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Bob Dylan and Ramblin' Jack Elliott

Elliott & Son

Born Elliott Charles Adnopoz to a Jewish
family in New York City in 1931, folk per-
former Ramblin' Jack Elliott always wanted
to be a cowboy. His parents, of course,
yearned for him to be a doctor, just like his
father. So at age 15, young Elliott ran off
and joined the rodeo — and had his first
glimpse of a singing cowboy. After three
months, his parents tracked Elliott down
and brought him home. By then, music was
in his blood; he taught himself to play gui-
tar and started playing on street corners.
Eventually, Ramblin' Jack Elliott — he
earned his nickname from the countless
stories he would tell before answering the
simplest of questions — hooked up with
Woody Guthrie, who became Elliott's big-
gest influence. With his distinctive guitar
technique, laconic humorous storytelling
and an emotional intensity in his sing-

ing, Elliott — an
interpretative trou-
badour bringing
old songs to new
audiences — in
turn influenced a
trio of Jewish folk
performers.
Arlo Guthrie
has acknowledged
that, due to Woody
Guthrie's early death, he learned his
dad's songs and musical style through
Elliott. Elliott's guitar style and mastery of
Guthrie's material also made a big impact
on Minnesota college student Bob Dylan.
(Dylan paid tribute to Elliott's music in his
memoir, Chronicles, Vol. 1.)
When Dylan came to New York, he was
sometimes referred to as the "son of Jack
Elliott" because Ramblin' Jack introduced
Dylan's songs with the words, "Here's a
song from my son, Bob Dylan." Elliott also
influenced Phil Ochs.
Elliott's first recording in 20 years,
South Coast, earned him his first Grammy
in 1995. He was awarded the National
Medal of Arts in 1998. His long career was
chronicled in his daughter Aiyana's 2000
documentary, The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack.
At 75, Elliott has recently changed labels
and released I Stand Alone on the Anti
label with an assortment of guest backup
players, including members of the Red Hot
Chili Peppers.

Hear Ramblin'
Jack Elliottt live
when he appears
at the Ark in Ann
Arbor 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, July 8.
Tickets are $20.
(734) 761-1451.
Then, at 7 p.m.
Wednesday, July 11,
catch Bob Dylan at
Freedom Hill Amphitheater. Tickets are
$30-$69.50. (248) 645-6666.

Spielberg Spills

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) airs
Spielberg on Spielberg, a documentary
produced by film critic Richard Schickel in
which the famed director acts as a guide
through his diverse body of work, 8-9:30
p.m. Monday, July 9. Spielberg has never
recorded an audio commentary track for
the home video releases of any of his mov-
ies, which makes this film an opportunity
to hear the two-time Oscar-winning direc-
tor speak candidly about his films.
Offering insight into their colleague and
good friend are fellow directors Francis
Ford Coppola, George Lucas and Martin
Scorsese. Notes Lucas, "Steven is the con-
summate filmmaker. He has an extraor-
dinary ability to make brilliant movies
— brilliantly artistic, brilliantly entertain-
ing and brilliantly successful. Steven's

genius is that he knows, innately, how to
communicate through film. He is one of
the few directors I know who can actually
edit in his head while he is filming.
"And as much as I admire him as a
filmmaker, I equally admire him as a
humanitarian. The Shoah Foundation,
which Steven started to ensure that no one
would forget
the Holocaust,
has filmed tes-
timonials from
more than
52,000 victims
— a staggering
achievement."
Steven Spielberg
The pre-
miere of Spielberg On Spielberg will be
followed on TCM by the films Close
Encounters of the Third Kind, which
earned the director his first Oscar nomi-
nation, and Jaws.

Virtual Bruce

Corning to the Magic Bag in Ferndale is
Bruce In The USA, a musical tribute to
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band.
Headlining is Matt Ryan, who for eight
years played the Springsteen character in
Las Vegas in the show Legends In Concert.
Ryan's been lauded for his dead-on por-
trayal of "The Boss" (not to mention his
jaw-dropping resemblance).

Out & About on page 35

Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News

Hank Medress, a bassist-vocalist
with the Tokens, died on June 18
at age 68. The Tokens' great vocal
harmonies were on display in their
huge 1961 hit, "The Lion Sleeps
Tonight." The group disbanded in
1971 and Medress went on to produce
big hits by
Tony Orlando
and David
Johansen.
Not well
known is
the fact
that all the
Tokens were
Brooklyn-born
The Tokens
Jews: Medress,
lead singer Jay Siegel and broth-
ers Phil and Jay Margo. Siegel, who
can still hit the high notes and has
appeared on PBS rock oldies shows,
told radio reporter Mike McCann that

34

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Medress was "the steam engine that
pushed us to our limits."

Cute Couple

Reports say that actor-director Zach
Braff, 32, and pretty actress Shiri
Appleby, 28, were spotted in New
York attending a play and acting in a
romantic way. Photos of the couple
together were all over the Internet.
Appleby grew up in a heav-
ily Jewish suburban area of Los
Angeles. Her father is a business
executive, and her Sephardic, Israeli-
born mother is a Hebrew school-
teacher. No surprise: Shiri was a bat
mitzvah. She got her big break as
the star of the TV show Roswell and
is now steadily working in indie films.
Braff grew up in a heavily Jewish
New Jersey suburb. His father is a
trial lawyer, and his mother is a psy-
chologist. Zach had a bar mitzvah,
although his family isn't as religious
as Appleby's. He got his big break as
the star of the hit TV series Scrubs.

The success of the film Garden State,
which he directed, wrote and starred
in, established Braff as more than
just another TV actor.
Of course, the couple's respec-
tive publicists wouldn't confirm
anything. But wouldn't it be great
if they "thought
outside the box"
and issued a press
release something
like this: "Yes, we
have started dat-
ing. Our families
are very happy.
Our grandmothers
Zach Braff
have exchanged
recipes, and
we've already
determined
that a distant
cousin of Zach's
attended Shiri's
bat mitzvah. We'll
see how things
Shiri Appleby
develop over the

summer and will issue an update just
before the High Holidays."

Ranting Rosie
Roseanne Barr's early standup

routines were hilarious and her TV
show, Roseanne, was both touching
and funny for most of its long run.
However, Roseanne's intelligence
has always been intuitive rather than
intellectual, and her personal life has
been marked by incidents that go
way beyond mere quirkiness.
For a decade, Barr has been
involved with the controversial L.A.-
based Kabbalah Centre, which teach-
es that Kabbalah "pre-dates" and
can be "practiced" outside Judaism.
Perhaps this set the stage for her
latest "mind turn."
On her Web blog, she goes on in
a semi-literate way that smacks of
anti-Semitic literature about how
the "bad" Talmud is Ashkenazi and

Celebrity Jews on page 35