The theme music for my radio show was Dave Van Ronk's fingerpicking guitar transcription of the Jely Roll Morton piano rag, "The Pearls." I just loved it, first time I heard it (It's Cut 8 on Sunday Street, his 1976 Philo Records hands down no questions permitted masterpiece). And also I figured, on college radio, devoted to hard-core punk at the time I started doing radio - 1978 - it'd be like that Biblical verse about casting your pearls before swine, going on-air with a program devoted to folk-n-bluegrass, what the hell, I wanted to do it, had the records, lemme at it.

So anyway: I was talking to Dave backstage at The Main Point one night, and mentioned how much I loved that tune. He cocked an eyebrow at me, and proceeded to lay this on me:

Well, when I transcribed Jelly Roll Morton's piano rag for finger-picking guitar, I lost a measure. And every time I played it, I could not find that measure. And every time I played that tune, and could not find that measure, I said to myself, "Damn, Van Ronk - you're not a musician - you're just a folksinger!"

Your turn with the Van Ronk stories.

Van Ronk tells this story in his book and I also heard him tell it live.

One time around 65-66 he and Patrick Sky went to Winnipeg to play some Public TV fundraiser thing and they'd been up for 72 hours and the only thing keeping them wawke was a steady supply of bourbon.

They get to the place and a big room is a communal dressing room and a frail girl with long blonde hair and a huge Martin guitar sits in the corner to tune up and rehearse and a minute later every single person in the room is now in a semicircle, 4 people deep around her in the corner. The girl is Joni Mitchell and she's playing "Urger For Going" which everyone is hearing for the first time. You could hear a pin drop when she finished, the last chord slowly decaying in the air, everyone just awe struck, when Patrick Sky, in an enormous voice suddenly breaks the silence and says,

"That SUCKED!!!"

Joni is reduced to tears bcause she is unaware that this is Sky's highest praise.

Dave would tell that and then play the most beautiful version of the song I ever heard. One night at The Main Point he'd come back to play an encore and people were shouting for "Urge for Going" so he started to play it when the fire siren at the fire house across the street went off, totally drowning him out.

People laughed, we sat there and waited for the fire department to do their thing and, maybe 10 minutes later, it was quiet and Dave started it again. At the very same place, middle of the first verse, the fire alarm exploded again.

"Sorry folks," he said. "It's not gonna happen." And that was that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMlQp0yA ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_0uDWhI ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktThpR_s ... re=related

Aw, shoot or similar syllable. Just google Youtube Dave Van Ronk, and there's a bundle of em. Enjoy.

Dylan--"Do you think I could work at your club?"

Van Ronk--"Are you good with a mop?"

En pointe. Van Ronk had done the old mop-dance himself - he wrote "Losers' Blues" on the Greyhound bus.

Bump. That can't be the last word on Dave Van Ronk, story-teller and guitar maestro, first white guy to make playing black blues a major part of his stage act and recording output....

Dave Van Ronk recorded a tune called "St. Louis Tickle," that starts out with an old New Orleans tune called "Funky Butt."

This song does not mince words:

"I thought I heard Buddy Bolden shout
You got funky butt, funky butt, take it on out,
You're dirty, nasty, smelly, go on, git out,
Open up the window and let that foul air out
..."

Some people changed the words so "funky butt" came out "tickle toe."

Unfortunately I can't find Van Ronk's rendition online, but here's a guy with a 12-string National steel guitar wearing a sky mask:

I found it on "The Folkways Years Vol 3," on the first page of Google....

Bump, sheesh. Check the co-written (with Elijah Wald, who completed it after Dave's death), The Mayor of MacDougal Street. Dave may well have sensed it was the last time around, coz the stories are in polished form, well-crafted where otherwise he might have tossed them off over his shoulder. Fine book, muchos thankees to Elijah for the work.

Just after I got the 1976 masterpiece, Sunday Street, I was running our magapaper The Folk Life while doing music therapy with mentally retarded inmates somewhere, and took it in to let them hear it. So of course one of the big young kids meandered u to the record player, looked at the disc spinning round - reached down, lifted it up, and bit a crescent out of the edge. Couldn't play the first three cuts either side, right, so I took the remainder for what it was worth, and "The Pearls" - fourth on the second side - as my theme tune when I started my radio program.

But anyway - told you that to tell you this - I was talking to Van Ronk backstage at The Main Point, and mentioned the incident to him. He cracked up, big booming bellow of a laugh, finally calmed down and growled, "Well, Mack, ya gotta admit - the kid had taste!" More laughter.