I loved Dave Van Ronk's book, which I bought shortly after it was published. Even now I return to it, opening it at random and rereading a few pages, always a good way to refresh the spirit and drive dull care away. I knew DVR a little bit, in part because he'd read several of my own books. I'd also done him the favor, the first time we met, of providing some information he was struggling to recall, namely the author of The Damnation of Theron Ware.

As those familiar with his memoirs will know, they were put together posthumously (and brilliantly) by the music journalist Elijah Wald. I met Wald once, an occasion that soon led to an evening's worth of disputation. Basically, I found the guy egotistical and insufferable. Later, over a meal in a Minneapolis restaurant with DVR, his wife Andrea, and our mutual friend Dakota Dave Hull, I related my tale of Wald-related woe. DVR listened with apparent interest, finally responding with one sentence the thought of which gets me laughing even now, two decades later. I won't repeat it here, but I'd be glad to tell it to you if we ever meet.

The man was funny, and a lot else. All the legends are true.