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]

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

Van Ronk was surely one of the very best. I was always blown away by his choice of material -- he never stuck to one genre or style, but chose the best of many different types of music. Everything from "Cocaine Blues" to "Teddybear's Picnic." He will be sorely missed.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: RWilhelm
Date: 12 Feb 02 - 01:02 AM

He was the real thing. Gone too soon.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: GUEST,bob schwarer
Date: 12 Feb 02 - 03:10 PM

Very sad to hear this. A great loss.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: bflat
Date: 12 Feb 02 - 05:57 PM

On Monday, 2/11 the New York Times ran his obituarty by Reuters. Today, Tuesday,2/12 Jon Pareles of the New York Times wrote another obituary. Mr. Pareles presented so much more of the personality of Dave Van Ronk with a glimpse of his role in the folk revival of the 1950's and 1060's through his more current work. Rueters sighted Mr. Dylan eight times in it's obituary and Mr. Pareles only once. I'll save today's as a keepsake.

I don't do html or I would have provided a link.

Ellen

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Feb 02 - 07:11 PM

OBIT: Dave Van Ronk

12-Feb-02 - 07:04 PM (#648605) Subject: Dave Van Ronk From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie Dave Van Ronk died Sunday, 10 Feb at age 65 of respiratory collapse after a long, wearing struggle with colon cancer. Details on Google. Was there an earlier thread? I don't want the distinction of being the bearer of this news. Chicken Charlie

12-Feb-02 - 07:07 PM (#648611) Subject: RE: OBIT: Dave Van Ronk From: Amos Yes, Charlie -- there was. But thank you anyway. A.

11-Feb-02 - 10:30 AM (#647275) Subject: Dave VanRonk: The music will miss you! From: GUEST,Richard Sutton I read my daily NY Times today, and on page 25 an article announcing the passing of Dave VanRonk, the "Mayor" of Greenwich Village. He died of colon cancer yesterday, the 10th. I thought back to the times I was learning a few "raw" old songs to beat out on my cheap "Aria". I was only 16, and VanRonk was a Folk Hero. It was 1968, the war was in full swing and resistance to it's insidious influence was considered "a duty" by my circle of friends and musicians. The rusty old songs learned from Dave's records were always good for a few laughs, to get people thinking, or as a way to rally folks together. His version of Cocaine Blues got daily "play" in the soundtrack of our lives at this point. Those songs, and his bigger than life, growling style influenced several generations of musicians, performers and songwriters. Dave lived the way he sang. We won't be seeing his kind again real soon.

11-Feb-02 - 10:37 AM (#647282) Subject: RE: OBIT: Dave VanRonk: The music will miss you! From: Murray MacLeod Richard, you might like to read these other tributes Here in an earlier thread Murray

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: MarkS
Date: 12 Feb 02 - 10:06 PM

"Loss" is too weak a word. I saw Dave often over the years, starting out in the 60s when he played for free in Washington Square Park. Got his autograph somewhere from a lecture he gave in Stroudsburg, PA, once. Been to many of his concerts and coffee house appearances from Canada on down,\.

Only actually spoke to him once, but man, I like to think
"He was a friend of mine"

Hey, Dave, hope your new road is mostly green green and not so rocky.

Mark

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: simon-pierre
Date: 13 Feb 02 - 11:23 PM

I just listened to a documentary on Bob Dylan that was shown last year, and Dave made some comments. It strucked me - I realized that I never saw him before, except on photograph. Dylan - the man who knew Dave Van Ronk. He was lucky...

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: GUEST,Arne Langsetmo
Date: 15 Feb 02 - 08:47 PM

I hope that perfomers will think about adding "He Was A Friend OF Mine" to their repertoire in tribute.

I saw him a number of times in venues large (for folk music) and small. My favourite memory of him was going "backstage" (or whatever passed for such in the small locale) and finding him between sets immersed in an old book. Always the student -- and always the teacher as well, I understand.

He will be sorely missed. I can't imagine anyone else doing "Go Down Hannah" quite like him -- he made that song just sneak out and _grab_ ya.

And to lose Waylon the same week. Sad.

-- Arne Langsetmo

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: JudyR
Date: 15 Feb 02 - 09:48 PM

I feel like this is perhaps not a nice thing to say -- you don't talk about one man's death in terms of another -- but I keep thinking that in terms of humanity and what they gave to people, Dave had it all over Waylon. And how sadly ironic that Waylon had the greater fame, with his death attracting more attention. So many times this week, I've mentioned to people, "Dave Van Ronk died." And I get a little shrug (if people can "shrug" over the phone!). Yes, I liked country music -- I even "abandoned" folk for quite a few years in favor of it (until country became the travesty it is today). But isn't it funny? Every single time when I would go back and hear Van Ronk all over again, I'd go "yeah." I'd would resist his brand of folk as untrendy, and then I'd have this -- he'd call it "satori." I even wrote a line about it once: "You can appear to be moving around, like me, and not be going that far at all. Or you can appear to be stuck in time, and really just be sticking to your guns. It's all about illusions." Like clouds, I guess.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Barry Finn
Date: 15 Feb 02 - 10:48 PM

First saw him in 68, I was only 17. He was probably one of my earliest icons in folk. What an impression he marked me with. After 34 yrs I'm still singing some of his songs. To me "Another Time & Place" is a monument to a mighty big man. He leaves behind a great hole in the folk community. Barry

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: GUEST,Arne Langsetmo
Date: 16 Feb 02 - 12:58 PM

I will agree that I personally liked Van Ronk more that Waylon Jennings (although each might be more suitable for different moods and locales).

But neither one detracts from the other; they were both fine contributors to the music and life of all.

Both brought an iconoclasm to the art, refusing to buy in to the commercial and play to the crowd. Each was happy to make their _own_ music.

For this, and for many reasons, they will both be missed.

Should we encourage more people to get to know the lesser known Van Ronk? _Absolutely_! In many ways, the music of today can be laid at Van Ronk's feet, even if the listeners don't know it. They should. While I didn't know the "Mayor of Greenwich Village" personally, he was indeed a friend of mine.

Cheers,

-- Arne Langsetmo

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Liam's Brother
Date: 17 Feb 02 - 02:46 AM

Dave was one of the first non-Irish, non-British singers that I heard. In the early to mid-60's I bought a couple of his albums, one devoted to blues and another called "Dave Van Ronk - Folksinger." I enjoyed his ragtime guitar immensely and regardless the genre of his songs, I appreciated his singing, particularly the commitment he showed to his songs.

I met him twice. The first time was in DC. I was in a group named The Flying Cloud at the time. We were playing a 5-week stint at The Dubliner on Capitol Hill and Dave was playing at a club a little further north. Brian Brooks and I dropped into the club to speak with the manager and they asked us to wait in Dave's dressing room. He came in after he finished his set. He certainly had given his "all" because I have hardly ever seen a person sweat so in all my life! We tried to make pleasant conversation with him but he was so wired that he could hardly speak. That was in 1976.

4 or 6 years later, Rosalie Sorrels brought Dave to The Eagle Tavern in Greenwich Village where I ran a folk club. We were had a "sing-around" format that night. Dave and Rosalie sat with me and Dave sang every Irish song that he had ever learned from his mother's family, from hanging out with the Clancys, wherever and whenever. He was a gentleman, very engaging and very pleasant company. I'm sorry to hear of his death.

My father died of colon cancer. I's no fun. My condolences to his family.

All the best,
Dan Milner

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: simon-pierre
Date: 17 Feb 02 - 07:10 PM

The guy who maintain the only website about Dave had set up a memorial page if you want to leave a word.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: Justa Picker
Date: 17 Feb 02 - 07:37 PM

The man could pick "dropped D" blues like nobody's business!

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 18 Feb 02 - 12:17 AM

Goodbye, Dave. We traveled many an early road together, Pete Seeger's apartment sings, Alan Block's loft (rent-raising gatherings), Izzy Young's store, the Newport Festival... what great days! Precious memories- they help, but never can replace. Jean Ritchie

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: GUEST,Johnny Toot
Date: 18 Feb 02 - 01:55 AM

The great Bob Dylan has opened his last handful of shows with "Duncan & Brady", no doubt a tribute to his friend and mentor. Dave Van Ronk was a musical titan and will be sorely missed.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: GUEST,LDO
Date: 19 Feb 02 - 01:12 AM

Bob Dylan has to be the coolest living human.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: GUEST,Joan Baez
Date: 19 Feb 02 - 03:23 PM

I'd have to agree with above!

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: GUEST,howie
Date: 20 Feb 02 - 02:20 AM

Everybody....

"I'll do anything in this godalmighty world if ya just let me follow ya down!"

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: 2 in harmony
Date: 20 Feb 02 - 11:33 AM

Dave Van Ronk was and will always be the heart of much folk music for me. Listening to his albums in the 60's until I wore them out, hearing him live several times in recent years, being introduced to him at the Bitter End and having the opportunity to keep singing & performing his songs will keep him close. "No, oh no, it can't be so..." I can hardly believe that it is.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: GUEST,Duncan Brady
Date: 20 Feb 02 - 03:04 PM

Been on the job too long...

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: GUEST,Ramblin' Johnny
Date: 20 Feb 02 - 09:16 PM

Godspeed, Mayor. Too soon gone.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: GUEST,texastoolman
Date: 21 Feb 02 - 10:30 AM

i've been kinda outtatouch for awhile
after thinking about Dave
i figured this would be the place to come
i can tell by ya'lls responses
i was right
he was one of the first people to show me
how a white man can sing the blues
i will be forever in his debt
"tell ole Bill when he gets home"
only wish i could have seen just once
tex

HTML line breaks fixed. Your lack of closing angle brackets caused your text to disappear!--JoeClone, 1-Mar-03.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk
From: texastoolman
Date: 21 Feb 02 - 10:44 AM

i'm sorry that didn't come out
the way i wanted it to
i haven't been around for awhile
and i guess i forgot the proper protocol
was the first white man i ever heard
who could sing the blues
i will be forever in his debt for that
"you better tell ole bill when he gets home"
i only wish i had seen him once
tex

Ditto. --JoeClone, 1-Mar-03.

Subject: RE: OBIT: RIP Dave Van Ronk (1936-2002)
From: Felipa
Date: 30 Jul 21 - 06:46 AM

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/feb/13/guardianobituaries

Dave Van Ronk
Musician and mentor to the young Bob Dylan
Tony Russell
Wed 13 Feb 2002 03.05 GMT
The singer and guitarist Dave Van Ronk, who has died aged 65, had since the 1960s been one of the most distinctive voices in the musical community of New York's Greenwich Village, and long associated with the early career of Bob Dylan. A bearded bear of a man, he was equally at home in blues, jazz, Anglo-American folksong and ragtime. A Van Ronk performance was a switchback ride through American vernacular music, from Come All Ye Fair And Tender Ladies to Cocaine Blues and beyond, taking in Brecht and Weill's Mack The Knife and a setting of WB Yeats's poem, Song Of The Wandering Angus. His heroes, he liked to say, were Donald Duck, Lenin and WC Fields - "because they all did what they wanted".

Van Ronk grew up in Brooklyn, learned guitar at high school and began playing with traditional jazz bands. His interest in other African-American folk musics was not stirred until he encountered the singers Odetta and Josh White in the late 1950s, when he began performing on New York's club and coffeehouse circuit. For a time he roomed with the writer and music historian Sam Charters, who was shortly to publish his pioneering book The Country Blues, and the two played in bands called the Orange Blossom Jug Five and the Ragtime Jug Stompers.

Van Ronk was one of the first villagers to draw attention to the compositions of a younger musician lately arrived in New York, when he began to sing Bob Dylan's He Was A Friend Of Mine. He later recorded it on his 1963 album Folksinger. When Dylan first came to New York, he often stayed with Van Ronk and his wife, Terri Thal, at their apartment on West 15th Street. For a few months Thal was his business manager, before Dylan put his affairs in the hands of the wily Albert Grossman, of whom Van Ronk said: "Albert was easy to deal with. It wasn't till maybe two days after you would see Albert that you'd realise your underwear had been stolen."

Dylan listened attentively to Van Ronk's huge repertoire, regarding him, in his biographer Robert Shelton's phrase, as "his first New York guru . . . a walking museum of the blues". Van Ronk was the source of several songs Dylan later recorded, among them Dink's Blues and House Of The Rising Sun, Dylan's recording of which was in turn absorbed by the Animals and became a pop hit.

By the mid-1960s, Van Ronk was a major figure on the East Coast folk scene, appearing at folk festivals and Carnegie Hall, teaching guitar and recording steadily. People had begun to call him "the mayor of Greenwich Village", a phrase that may have originated with Shelton, who described him as "a tall, garrulous, hairy man of three-fifths Irish descent . . . he resembled an unmade bed strewn with books, record jackets, pipes, empty whiskey bottles, lines from obscure poets, finger picks and broken guitar strings."

As with many of his contemporaries, his music was fuelled by political conviction: in the 1960s he was dedicated to the civil rights movement, and he was a lifelong Trotskyist, with a relish for involvement and confrontation. A friend asked him how he came to be arrested in the 1969 riot when New York police busted a gay bar, the Stonewall Inn. "I was passing by and I saw what was going down," he said, "and I figured, they can't have a riot without me!" In 1974 he appeared with Dylan and others at a benefit concert for Chilean political refugees.

He continued to perform and to record. On the collection Let No One Deceive You (1990), he and the English folksinger Frankie Armstrong sang the lyrics of Bertolt Brecht, while the double albums A Chrestomathy (1992) and To All My Friends In Far-Flung Places (1994) were bulging folios of musical Americana from Scott Joplin's The Entertainer to Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues.

He played his last concert in October, and, while recovering from an operation for colon cancer, was sorting through tapes to put together for his next album. He is survived by his second wife, Andrea Buocolo.

· David "Dave" Van Ronk, folk musician, born June 30 1936; died February 10 2002