Albeit
belatedly, we raise a glass to folk and roots singer, songwriter and guitarist Dave
Van Ronk who died on the 10th February. Born on the 10th
June 1936 in Brooklyn, New York, as a life long sympathiser of the Socialist
Movement he was a member of both the Workers League and the Socialist Equality
party. Quitting school by the time he was 16 to become a merchant seaman, by his
own admission music was the only thing to save him from a life destroyed. At
that time he was listening to jazz, both traditional and be-bop, and teaching
himself guitar, in his teens he was considered good enough to sit in at clubs,
picking. He was even allowed to jam with big names like Coleman Hawkins and
Johnny Hodges who passed through New York's numerous venues.
It
was during one of these sit-ins that he met the folk legend Odetta who persuaded
him to make a demo tape and send it to Albert Grossman who owned a club in
Chicago (later, incidentally, to become Bob Dylan's manager), which he did and
heard nothing. Eventually, tired of waiting, he hitchhiked all the way to the
Windy City where Grossman claimed never to have received the tape but gave him
an audition. Once he had finished he asked Grossman what he thought and it was
not the reply he expected. Grossman allegedly stated, "Look son, I book Big
Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee. Why should I hire you?" Van
Ronk exploded, accusing him off “crowjimming” (practising reverse racism)
leaving him with no alternative but to hitchhike back to New York, which he did
and got mugged in the process.