Sings Ballads, Blues & A Spiritual

by Dave Van Ronk

Sings Ballads, Blues & A Spiritual cover art
  • Type: Album
  • Released: 1959
  • Label: Folkways
  • Country: United States
  • Length: 43:33
  • Community rating: 3.51/5 from 2 ratings

Album Notes & Community Reviews

Signaling the arrival of a major intellectual and musical force within the Greenwich Village folk scene, this starkly intimate debut focuses heavily on traditional rural structures. 'Sings Ballads, Blues & A Spiritual' showcases the artist's famously gruff, highly expressive vocal delivery and sophisticated, ragtime-inflected fingerpicking. The unvarnished acoustic interpretations profoundly influenced the trajectory and repertoire of the entire impending 1960s folk revival.

Genres

Descriptors: acoustic, melodic

Tracklist

  1. Duncan and Brady (3:02)
  2. Black Mountain Blues (4:02)
  3. In the Pines (3:08)
  4. My Baby's So Sweet (2:35)
  5. Twelve Gates to the City (3:15)
  6. Winin' Boy (2:38)
  7. If You Leave Me Pretty Momma (3:08)
  8. Backwater Blues (3:04)
  9. Careless Love (2:59)
  10. Betty and Dupree (3:37)
  11. K.C. Moan (3:03)
  12. Gambler's Blues (2:30)
  13. John Henry (2:28)
  14. How Long (3:56)

Credits

  • Malin Quick - lyrics by
  • Christer Rydell - music by

More from Dave Van Ronk: full discography