Ramblin' Jack Elliott: Tales From His Long and Winding Career

On accompanying Nico in Greenwich Village, mid-'60s:
"I really admired her. She was very beautiful. She had a very strange way of singing. It was kind of monotone but she put it over. I played that one weekend and got paid $75 with a check signed by Andy Warhol. I could've sold that check for $75,000, but I cashed it because I needed money. I don't know where that check is now. Probably some banker has it on a wall somewhere."

On the cover of his just-reissued 1970 album Young Brigham:
"I was living in a ranch in the San Fernando Valley, and Brigham was the name of my horse. The man who sold me that horse said, 'You know, Jack, if you put your horse on your album cover, the hay will be tax deductible!' I went, 'I gotta remember that.' I took a picture of me on the horse and put it on the record album and named it after him. But I don't think I ever bothered to do that tax deduction."

On being part of Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue (1975):
"It was like a bunch of kids who'd run away with the circus. We were coddled and protected and it was kind of fun, like being a kid again. We probably had too much to drink and it seemed like we were having a lot of rollicking fun the whole way. One time I shared a back room on a bus with my daughter and Joni Mitchell for four hours. We saw a fire out the window. Joni was writing a song called 'Coyote' and she put that in the song, 'We saw a farmhouse burning down in the middle of the road.' I still don't know who Coyote is."

On helping induct Woody Guthrie into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (1988):
"I was sitting there with a dirty beat-up old Stetson and a lumberjack shirt I had on the airplane. I was late and couldn't change clothing, so we went straight to the building. Had some cold coffee and some cake. Later we were all jamming onstage. That piano player from England, Elton John, stood up and turned around and shook hands with me. I guess he was a fan of mine. We didn't have a chance to talk; he had to sit right back down and continue playing. It was in the middle of a song."

On seeing Dylan recently:
"He played here a few years ago at a lake up north, and he said, 'What's in your life, Ramblin'?' I said, 'I got a new Ford truck, I drove from Oklahoma, took me four days, fed the cats, got a little sleep.' He starts giggling: 'Fed the cats. Fed them cats.' He was giggling. That's all he said. I'm still waiting for a Dylanographer to explain to me what he meant."

On his legacy — reinventing yourself:
"I was going to visit to Willie Nelson in San Francisco. One obviously gay young man recognized me on the street and he said, 'Ramblin' Jack! You know, you're a hero — you've done a lot for the movement.' I said, 'What movement?' He said, 'Gay liberation.' 'What did I do for you?' He said, 'Just being yourself.' I pretended to be angry and yelled, 'This ain't no Brokeback Mountain!' And they laughed like hell, because they knew where I was comin' from. I'm a friendly kind of guy."