The Mayor of MacDougal Street: A Memoir [Hardcover]

Dave Van Ronk (Author), Elijah Wald (Author), Lawrence Block (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 12, 2005

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 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.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Singer-songwriter Van Ronk did more than most to earn the heady title of his memoir, gussied up for publication by the author of the outstanding blues history Escaping the Delta (2004). In the folk-music ferment of late-fifties/early-sixties Greenwich Village, Van Ronk was a larger-than-life presence with a blustery personality to match his big frame, headlining the famous folk-music haunts and mentoring such up-and-coming stars as Bob Dylan. A masterful storyteller and robust singer who prided himself in making a living without leaving the Village, he was a musical sponge who picked up a wildly eclectic repertoire. He recalls the heyday of the pretourist, 1950s Village, before the so-called Folk Scare, when regulars went to Washington Square on Sunday afternoons for loose sessions that continued late into the night. He recalls first hearing Dylan--"the scruffiest-looking fugitive from a cornfield I do believe I had ever seen"--at a Village coffeehouse and being impressed (the new arrival thereafter often crashed on Van Ronk's sofa). A richly evocative paean to a lost era. June Sawyers
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"A definitive history of folk's alternate universe...bringing to light the unique voice and story of Dave Van Ronk." -- South Florida Sun-Sentinel6/12/05

"A highly entertaining piece of history and storytelling." -- Living Blues September/October 2005

"A richly evocative paean to a lost era." -- Booklist 5/11/05

"As a narrator [Van Ronk] proves to be a mostly endearing and gregarious grouch...[A] genial and picaresque ramble." -- New York Times Book Review 7/3/05

"For an insider's guide to the folk movement, one can hardly do better than Van Ronk's book. Highly recommended." -- Library Journal 5/15/05

"Refreshingly honest...augmented by rich dollops of wisdom." -- Uncut June, 2005

"This is the best book I've ever read about the folk revivalEngaging and frequently hilarious." -- Sing Out!, Fall, 2005

"Van Ronk is an erudite wiseacre, and he paints an equally amused (and informed) portrait." -- Relix June 2005

"[It] will, at some point, make you want to pull out a Van Ronk record...A gem." -- New York Daily News 5/11/05

"[Van Ronk] reveals himself to be an acute observer of politics, an erudite musical historian, and a tough critic." -- Boston Phoenix 4/15/05

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 280 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (April 12, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306814072
• ISBN-13: 978-0306814075
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #714,436 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Van Ronk's Golden Memories, April 14, 2005

By 

Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Mayor of MacDougal Street: A Memoir (Hardcover)

Some of you who have made Bob Dylan's CHRONICLES VOLUME ONE a bestseller might pick up on this book; Van Ronk covers some of the same territory as Dylan, only he got there first and he's more capacious, Whitman to Dylan's Hart Crane. Props to Elijah Wald who hand-crafted this material from a bunch of Van Ronk's monologues. It reads like a book and you'll hardly know it wasn't. The detective writer and creator of Matt Scudder, Lawrence Block, adds a preface that does the job efficiently and well.

What a life he had! (The singer died in 2002.) In the chapters devoted to his youth, Van Ronk paints us picture after picture, of the memorable individuals he met in the age of the first folk revival. In San Francisco he encounters the nutty Jesse Fuller, who had once been the folk-singing protege of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. In New York he shares a stage with Odetta, whose powerful voice could fill all of Manhattan when she let it loose. The truth is that being a folk singer in the late 1950s wasn't very much fun, and Van Ronk believed in getting paid for his singing and playing, so he was denied a space by the coffeehouse owners who could put on all the entertainment they wanted for free, and so he started organizing the musicians properly. All of this is fascinating to read about. Those of you who enjoyed Christopher Guest's folk revival send up A MIGHTY WIND will howl with recognition as Van Ronk lays into the "crewcuts in drip-dry seersucker suits" of the period such as the Kingston Trio. "There was an obvious subtext," he writes, "to what these Babbitt balladeers were doing, and it was, `Of course, we're really superior to all this hayseed crap-but isn't it cute?' This attitude threw me into an absolute ecstasy of rage. These were no true disciples or even honest money-changers. They were a bunch of slick hustlers selling Mickey Mouse dolls in the temple. Join their ranks? I would sooner have been boiled in skunk piss." Yowzer!

He's funny also about the truth that, although he was a tried and true Bohemian anarchist, he sure wasn't getting laid very much. In the pre-Pill age, he says, nobody was. "And the fact that we were a pretty scuzzy bunch might have had something to do with it."

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Rompin' Through the Swamp, February 21, 2006

By 

F. R. W. Miles "unkawo" (Oak Hill, VA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Mayor of MacDougal Street: A Memoir (Hardcover)

For the sake of good order let me explain that Van Ronk has always been one of my favorites. His deep rusty voice and superior song arrangements kept me listening for years. Now on to the book.

It is a wonderful insight to the NYC folk scene before, during, and after their golden ago. It tells stories from distant point-of-view that was there when it all occurred but has the separation in time and place to take the sharp emotions away. Sure Bobby Dylan took his arrangement of "House of the Rising Sum" (that was then copied by the Animals), sure with other management he might have been more famous, sure with a little more luck (and a better record company) he might have had a top ten song. But the book is from a later page in his life.

Once I started the book I could not put it down - each page was a new adventure. To read the words on the pages is the same as to have heard him talk between songs at one of his shows - minus the inflections.

Why four stars rather than five? For so much that was not there. Van Ronk died near the start of the project and his co-author did a wonderful job of keeping Van Ronk's voice and putting the pieces together. The fifth star is reserved for what might have been.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended, August 30, 2005

By 

Rudy D (Montclair, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mayor of MacDougal Street: A Memoir (Hardcover)

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.