OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk (1936-2002)

Subject: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: GUEST,Muskrat
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 05:26 PM

Received this on Sunday from Dave's management (Folklore Productions); there'll be more on Monday.

I am very sorry to tell you all that our dear friend Dave Van Ronk died this morning of cardio-pulmonary failure while undergoing chemotherapy treatment for colon cancer.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 05:33 PM

Awwwww feck!

That sucks!

I guess I'll have to see you after, Dave...

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: katlaughing
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 05:45 PM

Damn! So sorry to hear this!

RIP, Dave....

luvyakat

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: bflat
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 05:47 PM

This is such sad news. I feel like I've lost a friend.

Ellen

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Joe_F
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 06:06 PM

This morning, this evening, so soon.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: DonMeixner
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 06:07 PM

I finally saw him play and heard him perform in Syracuse about a year and a half ago. There were may 25 people in the coffee house. He was a wonderful performer and a consumate musician. Those two qualities aren't often shared but Dave was both.

Don

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 06:31 PM

Real sad news... How many people owe Dave for teaching them to play guitar, and encouraging them when they didn't believe in themselves? I do.
Jerry

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Dharmabum
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 06:42 PM

One of the greats. We will miss him.

DB.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: RangerSteve
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 06:46 PM

Thanks, Dave, for some great music.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 07:04 PM

Very sad. A fine gentleman, very clean player and was there through the whole fifties-sixties folk revival. Let's mention his name or pick one of his songs when we're gigging over the next while.

Rick

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Suffet
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 07:16 PM

Oh my gosh! I had just put on my brand new copy of DVR's "Going Back to Brooklyn" CD when I signed on to Mudcat and saw this obit notice. Anyway, Dave was the finest f---ing folk singer I ever heard in my life. And a true gentleman, although he would cringe if he heard anyone call him that.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: GUEST,harvey andrews
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 07:20 PM

Fading voices....one more. R.I.P.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 07:26 PM

This sucks canal water.

It's been a rough weekend. Just yesterday I discovered that my old friend Bob Rimmer died back in August. I never met Dave Van Ronk, but the world is diminished without him.

It's been a really rough weekend.

Linn

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Cap't Bob
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 08:15 PM

Spent most of last week listening to Dave's cd, trying to learn his version of the "Ukulele Lady"; played the song at a session last Friday evening. What a loss, just when I'd heard that he was doing better.

Cap't Bob

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Tiger
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 08:57 PM

Geez, that's awful. I thought things had been going well.

A sad day in the music world, we've lost a giant. I've introduced so many people to Dave's music, been fortunate to have met him and spent workshop time.

I will really, really miss you, big guy!

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Rolfyboy6
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 09:05 PM

"Hey come back Baby,
Let's talk it over,
One more time.

Dave was so important to me. I wanted to be him in 1964.
Aw, Rats! Another really good one gone. Rest in peace Dave, your legacy lives on.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Justa Picker
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 09:10 PM

Just loved the way he picked old country blues. I'll miss his singing and playing and that feisty spirit.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 10:14 PM

It's the 60's and this growling and hulking figure curled around a mic doing "Cocaine Blues"..............Thanks so much for sharing your time here with us. We needed you.

Spaw

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Rasta
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 10:28 PM

I first saw Dave play back in '60 something when I was a young buck. He's one of the people who inspired me to make my living playing music. I last saw him with Odetta at the Ramblin' Jack Elliot movie premiere last year. I'm sad to hear he won't be growlin' the Blues down here any more - Bob Horan

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Max
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 10:44 PM

Damn shame. I've learned more than a couple of tunes from his transcriptions. He was a great scholar, wonderful voice, and a hell of a picker. Just love his Candyman. RIP Dave.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Giac
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 11:00 PM

Another man done gone ...

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 11:09 PM

I like Rick's idea, mention his name, play his music and let's try to keep his memory alive.

He was a good 'un.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 11:29 PM

We'll meet again where the hills are green in another time and place.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From:
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 11:42 PM

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Mudlark
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 11:46 PM

Sad, sad news. Hope he's swingin' on a star, carrying moonbeams home in a jar....

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: GUEST,MJM
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 11:47 PM

Saw DVR with Judy Collins and John Hammond at a Glen Cove, NY, high school. About '64... Watched him fingerpick up close at the Folklore Center; he had a nice ragtime style -- walking bassline, clean picking. Good job on Both Sides Now, too.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: WyoWoman
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 12:19 AM

I interviewed him my second or third year as a journalist, in the early 1980s. I described his voice as 'whiskey over gravel' and I simply fell in love with him. Soulful, bawdy, haunted. Scrumptiously textured singing.

I have his "Inside Dave Van Ronk" cd here on my desk and was just looking at it yesterday afternoon. The last cut on the cd is "He Never Came Back."

We'll see you and hear you on the flip side, Mr. Van Ronk.

ww

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Francy
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 01:09 AM

I put a thread on Mudcat two days ago about Tom Russell"'s cd "Man From God Knows Where"...I spent most of Saturday night listening to it and he had Dave on two cuts, booth called the Outcaste Part 1 and Part 11....He will be missed but fondly remembered over and over as we play his music........Bless you Dave v......Frank of Toledo

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Mark Clark
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 01:18 AM

One of my earliest and most enduring heros. The world is diminished by his passing.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Deckman
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 01:37 AM

Words fail me ... Bob

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: JudyR
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 01:55 AM

Me, too. Feel like part of me is gone.

He was a friend of mine and yours. Fare thee well, old traveler, fare thee well.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: DancingMom
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 01:56 AM

My kids loved him.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: reggie miles
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 02:31 AM

This news is hard to bear.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 02:40 AM

Shit. The great ones are disappearing at an alarming rate. Let's appreciate the ones we have left: Doc, Pete, Tommy, Liam et al.

Seamus

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Brian Hoskin
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 08:31 AM

Here's an obit. written for Reuters:

By Dean Goodman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Folk singer Dave Van Ronk, a respected figure on the early 1960s New York music scene and an early mentor of Bob Dylan, died Sunday after a battle with colon cancer, his record company said. He was 65.

Nicknamed "the mayor of Greenwich Village" on account of his authoritative knowledge of jazz and blues, Van Ronk died at 9:30 a.m. at New York University Medical Center, said Mitchell Greenhill, president of Folklore Prods., who was at his bedside.

Although Van Ronk never achieved commercial success, he remained an influential performer in the folk community. He toured and recorded -- and taught guitar -- until the end of last year when he underwent colon cancer surgery in November.

His most recent album was the jazz-influenced "Sweet and Lowdown," which was released last year via Santa Monica-based Folklore. He received a traditional folk Grammy nomination in 1996 for "From ... Another Time & Place."

Van Ronk's last concert, performed in Adelphi, Md. on Oct. 22 had been recorded and Van Ronk spent his last weeks going through the tapes to prepare a live album, Greenhill said.

Van Ronk, a Brooklyn, N.Y. native befriended Dylan after the young Minnesotan arrived in New York, and frequently allowed him to stay in his Greenwich Village apartment. Even after Dylan became a star, they maintained a "sporadic but warm" relationship, Greenhill said. In 1974, Van Ronk appeared with Dylan and others at a benefit for Chilean political prisoners.

Van Ronk recorded some 20 albums from the late 1950s, winning praise for his gritty interpretations of artists as diverse as Louis Armstrong, the Rev. Gary Davis, Leonard Cohen and Randy Newman. Greenhill said Van Ronk was also an excellent songwriter, and showcased his talents on the album "Going Back to Brooklyn."

Perhaps most notably, Van Ronk expanded the melody of the old blues song "He Was A Friend Of Mine," which was later adapted by the Byrds as a tribute to John F. Kennedy. Van Ronk also added the chords to "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down," and co-owned the copyright, said Greenhill.

Dylan recorded both those songs, along with other tunes covered by Van Ronk such as Bukka White's "Fixin' To Die," Blind Lemon Jefferson's "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" and "Cocaine Blues." On the liner notes of his self-titled debut album, Dylan credited Van Ronk with turning him on to "House of the Rising Sun."

According to music writer David Hajdu's recently published book "Positively 4th Street," Van Ronk was so respected by the city's folk musicians that New York Times reporter Robert Shelton -- who gave Dylan his first major press exposure in 1961 -- asked him to vet important pieces before he submitted them to his editors.

Van Ronk is survived by his wife, Andrea Buocolo. A memorial service is pending, Greenhill said.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Peter T.
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 09:23 AM

Like the passing of some ancient Druid. yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Amos
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 09:30 AM

This is a sad report indeed.

All I could do, reading this , was to sit down and bang out "Winin' Boy" and "Candy Man" and "Nerrver Gonna Cease My Wanderin'" .

A

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Peter T.
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 09:38 AM

From a Sing Out interview in the 1970s, reproduced at www.culcom.net/~shadow1:

By the time I started collecting you could get quite a good selection of jazz on LP. I still have RL 101, the very first Riverside ten-inch record, a thing called "Louis Armstrong Plays the Blues." At first I was very annoyed to find out it wasn't Louis Armstrong alone but Louis Armstrong backing blues singers like Chippie Hill and Ma Rainey. I started to listen and liked it very much. But there was no country blues available on Lps. For that you had to go to the 78s. A ten-inch record called "Listen to Our Story" had ballads of all kinds. Just two things on it might be taken for blues -- one was "Staggerlee" by Furry Lewis and the other was "True Religion" by Reverend Edward Clayburn, bith finger-picking guitar. I heard "Staggerlee" on that thing and I thought it was two guitars -- one playing the bass line and the other playing the melody.

INTERVIEWER: I used to think that too.

It was obvious! When someone told me it was one guitarist using three fingers I really went berserk trying to figure out how it could be done. I practically tied my fingers in a knot. It wasn't until I went down to Washington Square one Sunday...I believe it was Tom Paley I saw ingerpicking and I remember saying, "That's how it's done!" From then on my descent was gradual but sure. I met Barry Kornfeld, and he was already picking like a sonofabitch. I learned a lot from watching Tom and Barry. Barry was hanging out with Reverend Gary Davis, so I met Gary.

INTERVIEWER: When and where did you start performing solo?

I think my first solo performance was on Third Street, at the Cafe Bizzare, in 1958 or `59. Barry was there. We all used to hang around. They would shut down the Square around seven o'clock, so everybody would troop over to the American Youth Hostel on Eighth Street where Barry Kornfeld was running a hoot a la Pete Seeger every Sunday night. That would knock off about ten and we'd go over to Roger Abram's place -- an old building at 190 Spring Street. It was a rat's nest of folk singers, and the music would go on until three, four, five o'clock in the morning. The person who lived there couldn't stand it and finally threw us all out. Then the landlord opened acoffeehouse on Third Street and saw the opportunity for some cheap or free talent, and that became the Cafe Bizzarre. As far as I know, it was the first coffeehouse in the Village that had folk music. It was over a year ahead of the Gaslight and other places.

From Singout! Issue 27/5, late 1970's

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: GUEST,Roger in Baltimore
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 09:40 AM

It saddens me to hear this news. What I remember most about Dave is that he seemed to really enjoy what he was doin'. Playing music. Not every performer seems to be having as much fun as Dave seemed to be having. He was also a joy to listen to.

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: GUEST,Muskrat (my easter egg's down again!)
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 02:10 PM

and here's the NYT obit: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/11/obituaries/11RONK.html

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: GUEST,Muskrat (my cookie's down again!)
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 02:11 PM

and here's the NYT obit: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/11/obituaries/11RONK.html

Subject: OBIT: Dave Van Ronk
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 02:37 PM

Links tend to disappear, so I was going to post the New York Times article. Turns out, it's from Reuters, and is just about the same as the obituary Brian posted above - except that the Times changed the article to speak of "Mr." Van Ronk and "Mr." Dylan.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: GUEST,Deda
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 03:28 PM

What a loss. I just watched a video of him a couple of weeks ago (don't know the name, was on loan from a friend); he was this great big bear-like singer, growling with a dry half-smile, leaning on and over his guitar and singing things as wildly diverse as "Would you like to swing on a star" and (of course) "Cocaine, runnin all 'round my brain". I'm sorry I never saw him perform in person, even on video he was wonderful to watch and to hear. When I was in (boarding)high school in the 60s, his was one of the LPs you could always hear in the halls of the dorms. RIP

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: nager
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 03:58 PM

Very sad news ... I first heard Dave on a Newport Blues Festival record back in the 1960s and have been an avid fan ever since. His music will live on with all of us.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: lamarca
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 04:08 PM

Damn! Damn! Damn! I'm crying and kicking myself - my husband and I both decided we were "too tired" from work that day, and didn't go to his last concert. I was praying he'd make it through the cancer treatments and give us all many more years of his music and stories.

I've loved Van Ronk's music since I won a pair of free tickets to hear him at the Cellar Door in 1981. I didn't know who he was, but what the hell, they were free tickets...

I was blown away. My favorite two songs from that night were "Green, Green, Rocky Road" and a powerful version of "Wandering Aengus". I went to hear Van Ronk as often as I could when he performed in the DC area after that.

I hope that there is an afterlife, and that his soul is still making music.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Michael S
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 04:50 PM

I saw many Van Ronk concerts, but my most delicious memory of Dave comes from one purely personal encounter. About 8 years ago my wife and I interviewed him--an exercise ostensibly based on academic research but motivated largely by my own role as fan. Dave was, I felt, remarkably agreeable and respectful, given that he had no idea who we were, and we could do nothing for him. How many interviews must the man have endured? We met at a cafe of his choosing in NYC and Dave listened silently as I explained what I was doing and where he fit in, blah, blah, blah. He then looked at me with great seriousness and said in that gravelly voice, "Do you want it to be true?" I said yes, but still he talked to us for hours.

Rest in Peace, Dave. You made your mark. I'll remember your music, and how kind you were to my wife and I.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Mountain Dog
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 05:09 PM

Sad news, indeed. I passed the word along to a friend who knew Dave well from the late 50s and early 60s in the Village and he immediately sent back a wonderful version of DVR singing "He Was A Friend of Mine". Thankfully, a vast and varied band of musicians, vaunted and unknown alike, do live on in the hearts and memories of those who have known and loved them.

Wherever he is today, I expect Dave is truly "travelin' light"

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: simon-pierre
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 06:35 PM

I really hoped - and tought - he would get back well from his surgery few months ago, and that someday I could catch him in show. What can I say? I learned more about music and guitar playing from him than any other musician, and my style is very closed to his.

Rest in peace, comrade!

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Joe_F
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 07:42 PM

There are threads including some lovely reminiscences on alt.obituaries and rec.music.folk.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: GUEST,CC
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 09:22 PM

Very sad news indeed. I love this guy's music. I saw Dave a few times in very intimate settings (shows w/ just a few people), and hung with him for a while at a festival. What a giant of a human being. I talked about getting some lessons from him, but never wound up getting together. Anyone have a transcription of how he played his song "John Hurt"?.... Peace, Dave. -CC [e-mail]