The Mayor of MacDougal Street

I came to this audiobook expecting a folk historian’s dry recitation of the 1960s Greenwich Village scene. What I got instead was the closest thing to a front-row seat at the birth of modern protest music—albeit from a stool at the back of a smoky bar where the beer was warm and the jokes were sharper than the guitar picks. Sean Runnette’s performance is the secret weapon here. He doesn’t just read Van Ronk’s words; he channels the man’s irreverence, his exhaustion, and his unshakable belief that music could change the world (even when the world wasn’t listening). The pacing never drags, even during Van Ronk’s tangents about obscure jazz musicians, because Runnette’s timing is impeccable—he knows when to let the silence hang, when to speed up with the energy of a crowd singing along, and when to pause just long enough to let you feel the weight of a personal betrayal. That said, the audiobook isn’t without its rough edges. Van Ronk’s memoir assumes a surprising amount of historical knowledge—he name-drops figures like Mose Allison and Odetta without much context, which left me scrambling to Wikipedia midway through. And while Runnette’s vocal range is impressive, his attempt at a female voice during Van Ronk’s recollections of a doomed relationship felt jarring, like a wrong note in a perfect chord. But these are minor quibbles in an otherwise electric listening experience. By the time Van Ronk recounts his legendary feud with Dylan, you’ll feel like you’ve been in the room when the myth was made—not just hearing about it.