Kerouac's Last Dream is an album by American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 folk musician Ramblin' Jack Elliott

Ramblin' Jack Elliott

Ramblin' Jack Elliott is an American folk singer and performer.-Life and career:Elliot Charles Adnopoz was born in Brooklyn, New York to Jewish parents in 1931. Elliott grew up inspired by the rodeos at Madison Square Garden, and wanted to be a cowboy...

, released in 1981.

In his liner notes, Elliott writes ""I have been asked, sometimes, why I don't learn new songs. These are old ones and I have sung them for a long time. They are good and I think they shall always be good."

Kerouac's Last Dream was reissued on CD in 1997 on the Appleseed label with additional material from the same 1980 sessions for a German LP release.

Reception

Music critic William Ruhlman, writing for Allmusic wrote in his review: "Ramblin' Jack Elliott is not primarily a recording artist, he's a folksinger, and these are the songs he sings."

Michael Perryl of No Depression wrote "The bare-bones best of Kerouac’s Last Dream? All those stories. We may have little in common with buffalo skinners, massacred miners, cowboys, and World War I foot soldiers, or even the folkies and beats of “912 Greens”, but when Ramblin’ Jack sings their stories, I am refreshed to find some universal resonance with travelers who have started our stories for us, rather than hearing one more time that we’re all jes’ good ol’ boys and girls livin’ fer Friday night. Kerouac’s Last Dream is a simple, solid collection…unadorned and necessary, y’might even say."

Original track listing

1. "Buffalo Skinners" (Traditional)
2. "Pretty Boy Floyd" (Woody Guthrie
   Woody Guthrie
   Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
   
   )
3. "Cup of Coffee" (Jack Elliott)
4. "Roving Gambler" (Traditional)
5. "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" (Fred Rose
   Fred Rose (musician)
   Fred Rose was an American Hall of Fame songwriter and music publishing executive.-Biography:Born in Evansville, Indiana, Fred Rose started playing piano and singing as a small boy. In his teens, he moved to Chicago, Illinois where he worked in bars busking for tips, and finally vaudeville...
   
   )
6. "The Cuckoo
   The Cuckoo (song)
   "The Cuckoo" is a traditional English folk song. It has been covered by many musicians in several different styles. An early notable recorded version was performed by Appalachian folk musician Clarence Ashley with a unique banjo tuning....
   
   " (Traditional)
7. "Talkin' Fishin'" (Guthrie)
8. "1913 Massacre" (Guthrie)
9. "Carpenter"
10. "912 Greens" (Elliott)

Reissue track listing

1. "Pretty Boy Floyd" (Woody Guthrie
   Woody Guthrie
   Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
   
   ) – 4:00
2. "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" (Fred Rose
   Fred Rose (musician)
   Fred Rose was an American Hall of Fame songwriter and music publishing executive.-Biography:Born in Evansville, Indiana, Fred Rose started playing piano and singing as a small boy. In his teens, he moved to Chicago, Illinois where he worked in bars busking for tips, and finally vaudeville...
   
   ) – 3:11
3. "Freight Train Blues" (Traditional) – 3:43
4. "Talkin' Fishin'" (Guthrie) – 3:36
5. "Roving Gambler" (Traditional) – 3:50
6. "The Cuckoo
   The Cuckoo (song)
   "The Cuckoo" is a traditional English folk song. It has been covered by many musicians in several different styles. An early notable recorded version was performed by Appalachian folk musician Clarence Ashley with a unique banjo tuning....
   
   " (Traditional) – 3:40
7. "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
   Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
   "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1962, and released on the 1963 album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.-Context:...
   
   " (Bob Dylan
   Bob Dylan
   Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
   
   ) – 3:40
8. "Soldiers Last Letter
   Soldiers Last Letter
   Soldier's Last Letter was a country music song written by Redd Stewart and Ernest Tubb and recorded by Ernest Tubb. It was released in the United States in 1944. -Background and content:...
   
   " (Ernest Tubb
   Ernest Tubb
   Ernest Dale Tubb , nicknamed the Texas Troubadour, was an American singer and songwriter and one of the pioneers of country music. His biggest career hit song, "Walking the Floor Over You" , marked the rise of the honky tonk style of music...
   
   , Redd Stewart
   Redd Stewart
   Henry Ellis Stewart , better known as Redd Stewart, was an American country music songwriter and recording artist who co-wrote "The Tennessee Waltz" with Pee Wee King in 1948.-Biography:...
   
   ) – 3:04
9. "1913 Massacre" (Guthrie) – 5:04
10. "Buffalo Skinners" (Traditional) – 5:15
11. "Night Herding Song" (Traditional 2:51
12. "Mean Mama Blues" (Mitchell & Mulligan) – 2:25
13. "I Threw It All Away" (Dylan) – 3:42
14. "Detour
    Detour (song)
    "Detour " is a Western swing ballad written by Paul Westmoreland in 1945. The original version was by Jimmy Walker with Paul Westmoreland and His Pecos River Boys, issued around the beginning of November 1945....
    
    " (Paul Westmoreland
    Paul Westmoreland
    Paul "Okie Paul" Westmoreland was a musician, songwriter, and disc jockey in Sacramento, California.Born in Oklahoma, he moved to California during the Okie migration....
    
    ) – 2:13
15. "Ridin' Down the Canyon" (Gene Autry
    Gene Autry
    Orvon Grover Autry , better known as Gene Autry, was an American performer who gained fame as The Singing Cowboy on the radio, in movies and on television for more than three decades beginning in the 1930s...
    
    , Smiley Burnette
    Smiley Burnette
    Lester Alvin Burnett , better known as Smiley Burnette, was a popular American country music performer and a comedic actor in Western films and on radio and TV, playing sidekick to Gene Autry and other B-movie cowboys. He was also a prolific singer-songwriter who could play as many as 100 musical...
    
    ) – 5:33
16. "Cup of Coffee" (Jack Elliott) – 4:10
17. "912 Greens" (Elliott) – 10:10