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[igotthisguitar]

Beatles-Dylan introducer dead
Al Aronowitz was noted music journalist

Tuesday, August 2, 2005 Posted: 1428 GMT (2228 HKT)
ELIZABETH, New Jersey (AP) -- Al Aronowitz, a pioneer of rock journalism who introduced Bob Dylan to the Beatles, died Monday, his son said. He was 77.

Aronowitz died of cancer, said his son, Joel Roi Aronowitz.

Al Aronowitz became a journalist after studying at Rutgers University in the mid-1950s. In 1959, at the New York Post, he wrote a 12-part series on the "beat" movement.

In reporting the series, he became a friend of such early counterculture luminaries as poet Allen Ginsberg and novelist Jack Kerouac. "He really fell into the whole lifestyle," said Gerry Nicosia, author of the Jack Kerouac biography "Memory Babe."

The pieces have been described as early examples of participatory journalism, a technique perfected by better-known writers such as Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson,

The 1964 summit of the Beatles and Dylan came about as Aronowitz was covering the British band for the Saturday Evening Post. He also claimed that Dylan wrote "Mr. Tambourine Man" in his kitchen.

In his last years, Aronowitz self-published two books, "Bob Dylan and the Beatles" and "Bobby Darin Was a Friend of Mine." He was working on another, "Mick and Miles," about Mick Jagger and Miles Davis, when he died.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/books/08/02/deaths.ap/index.html

[Rteacher]

He definitely had association with some of the major personalities of the beat generation. I found a webite promoting "The Blacklisted Journalist" - of which Aronowitz was the founder, editor and publisher.
http://www.bigmagic.com/pager/blackj/
In addition to the musical and literary giants you mentioned, he also met, knew or had some kind of relationship with the following celebrities: Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, Neal Cassady, Jerry Garcia, Phil Spector, Jane Fonda, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Brigitte Bardot, Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Barbara Streisand, William Carlos Williams, William Burroughs, Ernest Hemingway, Ray Charles, Billy Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Carole King, David Bowie, Pete Townsend, The Band, Merle Haggard, Charlie Pride, and Johnny Cash...
I presume he didn't do enough drugs and hard drinking to qualify as a "gonzo" journalist (like Hunter S. Thompson...)