Photo Credit: Sandrine Sheon
Elijah Wald’s Dave Van Ronk Biography The Mayor of MacDougal Street Was The Inspiration For the New Coen Brothers’ Film Inside Llewyn Davis
December 20, 2013 - Back in 2005 we talked with Elijah Wald about his biography of Dave Van Ronk, The Mayor of MacDougal Street.
Elijah was Van Ronk’s guitar student and finished the book after the folk singer passed away. That book, with its first person account of the Greenwich Village folk music scene in the late 50s and early 60s, proved to be the inspiration for the new film Inside Llewyn Davis and much of the lead character’s repertoire and story comes from Van Ronk. Wald talks about this pivotal time and what Van Ronk represents.