Van Ronk was born in
Brooklyn, New York City, to a family that was "mostly Irish, despite the Dutch '
Van' name". He moved from Brooklyn to
Queens around 1945 and began attending Holy Child Jesus Catholic School, whose students were mainly of Irish descent. He had been performing in a
barbershop quartet since 1949, but left before finishing high school spending time in the
Merchant Marine. His first professional gigs were playing tenor banjola, a wooden-bodied combination of mandola and banjo, with various traditional jazz bands around New York City, of which he later observed: "We wanted to play traditional jazz in the worst way ... and we did!" But the
trad jazz revival had already passed its prime, and Van Ronk turned to performing the blues he had stumbled across while shopping for jazz
78s by artists like the
Reverend Gary Davis,
Furry Lewis and
Mississippi John Hurt. By about 1958, he was firmly committed to the folk-blues style, accompanying himself with his own acoustic guitar. He performed
blues,
jazz and
folk music, occasionally writing his own songs but generally arranging the work of earlier artists and his folk revival peers. He became noted both for his large physical stature and for his expansive charisma, which bespoke an intellectual, cultured gentleman of diverse talents. Among his many interests were cooking,
science fiction (he was active for some time in
science fiction fandom, referring to it as "mind rot", and contributed to
fanzines), world history, and politics. During the 1960s he supported left-wing political causes and was, at various times, a member of the
Libertarian League and the
Young Socialist League, at that time the youth wing of the "
Shachtmanite"
Independent Socialist League. In 1964, he was part of a group expelled from the Trotskyist
Socialist Workers Party which would eventually go on to become the
American Committee for the Fourth International (ACFI, later renamed the Workers League). In 1974, he appeared at "An Evening For
Salvador Allende", a concert organized by
Phil Ochs, alongside such other performers as his old friend Bob Dylan, to protest the overthrow of the democratic socialist government of Chile and to aid refugees from the U.S.-backed military junta led by
Augusto Pinochet. After Ochs's death by suicide in 1976, Van Ronk joined the many performers who played at his memorial concert in the
Felt Forum at
Madison Square Garden, playing his bluesy version of the traditional folk ballad "
He Was A Friend Of Mine". Although Van Ronk was less politically active in later years, he remained committed to anarchist and socialist ideals and was a dues-paying member of the
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) almost until his death. According to former wife and manager Terri Thal, Van Ronk "insisted that he was a Trotskyist until he died." The police slapped and punched Van Ronk to the point of near unconsciousness, handcuffed him to a radiator near the doorway, and charged him with assault. Recalling the expanding riot, Van Ronk said, "There were more people out there [outside the building] when I came out than when I went in. Things were still flying through the air, cacophony—I mean, just screaming and yelling, sirens, strobe lights, the whole spaghetti." The next day, he was arrested and later released on his own recognizance for having thrown a heavy object at a police officer. City records show he was charged with felony assault in the second degree and pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of harassment, classified in 1969 as a violation under PL 240.25. In 2000, he performed at Blind Willie's in
Atlanta, speaking fondly of his impending return to Greenwich Village. He reminisced over tunes like "You've Been a Good Old Wagon", a song teasing a worn-out lover, which he ruefully remarked had seemed humorous to him back in 1962. He continued to perform for four decades and gave his last concert just a few months before his death. ==Personal life==