I don't think the genius thing is worth tuppence. Who knows who is a genius. Nobody in Van Gogh's lifetime would have thought of him as such. Would they have treated Oscar Wilde so shamefully if they had any idea of his true worth? James Joyce stayed in the game only because of a wealthy patron - the popular consensus of the time had him down as dirty minded and lazy.

Personally I doubt there would be many of the aspects of folk music that Dave Van Ronk didn't get. However he had no wealthy family in the background to support his project to be a professional entertainer in the folk/acoustic world. from the book, you can learn of some of the weird and wonderful projects he got involved with - many through financial necessity. Moreover his audiences don't seem to have been for the main part the respectful crowd that a Carthy or a Seeger seems to attract.

He had to think divergently to survive, and stay in the game. Of necessity he saw things somewhat differently from the sort of artist whose worth is recognised by the intelligentsia and whose work doesn't have to pitch in the marketplace in competition with every other pleb with a banjo.

al