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Big Daddy of the Blues Singers... Dave Van Ronk

Jane Heil, Hit Parader, July 1966

NOT SO LONG ago — ten years or so — that gutsy, sorrowful, driving Negro folk-blues sound was the sole property of the Negro blues singers themselves. Any white singer who tried to get that sound himself got put down from every direction. That is, until one big, bearish, good-natured, gruff, unfoolable — and tremendously talented — young man named Dave Van Ronk came along.

Total word count of piece: 1977

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