Mel Lyman Death
Mel passed away on April 1, 1978 at the age of 40 in unknown location.
When did Mel Lyman die?
April 1, 1978How old was Mel Lyman when died?
40Where did Mel Lyman die? What was the location of death?
unknown location
Mel Lyman Birthday and Date of Death
Mel Lyman was born on March 24, 1938 and died on April 1, 1978. Mel was 40 years old at the time of death.
Birthday: March 24, 1938
Date of Death: April 1, 1978
Age at Death: 40
Mel Lyman - Biography
Melvin James Lyman (March 24, 1938 – March 1978) was an American musician, writer, and founder of the Fort Hill Community, which has been variously described as a family, commune, or cult.
In 1963 Lyman joined Jim Kweskin’s Boston-based jug band as a banjo and harmonica player. Lyman, once called "the Grand Old Man of the 'blues' harmonica in his mid-twenties", is remembered in folk music circles for playing a 20-minute improvisation on the traditional hymn "Rock of Ages" at the end of the 1965 Newport Folk Festival to the riled crowd streaming out after Bob Dylan’s famous appearance with an electric band. Some felt that Lyman, primarily an acoustic musician, was delivering a wordless counterargument to Dylan’s new-found rock direction. Irwin Silber, editor of Sing Out Magazine, wrote that Lyman’s "mournful and lonesome harmonica" provided "the most optimistic note of the evening".
n 1966, supported and funded by Mekas, Lyman published his first book, Autobiography of a World Savior, which set out to reformulate spiritual truths and occult history in a new way. In 1971, Lyman published Mirror at the End of the Road, derived from letters he wrote during his formative years, starting in 1958 from his initial attempts to learn and become a musician, through the early 1960s as his life widened and deepened musically and personally.
In the mid-1980s, members of the Fort Hill Community announced that Lyman had died in 1978, age 40. However, as writer Ryan Walsh notes, the community "never presented a death certificate, provided details about how he went, or disclosed what they did with his remains. There was no legal investigation." A member of the Fort Hill Community, speaking to Walsh under condition of anonymity, said that Lyman "purposefully overdosed on drugs in Los Angeles, California, sometime in 1978" following a long illness.
