Crawdaddy magazine founder Paul Williams, often credited for helping establish the field of rock music criticism in the mid-1960s, died Wednesday at age 64 from complications related to a 1995 bicycle accident.
Williams' wife, musician Cindy Lee Berryhill, confirmed her husband's death in a post on Facebook, telling followers, "It was a gentle and peaceful passing."
Williams, according to a note on his official website, "suffered a traumatic brain injury in a bicycle accident, leading to early onset of dementia, and a steady decline to the point where he now requires full-time care. The burden on his immediate family has been immense."
Crawdaddy predated Rolling Stone by more than 18 months when Williams mimeographed and distributed the first edition on Feb. 7, 1966, while a 17-year-old student at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. The fledgling magazine carried some of the first articles by such writers as Jon Landau, Sandy Pearlman, Richard Meltzer and Peter Knobler, and included the first major interview with Bruce Springsteen in 1972.
Williams' note in the first issue read, "You are looking at the first issue of a magazine of rock and roll criticism. Crawdaddy will feature neither pin-ups nor news-briefs; the specialty of this magazine is intelligent writing about pop music."
*************************************
Obituary: Paul Williams / Rock critic and the founder of Crawdaddy music publication
By Terence McArdle / The Washington Post
Paul Williams, the writer and editor who founded Crawdaddy, the first national publication entirely devoted to in-depth commentary about rock music and the incubator for a generation of renowned rock writers and critics, died March 27 in Encinitas, Calif. He was 64.
His death was confirmed by his wife, singer-songwriter Cindy Lee Berryhill. Mr. Williams was being treated for dementia caused by a 1995 bicycle accident. He had lived in a care facility since 2008.
There were no journals exclusively devoted to serious rock criticism when Mr. Williams started Crawdaddy in 1966 as a freshman at Swarthmore College in Philadelphia's western suburb. The few periodicals that covered pop music focused on how high a record charted or catered to the fantasy longings of teenage fans.
Crawdaddy, whose first issue was a 10-page mimeograph, predated Rolling Stone, the best-known rock magazine, by more than 18 months and Creem, another competitor, by nearly three years. Mr. Williams named his publication after a club in Surrey, England, where the Rolling Stones played their first shows.
As Crawdaddy grew, it nurtured notable pop music writers and musicians. Jon Landau would later write for Rolling Stone and manage Bruce Springsteen. Peter Guralnick, the magazine's blues reviewer, later wrote acclaimed and exhaustive biographies of Elvis Presley and Sam Cooke. Lenny Kaye went on to play bass for punk poet Patti Smith.
"You are looking at the first issue of a magazine of rock and roll criticism," Mr. Williams wrote in the first issue. "Crawdaddy! will feature neither pin-ups nor news briefs; the specialty of this magazine is intelligent writing about pop music.
"If we could predict the exact amount of sales of each record we hear, it would not interest us to do so," he added. "If we could somehow pat every single pop artist on the back in a manner calculated to please him and his fans, we would not bother."
Five hundred copies of the first issue were printed. Of those, 300 were mailed to music business offices listed in the annual Billboard magazine music directory.
"The total budget for the first issue, including postage, mimeograph stencils, paper, ink, 15-cent subway fares, peanut butter sandwiches and the one album I bought and reviewed (Simon and Garfunkel's 'The Sounds of Silence') was less than 40 dollars," Mr. Williams recalled in the introduction to a 2002 book of pieces from the magazine.
The Simon and Garfunkel review found its way to Paul Simon, who called to say thanks. Mr. Williams had to take the call on the dormitory pay phone.
After leaving Crawdaddy in 1968, Mr. Williams traveled with LSD proponent Timothy Leary and attended John Lennon and Yoko Ono's May 1969 "Bed-In for Peace" in Montreal.
Mr. Williams also continued to write. A 1974 Rolling Stone interview with science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick helped bring Dick wider recognition from mainstream audiences. Dick's 1968 novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?," became the basis for the 1982 film "Blade Runner." The two writers became close friends, and when Dick died in 1982 at 54, Mr. Williams was named his literary executor.
Mr. Williams spent much of the 1980s and 1990s writing a trilogy of books, "Bob Dylan: Performing Artist," that chronicled the singer-songwriter in live performance. The books relied on archival concert tapes and film although, by his own estimation, Mr. Williams had seen Mr. Dylan perform more than 100 times.
Meanwhile, Crawdaddy was relaunched as a mass-market publication in the 1970s with a new editor, Peter Knobler. Mr. Knobler pushed it to compete with Rolling Stone and Creem until its demise in 1979. Mr. Williams relaunched Crawdaddy as a self-published magazine in 1993 and ran it until 2003. He sold it in 2006 to an archival website, Wolfgang's Vault.
First Published April 6, 2013
"Billboard, Cash Box, etc., serve very well as trade news magazines; but their idea of a review is a hard-driving rhythm number that should spiral rapidly up the charts just as (previous hit by the same group) slides," the note continued. "Crawdaddy believes that someone in the United States might be interested in what others have to say about the music they like."
Crawdaddy took its name from the Crawdaddy Club in England, famous as the site of the Rolling Stones' first show.
In 1968, Williams left the magazine he'd started and went on to write more than two dozen books, then resuscitated Crawdaddy for a latter-day run from 1993 to 2003. Wolfgang's Vault bought it in 2006, and continued to publish it as a daily webzine, and in 2011, Paste took over the Crawdaddy name and began reviving "stories from the Crawdaddy archives and publish[ing] new content on legacy artists."
Williams' wife, musician Cindy Lee Berryhill, confirmed her husband's death in a post on Facebook, telling followers, "It was a gentle and peaceful passing."
Williams, according to a note on his official website, "suffered a traumatic brain injury in a bicycle accident, leading to early onset of dementia, and a steady decline to the point where he now requires full-time care. The burden on his immediate family has been immense."
Crawdaddy predated Rolling Stone by more than 18 months when Williams mimeographed and distributed the first edition on Feb. 7, 1966, while a 17-year-old student at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. The fledgling magazine carried some of the first articles by such writers as Jon Landau, Sandy Pearlman, Richard Meltzer and Peter Knobler, and included the first major interview with Bruce Springsteen in 1972.
Williams' note in the first issue read, "You are looking at the first issue of a magazine of rock and roll criticism. Crawdaddy will feature neither pin-ups nor news-briefs; the specialty of this magazine is intelligent writing about pop music."
*************************************
Obituary: Paul Williams / Rock critic and the founder of Crawdaddy music publication
By Terence McArdle / The Washington Post
Paul Williams, the writer and editor who founded Crawdaddy, the first national publication entirely devoted to in-depth commentary about rock music and the incubator for a generation of renowned rock writers and critics, died March 27 in Encinitas, Calif. He was 64.
His death was confirmed by his wife, singer-songwriter Cindy Lee Berryhill. Mr. Williams was being treated for dementia caused by a 1995 bicycle accident. He had lived in a care facility since 2008.
There were no journals exclusively devoted to serious rock criticism when Mr. Williams started Crawdaddy in 1966 as a freshman at Swarthmore College in Philadelphia's western suburb. The few periodicals that covered pop music focused on how high a record charted or catered to the fantasy longings of teenage fans.
Crawdaddy, whose first issue was a 10-page mimeograph, predated Rolling Stone, the best-known rock magazine, by more than 18 months and Creem, another competitor, by nearly three years. Mr. Williams named his publication after a club in Surrey, England, where the Rolling Stones played their first shows.
As Crawdaddy grew, it nurtured notable pop music writers and musicians. Jon Landau would later write for Rolling Stone and manage Bruce Springsteen. Peter Guralnick, the magazine's blues reviewer, later wrote acclaimed and exhaustive biographies of Elvis Presley and Sam Cooke. Lenny Kaye went on to play bass for punk poet Patti Smith.
"You are looking at the first issue of a magazine of rock and roll criticism," Mr. Williams wrote in the first issue. "Crawdaddy! will feature neither pin-ups nor news briefs; the specialty of this magazine is intelligent writing about pop music.
"If we could predict the exact amount of sales of each record we hear, it would not interest us to do so," he added. "If we could somehow pat every single pop artist on the back in a manner calculated to please him and his fans, we would not bother."
Five hundred copies of the first issue were printed. Of those, 300 were mailed to music business offices listed in the annual Billboard magazine music directory.
"The total budget for the first issue, including postage, mimeograph stencils, paper, ink, 15-cent subway fares, peanut butter sandwiches and the one album I bought and reviewed (Simon and Garfunkel's 'The Sounds of Silence') was less than 40 dollars," Mr. Williams recalled in the introduction to a 2002 book of pieces from the magazine.
The Simon and Garfunkel review found its way to Paul Simon, who called to say thanks. Mr. Williams had to take the call on the dormitory pay phone.
After leaving Crawdaddy in 1968, Mr. Williams traveled with LSD proponent Timothy Leary and attended John Lennon and Yoko Ono's May 1969 "Bed-In for Peace" in Montreal.
Mr. Williams also continued to write. A 1974 Rolling Stone interview with science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick helped bring Dick wider recognition from mainstream audiences. Dick's 1968 novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?," became the basis for the 1982 film "Blade Runner." The two writers became close friends, and when Dick died in 1982 at 54, Mr. Williams was named his literary executor.
Mr. Williams spent much of the 1980s and 1990s writing a trilogy of books, "Bob Dylan: Performing Artist," that chronicled the singer-songwriter in live performance. The books relied on archival concert tapes and film although, by his own estimation, Mr. Williams had seen Mr. Dylan perform more than 100 times.
Meanwhile, Crawdaddy was relaunched as a mass-market publication in the 1970s with a new editor, Peter Knobler. Mr. Knobler pushed it to compete with Rolling Stone and Creem until its demise in 1979. Mr. Williams relaunched Crawdaddy as a self-published magazine in 1993 and ran it until 2003. He sold it in 2006 to an archival website, Wolfgang's Vault.
First Published April 6, 2013
"Billboard, Cash Box, etc., serve very well as trade news magazines; but their idea of a review is a hard-driving rhythm number that should spiral rapidly up the charts just as (previous hit by the same group) slides," the note continued. "Crawdaddy believes that someone in the United States might be interested in what others have to say about the music they like."
Crawdaddy took its name from the Crawdaddy Club in England, famous as the site of the Rolling Stones' first show.
In 1968, Williams left the magazine he'd started and went on to write more than two dozen books, then resuscitated Crawdaddy for a latter-day run from 1993 to 2003. Wolfgang's Vault bought it in 2006, and continued to publish it as a daily webzine, and in 2011, Paste took over the Crawdaddy name and began reviving "stories from the Crawdaddy archives and publish[ing] new content on legacy artists."
Crawdaddy magazine founder Paul Williams, often credited for helping establish the field of rock music criticism in the mid-1960s, died Wednesday at age 64 from complications related to a 1995 bicycle accident.
Williams' wife, musician Cindy Lee Berryhill, confirmed her husband's death in a post on Facebook, telling followers, "It was a gentle and peaceful passing."
Williams, according to a note on his official website, "suffered a traumatic brain injury in a bicycle accident, leading to early onset of dementia, and a steady decline to the point where he now requires full-time care. The burden on his immediate family has been immense."
Crawdaddy predated Rolling Stone by more than 18 months when Williams mimeographed and distributed the first edition on Feb. 7, 1966, while a 17-year-old student at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. The fledgling magazine carried some of the first articles by such writers as Jon Landau, Sandy Pearlman, Richard Meltzer and Peter Knobler, and included the first major interview with Bruce Springsteen in 1972.
Williams' note in the first issue read, "You are looking at the first issue of a magazine of rock and roll criticism. Crawdaddy will feature neither pin-ups nor news-briefs; the specialty of this magazine is intelligent writing about pop music."
*************************************
Obituary: Paul Williams / Rock critic and the founder of Crawdaddy music publication
By Terence McArdle / The Washington Post
Paul Williams, the writer and editor who founded Crawdaddy, the first national publication entirely devoted to in-depth commentary about rock music and the incubator for a generation of renowned rock writers and critics, died March 27 in Encinitas, Calif. He was 64.
His death was confirmed by his wife, singer-songwriter Cindy Lee Berryhill. Mr. Williams was being treated for dementia caused by a 1995 bicycle accident. He had lived in a care facility since 2008.
There were no journals exclusively devoted to serious rock criticism when Mr. Williams started Crawdaddy in 1966 as a freshman at Swarthmore College in Philadelphia's western suburb. The few periodicals that covered pop music focused on how high a record charted or catered to the fantasy longings of teenage fans.
Crawdaddy, whose first issue was a 10-page mimeograph, predated Rolling Stone, the best-known rock magazine, by more than 18 months and Creem, another competitor, by nearly three years. Mr. Williams named his publication after a club in Surrey, England, where the Rolling Stones played their first shows.
As Crawdaddy grew, it nurtured notable pop music writers and musicians. Jon Landau would later write for Rolling Stone and manage Bruce Springsteen. Peter Guralnick, the magazine's blues reviewer, later wrote acclaimed and exhaustive biographies of Elvis Presley and Sam Cooke. Lenny Kaye went on to play bass for punk poet Patti Smith.
"You are looking at the first issue of a magazine of rock and roll criticism," Mr. Williams wrote in the first issue. "Crawdaddy! will feature neither pin-ups nor news briefs; the specialty of this magazine is intelligent writing about pop music.
"If we could predict the exact amount of sales of each record we hear, it would not interest us to do so," he added. "If we could somehow pat every single pop artist on the back in a manner calculated to please him and his fans, we would not bother."
Five hundred copies of the first issue were printed. Of those, 300 were mailed to music business offices listed in the annual Billboard magazine music directory.
"The total budget for the first issue, including postage, mimeograph stencils, paper, ink, 15-cent subway fares, peanut butter sandwiches and the one album I bought and reviewed (Simon and Garfunkel's 'The Sounds of Silence') was less than 40 dollars," Mr. Williams recalled in the introduction to a 2002 book of pieces from the magazine.
The Simon and Garfunkel review found its way to Paul Simon, who called to say thanks. Mr. Williams had to take the call on the dormitory pay phone.
After leaving Crawdaddy in 1968, Mr. Williams traveled with LSD proponent Timothy Leary and attended John Lennon and Yoko Ono's May 1969 "Bed-In for Peace" in Montreal.
Mr. Williams also continued to write. A 1974 Rolling Stone interview with science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick helped bring Dick wider recognition from mainstream audiences. Dick's 1968 novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?," became the basis for the 1982 film "Blade Runner." The two writers became close friends, and when Dick died in 1982 at 54, Mr. Williams was named his literary executor.
Mr. Williams spent much of the 1980s and 1990s writing a trilogy of books, "Bob Dylan: Performing Artist," that chronicled the singer-songwriter in live performance. The books relied on archival concert tapes and film although, by his own estimation, Mr. Williams had seen Mr. Dylan perform more than 100 times.
Meanwhile, Crawdaddy was relaunched as a mass-market publication in the 1970s with a new editor, Peter Knobler. Mr. Knobler pushed it to compete with Rolling Stone and Creem until its demise in 1979. Mr. Williams relaunched Crawdaddy as a self-published magazine in 1993 and ran it until 2003. He sold it in 2006 to an archival website, Wolfgang's Vault.
First Published April 6, 2013
"Billboard, Cash Box, etc., serve very well as trade news magazines; but their idea of a review is a hard-driving rhythm number that should spiral rapidly up the charts just as (previous hit by the same group) slides," the note continued. "Crawdaddy believes that someone in the United States might be interested in what others have to say about the music they like."
Crawdaddy took its name from the Crawdaddy Club in England, famous as the site of the Rolling Stones' first show.
In 1968, Williams left the magazine he'd started and went on to write more than two dozen books, then resuscitated Crawdaddy for a latter-day run from 1993 to 2003. Wolfgang's Vault bought it in 2006, and continued to publish it as a daily webzine, and in 2011, Paste took over the Crawdaddy name and began reviving "stories from the Crawdaddy archives and publish[ing] new content on legacy artists."
Williams' wife, musician Cindy Lee Berryhill, confirmed her husband's death in a post on Facebook, telling followers, "It was a gentle and peaceful passing."
Williams, according to a note on his official website, "suffered a traumatic brain injury in a bicycle accident, leading to early onset of dementia, and a steady decline to the point where he now requires full-time care. The burden on his immediate family has been immense."
Crawdaddy predated Rolling Stone by more than 18 months when Williams mimeographed and distributed the first edition on Feb. 7, 1966, while a 17-year-old student at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. The fledgling magazine carried some of the first articles by such writers as Jon Landau, Sandy Pearlman, Richard Meltzer and Peter Knobler, and included the first major interview with Bruce Springsteen in 1972.
Williams' note in the first issue read, "You are looking at the first issue of a magazine of rock and roll criticism. Crawdaddy will feature neither pin-ups nor news-briefs; the specialty of this magazine is intelligent writing about pop music."
*************************************
Obituary: Paul Williams / Rock critic and the founder of Crawdaddy music publication
By Terence McArdle / The Washington Post
Paul Williams, the writer and editor who founded Crawdaddy, the first national publication entirely devoted to in-depth commentary about rock music and the incubator for a generation of renowned rock writers and critics, died March 27 in Encinitas, Calif. He was 64.
His death was confirmed by his wife, singer-songwriter Cindy Lee Berryhill. Mr. Williams was being treated for dementia caused by a 1995 bicycle accident. He had lived in a care facility since 2008.
There were no journals exclusively devoted to serious rock criticism when Mr. Williams started Crawdaddy in 1966 as a freshman at Swarthmore College in Philadelphia's western suburb. The few periodicals that covered pop music focused on how high a record charted or catered to the fantasy longings of teenage fans.
Crawdaddy, whose first issue was a 10-page mimeograph, predated Rolling Stone, the best-known rock magazine, by more than 18 months and Creem, another competitor, by nearly three years. Mr. Williams named his publication after a club in Surrey, England, where the Rolling Stones played their first shows.
As Crawdaddy grew, it nurtured notable pop music writers and musicians. Jon Landau would later write for Rolling Stone and manage Bruce Springsteen. Peter Guralnick, the magazine's blues reviewer, later wrote acclaimed and exhaustive biographies of Elvis Presley and Sam Cooke. Lenny Kaye went on to play bass for punk poet Patti Smith.
"You are looking at the first issue of a magazine of rock and roll criticism," Mr. Williams wrote in the first issue. "Crawdaddy! will feature neither pin-ups nor news briefs; the specialty of this magazine is intelligent writing about pop music.
"If we could predict the exact amount of sales of each record we hear, it would not interest us to do so," he added. "If we could somehow pat every single pop artist on the back in a manner calculated to please him and his fans, we would not bother."
Five hundred copies of the first issue were printed. Of those, 300 were mailed to music business offices listed in the annual Billboard magazine music directory.
"The total budget for the first issue, including postage, mimeograph stencils, paper, ink, 15-cent subway fares, peanut butter sandwiches and the one album I bought and reviewed (Simon and Garfunkel's 'The Sounds of Silence') was less than 40 dollars," Mr. Williams recalled in the introduction to a 2002 book of pieces from the magazine.
The Simon and Garfunkel review found its way to Paul Simon, who called to say thanks. Mr. Williams had to take the call on the dormitory pay phone.
After leaving Crawdaddy in 1968, Mr. Williams traveled with LSD proponent Timothy Leary and attended John Lennon and Yoko Ono's May 1969 "Bed-In for Peace" in Montreal.
Mr. Williams also continued to write. A 1974 Rolling Stone interview with science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick helped bring Dick wider recognition from mainstream audiences. Dick's 1968 novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?," became the basis for the 1982 film "Blade Runner." The two writers became close friends, and when Dick died in 1982 at 54, Mr. Williams was named his literary executor.
Mr. Williams spent much of the 1980s and 1990s writing a trilogy of books, "Bob Dylan: Performing Artist," that chronicled the singer-songwriter in live performance. The books relied on archival concert tapes and film although, by his own estimation, Mr. Williams had seen Mr. Dylan perform more than 100 times.
Meanwhile, Crawdaddy was relaunched as a mass-market publication in the 1970s with a new editor, Peter Knobler. Mr. Knobler pushed it to compete with Rolling Stone and Creem until its demise in 1979. Mr. Williams relaunched Crawdaddy as a self-published magazine in 1993 and ran it until 2003. He sold it in 2006 to an archival website, Wolfgang's Vault.
First Published April 6, 2013
"Billboard, Cash Box, etc., serve very well as trade news magazines; but their idea of a review is a hard-driving rhythm number that should spiral rapidly up the charts just as (previous hit by the same group) slides," the note continued. "Crawdaddy believes that someone in the United States might be interested in what others have to say about the music they like."
Crawdaddy took its name from the Crawdaddy Club in England, famous as the site of the Rolling Stones' first show.
In 1968, Williams left the magazine he'd started and went on to write more than two dozen books, then resuscitated Crawdaddy for a latter-day run from 1993 to 2003. Wolfgang's Vault bought it in 2006, and continued to publish it as a daily webzine, and in 2011, Paste took over the Crawdaddy name and began reviving "stories from the Crawdaddy archives and publish[ing] new content on legacy artists."
