That Song About the Midway - Dave Van Ronk, Mitchell, Joni
The Pearls - Dave Van Ronk, Morton, Jelly Roll
That'll Never Happen No More
Mamie's Blues
Swinging on a Star - Dave Van Ronk, Burke, Johnny [Lyri
Without a doubt, this is Dave's greatest single album. Every song perfectly displays one or another facet of his work. He has done a lot since, but this 1976 album was the perfect summary of his basic artistic approach. It... more » is also, incidentally, one of the few genuine masterpieces to come out of the folk-blues revival. --Elijah Wald, from his liner notes« less
Without a doubt, this is Dave's greatest single album. Every song perfectly displays one or another facet of his work. He has done a lot since, but this 1976 album was the perfect summary of his basic artistic approach. It is also, incidentally, one of the few genuine masterpieces to come out of the folk-blues revival. --Elijah Wald, from his liner notes
"One of the heroes of the New York and American folk revival, Dave Van Ronk is a supremely gifted singer and guitarist who was there to bridge the first revival (Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly) and the second (the one that produced Bob Dylan and transformed popular music) and who shows no sign of slowing down. Mediocre Van Ronk recordings are not exactly nonexistent, but they are rare. Sunday Street, finally available on CD after more than three decades, is surely not one of them. It may be his masterpiece, a fully realized, deeply affecting exploration of the various genres -- blues, ragtime, jazz, spirituals, Tin Pan Alley, Joni Mitchell -- that Van Ronk always manages to subsume under a single genre: Van Ronk music. It ain't necessarily pretty, and its sheer intensity may scare you now and again, but it'll shake you in the way art that is plainspoken and true scares you. The blackly comic title song, the CD's one original, takes off from the theme of Van Ronk's onetime signature song, "Willie the Weeper," but "Sunday Street" manages to stand on its own wobbly feet as a sad and hilarious tale of a drunkard's twisted vision of heaven."
Van Ronk's Masterpiece
Mark Shulewitz | Oakland, CA United States | 03/12/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"For someone as incredibly talented as Dave Van Ronk, calling this album his masterpiece is saying a lot. Van Ronk is one of those rare singers with an unmistakably unique voice - he reminds me a little of Tom Waits with a slightly more refined singing voice - and his guitar playing has got to be one of the most underrated in the business. His take on Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag is my favorite interpretation of this ragtime classic. He takes the tempo on this instrumental tune a bit slower and makes every note count. Van Ronk's version of Joni Mitchell's That Song About the Midway is a perfect cover of a perfect song. Do I really need to tell you that if you own only one Dave Van Ronk album, this is the one to have."
Greatness personified
enviro | Texas | 01/31/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)
"From a time when music had words and the words had meaning. Dave Von Ronk was one of the great folk singers of all time. His voice is unique and his words are truth. Where are the truth tellers when we need them??????"
Greenwich Village's "Mayor" Of Folk And Blues
Mike B. | 05/28/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Dave Van Ronk was a gifted acoustic guitar player and musicologist, with a vocal style that reminds me of the song title "From A Whisper To A Scream". He would often begin quietly, and as a song progressed he'd build in intensity until it ended in a full roar. In concert, this was riveting theater - and, one suspects - a good way to get an audience's attention right from the start. It worked.
His voice was a marvel of gravel and grit, not unlike early Tom Waits. In fact, it took me a while to like Waits, because I initially dismissed him as a Van Ronk copycat. No doubt he was influenced by him, as were so many others.
Dave was a Brooklyn native who gravitated to Greenwich Village in his teen years. He was fascinated with the jazz scene, and (in-between shipping out with the Merchant Marines) would sit in on gigs and get tips on playing from esteemed pros like Coleman Hawkins. Eventually he'd hear singers like Odetta, and she encouraged him to sing his favorite jazz standards. He got a Village apartment in the mid-1950's, and lived in the Village his whole life. He started recording in 1959, releasing albums of jazz, blues, and jug band music. But his career really took off in 1963 when he issued his landmark "Folksinger" album.
By then he was well established in the growing folk scene, and was a friend and mentor to younger stars on the rise. When Bob Dylan arrived in New York in 1961, he often stayed with Dave and his wife, sleeping on their couch. Thus began the most colorful period of Van Ronk's life, at the center of a circle that included Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, Judy Collins, Fred Neil - and others too numerous to name. They'd hang out together in Washington Square Park, alternate sets with each other at clubs like Gerte's Folk City, and carouse the bars. For a full account of this era, I'd recommend reading his memoir written with Elijah Wald and published posthumously, "The Mayor Of MacDougal Street" (2005).
Suffice to say that DVR went on to release many albums, and became a highly regarded performer in folk clubs and at folk festivals in the U.S. and around the world. He considered himself a jazz singer, and loved Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday. He collected and studied all the old masters, and was a great song interpreter. His inventive finger-picking style was much admired, and in later years he even taught guitar. Van Ronk is credited with inventing "ragtime guitar", based on the charts and harmonics of jazz pianists like Jelly Roll Morton and Duke Ellington.
All of his albums are great, but I'm spotlighting the CD "Sunday Street" (1976) because it's my favorite. I think it best illustrates his wide-ranging repertoire and varied interests. Dave hand-picked his favorites off his earliest records for the compilation "The Folkway Years, 1959-1961" (1991). "Folksinger" and "Inside Dave Van Ronk" (1969) are available as a two-fer under the umbrella title "Inside Dave Van Ronk" (1991). It's the only way to get "Folksinger", which isn't available by itself - and which comprises the first 13 tracks of this re-issue. These are the songs he performed in his early career that established him as a force to be reckoned with. DVR didn't write many songs, and his records feature few originals. "Going Back To Brooklyn" (1991, re-issued 2006) is his only album of all original compositions. "And The Tin Pan Bended And The Story Ended" is a 2001 recording of his last concert, released in 2005. Dave was a funny story-teller, and that aspect is represented on this "live" CD.
The 5 CD's I've listed above are all essential great listening, and are all available for MP3 download. Also on CD, but more expensive and hard to get (and not available for download): "In The Tradition" (1963), half of which is performed with the Red Onion Jazz Band. It is, however, available as the first 12 tracks of the re-issue "Two Sides Of Dave Van Ronk" (2002). The Red Onions had previously recorded with Dave's friend and fellow scenester Shel Silverstein on his 1959 classic "Hairy Jazz" (recently re-issued on CD); "Ragtime Jug Stompers" (1964), a jug band record; "To All My Friends In Far-Flung Places" (1994), a 2-CD set of songs written by all his friends (both famous and not-so-famous); and "Sweet And Lowdown" (2001), which is old standards like "As Time Goes By" performed with a small jazz band, and is the only one of these 4 that's reasonably priced. All of them are great. There's more, some downloadable - but I can't mention them all! Others you'll have to look for on vinyl until someone has the good sense to re-issue them on CD."
Track Listings (11) - Disc #1
