{"id":16024,"date":"2025-07-31T10:22:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T14:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onemanz.com\/guitar\/?p=16024"},"modified":"2025-08-11T10:34:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T14:34:12","slug":"michael-lydon-1942-2025-an-appreciation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onemanz.com\/guitar\/michael-lydon-1942-2025-an-appreciation\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Lydon (1942 – 2025) An Appreciation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Music Writer and Cultural Historian Michael Lydon Has Died<\/h2>\n

The Rolling Stone Magazine founding editor and NYC music mainstay was 82.<\/h3>\n

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A New Yorker’s New Yorker who lived the hippie life as a Yale educated historian and journalist in the heart of 1960s counter-culture California and London, England, Michael Lydon was a friend and inspiration when I came to know him though his wife and long time collaborator, the composer Ellen Mandel. Michael died on July 30 after a long struggle with Parkinson’s Disease.<\/div>\n
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An absolute prince of a guy, Michael shall be missed by all who are lucky enough to have known him. I so enjoyed jamming with him at the studio apartment he and Ellen kept as a creative work space near their East Village apartment.<\/div>\n
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We connected through our lifelong admiration of Bob Dylan, and Duke Ellington. As the first American journalist to interview a young Lennon and McCartney, and then founding editor of Rolling Stone Magazine, who toured with the actual Rolling Stones, and knew Janice, and the Dead, I found it delightful that Michael preferred singing gentle jazz standards, and composed songs in the same vein.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n