American writer (1942–2022)
Paul Arthur Garon (July 6, 1942 – July 26, 2022) was an American author, writer, and editor, noted for his meditations on surrealist works, and also a noted scholar on blues as a musical and cultural movement.[1]
Born in Louisville, Kentucky, the son of a doctor and a sociology graduate,[2] Garon settled in Chicago and was one of the founders of the Chicago Surrealist Group in the mid-1960s.[3]
Garon was one of the founding editors of Living Blues magazine in 1970. He once wrote that "blues represents a fusion of music and poetry accomplished at a very high emotional temperature".[4] Amongst his other publications, Garon was the biographer of Peetie Wheatstraw.[5] Later, Garon and his wife Beth operated Beasley Books together, a rare book business in Chicago. He was also a founding partner of the Chicago Rare Book Center, in Evanston, Illinois.
Garon died on July 26, 2022, at the age of 80.[2]
Works
- What's the Use of Walking if There's A Freight Train Going Your Way? Black Hoboes and Their Songs. with Gene Tomko, 2015. ISBN 978-0882863719
- Woman With Guitar: Memphis Minnie's Blues, with Beth Garon, 1992. ISBN 978-0306804601
- Blues and the Poetic Spirit, 2001. ISBN 978-0872863156
- The Forecast Is Hot: Tracts & Other Collective Declarations of the Surrealist Movement in the United States 1966–1976, with Franklin Rosemont and Penelope Rosemont, 1997. ISBN 978-0941194297
- The Devil's Son-In-Law: The Story of Peetie Wheatstraw and His Songs, 2003. ISBN 978-0882862668
- Rana Mozelle: Surrealist Texts, 1978. ISBN 978-0941194051
- The Charles H. Kerr Company Archives 1885–1985: A Century of Socialist and Labor Publishing, 1985. ISBN 978-0882861449
- "White Blues," Race Traitor 4 (1995)[6]
References
- ^ Prahlad, Anand (January 1, 2006). The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Folklore: G-P. Greenwood Press. p. 498. ISBN 9780313330377. Retrieved July 22, 2019 – via Google Books.
- ^ a b Daniel Leon, "Paul Garon, 1942–2022", Les temps du blues, July 27, 2022. Retrieved July 28, 2022
- ^ "Garon, Paul", The International Encyclopedia of Surrealism, Michael Richardson et al. (eds.), Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019
- ^ Robert Palmer (1981). Deep Blues. Penguin Books. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-14-006223-6.
- ^ Giles Oakley (1997). The Devil's Music. Da Capo Press. pp. 171/3. ISBN 978-0-306-80743-5.
- ^ "RACE TRAITOR – White Blues". Racetraitor.org. Retrieved February 3, 2019.
External links
