Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 782.42164092
Format: Bargain Price
Label: Da Capo Press
Manufacturer: Da Capo Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 246
Printing Date: April 12, 2005
Publishing house: Da Capo Press
Sale Popularity Level: 1173823
Studio: Da Capo Press
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Dave Van Ronk (1936-2002) 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 1960s, he was also a marvelous storyteller, a peerless musical historian, and one of the most quotable figures on the Greenwich Village scene. Holding court in legendary venues like Gerde’s Folk City and the Gaslight Caf8E, Van Ronk’s influence was so great that a stretch of Sheridan Square—the heart of the Village—was renamed on June 30, 2004, and is now Dave Van Ronk Street.The Mayor of MacDougal Street is a unique first-hand 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 (who survived much of his very first year in New York sleeping on Van Ronk’s couch), Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs, Joan Baez, and Joni Mitchell, as well as older luminaries like Reverend Gary Davis, Woody Guthrie, Mississippi John Hurt, and Odetta.Colorful, hilarious, engaging, and a vivid evocation of a fascinating time and place, The Mayor of MacDougal Street will appeal not only to folk and blues fans but to anyone interested in the music, politics, and spirit of a revolutionary period in American culture.
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Rated by buyers 
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This book is very interesting due to its subject- the witty yet unschooled, tremendously talented, left-leaning, Mayor of MacDougal Street, Dave Van Ronk. Elijah Wald did an excellent job with this, though this read is not as compelling as Elijah's biography of Josh White, which is one of the best Blues-related books I've ever read, along with "Escaping The Delta", another of Elijah's works, which centers on the birth of the Blues, the "Race Records" industry, and the legend of Robert Johnson. There are many interesting and colorful stories in this book, some of them dealing with cross-country trips and free hamburgers and smuggling illegal substances into the United States. This book also allows us to see that there were players on the Greenwich Village scene before Bob Dylan, and in many cases, these men and women were a lot more talented than young Bob, at least in terms of proficiency on the guitar. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Dave Van Ronk, the Country Blues revival, the popular "Folk" music of the 1960s, and the aforementioned decade in general.
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This is just a great read - - we knew Van Ronk was a great singer and performer, but who knew he could write so well, too! This is the real deal - - the whole story from the beginning, and enlightens everything you thought you knew about the singer, Greenwich Village in the 50s, his rise to acclaim, Greenwich Village in the 60s, and so much more. It's essential reading for anyone who's interested in the great folk scare, NYC in the 50s-60s and beyond, Dylan fans and folk fans in general. Really well done. A great bit of history, and funny too!
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Keep a dictionary handy when you read this book. It's going to make you grin with pleasure, because Dave Van Ronk was no slouch with words. Just as with his music, Van Ronk was deeply devoted to his craft in his writing. He certainly managed to get his big arms around the world he breathed.
This book is bracingly honest, unfailingly adroit, and on top of that, it's funny as all get out. Move over, Bill Bryson. As a raconteur, Van Ronk takes a backseat to no one.
And, what stories he had to tell... He turned down an offer by Albert Grossman to join with Peter Yarrow and Mary Travers to form a trio. "Peter, Dave and Mary would never have worked", Van Ronk grouses. As a folk-bluesman, Van Ronk never made it big, but like the old blues people he pays tribute to, he knew who he was and that's all that counted.
He understood what made the music tick, the times he lived in, and what separated the big successes from the pack. He provides great analysis of Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan.
Anyone who has ever picked up a guitar and tried to learn finger-picking should wax wistful about a fellow like Van Ronk, who rubbed shoulders with and took lessons from the Reverend Gary Davis, and engaged in a snowball fight and arm-wrestled with the ever-spry Mississippi John Hurt.
An amazing book by an amazing man, this is.
Rated by buyers 
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The Mayor of MacDougal Street is a lovely book, full of wit and full of heart. It is probably partly due to my having lived and worked during the folk and blues revival of the sixties and seventies, and having known some of the people in Cambridge and the Village that van Ronk writes so tenderly about, that I enjoyed the book as much as I did. The reader who is unacquainted with that scene and that time might find it less compelling. My fondness for this great musician and voluptuary has been heightened by this memoir and its companion CD of the same title.
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The Mayor of MacDougal Street is right there with Bob Dylan's Chronicles if you are looking to research the music world. It is a veritable encyclopedia of musicians and songs. Dave's book one ups Dylan's book on references because there are more peripheral nods to the musician's scene; political personalities, club owners, agents, bar tenders, authors, and drug dealers to mention a few. It seems like no one was left out. Blossom Dearie, Pink Anderson, Jimmy Noone, Francois Villon, and Joan Baez's sister-- the names are endless. Throughout his passionate memoir Van Ronk recounts stories and anecdotes with skill, wit, and laugh-out-loud humor.
He did his part for socialism and saw the inception of a union for folk singers. It is a major achievement that he was never arrested on the tail end of McCarthyism; it was the late fifties and other than a brief stint as a merchant seaman he was a musician with a beard!
There is insightful commentary on charts and chords only a musician would understand and raconteurs about Lenin and Trotsky only a political science student would grasp but it's all laid out chronologically as Van Ronk matures into the Folk flood of the early sixties that happened in New York, Boston, and San Francisco.
In some places the analysis of his past are postpositive and you get the feeling he missed or fell short of his place in the sun spots of musical time. He tells about a lot of musicians being bitter or jealous of Dylan's initial sucess who harbored the attitude "why him" but offers the explanation that none of these musicians who complained ever wrote "A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall."
If Van Ronk was frustrated or unfulfilled because of circumstances or a defect of character he comes clean in the final chapters.
The Mayor of MacDougal Street is an honest narrative and after reading it I got up off the floor, sat down in a chair, and started reading it again.
It propelled me to check out his recordings. Here is a guy who works with an acoustic guitar and his voice-- only. It's refreshing to hear artists as themselves without all the engineering tricks and corporate advertising smoke and mirrors that musical acts have to use yesterday in order to stay in the business.
Where else can you find a version of "Swing'n On A Star" with an acoustic guitar doing 5ths around the horn?
I bought two copies of this book and put them on the shelf subsequent to `On the Road' and `Really the Blues.'
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