I met Paul at a Boston reception for recently accepted rising frosh, and he hitched a tide with me and my family when they took me to Swats in September. He was a brilliant and strange guy, who loved music and tried desperately to play it—he was trying harmonica at the time. He never became a musician, but I deeply regret not having saved the first issue of Crawdaddy, a mimeogrsph that Paul handed out around campus. Who knew?
I interviewed Paul Williams for the Phoenix (November 8, 1966, issue—it's in the online archives). By that time, Paul had already dropped out of Swarthmore and was devoting himself to his “Magazine of Rock ’n’ Roll.” I knew next to nothing about rock ’n’ roll back then, but even so, I could see that he was onto something. Crawdaddy! predated Rolling Stone by a year or so and, in its voice and its general approach, was really a harbinger of the blogging era to come.
I have two early issues of Crawdaddy! No. 3, from March 1966, features a piece by Richard Fariña on “Songwriting in the ’60s,” an editorial (“folk, rock, & other four-letter words”), and reviews of new 45’s and LPs by the Beatles and the Everly Brothers, among others. Issue No. 6 (November 1966) has a cover feature on Donovan, an interview with John Lee Hooker, a review of San Francisco Bay rock by Gene Sculatti, and “What Goes On?”—a long, bloggy compendium of brief comments on new releases that would seem right at home on today’s internet.
I was conversant with Paul and remember him crossing the Commons room to speak with me to tell me he was dropping out to start a magazine about rock and roll. Strange, I thought.
Jeffrey Hart
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Williams_(journalist)
Jeffrey Hart
History of Crawdaddy:
https://web.archive.org/web/20070623183553/http://crawdaddy.wolfgangsvault.com/Static.aspx?id=1020
Jeffrey Hart
Tom O'Donnell
I met Paul at a Boston reception for recently accepted rising frosh, and he hitched a tide with me and my family when they took me to Swats in September. He was a brilliant and strange guy, who loved music and tried desperately to play it—he was trying harmonica at the time. He never became a musician, but I deeply regret not having saved the first issue of Crawdaddy, a mimeogrsph that Paul handed out around campus. Who knew?
Tracy Brown
https://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/global/1554929/paul-williams-crawdaddy-founder-godfather-of-rock-criticism-dead-at
Judy Ashkenaz
Sarah Vaughan (Sayre)
I have numbers 1, 2, and 3. The first is signed, and reads "Sarah- My First Subcription!"
Kristin Wilson
I was conversant with Paul and remember him crossing the Commons room to speak with me to tell me he was dropping out to start a magazine about rock and roll. Strange, I thought.