Dave Van Ronk

戴維·范·洛克(Dave Van Ronk,1936-2002年)，美國民謠歌手，電影《醉鄉(xiāng)民謠》的人物原型。
 
第一次聽說Dave Van Ronk，全因為勞倫斯·布洛克筆下的老酒鬼偵探馬修·斯卡德。這個紐約硬漢在戒酒多年后，走過熟悉的大街小巷，不禁感慨起《酒店關(guān)門之后/When the Sacred Ginmill Closes》的那段破碎往事，回味貪醉在Dave Van Ronk的《最后一杯/Last Call》。
 
一般的鄉(xiāng)村民謠主題，大多是歡快歌頌當下生活，再不然幸福地回憶一下久遠時光和遙遠故土。城市民謠的主題，卻總離不開潦倒酒鬼、賭棍，小人物的無聊瑣碎、生存艱辛?；蛟S石屎森林對于人的感情和鄉(xiāng)土人情真不一樣。一個城里人可以很反感自己的家鄉(xiāng)：街道污穢，生存艱辛，精神空虛……到了后來，街道逐漸整潔了，霓虹燈逐漸泛濫了，廣告牌上的笑容逐漸燦爛到都不知道自己在笑著什么了……一回過神，發(fā)現(xiàn)身邊一切早已改變得亮麗耀人，自己卻外鄉(xiāng)人一般陌生起來，似乎只有窩在當年惡心宿醉的骯臟墻角，才能多少找到些家的歸屬感。聽著Dave Van Ronk的歌，正像在異鄉(xiāng)或甚至在故鄉(xiāng)，找到了那么一個墻角。老頭子那寫入吉他史冊的Ragtime獨奏，仿佛是這堵危墻內(nèi)拆遷廢墟中的瓦礫石塊，讓路人踉蹌于城市獨有的荒誕旋律中。
 
Dave Van Ronk最經(jīng)典的，要數(shù)1973年專輯《Songs for Ageing Children/老年孩童之歌》，酒鬼馬修·斯卡德只聽到了那最后一首《Last Call》，不知道他后來有沒有好好補習前面那些同樣老去的兒歌？第一曲《Duncan & Brady》就喝高喝到滿天星星，Brady仗著自己是紐約城管十分囂張，掀桌子翻凳子，惹怒了酒吧掌柜Duncan，后者開開心心地把前者轟了一槍，胸口大洞當場斃命；《Teddy Bear's Picnic》的旋律則十分吉卜賽，告訴大家今天樹林里很熱鬧，泰迪熊在開野餐，誰趕上了誰就有機會被熊爸爸做成甜點喂兒子；當然也有抒情得不行的《River》，一無所有的老酒鬼只希望憑空出現(xiàn)一條通向虛無的河，在窮困潦倒，感情受挫，絕望痛苦時，能劃船劃到不存在的遠方消失其中。又或者像《As You Make Your Bed》，一半搗亂，一半抒情，搗亂的部分直截了當告訴大家談情感就是扯淡，抒情部分則用雙關(guān)語婉轉(zhuǎn)道出：We all make the beds，We Must Lying（我們都要整理床鋪，我們都要有地方躺下）。剩下的首首旋律也絕不重復。
 
左派的Dave Van Ronk，上世紀70年代參加各種運動時沒少挨警察的棍子，也蹲過倉子，和現(xiàn)在借激進主義為噱頭罵娘，卻一點實事不干的搖滾歌星根本不是一回事。白人布魯斯里，Dave Van Ronk論技巧能排上頂尖幾位了，可老酒鬼的歌曲創(chuàng)作，總離不開被自己冷嘲熱諷近五六十年的紐約市；就連他住的地方，也只在紐約的布魯克林區(qū)和皇后區(qū)兩地更替；由此所創(chuàng)作的街坊民謠，可能過于純粹和主觀，受眾并不太多，估計在日益變遷人心不古的大城市里所成長的一代，會對此更有共鳴吧。2004年，也就是在老頭子去世后兩年，紐約政府將他所住的這條街道正式改名為Dave Van Ronk大街，算是以此紀念一個城市精神的象征，紀念一個堅持只為鄉(xiāng)親父老講故事的酒鬼詩人。（轉(zhuǎn)自 廣州日報）
 
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.