In the Tradition was a little strange for an early
Dave Van Ronk LP, with the album split evenly between tracks on which the singer is backed by the Dixieland jazz-style combo the Red Onions and by more customary acoustic folk-blues solo guitar. Both of those styles were part of his persona, though it's the more somber acoustic folk-blues that stand out more. It's a reasonably strong album, not too much different from much of the rest of his catalog, other than in the balanced mixture between jazz and folk approaches. Of the trad jazz cuts, the item that might attract the most collector interest is the jaunty "All Over You," which is certainly one of the most obscure (and atypical) early
Bob Dylan covers;
Dylan would never release his own version, though a demo he did of the tune in 1963 has appeared on bootlegs. It's not much of a song, but its basic joie de vivre fits in well with the jazz segment of this program, on which
Van Ronk's gravelly vocals credibly echo (especially for a white singer) the spirit of early New Orleans jazz vocalists like
Louis Armstrong. Among the acoustic numbers are "Green, Green Rocky Road" and "Rocks and Gravel," both of which would be recorded by several other major talents of the '60s folk scene. ~ Richie Unterberger