The Life (and Death) of Dave Van Ronk By Peter Stone Brown The headline February 10 announcing Dave Van Ronk’s death in Reuters said, "Folk Pioneer," but I always thought of him as more than that. First and foremost I thought of him as a blues singer, even though he did old traditional ballads, and later on tackled Joni Mitchell and Randy Newman songs as well as writing a few of his own. Even though he was a native of Brooklyn, Van Ronk will always be associated with Greenwich Village—the way it once was—and had a personality that was the definition of hip in its original sense. Big, bearded, sloppy in his dress, his music was anything but sloppy. He set the standard for New York City guitar pickers in the mid-’60s. His guitar work was clean and intricate without being flashy. I remember friends figuring his licks to "Cocaine" (to this day the definitive version of that song) and other songs from his albums. And that guitar style had its influence down the line on other musicians. When the first Hot Tuna album came out, and people I knew were raving, my reaction was, they listened to Dave Van Ronk.
The Life (and Death) of Dave Van Ronk
The Life (and Death) of Dave Van Ronk
The Life (and Death) of Dave Van Ronk
The Life (and Death) of Dave Van Ronk By Peter Stone Brown The headline February 10 announcing Dave Van Ronk’s death in Reuters said, "Folk Pioneer," but I always thought of him as more than that. First and foremost I thought of him as a blues singer, even though he did old traditional ballads, and later on tackled Joni Mitchell and Randy Newman songs as well as writing a few of his own. Even though he was a native of Brooklyn, Van Ronk will always be associated with Greenwich Village—the way it once was—and had a personality that was the definition of hip in its original sense. Big, bearded, sloppy in his dress, his music was anything but sloppy. He set the standard for New York City guitar pickers in the mid-’60s. His guitar work was clean and intricate without being flashy. I remember friends figuring his licks to "Cocaine" (to this day the definitive version of that song) and other songs from his albums. And that guitar style had its influence down the line on other musicians. When the first Hot Tuna album came out, and people I knew were raving, my reaction was, they listened to Dave Van Ronk.