Dave Van Ronk's memoir 'Mayor of MacDougal Street' inspired the Coen Brothers' latest film Meet Dave Van Ronk, the Folk Singer Who Inspired ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ – Rolling Stone. Dave Van Ronk was an American folk singer and was nicknamed the 'Mayor of MacDougal Street'. 'The cult of art is strangling us,' said Dave Van Ronk in Melody Maker. 'Jazz musicians, blues musicians, folk musicians, we're all being strangled by it.
Dave Van Ronk's memoir of the 'Great Folk Scare' of the 1960s, written with Elijah Wald (Da Capo 2005, new edition 2013)
Now also available in Japanese, in French and Italian as Manhattan Folk Story and in German as Der König von Greenwich Village.
The inspiration for Inside Llewyn Davis, a major motion picture written and directed by the Coen Brothers.
'The Mayor of MacDougal Street is one of the dozen best books ever written about a New York life and time: dense with wisdom, humor, judgment, and an amazingly vivid recreation of the rites and rituals and characters of a whole lost world and scene.' ................................--Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker
'a wise and very funny book.' ................................--Louis Menand, The New Yorker
'In Greenwich Village, Van Ronk was king of the street, he reigned supreme.' .................................-- Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Vol.1
'In the engine room of the NY Folk Scene shoveling coal into the furnace, one Big Man rules. Dog faced roustabout songster. Bluesman, Dave Van Ronk. Long may he howl.' ..................................--Tom Waits
“Best Book of 2005” --“If you thought Bob Dylan’s Chronicles emanated atmosphere, try Van Ronk’s salty, seamless, and often hilarious re-creation of Greenwich Village…Where his Bobness could be frustratingly oblique, Van Ronk is concrete to the point of 3-D.” ............................................................................................-- Library Journal '. . . a funny, insightful and honest recounting . . . Many readers may go to the book looking for stories about other people including Dylan -- and they are here -- but along the way they will discover, or rediscover, the story of Dave Van Ronk.' .................................... .......................................................-- Scott Bauer, Associated Press
'Charming, evocative autobiography by one of the key figures in the mid-20th-century folk revival. . . . A must for those with an interest in the music, and of great appeal as well for anyone who enjoys a roistering life story recounted in a lively narrative voice.' .................................. .........................................................-- Kirkus Review
'Dave Van Ronk's memoirs uncannily evoke the life, times and voice of an artist I dearly loved.' .................................. ................-- Sean Wilentz, choosing his three favorite books of 2005