Dave Van Ronk, 65; Folk Singer, Dylan Influence

Dave Van Ronk, a singer and guitarist who sat in on the birth of the 1960s folk music revival and served as a mentor to its biggest star, Bob Dylan, died Sunday in New York from colon cancer. He was 65.

Though Van Ronk was never a major record-seller nor a prolific songwriter, he was an influential interpreter of the country blues tradition, and was among the first to record songs written by Dylan, Joni Mitchell and other young composers who would soon make personal expression a major component of popular music.

Van Ronk had continued to tour and teach guitar until late last year, when he underwent cancer surgery.

Raised in his native Brooklyn and later in Queens, he began playing the ukulele when he was 12 and later moved on to banjo and guitar. A purist who favored traditional New Orleans jazz, he moved to Manhattan in the mid-’50s and played banjo in jazz groups while living in communal lofts and apartments with large groups of friends.

Though he was an admitted “snob” with a disdain for folk music, Van Ronk took a liking to the blues music he encountered while collecting jazz records. To learn the finger-picking guitar technique of such bluesmen as Furry Lewis, he watched the young musicians who flocked to Washington Square to play folk music every weekend.

His encounters there led to instruction from such masters as the Rev. Gary Davis, but Van Ronk had no intention of being a professional musician, planning instead to make his living in the merchant marine. But when the singer Odetta heard him perform at the Cafe Bizarre, she put him in touch with Albert Grossman, who later would manage Dylan and others. Grossman at one point offered Van Ronk a post in a folk trio he was assembling, but Van Ronk declined, leaving it to someone else to fill out the lineup of Peter, Paul & Mary.

But with his raspy voice and accomplished guitar work, Van Ronk became prominent on the burgeoning folk scene, recording first for the Folkways label and later for Prestige. He also was a resource for younger musicians, including Dylan, who had come to New York from Minnesota.

Dylan frequently stayed at Van Ronk’s apartment, where the two shared ideas about music and literature. Van Ronk is credited with introducing Dylan to the French Symbolist poets, and the two recorded many of the same vintage songs, such as “Fixin’ to Die” and “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean.” The version of “House of the Rising Sun” on Dylan’s debut album is based on Van Ronk’s arrangement. They drifted apart, but in 1974 they were together again, with Van Ronk joining Dylan on stage at a New York benefit concert for Chilean political prisoners.

Van Ronk’s eclectic career continued into the 1990s. He performed music ranging from jug band (including an album of Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” in jug-band style) to folk-rock to Brecht-Weill. His 1995 album “From ... Another Time & Place” was nominated for a Grammy in the folk category. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from ASCAP in 1997.

Van Ronk is survived by his wife, Andrea Vuocolo.