Dave Van Ronk

戴维·范·洛克(Dave Van Ronk,1936-2002年)，美国民谣歌手，电影《醉乡民谣》的人物原型。
 
第一次听说Dave Van Ronk，全因为劳伦斯·布洛克笔下的老酒鬼侦探马修·斯卡德。这个纽约硬汉在戒酒多年后，走过熟悉的大街小巷，不禁感慨起《酒店关门之后/When the Sacred Ginmill Closes》的那段破碎往事，回味贪醉在Dave Van Ronk的《最后一杯/Last Call》。
 
一般的乡村民谣主题，大多是欢快歌颂当下生活，再不然幸福地回忆一下久远时光和遥远故土。城市民谣的主题，却总离不开潦倒酒鬼、赌棍，小人物的无聊琐碎、生存艰辛。或许石屎森林对于人的感情和乡土人情真不一样。一个城里人可以很反感自己的家乡：街道污秽，生存艰辛，精神空虚……到了后来，街道逐渐整洁了，霓虹灯逐渐泛滥了，广告牌上的笑容逐渐灿烂到都不知道自己在笑着什么了……一回过神，发现身边一切早已改变得亮丽耀人，自己却外乡人一般陌生起来，似乎只有窝在当年恶心宿醉的肮脏墙角，才能多少找到些家的归属感。听着Dave Van Ronk的歌，正像在异乡或甚至在故乡，找到了那么一个墙角。老头子那写入吉他史册的Ragtime独奏，仿佛是这堵危墙内拆迁废墟中的瓦砾石块，让路人踉跄于城市独有的荒诞旋律中。
 
Dave Van Ronk最经典的，要数1973年专辑《Songs for Ageing Children/老年孩童之歌》，酒鬼马修·斯卡德只听到了那最后一首《Last Call》，不知道他后来有没有好好补习前面那些同样老去的儿歌？第一曲《Duncan & Brady》就喝高喝到满天星星，Brady仗着自己是纽约城管十分嚣张，掀桌子翻凳子，惹怒了酒吧掌柜Duncan，后者开开心心地把前者轰了一枪，胸口大洞当场毙命；《Teddy Bear's Picnic》的旋律则十分吉卜赛，告诉大家今天树林里很热闹，泰迪熊在开野餐，谁赶上了谁就有机会被熊爸爸做成甜点喂儿子；当然也有抒情得不行的《River》，一无所有的老酒鬼只希望凭空出现一条通向虚无的河，在穷困潦倒，感情受挫，绝望痛苦时，能划船划到不存在的远方消失其中。又或者像《As You Make Your Bed》，一半捣乱，一半抒情，捣乱的部分直截了当告诉大家谈情感就是扯淡，抒情部分则用双关语婉转道出：We all make the beds，We Must Lying（我们都要整理床铺，我们都要有地方躺下）。剩下的首首旋律也绝不重复。
 
左派的Dave Van Ronk，上世纪70年代参加各种运动时没少挨警察的棍子，也蹲过仓子，和现在借激进主义为噱头骂娘，却一点实事不干的摇滚歌星根本不是一回事。白人布鲁斯里，Dave Van Ronk论技巧能排上顶尖几位了，可老酒鬼的歌曲创作，总离不开被自己冷嘲热讽近五六十年的纽约市；就连他住的地方，也只在纽约的布鲁克林区和皇后区两地更替；由此所创作的街坊民谣，可能过于纯粹和主观，受众并不太多，估计在日益变迁人心不古的大城市里所成长的一代，会对此更有共鸣吧。2004年，也就是在老头子去世后两年，纽约政府将他所住的这条街道正式改名为Dave Van Ronk大街，算是以此纪念一个城市精神的象征，纪念一个坚持只为乡亲父老讲故事的酒鬼诗人。（转自 广州日报）
 
by Richard Skelly
Guitarist, singer, songwriter and native New Yorker Dave Van Ronk has inspired, aided and promoted the careers of numerous singer/songwriters who came up in the blues tradition. Most notable of the many musicians he's helped over the years is Bob Dylan, whom Van Ronk got to know shortly after Dylan moved to New York in 1961 to pursue a life as a folk/blues singer.
Van Ronk's recorded output over the years is healthy, but he's never been as prolific a songwriter as some of his friends from that era, like Dylan or Tom Paxton. Instead, the genius of what Van Ronk does lies in his flawless execution and rearranging of classic acoustic blues tunes.

Born June 30, 1936, in Brooklyn and raised there, Van Ronk never completed high school, and left home for Greenwich Village, a few miles away, in stages as a late teenager. Van Ronk's recording career began in 1959 with Ballads, Blues and a Spiritual on the Moses Asch's Folkways label. He took his inspiration from Odetta, who encouraged the then-merchant seaman to play the classic jazz music that he was so keenly interested in.
Van Ronk, an expert finger picker, was influenced as a vocalist by Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong. Although he had a short-lived folk rock band called the Hudson Dusters in the mid-'60s, the bulk of Van Ronk's recordings are solo acoustic affairs. His 1967 album for Verve Forecast, Dave Van Ronk and the Hudson Dusters, is worthy of reissue on compact disc for it's sound qualities and for the statements it makes about American society in the 1960s.
Often regarded as the grand uncle of the Greenwich Village coffeehouse scene, the self-effacing Van Ronk, an engaging intellectual and voracious reader, would be the first to tell you that there were others, like blues and folk singer Odetta, who were around Greenwich Village before him. As the blues and folk boom bloomed into the 1960s, Van Ronk became part of an inner circle of musicians who then lived in Greenwich Village, including then up and coming performers like Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs, Ramblin' Jack Elliot and Joni Mitchell.
Van Ronk's reputation wasn't solid, however, until he began recording for the Prestige label in the first half of the 1960s. These recordings allowed him to tour throughout the U.S. and perform at major folk festivals like Newport.

Different recordings of Van Ronk's serve different purposes: to check out Van Ronk the songwriter, pick up Going Back to Brooklyn (Gazell Productions, 1985), which was his first all-original album, containing only his own songs; for students of Van Ronk's complex guitar technique, pick up Dave Van Ronk, a compact disc reissue of two earlier Prestige albums, Dave Van Ronk, Folksinger and Inside Dave Van Ronk. Another compilation, The Folkways Years, 1959-1961, is available from Smithsonian/Folkways in Washington, D.C.
Van Ronk continued to record throughout the '90s and beyond,with theAlcazar Records label releasing From...Another Time and Place in 1995 and Justin Time issuing Sweet and Lowdown in 2001. He died, unexpectedly, while undergoing post-operative treatment for colon cancer on February 10, 2002. A CD of his last concert, from October 2001 in Takoma Park, Maryland, was released by Smithsonian Folkways in 2004 as ...And the Tin Pan Bended and the Story Ended.