Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp

Subject: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: GUEST,New Jug fan
Date: 19 Jun 03 - 05:23 PM

I've heard rumors about an old Dave Van Ronk Jugband lp on Lyrikord (?) Nobody I know seems to know anything about it...Does it really exist? is it easy to get a hold of? (This is NOT the Jugstompers lp on Mercury) I think Sam Carters might be on it -- any info?????

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jun 03 - 05:53 PM

It exists but is impossible to find. I'd expect it would cost big bucks on EBay if someone was trying to sell it.

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: Mark Ross
Date: 19 Jun 03 - 06:12 PM

It was called DVR and his Ragtime Jug Stompers,who were Barry Kornfeld, Sam Charters, Danny Kalb, & Artie Rose. A great album, I think it was on the Mercury label.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: ddw
Date: 19 Jun 03 - 06:34 PM

I used to have an album I found in a bargain bin called DVR and the Hudson Dusters or something like that. Not sure if I still have it, but my recollection is that it was the one thing I'd ever heard by DVR that I didn't particularly like. Anybody else remember this one? Vague memory also tells me it may have been at least partly electric.

Mark, New Jug Fan said it wasn't the Jugstompers on Mercury —— Is the one you're talking about a different one? I notice yours insterts "Ragtime" in the band's name....

cheers,

david

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: Stewie
Date: 19 Jun 03 - 08:41 PM

There is a comprehensive DVR discography on Stefan Wirz's site [Use the HOME/LINKS bar at the top of the page - scoll it across to find Van Ronk]:

Click here

The album you are looking for is possibly The Orange Blossom Jug Five 'Skiffle in Stereo' Lyrichord LLST773.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: Tiger
Date: 20 Jun 03 - 08:53 AM

The Jug Stompers (1964) disk was great, and is a collector's item.

Hudson Dusters (1968) was a one-time foray into rock that is best forgotten

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: GUEST,new jug fan
Date: 20 Jun 03 - 09:15 AM

Anyone know how rare the Orange Blossom Five lp is - has any of you actually seen a copy? thanks!

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: dwditty
Date: 20 Jun 03 - 09:38 AM

The fact that www.gemm.com does not have it listed tells me that it is indeed rare. I have collected lots of Van Ronk over the years and have never run into a copy of it. And, if it were not of historical significance for me, I would gladly give away my Hudson Dusters copy.

Sam Charters has a record label called Gazelle. You may be able to track it down through him at: PO Box 527, Mansfield Center CT 06250 if this is still a current address.

dw

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: Cool Beans
Date: 20 Jun 03 - 05:39 PM

Hey, wait a minute. DVR and the Hudson Dusters has the all-time best recording of "Clouds," slow and contemplative. And "Romping Through the Swamp" is pretty good, too. The rest of it you can keep, though.

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: GUEST,elijahwald
Date: 28 Apr 05 - 05:32 PM

For them as is interested, the new Mayor of MacDougal Street CD includes one track from "Skiffle In Stereo," the LP that inspired this thread. The Orange Blossom Jug Five were Dave, Sam Charters, Ann Damberg (soon to be Charters), Len Kunstadt, and Bob Brill. The CD also has a Hudson Dusters track. And a lot else........

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 28 Apr 05 - 05:37 PM

And CAMSCO will be carrying "The Mayor of MacDougall Street" as soon as it arrives here.

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: PoppaGator
Date: 28 Apr 05 - 05:55 PM

Another DVR album featuring a band was "Dave Van Ronk and the Red Onion Jazz Band." I think at least one of the above posts refers to this recording.

I've never owned a copy and it's been many years since I listened to it ~ as best as I can recall, it was Dave performing songs from the ragtime/Dixieland side of his repertoire backed by a trad-jazz-type ensemble (probably trumpet, trombone, clarinet, tenor banjo, drums, and either a tuba/sousaphone or a string bass fiddle).

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: johnross
Date: 28 Apr 05 - 07:12 PM

The Lyrichord LP shows up on eBay maybe two or three times a year, give or take. It generally sells for about $150 - $200, which is out of my range.

That suggests to me that it is moderately rare, but there are probably more than a handful out there someplace. With enough time and money, you could eventually lay your hands on it.

It's certainly not in the "(almost) impossible to find" category like, oh, Peggy Seeger's first LP, "Folksongs of Courting and Complaint" on the original Sigma label (later re-issued on Folkways, but it's the Sigma version that's rare), or Richard Farina's 7-inch EP made with his then-wife Caroline Hester on the Scottish Waverley label.

By all reports "Skiffle in Stereo" is a pretty terrible record, of interest only because it's early Van Ronk. It's likely that most people who bought it new during the brief skiffle fad have long since dumped it.

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: dwditty
Date: 28 Apr 05 - 09:03 PM

An excerpt from Dave's autobiography - Mayor of MacDougal Street - Page 89. DVR is talking about Sam Charters and how they used to play together.

"Right around that time, an English singer named Lonnie Donegan got a hit playing a jug band version of Leadbelly's "Rock Island Line," so there was a brief flutter of interest in the style, which the English called "skiffle." As a result, we ended up with a deal to make a skiffle record for a label called Lyrichord. We put together a group that included Sam's future wife, Ann, on washboard and one of our trad buddies, Len Kunstadt, on kazoo, and rehearsed a bunch of tunes - I recall a truly unique version of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. I still maintain that we were a pretty good band, but no one ever knew it from that record. Those were the days when stereo recording was still the neat new gimmick, and Lyrichord decided to wrap up two hot trends with one package by making an album called Skiffle in Stereo. The problem was that back in the mono days,there had been no need to separate musicians onto separate recording tracks, and hence microphones were designed to capture the full range of sound in their area. We were still using this old microphone technology, so to get separation, they had to put all of us in different rooms, and for the same reason there were no directional mics, there was no such thing as recording with headphones. The upshot was that each of us could just barely hear the two nearest players, but none of us could hear the whole band. We were constantly getting away from each other, and the result included some of the most appalling moments I have ever heard on record. To crown the whole debacle, I pulled rank on my lesser-known associates, and the band was billed on the album cover as the Orange Blossom Jug Five with Dave Van Ronk. Talk about the punishment fitting the crime..."

I have seen this album on ebay from time to time.

dw

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 29 Apr 05 - 02:57 AM

Sounds like a great autobiography. As a fingerpicker I cut my teeth on Green Green Rocky Road and Bad Dream Blues - I bet a lot of people of my generation did. However I got out of touch with DVR.

Recommendations for a the one DVR to own.

all the best to any old Blues Project listeners out there

Big Al Whittle

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: dwditty
Date: 29 Apr 05 - 06:51 AM

The one DVR to own? It is liking picking only one child.

One of me favorites is called Sunday Street. If you want to witness DVR in concert, though, his last concert is captured on "...and the tin pan bended, and the story ended..." On this CD you get a great selection of songs as well as lots of Dave's stories. Others you should look for on ebay, etc:

Somebody ELse, Not Me
Another Time & Place
Going Back to Brooklyn

There is also a brand new release of some early recordings...well 1958-1969 - called the Mayor of MacDougal,

dw

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: JJ
Date: 29 Apr 05 - 07:58 AM

Wait -- Ann Charters, biographer of Jack Kerouac and primo Beat scholar, played washboard in a jug band with Dave Van Ronk?

One is always finding new connections, ain't one?

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: dwditty
Date: 29 Apr 05 - 08:12 AM

Ain't life just full of surprises!

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: Mark Ross
Date: 29 Apr 05 - 11:32 AM

The recordings Dave did with the Red Onion Jazz Band have been re-released on the CD,

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: PoppaGator
Date: 29 Apr 05 - 12:01 PM

Big (wee) Al: Which "Blues Project"?

I remember, first, an anthology-type LP on one of the major folk labels (Vanguard or Elektra, I would guess) featuring several different "folk-revival" (i.e., young and white) blues artists. Shortly thereafter, there was a pretty good band called the Blues Project, who released a couple of LPs.

Both "Projects" came out of the NYC/Greenwich VIllage scene, if I'm not mistaken, and both were fairly important developments in the movement from acoustic folk to "folk-rock," at a time when Chicago-style electric blues was first widely recognized as "folk music" and became a sort of template for introducing amplification into other aeras of so-called folk music.

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: Wesley S
Date: 29 Apr 05 - 01:23 PM

The anthology record was on Electra and included singers like Koerner,Ray and Glover, Geoff Muldaur, Danny Kalb { who was on both Bles Project records } Dave Van Ronk and many others. It was the first time I'd been exposed to the blues and it opened my ears to say the least. I was sure the record was warped when I first heard it. I'd never heard a slide guitar { Dave Ray on a 12 string } and i was sure that was the only explination.

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 29 Apr 05 - 03:07 PM

I actually will go on record saying that I like Dave Van Ronk and the Hudson Dusters. I can understand why people wouldn't like it as well. If you really liked Dave's solo guitar work, you weren't going to find it there. I haven't seen mention of another fine album of his, No Dirty Names.

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 29 Apr 05 - 06:04 PM

I meant the record rather than the group. It was on Elektra and I wore out three copies - then the fourth one got borrowed by a man who went to India.

there was this this little booklet with it that was pretentious as all hell. Comparing Danny Kalb's Downtown Blues to Genet, Beckett and Sartre - (all at once!).

pretentious but fun!

all the best

to all my fellow pseudo intellectuals who went on to read Genet, Beckett and JPS - hoping for something as much fun as Danny Kalb

Big Al Whittle

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: dwditty
Date: 29 Apr 05 - 06:06 PM

Les Jeux Sont Fait, indeed.

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: oldhippie
Date: 19 Sep 10 - 05:27 PM

The Mercury LP (SR60864/MG20864) is titled "Ragtime Jug Stompers - Dave Van Ronk" and on the back "How to have fun with an empty jug". Track listing: Everybody Loves My Baby/Stealin'/Saint Louis tickle/Sister Kate/Take It Slow And Easy/Mack The Knife/Diggin' My Potatoes/Temptation Rag/Shake That Thing/K C Moan/Georgia Camp Meeting/You'se A Viper. Personnel were Van Ronk, Sam Charters, Danny Kalb, Artie Rose, Barry Kornfield.

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: bobad
Date: 19 Sep 10 - 06:10 PM

"Ragtime Jug Stompers" available for download HERE

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: Larry The Radio Guy
Date: 20 Sep 10 - 12:20 PM

Why all this putdown of the Hudson Dusters LP. It was a real classic. You ain't heard nothin' until you hear Dave Van Ronk singing "Would You Like to Swing on a Star".

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: GUEST,pickalongpete
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 12:27 AM

I'v got Ragtime Jug stompers and the Red Onion Jazz Band and mono and stereo copies of The Blues Project. On my i-pod so I can listen to them while I am at work(people think I'm crazy 'cause I'm always singing along with it). DVR is one of my most favorite musician's of all time. My friends and I shared a bottle of JackDaniels with him at a performance at the Chessmate in Detroit back in the 60's. Read "The Mayor of MacDougal Street" and a book called "Baby Let Me Follow You Down" by Eric Von Schmidt and Jim Rooney. Books written by people who were there and involved in some of the best music ever recorded.

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: Thomas Stern
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 01:11 PM

Dave Van Ronk's first Jug Band recording, personnel included
Sam Charters and his soon to be wife Ann Danberg, and the
legendary Len Kunstadt.

see link above (stewie) for Van Ronk discography.

Best wishes, Thomas.


LYRICHORD LLST 773          LP 1958
The Orange Blossom Jug Five: Skiffle in stereo

Dave Van Ronk, voc, g; Sam Charters, cornet, g; Russel Glynn, jug; Ann Danberg [later Ann Charters], washboard; Len Kunstadt, kazoo

Just because
Camille Gaspegeau
You gotta like it
Keepin' thin
Salty dog
Down by the riverside
Trouble in mind

New original hello Alaska Statehood joys
Take your fingers off it
Snake rag
Reckless blues
Ice cream
Voice of a porkchop
Long time man

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: GUEST,Jugband Davy
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 11:00 AM

I was Lucky to buy "Skiffle in Stereo" for $69.00 on Ebay - Transferred the damn thing (yes it's CRAPPY) to digital and sold the lp (on ebay again) for $265...Crappy, but profitable I'm still looking for Utah Phillips lp on Prestige............

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Apr 23 - 09:43 PM

for those interested in hearing the Ornge Blossom Jug Five recordings,
one track was reissued on the MAYOR OF MACDOUGLA STREEL: Rarities
1957-69 CD.
Recently the UK ACROBAT label has issued a 2-CD set which contains 5 tracks from the Lyrichord LP, plus the first two Folkways LPs and the first Prestige LP. Liner notes from Folkways and Prestige are included with additional notes.
Dave Van Ronk Collection 1958-62
   http://acrobatmusic.net/?cid=5&AlbumId=1203

Thomas.

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: Halfmoon Charlie
Date: 23 Apr 23 - 04:44 PM

DVR and The Hudson Dusters - Verve Folkways - maybe 1968?
I'm pretty sure I still have a copy of it somewhere. It was certainly a different sound for him at the time, using bass, drums and some electric guitar. It had some songs that I guess I would call comedic, like Romping Through The Swamp, or Head Inspector. Probably safe to say it was his least "popular" album with folky listeners, although it has 2 really great recordings on it; Dink's Song, and the best version of Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now ever recorded by anyone. The book that Elijah Wald put out ("The Mayor of MacDougal Street"), which - if I recall correctly - was largely written by VanRonk, praises it.
But it's not the Jugband LP, which I don't remember ever hearing. You'd think in these days of instant internet gratification, there'd be a copy out there floating around.

Subject: RE: Van Ronk's Early Jugband lp
From: Thomas Stern
Date: 23 Apr 23 - 08:27 PM

MERCURY MG 20864 / SR 60864             LP 1964
RAGTIME JUG STOMPERS
DAVE VAN RONK

SIDE A
EVERYBODY LOVES MY BABY
STEALIN'
SAINT LOUIS TICKLE
SISTER KATE
TAKE IT SLOW AND EASY
MACK THE KNIFE

SIDE B
DIGGIN' MY POTATOES
TEMPTATION RAG
SHAKE THAT THING
K.C. MOAN
GEORGIA CAMP MEETING
YOU'SE A VIPER

Verve/Forecast FT 3041                  LP 1967
Dave Van Ronk And The Hudson Dusters
A1. Alley Oop 3:38
A2. Head Inspector 2:06
A3. Swing On A Star 2:37
A4. Mr. Middle 3:02
A5. Chelsea Morning 2:33
A6. Clouds (From Both Sides Now) 4:37
B1. Keep Off The Grass 2:08
B2. Dink's Song 3:34
B3. New Dreams 2:22
B4. Cocaine 4:58
B5. Romping Through The Swamp 1:58

Thomas