Bowery Presents

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CANCELLED - Guy Clark / Slaid Cleaves / Ramblin Jack Elliott

Guy Clark has broken his leg and is unable to travel, so this show has been CANCELED. Refunds available at point of purchase.

Town Hall

Fri 6/13

Guy Clark

http://www.myspace.com/guyclarkworkbenchsongs
http://www.guyclark.com
Masterful and charismatic in live performance, Clark has built a devout U.S. and international following through years of touring prestigious clubs and concert halls. In 1990, Guy Clark was the catalyst for a series of Marlboro Music festival performances introducing the "guitar pull" to wider audiences. In various combinations of four singer-songwriters including Lyle Lovett, John Hiatt, Joe Ely, John Prine and Mary Chapin Carpenter, Clark and his colleagues mesmerized SRO audiences with their humor, spontaneity, storytelling and songs. As a result, guitar pulls became a new tradition in clubs like New York's Bottom Line, and popular understanding of the depth and breadth of the music made in Music City has deepened. Clark, Ely, Hiatt and Lovett continue to perform as the Songwriter Tour, taking "guitar-pulls" to prestigious venues across the country.

Guy Clark remains a national treasure and folk icon, crafting masterful, poignant melodies and insightful lyrics. Tough, bare-boned and dryly sentimental, his beautiful songs reflect the man himself and display an old-fashioned masculinity that emphasizes honesty, integrity and carefully chosen words. His craggy, wistful story-songs, and plain-spoken delivery are also indicative of his persona. Inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Foundation's Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2004, Clark was honored with the Americana Music Association's Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting in 2005. The following year, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum named Guy Clark as its prestigious 2006 Artist-In-Residence. His latest CD Workbench Songs (2006), released to universal critical acclaim and the delight of his worshipful fans, was nominated for the 2007 Grammy award as Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album.

Slaid Cleaves

http://www.myspace.com/slaidcleaves
http://www.slaid.com
The music of Austin-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Slaid Cleaves is rooted in country and traditional folk songs, but it is unusual enough to hold interest in what appears to be a sea of singer/songwriters in the 1990s. His debut, No Angel Knows, was released on Rounder Records in 1997. Working with former Lucinda Williams guitarist Gurf Morlix, Cleaves combines his passion for folk songs, blues, and traditional country music on his debut into an amalgamation of styles known as "Americana" music. Not surprisingly, No Angel Knows rode high into the charts at Americana-formatted radio stations around the U.S. and Canada in 1997. Cleaves majored in English and philosophy at Tufts University in his native New England, and began playing music in garage rock bands while still in high school. While in college, he learned guitar, and later spent a summer in Ireland. He began busking on the streets in Cork, and that was the turning point when he decided to become a folksinger. At Tufts, he developed his guitar skills and studied the music of Woody Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen. He recalled that he had listened to the music of Woody Guthrie, Carl Perkins, and Hank Williams as a child, so he went back into his parents' attic to discover a treasure trove of albums. After many years in Portland, ME, he sought new mountains to climb, and found some of them after moving to Austin, TX, in 1992. Despite the echelon of great singer/songwriters like Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Lucinda Williams, Robert Earl Keen, Guy Clark, and Joe Ely all centered around the Austin scene, Cleaves was able to make a name for himself there. In 1995, he recorded an independent album for Rock Bottom Records entitled Life's Other Side. In 1996, he began his collaboration with Morlix, who liked Cleaves demo tape a whole lot and ended up serving as producer for No Angel Knows. Broke Down followed in early 2000. The five-song Holiday Sampler appeared in 2001 from Rounder Records' Philo imprint, as did 2004's Wishbones, while Unsung, released in 2006, was on Rounder proper.
--by Richard Skelly

Ramblin Jack Elliott

http://www.myspace.com/ramblinjackelliott
http://www.ramblinjack.com
Ramblin' Jack Elliott is one of folk music's most enduring characters. Since he first came on the scene in the late '50s, Elliott influenced everyone from Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger to the Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead. The son of a New York doctor and a onetime traveling companion of Woody Guthrie, Elliott used his self-made cowboy image to bring his love of folk music to one generation after another.

Despite the countless miles that Elliott traveled, his nickname is derived from his unique verbiage: an innocent question often led to a mosaic of stories before he got to the answer. According to folk songstress Odetta, it was her mother who gave Elliott the name when she remarked, "Oh, that Jack Elliott, he sure can ramble."

Pressured by his parents to follow in his father's footsteps and become a doctor, Elliott resisted their urging. Instead, inspired by the rodeos he attended at Madison Square Garden, he became fascinated with the image of the American cowboy. After reading the books of cowboy novelist Will James, he ran away from home at the age of 15 and joined the J.E. Ranch Rodeo. Although he was only with the rodeo for three months (before his parents tracked him down and he was sent home), Elliott was exposed to his first singing cowboy, a rodeo clown who played guitar and banjo and sang songs. Returning home, Elliott taught himself to play guitar.

Elliott's recording debut came in the mid-'50s when he recorded three songs for a multi-artist compilation, Bad Men, Heroes and Pirates, released by Elektra. Elliott was so influenced by Guthrie (whom he had met during a Greenwich Village picking session in 1950) that he began his musical career by mimicking the legendary folksinger. When Guthrie traveled to Florida in 1952, he sent for Elliott to join him. By the time Elliott arrived, however, Guthrie had already left for Mexico, where he was turned back at the border and forced to return to New York. Elliott reunited with Guthrie a few months later. In the winter of 1954, they traveled together back to Florida; in the spring of 1954, they continued on to California's Topanga Canyon. The trip marked the last time that Elliott saw a healthy Guthrie. When he went to Europe in 1955, Elliott sang Guthrie's songs and told stories about him. England provided the setting for Elliott's early success; his first album on his own, Woody Guthrie's Blues, was recorded in England for the Topic label. In addition to recording four more albums for Topic, he attracted attention with his performances with Derroll Adams, a banjo player he had met in California. The duo barnstormed throughout Europe and had a profound influence on the British music scene.

After living in Europe for six years, Elliott returned to the United States in 1961. The day after he returned, he visited Guthrie in the hospital and was introduced to Bob Dylan. (In the mid-'70s, Elliott joined Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue and was featured in Dylan's film Renaldo and Clara.) Before long, he renewed his friendship with Guthrie, and ended up staying with him, his wife Marjorie Guthrie, and their children for a year.

Elliott was an influence on folksinger Pete Seeger. During an early-'60s tour of England and Scotland with Seeger and the Weavers, he inspired Seeger with his tales of sailing ships. Among the many other musicians Elliott befriended was Jerry Garcia. Elliott often performed opening sets for Garcia's bands and occasionally sat in with the Grateful Dead.

In 1990, Red House released Legends of Folk, a live recording of a concert that Elliott had performed with Bruce "U. Utah" Phillips and Spider John Koerner at the World Theater in Minnesota. Bob Feldman, owner of Red House, later persuaded Elliott to record his first studio album in more than two decades, South Coast. Recorded at Pachyderm Studios in Cannon Falls, MN, the album's 25 tracks were recorded during three four-hour recording sessions. The album received a Grammy award as Best Traditional Folk Album of 1995.

Elliott returned to the recording studio to record Friends of Mine. Released in 1997, the album featured duets with Joe Ely, Tom Waits, Guy Clark, Jerry Jeff Walker, Nanci Griffith, John Prine, and Bob Weir. The Long Ride followed in 1999. A documentary about Elliott, The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack, and its soundtrack appeared in 2002, while Anti released the album I Stand Alone in 2006.
--by Craig Harris

Box Office Info

Mercury Lounge

217 E. Houston St. (corner Ave A & Houston)

New York, NY map & directions

212–260–4700

Hours: Mon–Sat, Noon–7 pm

Music Hall of Williamsburg

66 N. 6th St. (b/w Wythe & Kent)

Brooklyn, NY map & directions

718–486–5400

Hours: Saturday 11am–6pm

Contact Info: General Info: info@bowerypresents.com; Room Rentals: privateevents@bowerypresents.com; Media Inquiries: bpmedia@bowerypresents.com

Bowery Presents

Manhattan — Brooklyn