Paul Williams (the Crawdaddy one) RIP

[Lowbacca]

From Brian's official Facebook page:

Paul Williams was just a kid when he came to my house when I was making SMiLE. We talked a lot and I played him acetates of my new music. He really dug it and I'll always remember that. He started Crawdaddy and wrote a lot of great books. Paul died this week and I want to say I'm sorry to his family for their loss.
Love and Mercy, Brian

[rn57]

From Brian's official Facebook page:

Paul Williams was just a kid when he came to my house when I was making SMiLE. We talked a lot and I played him acetates of my new music. He really dug it and I'll always remember that. He started Crawdaddy and wrote a lot of great books. Paul died this week and I want to say I'm sorry to his family for their loss.
Love and Mercy, Brian

Several of the people commenting on the post thought Brian was talking about the songwriting, singing Paul Williams. I wouldn't be surprised if that fellow has to breathe on a mirror in front of David Letterman on the air to prove he's alive. (Which is what Dave made actor Abe Vigoda do about 20 years ago to dispel similar rumors of his passing - Abe still being very much with us.)

[Aum Bop Diddit]

I've been laid out with an evil flu and missed this.  Damn.  Paul Williams has everything to do with the kind of Beach Boy fan I am.  Starting with "Outlaw Blues" which I ordered from the back of "My Weekly Reader" I learned about "Pet Sounds", "Smile", and "Wild Honey", which brought my fandom to another level of consciousness.  I'd say that Williams pretty much created the Smile myth which was a large part of their currency as they went forward in the 70s and beyond.  Regardless, he was their champion at a time when there were precious few, and his writing was a place you could get hard core Brian/BB thought prior to the internet.  As he called them -- "The Wilderness Years."

I subscribed to Crawdaddy in the 70s and as a fanzine in the 90s.  Once had a nice long chat with him on WFMU about the GV boxset when it came out.  I was pleased as pie.  In October, Superstorm Sandy flooded my apartment and I lost virtually all my books, writings, records etc.  One book I made a point of pulling out and cleaning off was my signed (now warped!) copy of "How Deep Is the Ocean?"

Enjoy the Music of the the Spheres my brother, and bless your family.

[DonnyL]

He was one of my favorite music writers ... really, along with Greg Shaw a little later (another gone too soon), sort of created pop music journalism in my opinion ... or some special variation of it. RIP Mr. Williams !

[Aum Bop Diddit]

I can dig the relationship to Shaw though their styles were different.  But they were both first and foremost fans -- your buddy who has a new record that you need to stop everything and listen to because it's going to change your life.  Not nihilists or narcissists or trying to be the story themselves.  There was Love in their words.

[Mikie]

 In October, Superstorm Sandy flooded my apartment and I lost virtually all my books, writings, records etc.  

I'm real sorry to hear that, Aum.   Be happy you're still around - at least you're alive to tell about it. 

[Mikie]

He was one of my favorite music writers ... really, along with Greg Shaw a little later (another gone too soon), sort of created pop music journalism in my opinion ... or some special variation of it. RIP Mr. Williams !

Shaw was a big fan of Brian & The Boys and Surf music in general.  Remember reading his articles in Bomp! magazine.  Good writer.

[Aum Bop Diddit]

 In October, Superstorm Sandy flooded my apartment and I lost virtually all my books, writings, records etc.  

I'm real sorry to hear that, Aum.   Be happy you're still around - at least you're alive to tell about it. 

Thanks, Mikie!  I'm good.  All the loss was on the material plane.  I think I needed a spring cleaning anyway!

[Steve Mayo]

 In October, Superstorm Sandy flooded my apartment and I lost virtually all my books, writings, records etc.  

I'm real sorry to hear that, Aum.   Be happy you're still around - at least you're alive to tell about it. 

Thanks, Mikie!  I'm good.  All the loss was on the material plane.  I think I needed a spring cleaning anyway!

like mikie i also wanted to add that i'm glad you are ok. as for losing your collection..i'm sorry to hear that..i sure can relate to that!

[Aum Bop Diddit]

 In October, Superstorm Sandy flooded my apartment and I lost virtually all my books, writings, records etc.  

I'm real sorry to hear that, Aum.   Be happy you're still around - at least you're alive to tell about it. 

Thanks, Mikie!  I'm good.  All the loss was on the material plane.  I think I needed a spring cleaning anyway!

like mikie i also wanted to add that i'm glad you are ok. as for losing your collection..i'm sorry to hear that..i sure can relate to that!

Thanks, Steve -- seems like a lifetime ago.  A few days ago I was on another board and there was an OT discussion of Lillian Roxon (mentioned in this thread). Someone asked if anyone had a copy of her Encylopedia.  I thought hell yeah -- first printing! -- and then remembered oh no I don't....

I will mention that my own music gear got the apartment's highest ground and is fine.  First things first!

[rn57]

A couple of relevant links:

http://www.rocksbackpagesblogs.com/2013/03/listening-to-paul-williams/

in which longtime Newsday pop-music writer Wayne Robins eulogizes Paul and talks about Cindy Lee Berryhill and Lenny Kaye's performance at the one-day exhibit of Williams/Crawdaddy memorabilia in New York, the Sunday before he died. Cindy Lee and Lenny performed two songs by artists Paul wrote much about.

 One, naturally given that multivolume chronicle of Dylan he penned, was "Like A Rolling Stone." The other.... "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times."

http://cindyleeberryhill.blogspot.com/2013/04/more-reflections.html

has some tributes to Paul, leading off with Van Dyke Parks. VDP reports that he was the feller who introduced Paul to Brian. Van Dyke also reminds everyone who helped out Cindy Lee and young Alexander Williams, financially and otherwise, during Paul's last years of illness, that the job is not done yet, as Alexander someday will be going to college...and, you never know, just might change the course of musical history his first year there, as Paul did when he got Crawdaddy going.

VDP also goes into an entertaining digression about Jann Wenner visiting Warner Bros Records's offices to line up ads in the early days of Rolling Stone.  VDP gave him some advice about improving the magazine's physical aspects. If you're younger than 50, you may find the advice given somewhat mystifying. So ask somebody who read the magazine before 1973.

[Wirestone]

Paul's work had a deep influence on my as a young journalist and writer. The sheer enthusiasm with which he'd embrace new work was amazing. I still remember his laudatory review of Imagination, which I believe only ever appeared in the revived Crawdaddy! He found depths in that album that BW and Joe Thomas only dreamed of. And yet, and yet ... he wrote about those things in such a genuine way that you accepted his insights as utterly valid, even if they were coming from a place of greater artistic integrity than the music itself. A neat trick.

That being said, he was a very particular, very idiosyncratic rock writer, who seemed to confine himself to writing about music and artists that he really liked. But given the breadth of his other work, it seems like that writing was only a fraction of who he was anyway.

[c-man]

It was an honor to meet Paul after Brian's 2004 SMiLE gig in Pala, CA.  I always really loved Crawdaddy!

[Summer_Days]

I'm sad to hear he passed. He wrote one of the first Beach Boys books I ever read, How Deep is the Ocean, and that book was one of the first to really help me begin to understand the genius and soul of Brian Wilson.

In December 1966, Paul visited Brian at his house up in Laurel Way and was one of the first of the 'outside' world to hear the SMiLE music. He smoked a hookah in Brian's tent, went swimming with him, had a little fun with Brian's new movie camera, met the other Beach Boys and attended a recording session where he participated in making noises laying on the floor as directed by Brian. So cool.
Here's a my tribute to him (South Park style as usual for me)  :



Paul, you'll be missed. Everybody, if they can, go read his review of the Beach Boys 1993 GV box set from 1993, some of the best writing on music ever.

[Lowbacca]

I'm sad to hear he passed. He wrote one of the first Beach Boys books I ever read, How Deep is the Ocean, and that book was one of the first to really begin to understand the genius and soul of Brian Wilson.

In December 1966, Paul visited Brian at his house up in Laurel Way and was one of the first of the 'outside' world to hear the SMiLE music. He smoked a hookah in Brian's tent, went swimming with him, had a little fun with Brian's new movie camera, met the other Beach Boys and attended a recording session where he participated in making noises laying on the floor as directed by Brian. So cool.
Here's a my tribute to him (South Park style as usual for me)  :

NICE.

Paul, you'll be missed. Everybody, if they can, go read his review of the Beach Boys 1993 GV box set from 1993, some of the best writing on music ever.

Where would one find said review?

[Summer_Days]

Ah, I've been searching for it online, but I can't seem to find it. I know it's in his How Deep is the Ocean book. Wish I could scan it, but that's very likely against the rules. Copyrighted material and all that.

[Lowbacca]

Ah, I've been searching for it online, but I can't seem to find it. I know it's in his How Deep is the Ocean book. Wish I could scan it, but that's very likely against the rules. Copyrighted material and all that.

Sure. I've been meaning to purchase How Deep is the Ocean? somewhere online for years.. guess I'll have to get it now.

[Peter Reum]

It is in How deep is the ocean

[bgas]

Ah, I've been searching for it online, but I can't seem to find it. I know it's in his How Deep is the Ocean book. Wish I could scan it, but that's very likely against the rules. Copyrighted material and all that.

Sure. I've been meaning to purchase How Deep is the Ocean? somewhere online for years.. guess I'll have to get it now.

I pulled out my copy with the intention of scanning it; but with 33- 6 X 9 inch pages you're on your own!

[metal flake paint]

The autumn 1993 issue of Crawdaddy featuring the '93 box set review is worth searching for as it includes some great observations from Cindy Lee Berryhill.