A legendary Village voice

Van Ronk nodded yes. He would become a tramp troubadour who made his living with a six-string in hand, plucking traditional jazz riffs in coffeehouses from New York to Los Angeles like guitarist Charlie Christian. Shunned that afternoon, in a few years he made good on his promise. Using Greenwich Village as his home base -- and jazz as his original calling card -- by the late 1950s Van Ronk had become a folksinger extraordinaire. His star rose, at least among his peers. As Bob Dylan noted in his memoir ''Chronicles, Vol. 1," published to critical acclaim last year, the storied folk-blues musicians who came of age during the Eisenhower era and led to the so-called Folk Revival of the early 1960s were his heroes. With his gravelly voice, perfect timing, finger-picking virtuosity, and wild-eyed anarchist-bohemian attitude, Van Ronk -- who died of cancer in 2002 at age 65 -- was perhaps the most street savvy and ornery of the new vanguard of Manhattan-based folkies that included Tom Paxton and Phil Ochs. ''In Greenwich Village," Dylan wrote, ''Van Ronk was king of the street, he reigned supreme."