Dave Van Ronk

The croaky, gravel-throated voice of New York's 1960s folk scene, Dave Van Ronk barked out charismatic renditions of long lost American classics and became a father figure to Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Joni Mitchell and the hordes of young folk troubadours who poured into Greenwich Village's coffee houses. Starting out playing guitar in ragtime jazz bands, Van Ronk discovered the blues of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Furry Lewis and Mississippi John Hurt and transformed into a story telling, finger picking, bard of old time ballads, sea shanties and country blues singalongs. Though mainly renowned for popularising traditional folk tunes such as House Of The Rising Sun, Stackolee and Duncan And Brady on the albums Ballads, Blues And A Spiritual (1959), Folksinger (1963) and Just Dave Van Ronk (1964), he compiled a collection of his own songs on acclaimed later record Back To Brooklyn (1985). A tall, gangly figure with a scruffy beard and cackling laugh, he was dubbed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street" and was involved in the civil rights movement and several left wing causes, but refused to fly on aeroplanes, didn't drive and rarely left the city. He died in 2002 of colon cancer and was honoured with a street named after him in Sheridan Square, before the Coen Brothers loosely based their film Inside Llewyn Davis (2014) on his life and kick-started a new surge of interest in the great man.

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