The Mayor of MacDougal Street A Memoir (Audible Audio Edition) Dave Van Ronk Elijah Wald Sean Runnette Inc Blackstone Audio Books
Download As PDF : The Mayor of MacDougal Street A Memoir (Audible Audio Edition) Dave Van Ronk Elijah Wald Sean Runnette Inc Blackstone Audio Books
Hear the memoir that served as inspiration for a major motion picture written and directed by the Coen brothers.
Dave Van Ronk was one of the founding figures of the 1960s folk revival, but he was far more than that. A pioneer of modern acoustic blues, a fine songwriter and arranger, a powerful singer, and one of the most influential guitarists of the '60s, he was also a marvelous storyteller, a peerless musical historian, and one of the most quotable figures on the Village scene.
The Mayor of MacDougal Street is a firsthand account by a major player in the social and musical history of the '50s and '60s. It features encounters with young stars-to-be like Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs, and Joni Mitchell, as well as older luminaries like the Reverend Gary Davis, Mississippi John Hurt, and Odetta. Colorful, hilarious, and engaging, The Mayor of MacDougal Street is a feast for anyone interested in the music, politics, and spirit of a revolutionary period in American culture.
The Mayor of MacDougal Street A Memoir (Audible Audio Edition) Dave Van Ronk Elijah Wald Sean Runnette Inc Blackstone Audio Books
I knew that I would be interested in Van Ronk's memoir just because of its subject matter: the folk music revival and the Greenwich Village scene that produced Bob Dylan and other famous musicians. What I didn't expect was that Dave Van Ronk and his co-author would write a book that is both witty and deep in its analysis of both musical and social trends of the 1950s and 1960s. Van Ronk's views on the folk music scene and American society deserve serious attention, and some of his escapades such as going to California in a drive-away car had me laughing out loud.Van Ronk did not become a star like the people who he wrote about but, in the end, he was more than satisfied with having been able to live his life as a professional musician, and I was more than satisfied with reading his entertaining account.
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The Mayor of MacDougal Street A Memoir (Audible Audio Edition) Dave Van Ronk Elijah Wald Sean Runnette Inc Blackstone Audio Books Reviews
What a pleasure this book was to read. Coauthor Elijah Wald has preserved Van Ronk's gravely rascally outter borough voice perfectly. To read this book is to know him. How many other biographies (auto or otherwise) can truly make that claim?
Together, Van Ronk and Wald evoke the essence of the time, place, and scene; of the West Village in the 50's and early 60's, of beatnicks, earnest folksingers, fiery socialists, and old black guitar pickers. Dave Van Ronk was part of it all and true to his folk singer roots, he knows how to tell a darn good tale.
As a middle class young kid growing up a stone's throw from the Village, Van Ronk, Phil Ochs, Tom Rush, Tom Paxton were my heros, my David Cassidys. I learned the songs at summer camp from counselors who were part of the folk scene and mentioned in this book. As Carol Kane said to Woody Allen in "Annie Hall" "I love being reduced to a cultural stereotype" and Van Ronk does just that. I was that long haired, middle class girl from New York singing songs written by Mississippi sharecroppers.
Many people will find this book after seeing the movie "Inside Llewyn Davis." It is a great movie and I highly recommend it but it is important to know that Llewyn Davis is not Dave Van Ronk. Llewyn Davis is an archetype and Dave Van Ronk was a living, breathing, singing folk hero.
Dave Van Ronk was one of the main musicians behind the emergence of the Folk explosion in Greenwich village in the early 1960's.
However, this book brings you back to his childhood and his first entrance into the music scene as a jazz player, His movement from blues and then onto folk music is an interesting and educational story, giving deep insight into the the movers and shakers who ran the various coffee shops and concert halls during that period.
There are some wonderful anecdotes on the young Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul and Mary, Tom Paxton and other musicians who went on to become household names.
Dave comes though as a like able character who is that little bit off the mark when it comes to hitting the big time.
Due to Dave's untimely death whilst researching and writing this book, the reader is left with a longing to find out more about the era from one who was at it's very centre.
A must read for anyone interested in the ending of the beat era and the emergence of the Folk movement in New York.
Being a folkie (I used to play in coffee houses in Asbury Park in the 60s), I was eager to read Dave Van Ronk's story. With the help of a a co-author who had to work with extra sources at Dave's untimely death, we have an incomplete but nonetheless outstanding semi-autobiography. Dave knew everyone (hence his nickname) in the Village, and tells lots of great stories about them, especially his love/hate relationship with Dylan. On his personal life, he tells of his growing up, but there's next to nothing about his two marriages. I would've thought his collaborator might have spoken with them to fill in some details. Nonetheless, you get a very well-written inside look at the folk scene. We can only imagine how much more might have been included if Dave hung around longer. And by the way, the Llewyn Davis is hardly Dave Van Ronk. What a depressing movie! The soundtrack's good, but there's nothing likable about the titular singer. They took a few anecdotes from this book and fabricated a story that some people will think is about Dave, and it's decidedly not.
Below is a footnote from page 196 of the book that bears repeating (loudly and often)
"I recently heard a friend say of someone who, like myself, is best known for interpreting material written by others, 'Oh, she only does "covers"!' I had a sudden vision of a CD title 'Pavarotti Covers Puccini'. Suffice it to say, Louis Armstrong did not do 'covers' nor did Billie Holiday, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Edith Piaf, or Aretha Franklin. While none of these people were primarily songwriters, their interpretations were a hell of a lot more original than a lot of the 'original' songs being written on the current scene. Any music worth its salt depends as much on great interpreters as on great composers. What is more, in the absence of interpreters, songs will never be sung by anyone other than their composers, and I cannot imagine why anyone would wish that kind of planned obsolescence on their work."
I don't know whether Dave Van Ronk was a great interpreter or not, but he was probably a unique one. More to the point, he probably knew at least as much about the Greenwich Village "folk" scene as anyone, and he is full of witty observations and entertaining stories.
The only thing I really object to in this book is the frequent use of the trendy but obnoxious phrase "that being said" as a connecting device. There are plenty of traditional terms that don't obtrude and actually show a logical relation between contrary propositions, terms such as "however", "nevertheless", and so on. Pick one of these instead.
That being said, in closing I'd like to quote a blurb on the second page from Tom Waits "In the engine of the NY Folk Scene shoveling coal into the furnace, one Big Man rules. Dog-faced roustabout songster. Bluesman, Dave Van Ronk. Long may he howl."
I knew that I would be interested in Van Ronk's memoir just because of its subject matter the folk music revival and the Greenwich Village scene that produced Bob Dylan and other famous musicians. What I didn't expect was that Dave Van Ronk and his co-author would write a book that is both witty and deep in its analysis of both musical and social trends of the 1950s and 1960s. Van Ronk's views on the folk music scene and American society deserve serious attention, and some of his escapades such as going to California in a drive-away car had me laughing out loud.
Van Ronk did not become a star like the people who he wrote about but, in the end, he was more than satisfied with having been able to live his life as a professional musician, and I was more than satisfied with reading his entertaining account.
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