Mark Dvorak – The Streets Of Old Chicago
Linda Ray
Posted On November 1, 1998
In all the hoopla surrounding the dedication of the new home of Chicago’s legendary Old Town School of Folk Music, no tribute will be more personal, nor more illuminating, than this fourth release by one of the school’s veteran guitar and banjo teachers. The Streets Of Old Chicago archives the music and personalities of the Chicago folk legends who put flesh and blood, and most importantly, soul, into the school’s raison d’etre: To encourage singing and playing by regular folks.
With squeaky-clean picking, a warm, tuneful voice and perfect diction, Dvorak provides the equivalent of a sing-along, play-along lesson from such masters as Win Stracke, Big Bill Broonzy and Fleming Brown. He’s covered their favorite songs — in the best folk tradition, they’re easy to learn and sing along with — and he’s demonstrated their occasionally jaw-dropping guitar and banjo tricks, admitting they often took him years to learn.
Liner notes provide anecdotes about the artists, the history of the songs, and usually a line or two about how Dvorak picked them up. The title track, for instance, was written for a ’70s reunion of three friends who used to play and sing string-band music all around Chicago in the ’30s and ’40s. In covering it, Dvorak interjects names associated with the School’s early history. “Changing these few words made this song new again and more important to me,” Dvorak writes. “So goes the folk process”.
We learn about Broonzy’s life as a blues singer in notes to his “Hey, Hey”. Dvorak’s tribute to Brown is most poignant; Brown died as Dvorak was getting up the nerve to call for a banjo lesson. A friend gave Dvorak tapes of lessons he’d had with Fleming, and from it Dvorak learned “Once I Had An Old Banjo”.
Frank Hamilton, a school founder, accompanies Dvorak on some tracks, and “Sloop John B.” is a banjo duel with its current program director, Michael Miles.
When he’s not teaching, Dvorak is a tireless troubadour, taking the history of obscure folk and Tin Pan Alley tunes to libraries, parks, retirement homes and community pubs. This record reveals what keeps him going.
