Going Back to Brooklyn

Dave Van Ronk | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 25, 2006)
• Original Release Date: 2006
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Shout Factory
• ASIN: B000G75ADO
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #30,168 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Best & the Worst of..., November 23, 1999

By 

William G. Cosby (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Going Back to Brooklyn (Audio CD)

Be warned before you listen to this album that it contains some very crude language, and some very good songs. It displays Van Ronk's humor at its best ("Head Inspector") and its worst ("Tantric Mantra"). The guitar picking is superlative, including a couple of rags that will make you forget who Scott Joplin is, but one of them is wasted by using the names of offbeat cities in New Jersey as the lyrics. But the gems are worth poring through the ore for. "Blood Red Moon Rising " is a great blues song. "Closing Time" captures the desperation of the alcoholic (Lawrence Block used one of the lines from this for the title of his best selling mystery "When the Sacred Ginmill Closes.") "Luang Prabang" may be the best war protest song ever written! Finally, "Another Time & Place" and "Goodbye, Honey Hair" are love songs by a man who's been there and has the scars, and the memories, to prove it. Though a couple of things could have been left off, it's still one of the most original "folk" albums I've ever heard, and well worth listening to over and over!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How have I missed this all these years?, March 22, 2000

By 

Victoria Esposito-Shea (Canton, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Going Back to Brooklyn (Audio CD)

I picked up this CD, sight unseen, never having heard Dave Van Ronk. I fell in love with the lyrics of "Last Call", which are quoted in Lawrence Block's book "When the Sacred Ginmill Closes", and snapped up this album for that song alone. What a revelation! This music is right in that wonderful little niche between folk and blues, and it works all the way across the gamut, from the cynical anger of "Luang Prabang" to the tenderness of "Another Time and Place". I'll definitely be buying more of his stuff.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great blues and folk!, November 30, 1999

By 

Kenneth French (Montclair, NJ) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Going Back to Brooklyn (Audio CD)

This is my favorite of DVR's albums. His voice is at its gravelly best and he shows himself equally adept at blues, folk, ragtime, etc. Plus, it has one of the most beautiful love songs ever written, in my opinion: "Another Time and Place." Buy this version, which is superior to the remake he did on the "From Another Time and Place" album.