Years ago, poking around the Web, I came across the over-the-top site of The Blacklisted Journalist. Al Aronowitz claimed to have introduced Dylan to the Beatles (yeah, right) and led with this:

A professional journalist since 1950, Al Aronowitz, founder, editor and publisher of THE BLACKLISTED JOURNALIST, has met and/or has known; or has had a friendship with and/or has had a close association with; or has interviewed and/or has written about some of the greatest figures to have ennobled our culture, including Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Mick Jagger, Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Michael McClure, Jerry Garcia, Phil Spector, Janis Joplin, Bobby Darin, Jane Fonda, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Brigitte Bardot, Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Barbra Streisand, William Carlos Williams, William Burroughs, Ernest Hemingway, Ray Charles, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Carole King, Gerry Goffin, David Bowie, Peter Townshend, The Band, Merle Haggard, Charlie Pride, Johnny Cash, Steve Allen and ad infinitum. Many of whom, if not all, are or will be featured in articles and stories on this website.

As it turns out, it was all true. And now it's over.

Over at Dylan Pool, they're remembering Al, who died of liver cancer Monday:

Rock Journalist Al Aronowitz Dies at 77 (WaPo):
Al Aronowitz, a big-talking journalist who introduced the Beatles to Bob Dylan and, he claimed, to marijuana, and who led as colorful a life as the rock stars he chronicled, died Aug. 1 of cancer at a hospital in Elizabeth, N.J. He was 77.

As a reporter with the New York Post in the 1960s, Mr. Aronowitz was among the first mainstream journalists to write in-depth, complimentary articles about rock music, the writers of the Beat Generation and other artists who brought about a cultural revolution. Sometimes called the godfather of rock journalism, he freely crossed the line from observer to drug-taking participant long before Rolling Stone magazine had ever heard of Hunter S. Thompson....

An appreciation by david Segal (The Rock Journalist At a High Point In Music History), also WaPo, has more.

AP reports that, "in addition to his son Joel, he is survived by children Brett Hillary Aronowitz, Myles Mason Aronowitz and a longtime companion, Ida Becker." The photo above is credited to Myles Aronowitz.