The founder of Crawdaddy magazine, the first Rock magazine, and founder of Rock Journalism itself, Paul Williams has passed away at the tender age of 65 (I’m astounded to find he was younger than me!).
Crawdaddy, originally a mimeographed fanzine, was the first magazine to publish articles write Rock Music as serious music worthy of analysis, rather than fan nonsense about artist’s favourite types of girls, clothes etc. which dominated most other music magazines in 1966 when he founded Crawdaddy.
He later published the first collection of considered essays on the New Music – Outlaw Blues (still a great read even today) – and wonderful books about Bob Dylan showing he was one of the few that really understood Dylan’s life and work. Without him the Golden Era of Rock Music Journalism – 1966-1980, would never have happened.
Vale Paul Williams – we will not see his kind again in this sad era of give-away music magazines and unpaid Rock writers. He died of complications from a motorcycle accident 18 years previous but I feel it must have saddened him greatly to see the standard of music writing about current artists today – to see Britney Spears on the cover of the Rolling Stone must have gone a long way to breaking his heart.
