RARA-AVIS: Re: Lawrence Block, satirical songwriter

From: Richard Moore ( moorich@aol.com)
Date: 07 Apr 2007


Given a time machine one of the places high on my list to visit would be Greenwich Village not quite fifty years ago. My friend Ted White was a jazz critic back then--his eye witness account of the fabled Charles Mingus 1962 Town Hall concert is quoted in all the biographies--and he talks about the days when Bob Dylan performed on street corners for tips. Then Dylan's own CHRONICLES came out a couple of years ago and paints a vivid picture of the days when he and Tiny Tim took turns at clubs with open mikes.

Dylan tells of meeting Dave Van Ronk at Izzy Young's Folklore Center which he called "the citadel of American folk music." I highly recommend Dylan's 2004 CHRONICLES as a very evocative memoir of that time and place.

Along with Izzy Young, another center piece was Lee Hoffman, a science fiction fan who later became an award-winning writer of westerns. At the time she was married to Larry Shaw, who had edited Infinity Science Fiction and Suspect Detective Stories magazines and was or soon would be editor at Lancer Books. Years (and a wife) later Larry briefly edited Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine--brief but long enough to send me the nicest rejection letter I've ever received.

Shaw introduced Hoffman to the folk music scene and eventually she started a publication called Cavaran for which Van Ronk did a column as did John Brunner covering the British scene. Lee died a few months ago but her memories of that time are still to be found at: http://www.cvil.wustl.edu/~gary/Lee/bio-folknik.html

To tie this in to the Larry Block/Dave Van Ronk string, there is this from Hoffman:

"One evening, Dave came by with Larry Block. While we were gabbing one of us came up with a line or two of satire on a union song. That immediately led to several satires such as The Twelve Days of Marxmas and The Fink's Song. We decided there should be a collection called The Bosses' Songbook. Dave followed up by getting together with Dick Ellington and actually producing a chapbook of the stuff we'd written that evening and some satires that had been around a while. It sold out so quickly that they developed a larger fancier second edition."

A copy of that chapbook by Block and Van Ronk would now be a very nice addition to any collection.

Richard Moore

--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "ccpjlehane" <con@...> wrote:
>
>
> One more fact of questionable value: the title of Block's When the
Sacred Gin Mill Closes
> comes, if I remember correctly, from a Dave Van Ronk song. And
while I'm at it, wouldn't
> every noir writer wish to change noir ... at least just a little?
(I get behind in my email
> sometimes, so if this discussion ended a month ago, I apologize).
>
> Con Lehane
>
>
>
>
>
> --- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, Tim Wohlforth <timwohlforth@>
wrote:
> >
> > I would also add that the bar Block and Van Ronk hung out in
was
> > right next to the Stonewall, made famous when gays rebelled
against
> > police harassment. As Van Ronk told it, and he liked to tell
tales,
> > he was there that night next door and joined in the fight when
the
> > gays poured out of their bar. Van Ronk, in any event was a bit
of a
> > romantic and an anarchist. Perhaps Block has in his own way a
bit of
> > that spirit.
> > On Apr 1, 2007, at 4:48 PM, DJ-Anonyme@ wrote:
> >
> > > Didn't Block also write the introduction to Van Ronk's recent,
> > > posthumous autobiography?
> > >
> > > Mark
> > >
> > > ps -- Van Ronk's is my favorite version of Teddy Bear's
Picnic,
> > > though I
> > > think that's later in his career than this Folkways set.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
>



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