ANN ARBOR: Michael Erlewine, founder of All Music Guide, to lecture on life in Ann Arbor in the Sixties tonight at District Library

Published: Wednesday, October 12, 2011

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By James David Dickson, A2 Journal

Michael Erlewine, author and historian, will lecture on what Ann Arbor was like in the '60s.

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On Wednesday, Oct. 12 — tonight — at 7 p.m., while the Ann Arbor Board of Education is holding its second regular meeting of the school year on the fourth floor of the District Library (343 S. Fifth Ave.), author and historian Michael Erlewine will give a lecture downstairs on what life was like growing up in Ann Arbor in the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, a period of great change locally and nationally.

Erlewine is the founder of the All Music Guide and in the ‘60s was leader of a group called The Prime Movers at the time — a group that would later count Ann Arbor native James Osterberg, better known in the music world as Iggy Pop, as one of its members (Osterberg had played in a fraternity band called the "Iguanas," Erlewine would recall, which is how he was given the 'Iggy' moniker as a member of the Prime Movers). Erlewine founded the All Music Guide, a music database, in 1991, more than a decade after he had stopped playing live, and has founded other, similar ventures as well.

Erlewine’s family first moved to Ann Arbor in the 1950s. His experience with the area spans more than 5 decades.

Erlewine’s lecture will be held in the library’s Multi-Purpose Room.

In December, the Ann Arbor District Library will host an event series called “Freeing John Sinclair: The Day the Legends Came to Town,” which will celebrate the 40-year anniversary of the “Free John Sinclair” concert at Crisler Arena on December 10, 1971, a concert that brought musicians like John Lennon and speakers like Allen Ginsberg to Ann Arbor to argue that one of the first victims of the so-called War on Drugs should be freed.

Staff Writer James David Dickson can be reached at JDickson@Heritage.com.
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