Young Brigham

Original Liner Notes:

Hendersonville, Tenn.
December 13, 1967

Dear Jack,
Now didn’t you ramble!!??!!! Well, I wouldn’t ask where you’ve been in the last couple of years since I saw you, you’d have a lot of writin' to do I know.

Nashville is still talking about you, asking about you. My record company will never get over that session we did together. They still would like for me to try and get you to sign with them.

But it looks like you’re in pretty high cotton where you are. Just be sure and watch out for Hollywood and don’t let any of it rub off on you. On the other hand keep rubbing a little of Jack Elliott off on them.

Jack, come see me. I’m anxious to hear your album, “Young Brigham.” And here’s a switch: Don’t send me a copy. I’ll buy one.

Not long after I saw you last, I wrote a little but of “back porch philosophy” that I herewith dedicate to you. It’s concerning your hands, and the way you play the guitar–or especially the way that–many times–your hands have eagerly reached out to shake other hands of every religion, tongue, race, creed, color–rich and poor–the royalty and the ruined–all the same.

TO “RAMBLIN JACK ELLIOT”
(copyrightable, cause this here was made up and meant by Johnny Cash, Y. O. O. L., 1966)
“When a feller has given life a good grind and is layin' on his dyin' bed with his hands folded acrost his chest-bone, feelin' the final thumpin' of his innard warkin’s, he ort t' feel proudful of hisself if he can know in his own head that all his "layin' by” is “laid by” proper…

Then some of his good ort t' raise up his head a tad t' let him take one last facin' look thru his waxin' eyeballs oncet agin at his own two hands, an'…He ort t' feel more proudful of hisself if he can say in his own head, concernin' his own hands:

‘A BUNCH OF TIMES I HAVE DID SUMP'N’ ‘NUTHER GOOD WITH 'EM.“

Your friend,
Johnny Cash

PRODUCER’S NOTE:
YOUNG BRIGHAM is Jack’s cow-pony, twelve years old, raised and bred by Slim Green who runs the saddle shop down in Seton Village, New Mexico, where Jack was staying in a disused railway carriage before the recording of this work.