Dave Van Ronk - Cultural Impact

Cultural Impact

Van Ronk has been described as an irreverent and incomparable guitar artist and interpreter of black blues and folk, with an uncannily precise ability at improvisation. Joni Mitchell often said that his rendition of her song "Both Sides Now" (which he called Clouds) was the finest ever.

He is perhaps underestimated as a musician and blues guitarist. His guitar work is noteworthy for both syncopation and precision. In its simplest form, it shows similarities to Mississippi John Hurt's, but Van Ronk's main influence was the Reverend Gary Davis, who conceived the guitar as "a piano around his neck". Van Ronk took this pianistic approach, and added a harmonic sophistication adapted from the band voicings of Jelly Roll Morton and Duke Ellington. He ranks high in bringing blues style to Greenwich Village during the 1960s, as well as introducing the folk world to the complex harmonies of Kurt Weill in his many Brecht-Weill interpretations, and being one of the very few hardcore traditional revivalists to move with the times, bringing old blues and ballads together with the new sounds of Dylan, Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. During this crucial period, he performed with the likes of Bob Dylan and spent many years teaching guitar in Greenwich Village, including to Christine Lavin, David Massengill, Terre Roche and Suzzy Roche. He influenced his protégé Danny Kalb and The Blues Project. The Japanese singer Masato Tomobe, American pop-folk singer Geoff Thais and the musician and writer Elijah Wald learned from him as well. Known for making interesting and memorable observations he once said, "Painting is all about space, and music is all about time."

Thanks to what he had learned from Davis, Van Ronk was among the first to adapt traditional jazz and ragtime to the solo acoustic guitar. His guitar arrangements of such ragtime hits as "St. Louis Tickle", "The Entertainer", "The Pearls" and "Maple Leaf Rag" continue to frustrate and challenge aspiring guitar players. He also did fine compositions of his own in the classic styles, such as "Antelope Rag".

His song "Last Call" is the source of the title of Lawrence Block's book When the Sacred Ginmill Closes.

Van Ronk was among the thirteen people arrested at the Stonewall Inn June 28, 1969--the night that the Stonewall Riots, which many cite as the start of the gay rights movement, began. The New York Times reported the next day that he was arrested and later parolled on his own recognizance for having thrown a heavy object at a patrolman. City records reveal he was charged with felony assault in the second degree and pled guilty to the lesser charge of harassment, classified in 1969 as a violation under pL 240.25. A June 29, 1969 article in the The New York Post, and a 1996 inverview of eyewitness Steve Yates, reveal that Van Ronk was pulled by police from the crowd outside and dragged inside.

The Coen brothers are writing a screenplay for a film based on Van Ronk's life called Inside Llewyn Davis.