Dave Van Ronk Quotes

If You Asked Anybody In My Family, They Would Have Very Stridently Proclaimed Themselves Middle Class. My Mother And Father Were Separated, So He Doesn't Count.

By The Mid-70s, I Wanted To Get Out Of The Business. I Was Tired Anyway.

I Don't Think I Went A Year Or So Without A Record Between 1959 And 1979, Sometimes Two.

I Think I Have More In Common With A Carpenter Than You Might Think. We're Putting Things Together.

I'm An Exhibitionist, I Was An Exhibitionist As A Kid.

One Of My Earliest Memories... I Knew Three Full Verses Of The Star Spangled Banner When I Was Seven Or Eight Years Old. And One Of The Nuns Discovered This Phenomenon And I Was Actually Sent Around From Classroom To Classroom To Do The Whole Thing.

My Uncle And My Grandfather Both Worked In The Brooklyn Navy Yard.

I'm A Very, Very Stubborn Man.

Most Of What I Listen To Now Is Mainstream Jazz From 1935 Right Up To And Including Early Bebop And Cool Jazz.

I Cut Myself Off From The Mainstream Of Jazz. It Stood Me In Good Stead Later On, As A Musician.

And Then Adds With A Laugh, 'but In Retrospect I Think He May Have Been More Sophisticated Than We Were.'

In The Early 1970s. 1971, '72. The Rooms Were Closing Down, Record Labels Weren't Signing Acoustic Acts Any More. Although They Had Been Pretty Much Been Getting Out Of That For Some Time Before That.