Customer Reviews

& The Tin Pan Bended & The Story Ended

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This is one of those rare perfect recordings which feel like something larger than a mere compact disc. It is the last concert Dave Van Ronk ever gave, shortly after he received the diagnosis that he had cancer. Within five months he was dead. But Van Ronk does not sound like a sick man on this sparkling night in Takoma Park, Maryland. In his singing he is a pro in top form. The songs will be familiar to those who have followed Van Ronk's career, mostly blues, vintage African-American jazz and pop songs, and relatively more recent folk-based material by Van Ronk friends Tom Paxton, Bob Dylan, and Joni Mitchell (whose "Urge for Going" closes the set). If I'm not mistaken, only Dylan's "Buckets of Rain" is new to the recorded repertoire. Still, Van Ronk was always expert at finding fresh depths of meaning in songs he had long been singing, and every time he did "Sportin' Life Blues" or "Green, Green Rocky Road" or "St. James Infirmary," it sounded newly alive and somehow different.

It's the stories that give one the sense that Van Ronk knew his past was what was left to him, and that it would sustain him in the short, hard future that awaited. Van Ronk, whom I knew slightly and who read a couple of my books, was the greatest storyteller I have ever heard. When I saw him, I would ask him questions I liked to think he hadn't been asked before, and he always had a riveting, hilarious, sometimes bawdy anecdote in store. This CD preserves not just the tales -- of old, long-gone musicians, of songs, of days of his life -- but the telling.

Van Ronk's memoirs will be published in May, and they will be well worth reading, but you will not hear, at least with your ears, his voice speaking to you. For that, we have this magnificent recording.

This is not a crass plug to get you to buy this recording. I was the producer of this concert,I was the F.O.H.engineer,and I was the recording engineer.(And in many ways, I was the blind squirrel finding the acorn)I am completely humbled by the astonishing number of people who worked on this recording package out of a sense of love and compassion and honor to give back to Dave Van Ronk the same qualities he so graciously gave to others. Dave was the lynchpin between the jazz,blues,and early folk music emerging from the 1920's-1940's that went hurtling into the first folk scare of the 1960's! My God, I am honored to be a part of this. And thank you to NYC for naming a street in the Village for Dave.

This CD of Van Ronk's last concert, given right after he was diagnosed with cancer, captures the essence of a true national treasure. 14 Songs take up alot of the 79 plus minutes and they are wonderful. Nearly half the cd, though, are the amazing anecdotes he offers up to give depth to the music as well as a peek into an incredible life. If I could come back as any musician, living or dead, it would be as Dave Van Ronk at this concert.

Always loved "Big Dave" from High School days. This is the last of the Best there was. There is so much more to music than the MTV 3rd rate Vegas acts we've been cursed with from Jacko to Madonna to all their bad imitators.
Van Ronk was a tale-spinner, and gave us the why's and wherefores of each song. This is musical history, and sadly his last performance. This captures the man as well as any concert I saw. He filled the room, as people hung on every word like honey. All of the greats came to life when he told his stories and sang his songs to us.
Hey, this is the guy who let that little skinny kid from Hibbings Minn crash on his couch when he was homeless in NYC.
Listen to the master. No more will come along like Van Ronk. Now it's all too easy. Have a pretty face and a producer and be vacuuous and go on American Idol. Who would be booed off? Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGee, Ramblin Jack Elliott, Bobby Zimmerman, and this big gentle funny loving fountain of musical history and song and talent, Dave Van Ronk. RIP, Buddy!

Another folk luminary that performed in Alice Springs in the early 90s at the legendary Riverside pub, Van Ronk was well and truly a folk, jazz, and Blues elder statesman. I held off on Van Ronk's valedictory recorded concert, errantly thinking it would be somehow voyeuristic, knowing it was his last performance. What shame! He is in top form, and the sense of aliveness, of vitality, is the antithesis of my preconceptions. A brilliantly delivered set and brilliant patter between songs. There is not a clunker among them. Paxton, Dylan, Ochs, Jelly Roll Morton, Josh White, Brownie McGhee, all receive the Van Ronk gravel treatment; the almost hoarse and fragile vocals contrasting with his delicate touch on the guitar strings.It was his take on Joni Mitchell's,'Song About the Midway' that floored me in the early 70s and his curtain call herein of her,'Urge for Going' could bring a tear to your eyes.

I don't do this reviewing thing....but Van Ronk was more than great.
When I was a kid ,I learned guitar from "Inside Dave van Ronk" and if any kid should be reading this, start from the beginning, and your life will be richer for it.

When I first heard folk music in my youth I felt unsure about whether I liked it or not. As least against my strong feelings about the Rolling Stones and my favorite blues artist such as Howling Wolf and Elmore James. Then on some late night radio folk show here in Boston I heard Dave Van Ronk doing `Come All You Fair and Tender Ladies' and that was it. That old-time gravelly voice (even though I found out later that he was relatively young at that time) still commands my attention in the same way.

This was Dave Van Ronk's final public performance, although it is not clear that a farewell concert was his intention here. The format is to put his funny, witty and well-formed anectotes in between the songs. For those in need of a refresher about the early days of the folk scene in New York City and Dave's part in it this is helpful. The musicanship, as always is high, even though this is a live album. Special note goes to Dylan's Buckets of Rain, Dave puts Mr. Dylan's version in the shade on that one. Urge for Going, as always, is a classic Van Ronk rendition.

The last time I saw Dave Van Ronk perform after not seeing him for a fairly long period of time was not a particularly good night as he pretty sick by that time. Moreover, his politics seemed to have crumbled over time from that of the hardened Trotskyist of his youth going out slay the benighted Stalinist for the soul of the working class. His dedication to leftist politics, as testified to by those who knew him well like Tom Paxton, was well know and passionate. Although no one asks a musical performer to wear politics on his or her sleeves as a litmus test, given his status as a prime historian/activist of the folk revival of the 1960's, this was disconcerting.

That folk scene, of which Dave was a central and guiding figure not fully recognized outside a small circle to this day, was not only defined by the search for root music and relevancy but by large political concerns such as civil rights, the struggle against war, and the need for social justice. Some of it obviously was motivated as well as simply a flat out need to make our own mark on the world. Dave was hardly the first person from this period to lose his political compass in the struggle against injustice. I say this with sadness in his case but I will always carry that memory of that late night radio experience in my head. That said, please listen to this man reach under a song. You will not forget it either.