Remembering Dave Van Ronk (June 30, 1936 – February 10, 2002)

 

Dave Van Ronk (1936 – 2002) 

On the blues: “The term ‘blues,’ really, is a marketing idea. The history of the genre screams this truth if you just look at it. W. C. Handy published three or four blues, maybe more, prior to 1920. ‘St. Louis Blues,’ actually, in sheet-music form sold very well. As a matter of fact, it made Handy a wealthy man. But it wasn’t until ’21 or ’22, when Mamie Smith recorded ‘Crazy Blues,’ that blues became a ‘thing.’ I have a recording of ‘Crazy Blues.’ It’s a good song, but it’s not a blues. It’s a ragtime song. And what that taught the marketers—the marketeers—is that if you add the word ‘blues’ to any song title you will double the sales. So, just take a look. In 1921 or 1922 and for the next ten or fifteen years, take a look at all the songs that aren’t blues that are called ‘blues’ and ask yourself, ‘Why is that?’ And the answer is: it sold. Blues is a marketing concept. I mean, any number of old songsters, like Mance Lipscomb or John Hurt, were happy singing ‘Casey Jones,’ ‘Stagger Lee,’ ballads, and dance tunes.”

On Reverend Gary Davis: “One of my lasting regrets is that I knew all of these other blues musicians, and I watched them, I listened to them, I played with them in some cases, and I drank with them, but I didn’t ask them enough questions. This is doubly annoying because I know what questions I would have asked, and I knew what questions even then, or at least some of them, that I should have asked. True, some of them were very evasive—you couldn’t get a straight answer out of Gary Davis about anything having to do with music. He covered up his musical background and influences very assiduously, and how he got to be Gary Davis will forever be a mystery. I’m sure Gary, wherever he is, is perfectly happy with that. Still, though, it wouldn’t have hurt to ask him some probing questions about who he was listening to and what he did. I mean, I know to some extent. I wasn’t entirely remiss. I know, for example, that he loved Blind Blake and he hated, he said, Blind Lemon Jefferson. Well, I could hear Lemon Jefferson in his playing, but I can’t hear any Blake. Now, that’s a curious phenomenon. I mean, you hear Lemon Jefferson in the key of C and you hear Gary in the key of C and you’re going to hear a lot of the same ideas played very differently. Clever disguise, Gary, but there it is! He was covering his tracks. But who among us has no influences? Nobody springs full-grown from a head of Zeus. And did Gary owe something musically to Lemon Jefferson? Well, Jesus, I could think of worse influences. Jefferson is one of the most underrated guitarists in the history of the blues. Partially because he was so badly recorded.”

On Howlin’ Wolf and Charley Patton: “Those Patton sides sound like they were recorded underwater. I asked Howlin’ Wolf one time, who is somehow a cousin of Patton’s, ‘Could you understand what Patton was saying?’ He said, ‘I couldn’t understand what that man was saying when he was talking!’ He said, ‘What I did was, when Charley would make a noise on a tune, I would make the same kind of noise.’ And, you know, you see exactly that on ‘Smokestack Lightnin’,’ which is a version of a Patton song that goes, ‘Smokes like lightning and the bell it shines like gold.’ And Wolf heard it as ‘smokestack lightning.’ And that’s how it came down to us. Chester was very funny about that kind of thing. He was a very articulate musician.”

Photo: Diana Davies/Courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways 
By Andy Friedman / New Yorker

Don's Tunes

Now I may have said before but I cannot stand Dave Van Ronk and his faux academic librarian schtick rings false to me. Folk clubs are full of these guys! Bob Dylan he ain’t. Woody Guthrie he aint! I grant he knew his stuff and had that folk club chain smoking schtick right down pat to me! 

He could play, he could sing but just doesn’t make it! It is driven by burgeoning ego and I am more ‘folk’ than you nonsense. I wouldn’t bother posting this but it’s Dons Tunes so its worth it and reading Van Ronk’s take on the blues as mere marketing is just plain out of order really and what’s the point anyhoo? Of course they wanted to earn a living off their skills! Didn’t you? Playing in your stuffy cafes at night and revolution in the air! 

          It’s a schtick! It’s a trip and everyone is welcome but I see through you . . . . . 

          I ain’t buying

          Labels of the ‘blues’ or ‘folk' makes no never mind, its music You’re getting stuck . . . . the apocryphal Pete Seeger’s wielding that axe, why if it hadn’t been him you damn sure know it would have been you! Bobby knew this and moved on . . . . .little boxes made out of ticky tacky, why’s its university common room mewsic!