Down in Washington Square

A seminal figure in the American folk renaissance of the late 1950s and early 60s, Dave Van Ronk was a brilliant and irascible troubadour from Brooklyn who died in 2002. The Coen Brothers’ latest film, Inside Llewyn Davis, is loosely based on Van Ronk’s posthumously published memoir, The Mayor of MacDougal Street. This three-CD collection is an overview of Van Ronk’s career, beginning with live recordings in 1958 and concluding with his last studio sessions in 2001. Also included is a 1997 concert celebrating the reissue of Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music, which served as a primary source for nearly all of the folk revivalists, as well as Van Ronk’s infamous original version of ‘House of the Rising Sun’.

Highly personal adaptations of songs by Bessie Smith, Mississippi John Hurt, Gary Davis, Scrapper Blackwell and others demonstrate that Van Ronk was a serious scholar of Delta blues and the Appalachian and Piedmont traditions. Stylistically, his flatpicking chops and dulcet, rough-hewed voice, which broke at odd times, set him apart from the wannabes in Washington Square Park and around the Greenwich Village scene, while setting the standard for generations that followed.