Dave Van Ronk

Dave Van Ronk, 1968

David Kenneth Ritz "Dave" Van Ronk (born June 30, 1936 in Brooklyn , New York , † February 10, 2002 in New York City ) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. He was a driving force behind the folk and blues revivals of the 1960s and promoted a.o. a. Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell .

Van Ronk attended Richmond Hill High School in Queens , which he left early when he was 15. Since 1949 he played in a barbershop quartet, and in the early 1950s he joined the merchant marine. From 1956 he appeared as a professional musician. Van Ronk was very interested in jazz and blues, and is said to have been one of the first to play traditional jazz and ragtime on the acoustic guitar. His songs were based on the work of blues legends such as Furry Lewis , Reverend Gary Davis and Mississippi John Hurt and he himself influenced numerous musicians such as Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen . He spent most of his life in New York's bohemian Greenwich Village , where he worked as a guitar teacher and performed regularly. He was awarded the ASCAP Prize for Lifetime Achievement in 1997 and gave his last concert in October 2001. He died in February 2002 while being treated for colorectal cancer.

In 2004 a street in the "Village" was named after him. His autobiography was the inspiration for the Coen brothers in the film Inside Llewyn Davis .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Coen film "Inside Llewyn Davis": The Anti-Dylan

literature

• Dave Van Ronk, Lawrence Block , Elijah Wald : The Mayor Of MacDougal Street . Biography, DaCapo Press April 2005, engl. ISBN 978-0306814075 ; New edition as paperback, DaCapo Press 2006, engl. ISBN 978-0306814792
  • Review: elijahwald.com: The Mayor of MacDougal Street (March 25, 2012)

Web links

• Biography at All Music Guide
• wsws.org: Folk and blues artist Dave van Ronk dies at the age of 65 (March 25, 2012)