Dave Van Ronk - Sebastopol Community Center
Sebastopol, CA
June 29, 1997
Soundboard @ flac
R.I.P. - June 30, 1936 – February 10, 2002
Sebastopol, CA
June 29, 1997
Soundboard @ flac
R.I.P. - June 30, 1936 – February 10, 2002
Born in Brooklyn in 1936, Van Ronk moved to the Village as a teenager
and never left. Over five decades, he recorded scores of albums that
blended blues, jazz, jug-band stomping, and sea chanteys. He was an
early champion of Dylan and other up-and-coming songwriters like Joni Mitchell.
When Joan Baez was beginning her own career in the Boston and Cambridge
areas, she would hear reports of Van Ronk, who was a few years older
than her. "He was already a myth," Baez says. "He had terrible teeth,
but he had the most astonishing pitch, sweet little notes amidst the
growly ones. I knew thousands of people who sang the blues, but there
weren't many who did it well. He was the closest living offshoot of
Leadbelly that I could get to see."
Although Van Ronk never sold anywhere near the amount of records his protégés did, he accumulated many boldface-name fans. In Chronicles Volume One,
Dylan wrote that he'd first heard Van Ronk's records while growing up
in the Midwest. "He was passionate and stinging," wrote Dylan, "sang
like a solder of fortune and sounded like he paid the price. . . I loved
his style." Tom Waits (whose voice recalls Van Ronk's) has long been an
admirer, and Stephen King dropped Van Ronk's name in his novella Riding the Bullet.
I was lucky enough to see Dave Van Ronk when I was just 14. I was invited to accompany my 16 year old neighbor and his family to a show. This was my introduction to finger picking and old time blues.
Set List:
01 introduction by Cloud Moss
02 Winin' Boy Blues
03 Ain't Nobody's Business
04 Sportin' Life Blues
05 talk
06 You Been A Good Old Wagon
07 Did You Hear John Hurt?
08 talk
09 Green Green Rocky Road
10 Don't You Leave Me Here
11 talk
12 He Was A Friend Of Mine
13 The Katumba Rhumba
14 Down South Blues
15 talk
16 Candy Man
17 Mamie's Blues
18 St James Infirmary
19 God Bless The Child
record: soundboard > PCM (probably PCM-501)
transfer: Sony PCM-601esD > coax digital out > Sek'd Prodif Plus >
Sound Forge 8 (24 bit, tracking, bit depth conversion) > 16 bit .wav files >
FLAC level 8 encoding align on sector boundaries. Not burned to cdr - no EAC.
recorded by Easy Ed, with permission of Dave Van Ronk and of Cumulus Productions.
Thanks to Easy Ed!!!
pass = fbsvw
Sebastopol '97