The Mayor of Macdougal Street

Remember his story about learning how to play Candyman in a dream? Well, this book is like having one long smoke break with Dave between sets. He just cracks me up. My husband keeps asking me what I'm snickering about as I read it. Plus, they're friggin great stories of course, told with all the 50 cent words he knows and loves. Funny, I caught an American Roots lately, and the subject coincided perfectly with Dave's stories in this book - Washington Square, 1950s. Really fascinating, really funny, like he's talking to you. I wouldn't have missed this for the world!

Now reissued in paperback, The Mayor Of MacDougal Street: A Memoir, written by the late Dave Van Ronk (1936-2002) with help from Elijah Wald, is the story telling of a pioneer musician and acoustics visionary. Enthralling readers with tales of his youth and the revival of blues and folk music in the 1960s in Greenwich Village. As one of the leading active members of the revival after the "Great Folk Scare", Van Ronk's musical journey as related in The Mayor Of MacDougal Street, his involvement in various jazz bands, the early years in Washington Square Park, his youthful pursuit of interest in traditional American music, his encounters with Joan Baez and Bob Dylan and so others. The Mayor Of MacDougal Street is very strongly recommended reading for all folk music enthusiasts for its remarkable memoir accounts a musicians life and times.

Van Ronk's autobiography is both informative and entertaining. He pulls no punches in giving us an honest and very humerous recounting of the Greenwich Village Folk Scene of the late '50's and early 60's. In this surprisingly insightful narrative, all the major players are given the Van Ronk assessment. (And we have almost as much fun reading it.) One quickly realizes what we have lost. Anyone who loves the music, will love this book.

I have just finished "The Mayor of MacDougal Street" and I couldn't put it down (just like Pete Seeger said in the cover blurb). Elijah Wald did a marvelous job of pulling this book together. It all reads exactly as if Van Ronk had written or dictated the whole thing. It has Van Ronk's flair and wit, his musical acumen, and his glee in sticking in the needle now and again. One thing you might expect from Van Ronk, whose crucial musical development predated the '60s folk boom, is a sort of world-weariness. But he has none of that. Beneath his crusty exterior lies an open mind and an almost childlike awe of good music and good art. What a refreshing book, and what a unique artist he was. His takes on Dylan, Phil Ochs, and Tom Paxton are right on. I knew that Van Ronk died before the book was finished, and I kept waiting for the tone and quality to flag, or the voice to change, but it never did. A great job by Elijah Wald. I've got to buy his other books now.

Everyone can pinpoint a few songs that changed their entire perspective on the first hearing. Such was the case with Dave Van Ronk's contribution to the great 1964 Elektra compendium of folk and blues, The Blues Project. Mr. Van Ronk performed "Bad Dream Blues," and my life was altered forever. This song is the yardstick of excellence by which I measure so much other American music from Dylan to Chapin to Springsteen. Had he been with a powerhouse label like Columbia, Mr. Van Ronk would have become a household name. This book focuses on the source of the genius. The particular blend of time, location, and current events combined to produce a fertile opportunity for singer-songwriters. And to my ears, Mr. Van Ronk was at the pinnacle of importance. Mr. Van Ronk may've been The Mayor on the world's most vital street of the folk scene during its heights, but among artists he's royalty.