Piece on Tom Wilson

[Chuck Nessa]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/15/the-black-man-behind-bob-dylan.html?source=TDB&via=FB_Page

[paul secor]

Interesting. I didn't know much about his later years. I still don't, but have a little more idea of what happened.

Thanks for posting the link, Chuck.

[mjzee]

He was a really interesting guy. Regarding his later years, though, you really have to ask yourself some hard questions about what was going on in his life. I have no facts, but a successful, creative guy pretty much stops working by the early '70's, drops from view, and dies of a heart attack in his early 40s? Sounds to me like drugs and a dissolute lifestyle, which would be a real shame if true.

[Chuck Nessa]

Thanks for the downer. I can imagine other things.

[Larry Kart]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/15/the-black-man-behind-bob-dylan.html?source=TDB&via=FB_Page

Did you ever run across him?

[Chuck Nessa]

Not directly, but through his assistant around '67/68.

[MomsMobley]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/15/the-black-man-behind-bob-dylan.html?source=TDB&via=FB_Page

was this not posted last year? i honestly don't recall.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/greatest-music-producer-you-have-never-heard

I know I need not remind you & other veteran board members but the idea that Tom Wilson-- born 1931-- was a Republican makes all the sense in the world... lest we forget the party of Jim Crow, legal in the south, de facto in the urban north. Martin Luther King Sr. a Republican until 1960, when Jack & Bobby helped get his son out of Georgia prison; Jackie Robinson was Republican until (fucking) Goldwater so disgusted him became prominent among Republicans for Johnson etc. Jackie at first cut Nixon too much slack but he'd not make that mistake twice and, going into the 1960 campaign, Nixon's black Civil Rights record wasn't half-bad... and no worse than Southern Democrat footsie playing JFK. In 1968, Jackie supported Hubert Humphrey, though he was still Republican with close ties to New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller.

Edited February 17, 2015 by MomsMobley

[ghost of miles]

Thanks for that link, Moms--I don't recall seeing it before. And you're definitely on the money about Wilson's political lineage; even though FDR had started some movement among black voters toward the Democratic Party, it really kicked in come the 60s and the events to which you allude (accompanied by, as we all know, the beginnings of an eventual mass exodus of southern D's to the GOP). We just re-aired the Night Lights show about Wilson and Transition last week:

http://indianapublicmedia.org/nightlights/transition-records-story/

[clifford_thornton]

Now you've gotten me actually digging the first Mothers LP (historically not a FZ fan at all).

[JSngry]

[jazzbo]

Thank God for Tom for the Transition recordings alone! I love those.

[JSngry]

Noticing today that Tom Wilson worked with Bill Barron on Savoy. Nice!