Dave Van Ronk - In Concert at the Bottom Line: June 2, 2001 - DVD

Dave Van Ronk was one of the central figures in the folk movement which flourished during the late 1950s and early 1960s and nurtured such performers as Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs and Peter, Paul and Mary. He was the founding father of the blues and ragtime guitar revival and played an important roll in presenting this music to a wider audience. He emerged from this era as one of the most distinctive folk blues performers with a tough, gravelly voice and an intricate and delicate guitar style combined with a colorful, bawdy and powerful personality. His impact on the way in which people play guitar, and how the notion of 'interpretation' - particularly within the folk and blues idiom - is viewed, has arguably had a deep and lasting impact, one which will resound long, long after he is gone. Two years before Dave passed away it was suggested to him that we could his 1980 concert recorded in Athens, Ohio but that it would be interesting to do an interview with his memories of that concert as well as stories about the tunes he performed. The idea was to combine this interview with the concert footage recorded over twenty years earlier. Dave was a great story teller and it was a joy to listen to his stories as well as the concert performance which presented Dave's music at it's finest.

John Renbourn and Jacqui McShee are two pivitol figures in the history of British folk music. Founding members of the British folk-rock group Pentangle, guitarist Renbourn and vocalist McShee have been musical collaborators and innovators for four decades. The style is a unique folk- baroque fusion of British and Celtic folk music with jazz, blues, ragtime, classical, Middle Eastern, and pre-Renaissance music.

Two of the world's premiere acoustic guitarists join forces in this concert recorded in 1982 to define and explore the parameters of American and European Folk, Blues, Jazz and Ragtime Music. Stefan Grossman and John Renbourn, play both solo and as a duo. Titles include Looper's Corner, the Shoes of the Fisherman's Wife Are Some Jive Ass Slippers, Struttin' Rag, the Assassination of John Fahey, Tightrope, Judy, Angie, White House Blues, the English Dance, Trotto, Goodbye Porkpie Hat, Candyman, Spirit Levels and Take a Whiff on Me.