Passages

Dave Van Ronk

(6/30/36, Brooklyn, NY - 2/10/2002, New York, NY)

Folk Music Influence Dave Van Ronk Dies Of Cancer On Sunday, February 10, 2002, the music world lost another seminal and talented soul. After undergoing two successful surgeries to remove malignant colon cancer last fall and embarking on a six month regimen of chemotherapy, folk musician, activist, and Bob Dylan mentor Dave Van Ronk lost his battle with cancer this past weekend at New York University Medical Center. He was 65. While he never attained the commercial success of his early 1960’s folk contemporaries Bob Dylan or Joan Baez, the "mayor of Greenwich Village," as he was called due to his authoritative knowledge of blues and jazz, was a highly respected and influential musician and performer in the early 60’s Village folk music scene. He was a Brooklyn, NY native who befriended Bob Dylan shortly after Dylan arrived in New York, and they worked together extensively and clearly adored each other. He recorded many albums beginning in the late 1950’s, and covered artists from Leonard Cohen to Blind Lemon Jefferson. Bob Dylan also recorded many songs covered by Van Ronk as well as Van Ronk’s own material. He was one of Dylan’s favorite artists and singers, in addition to being like a big brother to him in the early part of his career. Dave Van Ronk's wife, Terri Thal, for a short while (in 1961) acted as Dylan's manager, trying to get him out-of-town gigs at places like Café Lena in Saratoga Springs, Club 47 in Cambridge, or The Second Fret in Philadelphia. Van Ronk supplied guitar and backing vocal on Dylan’s First Gaslight Tape (Sep 6, 1961) on "Car, Car (Riding in My Car)." The liner notes of Dylan’s self titled debut album credit Van Ronk with turning him on to "House of the Rising Sun." He was nominated for a traditional folk Grammy Award in 1996, later received an ASCAP Lifetime Achievement Award, and he continued teaching guitar throughout his life, touring and recording right up until his surgery last fall for colon cancer. He was in addition a longtime member of the North American Folk Music and Dance Alliance. Dave Van Ronk also influenced David Crosby -- Croz admired his contribution as a musician and to the public good. As related in Crosby and Bender’s Stand and Be Counted, Van Ronk was one of the musician activists who performed along with Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie and many others at the benefit concert "An Evening With Salvadore Allende" (May 9, 1974) at the Felt Forum in New York City. This benefit for the Friends of Chile was organized by Phil Ochs to help the people of Chile in the wake of the (U.S. CIA assisted) overthrow of the Chilean government of Salvadore Allende, which gave way to the government of Auguste Pinochet. For anyone unfamiliar with this story, the benefit concert came about because Phil Ochs and Jerry Rubin had gone down to Latin America to check out Allende’s government, and met singer songwriter Victor Jara, went down into the mines with him, and experienced the pain of the Chilean people through his music. Ochs was incredibly moved by Jara, and his authenticity as the real thing, a voice of the people, and told Pete Seeger all about him. When Allende’s government was overthrown two years later, Jara was tortured and murdered publicly in a stadium and a devastated Ochs then organized the benefit to raise awareness to the plight of the Chilean people. Dave Van Ronk performed Dylan’s "He Was a Friend of Mine" and "Spanish Is the Loving Tongue" at the Friends of Chile Benefit, with Phil Ochs, Arlo Guthrie, and others on backing vocals on "Spanish …." Of course The Byrds (which included a young David Crosby) had also adopted and reworked "He Was a Friend of Mine" in the mid sixties, often dedicating it to John F. Kennedy. While this song is generally credited to Dylan, the exact evolution of the song seems to differ depending on who is telling the tale - Van Ronk, also known for telling funny stories at his shows, offered the following (via an audience member) on this Byrds and Dylan classic at an Aug 10th 1996 show in Harvard Square, Boston: (from http://www.bobdylanroots.com/ronk.html#friend) The best story of the night came as an introduction to "He Was A Friend Of Mine." First he explained, "I learned this song from Eric Von Schmidt, who learned it from Dylan, who learned it from me" and then [he] went on to say that each had added and changed the song to suit his own inclination until really neither of them could make claim to its original authorship. "About 20 years ago," [Van Ronk] said, "we finally all got together to try to figure out where the song started," Dave, Bob [Dylan], Eric and a bottle of rum. Half way through the bottle they came to a vote to split the royalties for the song three ways. "It was a democratic vote... two to one" On his 1995 CD release, "Dave Van Ronk, From Another Time And Place" he credits two tracks to Dylan: "The Old Man" and "He Was A Friend Of Mine." His impact on the scene in the early sixties is touched on in the recent book, "Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina, and Richard Farina" by David Hajdu (June 2001, Farrar, Straus & Giroux), which has been given many rave reviews by readers and Publishers Weekly as a great read, as well as an invitation to what one reviewer described as "the wildest party Greenwich Village ever saw." (This book sounds like a must read for any serious fan of early sixties folk music!) Richie Havens often (still! ) tells this story during his shows of how, back in his coffee house days in Greenwich Village in the very early 60's, he heard this one guy play, who didn't have much more to say for himself than this one particular song he played a lot. Richie just fell in love with this particular song. He assumed this guy had written it, and kept trying to get this guy to teach him this song, because he just thought it was great. Finally, he got all the words and music from this guy, and starting playing the song in his set. Eventually Richie got a gig at one of the larger coffee houses in the Village -- and for his final number he decided he'd play this song this guy had taught him. The song got such a huge response that he kinda ran from the stage, and then this young wiry haired man whom he'd not seen before walked up to him and said, "that was the best version of that I've heard, " and then just walked away. Richie didn't think anybody had really heard the song, because he thought the guy who gave it to him had written it, so he sorta gawked at this guy as he walked away. And then Dave Van Ronk walked up to Richie and says, "do you know who that was? " And Richie says, "no, why? "Van Ronk says, "that's Bob Dylan. He wrote All Along the Watchtower. " He was witty, talented, and a fighter, as well as being a subtle but seminal influence on Dylan and others in the early 60’s folk music scene, and on folk music in general. He will be missed.

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