I can imagine that Van Ronk was highly aware of Bob's musical indebtedness to people like Jack Elliott, Cisco and Woody, old recordings of blues and so on. If you pay a lot of attention to an artist's connections to existing streams of music, it can divert you from the unique way they create. I do think Bob is a genius, and I am stingy with that kind of judgment. But I grant "genius" the right to come from somewhere; I don't need "genius" to stand alone and entirely unique. There are many great Navajo weavers, e.g., but only one may be of the highest artistry and inventiveness. That person could be a genius, drawing on tradition.
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Skip James over John Hurt any day, and I love John Hurt.