What is your embarrassing gateway music?

Van Ronk, Dave Van Ronk (June 30, 1936-February 10, 2002).

Not so much embarrassing as just surprising. I'd heard his stuff for a while, liked it some and liked most of the folks he hung around with in the music world of the time...Joni Mitchell, Bob The Plagiarist, P, P&M, Tom Paxton, Ochs, Eric Andersen, etc. etc. Wasn't much into 'folk music' though. It always struck me as the kind of stuff meant to be done by a bunch of Christiany types after one of those church pot-luck supper things where all the good men and women of Flames Of Eternal Hell Memorial Church would read and sing off of song sheets while a gray haired organist plonked the notes out on an old upright.

That all changed one night when I heard Van Ronk in a new and different way. He was performing in some hole-in-the-wall place on MacDougal (around the corner from where our lovely Lola runs her cyber cafe now ) oh around 1980ish I suppose. I was still drinking heavy at the time and the places over there were affordable even if the music aspect sickened me. So any time I came down to the city I'd drop in there or if wanting full silence and sullenness I'd just hide over in Julius' on 10th and Waverly). His voice, his presentation, my space in the universe that evening all came together and I kind of fell in love with folk music.

Aside from that I have always had a fondness for bluegrass, which sometimes seems odd for a New Yorker/Rutlander. Not embarrassed by it either and no idea how I got caught up in it.

Truth be known, I like most music, even when the words are in a language I can't comprehend. Can't play any music (failed at piano, clarinet and violin), can't sing (have 2 notes-a high note and a low note). But I can always change my frame of mind by listening to something. Sometimes Cajun, sometimes waltzes, I never know what'll grab hold of me on a given day.
However, that aside, Van Ronk will always pull me back up if I'm going in a bad direction. Miss him, his humor, his music. He was 0ne of a kind and spectacular.