Topic: Dave Van Ronk Tunings

[simplelines]

Hello.

I've been listening to Dave Van Ronk a lot more than I had been lately, so I've been paying attention to more things. One of the main things is all of the different tunings and capo positions he used throughout his career. The following is a list of tunings he used and the highest capo position I've seen or heard him play some of them. I've compiled it from multiple sources: all 3 of the tab books Mel Bay released, the instructional DVD, the 2 live performance DVD's, videos and comments on Youtube, message boards and bootleg audio.

Feel free to contribute.



Standard

Another Time and Place (capo 4)
Antelope Rag
Ballad of the IRT
Buckdancer's Choice
Buddy Bolden's Blues (capo 4)
Candyman
Cocaine Blues
Come Back Baby (capo 2)
Don't You Leave Me Here (capo 2)
Down South Blues (capo 3)
Dry Land Blues
Freight Train
Garden State Stomp
Gaslight Rag
God Bless the Child (capo 2)
He Was a Friend of Mine (capo 2)
Hesitation Blues (capo 6)
Jelly, Jelly (capo 2)
Mack the Knife (capo 7/9)
Mamie's Blues (capo 3)
Maple Leaf Rag
Mean World Blues
Midnight Hour Blues (capo 2)
One Kind Favor
One Meatball
Rocks and Gravel (capo 7)
Saturday Night Shuffle
Somebody Else, Not Me
Sometime (capo 4)
Spike Driver's Moan (capo 4)
St. James Infirmary
St. Louis Tickle
Stackerlee
Sugar Babe
Swinging on a Star
That Will Never Happen No More (capo 4)
Willie the Weeper (capo 4)
Wilson Rag
Yas, Yas, Yas (capo 3)
You've Been a Good Old Wagon (capo 3)



Drop D

Blood Red Moon
Buckets of Rain (capo 6)
Did You Hear John Hurt? (capo 2)
The Entertainer (capo 2)
Frankie's Blues
Green, Green Rocky Road (capo 2/4)
Kansas City Blues (capo 2)
Left Bank Blues
Losers (capo 2)
Old Blue (capo 4)
Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out (capo 2)
Song to Woody (capo 2)
Sportin' Life Blues (capo 2)
Sunday Street (capo 2)



Drop C (CGDGBE)

Keep It Clean (capo 1)



Open D (DADF#AD)

Bad Dream Blues (capo 4)



Open C (CGCGCE)

Head Inspector
River (I'm not entirely sure about the tuning of this, but it is in a low C tuning)



Various

Jesus Met the Woman at the Well (CGDGBD) (capo 2)



That's all for now.

[dspilkia]

He did a cover of the Joni Mitchell song Urge For Going.  I have always loved his arrangement and wonder if the tuning he used on it is not one of the tunings you have listed.  I forget which album he recorded this on.

[Bob B]

"Urge for going" was recorded on an album simply titled Van Ronk.  It was released by Polydor.

Bob

[Laura]

I'm going to add "Old Blue" from his album "Somebody else, not me" in Drop D, capo 4th.

[simplelines]

I'm going to add "Old Blue" from his album "Somebody else, not me" in Drop D, capo 4th.

Thank you.

I just reorganized the list and added that.


For anyone curious...

In May, the following DVR albums were rereleased as digital-only downloads at Amazon.com, iTunes, among others:

(1964) Dave Van Ronk and the Ragtime Jug Stompers
(1964) Just Dave Van Ronk
(1966) No Dirty Names
(1968) Dave Van Ronk and the Hudson Dusters
(1971) Van Ronk
(1973) Songs for Ageing Children

This is great news since most of the vinyl rips around the web sound pretty rough.

Most of his discography is available in non-LP/vinyl form now.

[Issaquahbob]

Newbie to site and am seeing some great stuff especially on Dave's tuning. Thanks to all who contribute! Will try to do the same. Have found that many of Dave's songs are not tabbed online yet. Am working on several (keep it clean, that'll never happen no more, yas yas yas, dry land blues) and can figure out a lot on my own with help from you tube watching folks like Tandelgen play their versions but some chords or shapes are very hard to spot or figure out without tabs and shapes. Also not knowing tuning differences can add to difficulty there but sometimes folks will share that if you ask. Does anybody have access to tabs for these or other DVR that they can share? Even a few shapes in form of XXXXXX format showing chord shape would really help towards learning the songs. Thanks.

[simplelines]

Newbie to site and am seeing some great stuff especially on Dave's tuning. Thanks to all who contribute! Will try to do the same. Have found that many of Dave's songs are not tabbed online yet. Am working on several (keep it clean, that'll never happen no more, yas yas yas, dry land blues) and can figure out a lot on my own with help from you tube watching folks like Tandelgen play their versions but some chords or shapes are very hard to spot or figure out without tabs and shapes. Also not knowing tuning differences can add to difficulty there but sometimes folks will share that if you ask. Does anybody have access to tabs for these or other DVR that they can share? Even a few shapes in form of XXXXXX format showing chord shape would really help towards learning the songs. Thanks.

I'm pretty sure tanDlegen (from Youtube) learned his covers from the instructional Dave Van Ronk DVD and the 3 books Mel Bay released. He plays most of the ones from them note-for-note from the transcriptions. The Guitar Stylings of Dave Van Ronk is OOP and sells for ridiculous prices, but the others are still available.

Since you asked, and it's OOP, here's "Dry Land Blues" from The Guitar Stylings of Dave Van Ronk:


<link removed by slack, see post below>

[westside ryan]

I had emailed MelBay a while back about getting a copy of the book and was told that it was slated to be reprinted.  Instead of waiting, I just ended up paying quite a bit for a used copy off of Ebay.  Also, I dont mean to be a prude, but while the book may be out of print, it is still copywritten and you probably shouldn't be posting copies of it unless you have permission to do so. 

[Slack]

Hi folks,

I've removed the link to the Dryland tab jepg.  Posting commercial copyrighted tab is a tricky one for us.  We walk the line on a lot of stuff, which is subject to our subjective standard (with which you may or may not agree).  But in this case, we would feel more comfortable if you all exchanged tab that you had scanned from some book and put on your personal sites - off-channel.

Thanks for your understanding!
Slack

 

[Stuart]

There is a provision for what is known as "Fair Use." As Slack says, it's best to not to post copyrighted materials, but there are provisions for copying materials for educational use--"Fair Use." There is no shortage of info about this provision available on the web.

[JTO]

Hi, this list is very helpful. I didn;t see Honey Hair on it any tuning fo that DVR song?
JTO

[Laura]

Hi JTO.  It sounds to me like "Honey Hair" is another one in Drop D.

While I'm here..can anyone tell me the list of songs covered in the out of print book?

Thanks.

[glasalle]

Thanks for the compilation.  One thing to note, Dave changed capo positions frequently.  When i took lessons from Dave in the early 80's, he always taught the tunes without a capo.  He also pretty much settled in on Standard and dropped D (or as he liked to call it, English D).  He didn't teach me any songs other than those 2 tunings. 

Some additions:
 - Dave taught me Jivin' Man Blues, which is Dropped D
 - Death Letter Blues is in G in standard

Glenn

[glasalle]

Hi JTO.  It sounds to me like "Honey Hair" is another one in Drop D.

While I'm here..can anyone tell me the list of songs covered in the out of print book?

Thanks.

Following is list:
 - Sugar Babe
 - Freight Train
 - Buckdancers choice
 - Spike Drivers Moan
 - Candy Man
 - Cocaine Blues
 - Dry Land Blues
 - Come Back Baby
 - Blood Red Moon
 - Sunday Street
 - St Louis Tickle
 - The Entertainer
 - Maple Leaf Rag
 - Antelope Rag
 - Gaslight Rag

Dave liked to start new students off with Sugar babe and Freight train.

Glenn

[Laura]

Hi Glenn.  Thanks very much for the list.  There are quite a few songs that are covered in his other CD/DVD lessons but I wonder if the arrangements are very different?

You must feel very lucky to have taken lessons with Dave.  Did you study for long with him?