Memories: In Concert 1980

Dave Van Ronk was one of the central figures in the folk movement which flourished during the late 1950s and early 1960s and nurtured such performers as Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs and Peter, Paul and Mary. He was the founding father of the blues and ragtime guitar revival and played an important roll in presenting this music to a wider audience. He emerged from this era as one of the most distinctive folk blues performers with a tough, gravelly voice and an intricate and delicate guitar style combined with a colorful, bawdy and powerful personality. His impact on the way in which people play guitar, and how the notion of 'interpretation' - particularly within the folk and blues idiom - is viewed, has arguably had a deep and lasting impact, one which will resound long, long after he is gone. Two years before Dave passed away it was suggested to him that we could release his 1980 concert recorded in Athens, Ohio but that it would be interesting to do an interview with his memories of that concert as well as stories about the tunes he performed. The idea was to combine this interview with the concert footage recorded over twenty years earlier. Dave was a great story teller and it was a joy to listen to his stories as well as the concert performance which presented Dave's music at it's finest.