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Paul Williams

Paul Williams

The founding father of rock and roll writing, Paul's CRAWDADDY! was the first real publication dedicated to pop music. He has subsequently written many acclaimed books on music, from Outlaw Blues and the two-volume Bob Dylan: Performing Artist to Rock and Roll: The 100 Best Singles and Love to Burn (about Neil Young) and How Deep is the Ocean? (about Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys). His most recent books are The 20th Century's Greatest Hits (books, films and paintings as well as records), Back to the Miracle Factory and The Crawdaddy! Book (an anthology from the 1960s issues). Paul Williams died in 2013.

Paul Williams online

23 articles

List of articles in the library

By date | By artist | Most recently added

The Animals, Petula Clark, The Drifters, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, Simon & Garfunkel: Citysongs

Essay by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, March 1966

ROCK 'N' ROLL songs, according to a joke now about ten years old, have three types of lyrics: a) I love my baby, b) my ...

The Beach Boys: Wild Honey, 20/20 and Endless Summer

Review by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, November 1974

CAPITOL HAS BEEN repackaging the Beach Boys for a long time, but they haven't done a good job of it since Best Of Volumes I, ...

The Beach Boys, Brian Wilson: Brian Wilson/The Beach Boys - A Celebration Of Wild Honey: a discussion with David Anderle

Book Excerpt by Paul Williams, Outlaw Blues, 1971

WHEN DAVID ANDERLE AND I BEGAN our discussion of Brian Wilson, we had just finished listening to Wild Honey (the Beach Boys, Capitol Records, November ...

Buffalo Springfield: Everybody Look What's Going Down...

Comment by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, March 1967

LET ME tell you about popsicle sticks. ...

The Byrds: The Byrds Greatest Hits (Columbia)

Review by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, October 1967

SADNESS IS perhaps a word for it, walking down the street with familiar sounds of 'Light My Fire' barely audible from an apartment somewhere high ...

Leonard Cohen: The Romantic in a Ragpicker's Trade

Interview by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, March 1975

"I THINK MARRIAGE is the hottest furnace of the spirit today," Leonard Cohen said on the phone from Mexico. "Much more difficult than solitude, much ...

The Doors: Paul Rothchild Speaks, March 1967

Book Excerpt by Paul Williams, Outlaw Blues, 1967

This interview was taped in Englewood, New Jersey, in March 1967, shortly after the release of the first Doors album, which Paul Rothchild produced. Last ...

The Doors: A Discussion of a Doors Song

Essay by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, May 1967

VERY FEW PEOPLE have the balls to talk about "rock and roll" anymore. Revolver made it difficult. Between the Buttons, Smile, and the Doors lp ...

Bob Dylan: Time Again

Essay by Paul Williams, Uncut, March 1998

"Oh honey, even after all these years, you're still the one!" – Bob Dylan, 'Can't Wait', December 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20, 1997, El ...

Bob Dylan: Understanding Dylan

Essay by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, August 1966

PERHAPS THE FAVOURITE indoor sport in America today is discussing, worshiping, disparaging, and above all interpreting Bob Dylan. According to legend, young Zimmerman came out ...

Earth Opera, Joni Mitchell: The Way We Are Today

Book Excerpt by Paul Williams, The Age of Rock, 1969

Joni Mitchell: Joni Mitchell (Reprise)Earth Opera: Earth Opera (Elektra) ...

Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane: The Golden Road: A Report on San Francisco

Overview by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, June 1967

SITTING IN THE window. Sixth Avenue, Greenwich Village, flirting with the girls going by, the Grateful Dead very loud on 4X speakers somewhere in the ...

Howlin' Wolf: Blues '66: Howlin' Wolf

Interview by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, September 1966

(Howling Wolf is a well-known Chicago blues singer, who performs and records with an amplified band in the Chicago style. This interview was taped in ...

The Kinks: Face to Face

Review by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, March 1967

IF YOU ARE not a Kinks fan, you are either a) uninformed, or b) not a Kinks fan. If it's the latter, there's nothing you ...

The Kinks: The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society

Comment by Paul Williams, Rolling Stone, 14 June 1969

I CERTAINLY LOVE the Kinks; it's been fifteen months since I've had a new Kinks album in my hourse, and though I've been listening to ...

John Lennon, Yoko Ono: Eyewitness: John & Yoko record 'Give Peace A Chance'

Retrospective by Paul Williams, Q, November 1995

Give Peace A Chance may not be the last word in protest performances, but it can lay claim to one of the weirdest musical births ...

Love: Love (Elektra)

Review by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, August 1966

What the World Needs Now ...

Procol Harum: Procol Harum

Review by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, 12 September 1967

THE Procol Harum album just keeps getting better and better. So far anyway. Maybe one day it gets worse, but long after I've gotten as ...

The Rolling Stones: The Stones: It Wasn't Only Rock 'n Roll (And I Liked It)

Retrospective by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, November 1974

IN EARLY 1967 a rumor shot through the Crawdaddy office that Brian Jones had left the Stones. Tim Jurgens and I agreed that, if true, ...

List of genre pieces

Crawdaddy: Get Off Of My Cloud!

Comment by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, 7 February 1966

YOU ARE looking at the first issue of amagazine of rock and roll criticism. Crawdaddy will feature neither pin-ups nor news-briefs; the specialty of this ...

And So It Began: Remembering the First Issue of Crawdaddy!

Book Excerpt by Paul Williams, 'The Crawdaddy! Book' (Hal Leonard), May 2002

THE FIRST ISSUE of the first American rock music magazine was printed on Sunday, January 30, 1966, in a basement in Brooklyn, New York, on ...

Folk, Rock & Other Four-Letter Words

Comment by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, 28 March 1966

THERE HAS BEEN a great increase recently in the number of popular artists whose songs are influenced by or taken from American folk music–both traditional ...

Record Business '68

Comment by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, March 1968

THERE IS confusion afoot in the rock music world, a familiar confusion that arises from lack of understanding, lack of communication, and lack of common ...

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