one day later. She had performed solo acoustic, but she came back on stage at this time to play a couple of classic country songs with a band. It seems she only did two songs.
The remainder of the album is Ramblin' Jack Elliott's set. Here's his Wikipedia page:
Ramblin' Jack Elliott - Wikipedia
Elliott truly was a ramblin' guy. He ran away from home at age fifteen to join the circus. Before long he connected with legendary folk musician Woody Guthrie. He essentially became his young apprentice for many years, traveling with him and learning his songs. He kept playing for a long time, for instance having a role in Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder tour in 1975 and 1976, and even playing with the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the 2000s. As I write this in late 2023, he's still alive, at the age of 92.
At some points, this wind problem mentioned in previous albums happened here too. But I fixed that using the "de-wind" feature of the Izotope 10 audio editing program.
Also, Elliott's set was quite short, only three songs, and had big problems. Parts of the songs "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" and "If I Were a Carpenter" were missing. Luckily though, he did studio versions a year earlier for an album in the same acoustic style done here. So I used the studio versions to fill in the missing parts. Even though live and studio versions are combined, I'd be surprised if you can find where the edits took place. I'm guessing there could have been more songs to his set that might not have been properly recorded at all.
But that was just the first three songs of his set. You may notice he did an additional five songs. That's because of the special set I previously mentioned with the Arlo Guthrie set, the one dedicated to Woody Guthrie. Since Elliott was so close to Woody, it was only natural that he was a part of that, and that he played a bunch of songs. So those last five songs are all Woody Guthrie covers done as part of that set.
This album is 46 minutes long. The McDowell set is 10 minutes long, the Baez one is eight minutes, and the Elliott one is 29 minutes.
033 talk by George Wein (Mississippi Fred McDowell)
034 Fred's Worried Life Blues (Mississippi Fred McDowell)
035 Shake 'Em on Down (Mississippi Fred McDowell)
036 Write Me a Few Lines (Mississippi Fred McDowell)
037 talk by Ralph Rinzler (Mississippi Fred McDowell)
038 talk by Bob Siggins (Joan Baez)
039 Green, Green Grass of Home (Joan Baez)
040 talk (Joan Baez)
041 The Banks of the Ohio (Joan Baez)
042 talk by Unknown Emcee (Ramblin' Jack Elliott)
043 talk (Ramblin' Jack Elliott)
044 912 Greens (Ramblin' Jack Elliott)
045 talk (Ramblin' Jack Elliott)
046 Don't Think Twice, It's Alright [Edit] (Ramblin' Jack Elliott)
047 If I Were a Carpenter [Edit] (Ramblin' Jack Elliott)
048 Ramblin' Round (Ramblin' Jack Elliott)
049 How'd You Do (Ramblin' Jack Elliott)
050 Why Oh Why (Ramblin' Jack Elliott)
051 Car, Car (Ramblin' Jack Elliott)
052 Talking Merchant Marine (Ramblin' Jack Elliott)
For the cover, that's McDowell on the left and Elliott on the right. Both photos were taken during this festival.
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