A mentor to everyone from Bob Dylan to Suzanne Vega, "The Mayor of MacDougal Street" was a treasured figure in the Greenwich Village scene for four decades. His autobiography and its portrait of the... more

Dave Van Ronk - Ballads, Blues & a Spiritual - Dubbed "The Mayor of MacDougal Street," Dave Van Ronk (1936-2002) was an iconoclastic folksinger and an influential figure in the American folk music... more

Before this Greenwich Village folk doyen recorded for Prestige, he made a splash with his Smithsonian Folkways LPs. He came to be revered for these kinds of new spins on old blues and jazz classics:... more

These CDs chronicle the period when Van Ronk emerged as a fixture and guiding light in the Greenwich Village coffee-house scene. He traverses folk, blues, jug-band, ragtime, New Orleans jazz and more... more

"Inside Llewyn Davis" (which was inspired by his life) cast new light on Van Ronk, but he needed no introduction to followers of the '60s Greenwich Village folk scene. What we have here is the... more

Born in Brooklyn in 1936, Dave Van Ronk was Bob Dylan's "first New York guru," writes Dylan's biographer Robert Shelton. "Dave Van Ronk was the musical mayor of MacDougal Street," Shelton continues,... more

This doyen of the Greenwich Village folk scene began his long recording career with this 1959 Folkways LP. He was just 23 (and already a local hero) when he wrapped that big rasp around these great... more