This is an area that has interested me quite a bit, primarily
because my friend Ted White was an active member of the early
1960s music scene in New York City as a jazz critic for
Crawdaddy, Rogue and other publications. If you read
biographies of Charles Mingus, they all quote from Ted's
review of Mingus' Town Hall concert in 1962 as a rare
contemporary account of that historic jazz performance. White
later became better known as a science fiction writer and
editor.
But closer to the heart of the music center of those days was
a young woman named Lee Hoffman who was good friends with
Dave Van Ronk, Israel Young (who founded the Folklore
Center), Larry Block, and so many others of that time in New
York. She started a fan publication called "Caravan" at Van
Ronk's suggestion. He contributed as did her English
correspondent John Brunner, a budding science fiction writer.
Eventually, the publication grew to be a professional chore
and she turned it loose to find its own way.
But rather than read my capsule of those days, here is a link
to a very nice piece by Hoffman herself on her Folknik Days
with Van Ronk, Larry Block, and various others:
http://cvil.wustl.edu/~gary/Lee/bio-folknik.html
At the time in NYC, Hoffman was at the time married to Larry
Shaw, editor of two science fiction magazines (Infinity and
Science Ficton Adventures) and one crime magazine (Suspect).
Shaw later was editor for the paperback line Lancer Books,
various Hot Rod magazines and for one issue Mike Shayne
Mystery Magazine. She and Shaw later divorced.
Hoffman was encouraged by her friends Ted White and Terry
Carr
(himself to become a major editor) into trying her hand at
writing and she became a WWA Spur Award winning writer of
westerns, which she did for a few years before ceasing to
write fiction. She died last year. She was certainly a
talented writer as anyone who has read THE VALDEZ HORSE or
any of her other novels and, by all accounts, was a very nice
person.
I agree with Patrick that the beat scene and the coexisting
folk scene in New York would make a very nice setting for a
novel. You can also read another view of that scene in Bob
Dylan's Chronicles published a couple of years ago.
Larry Block has used his interest in music and song writing
in his fiction. I recall one novel published under the name
Paul Kavanaugh that included some Block lyrics. I believe it
was NOT COMING HOME TO YOU but my memory may be playing me
false.
Richard Moore
--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, Patrick King
<abrasax93@...> wrote:
>
> Well, here's one crime novel that deals with the
beat
> counter culture. Or at least the author meant it
to:
>
>
http://www.hardcasecrime.com/books_bios.cgi?title=A%20Diet%20of%
20Treacle
>
> There are many not-so-old crime novels that deal
with
> the bee-bop jazz scene, which the beat
movement
> emerged from.
>
> I'd say the absents of beats in golden-age
crime
> stories has more to do with the fact that many of
the
> authors, themselves, were from that scene
and
> perceived that readers were neither interested
or
> accepting of that culture. These authors wrote
for
> money, after all. They wrote books they
believed
> people want to read, not necessarily what
they,
> themselves, want to write. Lawrence Block was a
close
> friend to Blues Guitar virtuoso, Dave Van Ronk.
Block
> actually penned a parody song that Van Ronk
performed
> frequently: Georgie On the IRT. Van Ronk, by his
own
> admission was a Communist and a radical. Van
Ronk
> states this unequivocally in his autobiography
THE
> MAYOR OF MACDOUGAL STREET, compiled by Elijah
Wald
> after Van Ronk's death. Block pens the forward to
it.
>
> The beat scene in New York and LA in the early
fifties
> would be a great backdrop for many crime
novels.
>
> Patrick King
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