Dave Van Ronk Quotes

The blues are like the fugue in 18th century. It's probably the music that belongs most to our time.

Blues was made for the recessed.

I don't really know that there's any real rules for songwriting.

The musicians that didn't know music could play the best blues. I know that I don't want no musicians who know all about music playin' for me.

I am, and always will be, a blues guitarist.

I just sing. I sing whatever I can.

My music is written with one goal in mind: to improvise. It's like explaining a great story in words, but without words, much faster than you could with words. It's like a direct line of instantaneous communication where you don't have to wait for the end.

If you're going to get into music, you've got to learn the 12-bar blues.

All music is the blues. All of it.

Jazz has endured because it doesn't have a beginning or an ending. It's a moment.

My definition of Blues is that it's a musical form which is very disciplined and structured coupled with a state of mind, and you can have either of those things but it's the two together that make it what it is. And you need to be a student for one, and a human being for the other, but those things alone don't do it.

The blues are just a heightened sense of awareness of life's ups and downs, and things that a guy sees after a couple hits of Jack Daniels.

Music and culture are intrinsically improvisational, existential.

I think blues music is music of the soul. Of course, there are other forms. You could call some classical music blues music in that way.

In stand-up you can go either way. It's live. Somebody might say something in the crowd, you might respond to it. But in a movie you could be spontaneous too. But you pretty much have to stick to that story or that scene or that script, but in stand-up you can go wherever you want to. It's more freedom.

I don't think I ever sing the same way twice. The blues is sort of a mixed-up thing. You just have to feel it. Anything I do sing is part of my life.

The blues is an art of ambiguity, an assertion of the irrepressibly human over all circumstances, whether created by others or by one's own human failing.

I wanted to know everything about the blues. I think it constantly changes for me.

I get my dance moves from just moving around and listening to music and not really worrying about if it's perfect or not.

Jazz music is the power of now. There is no script. It's conversation. The emotion is given to you by musicians as they make split-second decisions to fulfill what they feel the moment requires.

In improvisation, there are no mistakes.

Music to me is spontaneous, writing is spontaneous and it's all based on not trying to do it. From beginning to end, whether it's writing a song, or playing guitar, or a particular chord sequence, or blowing a horn, it's based on improvisation and spontaneity.

I don't know where jazz is going. Maybe it's going to hell. You can't make anything go anywhere. It just happens.

I don’t care about the rules. In fact, if I don’t break the rules at least ten times in every song, then I’m not doing my job properly. Emotion is much more important than making mistakes, so be prepared to look like a chump. If you become too guarded and too processed, the music loses its spontaneity and gut feeling

This be an empty world without the blues.