A review by offbalance80
The Mayor of MacDougal Street: A Memoir by Dave Van Ronk, Elijah Wald

4.0

I only picked up this memoir after I heard that it was one of the inspirational texts for the Cohen Brothers for their upcoming movie "Inside Llywellen Davis." I wasn't sure what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised by the witty and fascinating account of Van Ronk's days as a folk and blues "hipster" in the 1950s and 1960s (in both New York and points elsewhere). The major players you might expect to get entire chapters (Baez, Dylan, Ochs) only get a few anecdotes here and there. But Van Ronk is such an engaging storyteller that you really don't care. In fact, the best chapter of all is about an ill-fated California road trip that would make a great movie all on its own. The epilogue says that this slim 226-page volume was meant to be part of a larger work, and the fact that work never happened due to Van Ronk's death is a sad thing indeed - it would have been as crucial for aspiring musicians and lovers of great memoir as this book was.