Two Sides of Dave Van Ronk

Dave Van Ronk | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 4, 2002)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Fantasy
• ASIN: B000066NYD
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #93,305 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Cake Walkin' Babies From Home

2. Ace In The Hole

3. St. Louis Tickle

4. Death Letter Blues

5. All Over You

6. Whoa Back Buck

7. Sister Kate

8. Kansas City Blues

9. Green, Green Rocky Road

10. See See Rider

11. Rocks And Gravel

12. Hesitation Blues

13. God Bless The Child

14. Sunday Street

15. Sportin' Life

16. Cocaine

17. St. James Infirmary

18. You've Been A Good Ole Wagon

19. Spike Driver Blues

20. Gaslight Rag

See all 21 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars American music, Van Ronk music, June 12, 2002

By 

Jerome Clark (Canby, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Two Sides of Dave Van Ronk (Audio CD)

When he died on February 10 of this year, obituaries tended to focus on Dave Van Ronk's friendship with Bob Dylan and his influence on Dylan's early work. ("Influence" is perhaps a charitable word. On his first album Dylan stole Van Ronk's arrangement of "House of the Rising Sun" lock, stock, and barrel. Later, the Animals based their version on Dylan's version of Van Ronk's version, probably without ever having heard of Van Ronk.) As those of us who treasure his music know, however, Van Ronk was more than just an influence. He was an extraordinary singer and guitar player in his own right, creator of a distinctive style which fused African-American vernacular genres with other musics from Anglo-American folk tradition, Tin Pan Alley, art-song writers Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, and Brecht/Weill, and more. It was somehow, in the end, a seamless whole called Van Ronk music. Nobody did it better, and nobody else would have even attempted to fashion a coherent whole out of so many disparate elements.

This welcome reissue brings to CD two old Van Ronk albums, one recorded in 1963 in New York City, the other in 1981 in London. Some of the cuts on the former (which comprises the first 12 songs on this single CD) have Van Ronk comfortably fronting the Red Onion Jazz Band, underscoring the singer's roots in early jazz. In the second Van Ronk revisits old favorites, with just his guitar for company. He needs no more than that to turn in versions of Billie Holiday's "God Bless the Child" and Brownie McGhee's "Sportin' Life" that will stop you in your tracks. One of two originals, "Gaslight Rag" good-humoredly revisits the Village folk scene, where it all started for Van Ronk, Dylan, Phil Ochs, and others who brought new life to American music by reminding Americans where it came from.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An irreplacable musical iconoclast, August 19, 2002

By 

DJ Joe Sixpack (...in Middle America) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Two Sides of Dave Van Ronk (Audio CD)

More odd explorations from this late acoustic blues iconoclast. This CD reissues two of Van Ronk's later, lesser-known albums -- on 1963's _In The Tradition_, he indulges a sweet tooth for Dixieland jazz, backed by the cheerfully riotous Red Onion Jazz Band. The second half of this CD reprises a lesser-known 1981 album, _Your Basic Dave Van Ronk_, where he mugs it up on solo versions of various blues and jazz standards, including "St. James Infirmary," "God Bless The Child," "Candy Man" and others -- his stream-of-consciousness rendition of "Cocaine Blues" brings a frankly bitter, world-weary wisdom to bear that could only have come from experience itself. This is unusual, sometimes challenging material, but certainly worth the effort it may take to get on Van Ronk's wavelength. Recommended.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An irreplacable musical iconoclast, August 19, 2002

By 

DJ Joe Sixpack (...in Middle America) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Two Sides of Dave Van Ronk (Audio CD)

More odd explorations from this late acoustic blues iconoclast. This CD reissues two of Van Ronk's jazz-oriented albums -- on 1963's IN THE TRADITION, he indulges a sweet tooth for Dixieland jazz, backed by the cheerfully riotous Red Onion Jazz Band. The second half of this CD reprises a lesser-known 1981 album, YOUR BASIC DAVE VAN RONK, where he mugs it up on solo versions of various blues and jazz standards, including "St. James Infirmary," "God Bless The Child," "Candy Man" and others -- his stream-of-consciousness rendition of "Cocaine Blues" brings a frankly bitter, world-weary wisdom to bear that could only have come from experience itself. This is unusual, sometimes challenging material, but certainly worth the effort it may take to get on Van Ronk's wavelength. Recommended.