Description: Singer/songwriter
Comparisons: Dave Van Ronk is a man unto himself, but it's not rare that you'll hear comparisons to his contemporaries like Bob Dylan, Doc Watson, Kris Kristofferson, and other songwriters from the 1960s.
Starter CDs: The Folkways Years 1959-61 (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings). To All My Friends in Far Flung Places (Gazell Productions). Going Back to Brooklyn (Gazell Productions).
Trivia Fact: Dave Van Ronk refused to fly, and instead would take a train or a bus whenever possible.
Dave Van Ronk Biography: Dave Van Ronk was born in June, 1936, in Brooklyn, New York. When he was 15, he moved to Queens, where he attended high school. He dropped out of high school and started hanging out in Greenwich Village. He also joined the Merchant Marine during this time, and did a couple of tours with them.
He had been in a barbershop quartet when he was a teenager, and had a predisposition for music. His first professional gigs were as a jazz musician, followed by his return to his roots with performing blues music.
By the end of the 1950s, Van Ronk had solidified his footing in folk-blues music, and was playing folk-blues solo on his acoustis guitar. Though he did occasionally write his own songs, he mostly stuck to traditional folk and blues songs in his performing repertoire.
During the 1960s, Van Ronk became active in many radical political movements, and was even arrested during the Stonewall Riots of 1969.
Although he died in 2002, Van Ronk's memory lives on today, as a street in the West Village has been named after him.
