Yesterday morning after a long and courageous battle with cancer Peter passed away among his friends and family.
Prayers, love and support go out to all of his friends and family who have stood with him through this. Most of all love to Tony and Babette and cousin Jon. But also to friends and family who have made unquestionably wonderful gestures of support and kindness to Peter. In particular to Mike and Anne and Dorothy. Peter was fortunate to have so many wonderful people around him,
Rest in peace my friend.
x
A sad day indeed. Always a great friend from RMD. Enjoyed PSB’s writings
and music and internet friendship over the years.
RIP.
Zuke
We corresponded on and off for around 20 years. He’s 20 years my senior and much more knowledgeable than me about the passions we shared. Bob, gospel music, folk and all that. He taught me more than most people about music and I always read his reviews and interviews and gave him feedback and let him know how much I did appreciate everything that he did. I have no one to share my grief with, but I will play some gospel tonight and turn my face to heaven before I close my eyes tonight
I knew Peter in high school. His brother Tony and I were girlfriend and boyfriend and Peter and I were very close- like a younger brother. Things were rough for all three of us in those years and we kind of made our own little family.- at least that is what it felt like to me. I remember peter as a wonderful poet. He wrote a poem to me called “through a Sleepy Purple Glass” which I loved. Rest In Peace sweet friend.
Thank you, and rest in peace.
I knew Peter a long time. I always enjoyed talking music with him. I own Main Street Music in Manayunk and I could anticipate when a visit from him was coming to buy CDs, especially when there was something by Van Morrison or Dylan, of course. I had met him way back in the late 80’s when he wrote some nice things about a band that I managed at the time. He was a fellow music lover and he will certainly be missed.
Pat Feeney
Thanks for being you Peter. I don’t think I knew anyone more passionate and scholarly about Bob Dylan and music as you. I will miss our meese jokes on facebook and our many, many conversations about music.
Whenever I needed to know something music related, Peter had the answer. He was completely serious about music and was a true believer. We liked all the same stuff.
He was a really kind and compassionate friend that I will never forget. I am so saddened by his passing and send my condolences to his family and all his other friends. He leaves a huge void of love and knowledge for music with impossible shoes to fill.
I never knew or met Peter Stone Brown (I am from Norway), but I always thoroughly enjoyed his reviews of Dylan concerts on Bill Page’s Bobdates/links tourguides; I quoted extensively from one of them (Beacon Theatre, 2005) in a (Norwegian) essay on The Never Ending Tour. On one occasion, I wrote an email to Mr. Brown and thanked him for his reviews. He immediately and very kindly responded. “Thank you for taking your time, I really appreciate this,” was his concluding words (quoted from memory). The many excellent reviews are still out there! In sum they provide a much better coverage of the late Dylan’s neverending art than is obtainable in any book that I know of. Thank you, and rest in peace.
I never knew or met Peter Stone Brown (I am from Norway), but I always thoroughly enjoyed his reviews of Dylan concerts on Bill Page’s Bobdates/links tourguides; I quoted extensively from one of them (Beacon Theatre, 2005) in a (Norwegian) essay on The Never Ending Tour. On one occasion, I wrote him an email and thanked him for his reviews. He immediately and very kindly responded. “Thank you for taking your time, I really appreciate this,” was his concluding words (quoted from memory). The many excellent reviews are still out there! In sum they provide a much better coverage of the late Dylan’s neverending live art than is obtainable in any book that I know of. And then there are his many other printed reviews as well, his excellent, enthusiastic take on Tempest, for instance, song by song. Thank you, Peter Stone Brown!
When I first stepped into the village of rec.music.dylan in the mid 1990s the inhabitants were a motley crew all brought together by a mutual love and fascination with Bob Dylan. There would be trading on the main street, discussions going on in the bar rooms and taverns, the occasional fist fight outside the general store, but there was one figure who stood out from the other citizens, one name that unfailingly commanded respect – that man was Peter Stone Brown. He was light years ahead of us all in his knowledge and insights into Dylan and popular music. He was different.
PSB and me developed an internet friendship like no other as we corresponded regularly until one day the ethereal became manifest and my wife Pam and I travelled across the Atlantic to meet up with Peter in Philly. We stayed at his brown stone house by a school, delved into his life and his immense record collection and experienced Philly to the full, including its cheesesteaks. PSB and I felt that we had known each other all our lives. He would gently correct me on things I hadn’t quite got right in the Dylan narrative, and listen intently when I talked about Celtic and English traditions. The only thing we agreed to disagree on was the impact Lonnie Donnegan had on the direction of 20th century music!
Other visits enriched our bond in an online world. PSB came over to visit us and met other fans of his in the UK, most notably Trev Gibb, who would eventually come as close to Peter as any of us. A couple of years later Peter and I played together at The Sun Music Room in New York City which was a stone cold gas, and another highlight that visit was attending the digitised souped up re-release of The Last Waltz with PSB and Hodah and others. We all came out of the movie singing and dancing and Peter’s arcane knowledge and wit popped into our conversations between ourselves and with total strangers.
In 2008 PSB came over again, this time as our honoured guest appearing at the John Green Memorial Weekend held in Northampton. His participation in panel discussions was erudite and fascinating and his music held the audience spell bound. Years flew by as they do and it was an awful shock when he told us about his cancer and explained the outlook was grim. In October last year me and Pam were honoured to re-visit Philly and join with family and friends for a time that had a quality of its own, most particularly with Peter in the company of Mike Vogelmann and the Fumblers at his and Anne’s house before and after a tremendous final concert at the Locks. It was consoling to us all to see and hear Peter perform then, surrounded and comforted by the love of a group of people who were there for him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVVsr6IpL90&fbclid=IwAR1GKvr4Cw5yovtqeFPFydrFl4RxW3vhPiSzEjzEFuTKmDeuJ6ApvqSkG2Q When we said good bye at the airport, we all knew it would be for the last time. Fare thee well for now PSB, rest easy.
I was dreading news like this of late. I’m very sorry to hear of this. Have always been into Dylan, but in latter years (since the later 1990s or mid 90s), had become something of a Dylan-obsessive and collector, although not to the severe point of many. I somehow got into contact with Peter via one of the Bob Dylan message boards around 2003 or so, and also via one of his friends from Philly, who told me later that he was playing a solo folk show in NYC soon. I ended up attending the show, meeting Peter and his female friend, and having dinner uptown in the city with them later on, at a wonderful Mexican restaurant. Peter was such a lovely, friendly, brilliant, gentle man and soul, I simply cannot convey it here. Let alone his brilliant writing and critical work, and archival work on Dylan and others, which was always revelatory.
I also told Peter about my fave unsung NJ 80s folk/rock band Winter Hours, who had their fair share of tragedy and bad luck, but had recorded a major label album in 1989 up at Bearsville Studios near Woodstock, produced by the great Lenny Kaye, were major Dylan, The Band and Buffalo Springfield fans, and had been college radio faves for a number of years. It’s too bad they weren’t still going, or Peter would doubtless have made a great touring duo with them, and gotten on with them famously, I’ve no doubt. Life’s just not fair, I guess.
I also of course immediately bought his solo album Up Against It, and was playing it incessantly over the next few years, what a great album it is. At some point in 2004 or so, Peter contacted me or I contacted him, having noticed he was set that weekend to play a gig at a bar on the LES somewhere, but a major snowstorm was heading in from the west, and Peter got the up to the minute weather report from me directly, via e-mail, and he had no choice but to cancel, since he was driving over himself I believe, from Philly, and it wasn’t looking good. Which was a bummer, since I was about to head on the subway that afternoon to go see him again, greatly looking forward to it.
Anyway, I greatly treasure my memories of meeting Peter and seeing him perform live,
and breaking bread with him, which was priceless. As a published writer and critic
myself over the years, mainly in weird fiction and fantasy fiction, but also music
and film, Peter was also a major inspiration to me. I’m sure I told him thus,
and this comforts me now.
I was dreading news like this of late. I’m very sorry to hear of this. Have always been into Dylan, but in latter years (since the later 1990s or mid 90s), had become something of a Dylan-obsessive and collector, although not to the severe point of many. I somehow got into contact with Peter via one of the Bob Dylan message boards around 2003 or so, and also via one of his friends from Philly, who told me later that he was playing a solo folk show in NYC soon. I was living in Kew Gardens, Queens, for several years at the time. I ended up attending the show, meeting Peter and his female friend, and having dinner uptown in the city with them later on, at a wonderful Mexican restaurant. Peter was such a lovely, friendly, brilliant, gentle man and soul, I simply cannot convey it here. Let alone his brilliant writing and critical work, and archival work on Dylan and others, which was always revelatory.
I also told Peter about my fave unsung NJ 80s folk/rock band Winter Hours, who had their fair share of tragedy and bad luck, but had recorded a major label album in 1989 up at Bearsville Studios near Woodstock, produced by the great Lenny Kaye, were major Dylan, The Band and Buffalo Springfield fans, and had been college radio faves for a number of years. It’s too bad they weren’t still going, or Peter would doubtless have made a great touring duo with them, and gotten on with them famously, I’ve no doubt. Life’s just not fair, I guess.
I also of course immediately bought his solo album Up Against It, and was playing it incessantly over the next few years, what a great album it is. At some point in 2004 or so, Peter contacted me or I contacted him, having noticed he was set that weekend to play a gig at a bar on the LES somewhere, but a major snowstorm was heading in from the west, and Peter got the up to the minute weather report from me directly, via e-mail, and he had no choice but to cancel, since he was driving over himself I believe, from Philly, and it wasn’t looking good. Which was a bummer, since I was about to head on the subway that afternoon to go see him again, greatly looking forward to it.
Anyway, I greatly treasure my memories of meeting Peter and seeing him perform live,
and breaking bread with him, which was priceless. As a published writer and critic
myself over the years, mainly in weird fiction and fantasy fiction, but also music
and film, Peter was also a major inspiration to me. I’m sure I told him thus,
and this comforts me now.
In the early hours of this morning, my dearest friend Peter Stone Brown passed away after a long and brave struggle with cancer. Our friendship began 18 years ago over a mutual obsession with all things Bob Dylan and quickly blossomed into a magical mystery tour of a friendship and along the way he became someone so deeply meaningful and entrenched in my emotional life that I can’t imagine a day in my life without him. For me he was a mentor, a brother and a father of sorts. He taught me so many things, he always believed in me as I believed in him. He encouraged me and watched with pride in the better times and in the harder times he had the right words. I hope that for him I did the same, because I believed in his gift, I believed in his music and his writing and I loved him deeply. He watched me become the man I am, he stood with me always, he offered me wisdom and love and support. He was Bukowskiesque in the romanticism of his art and life and he lived pure and unapologetically like a true poet. To the last he was real, he was honest, he cut right to heart of things. He thought in long wave, not the short wave of todays culture. He took time to get to the essence of things, his thoughts were deep and they stayed with him until the time was right to put them on paper. He was funny, he was articulate, he could tell a story like no one. He gave me incomparable memories, he wanted to share with me everything he knew. A songwriter of the highest calibre, a DJ and a fine, fine journalist. He interviewed so many of the greats, James Brown, Bob Marley, Dr John, Muddy Waters, Ry Cooder, Levon Helm, John Lee Hooker to name just a few. He wrote passionately about music. Recently he posted Danny Boy and for the first time ever I understood the true power and beauty of that song, and that he knew he was saying goodbye. I went through the lyrics and felt a blow in my heart that I’m still trying to understand. Loss. To never reconnect. The measure of the man was also in the friends he kept. Over the years I met many of Peter’s friends and family, all unique, sensitive and brilliant in their own right, all deeply embedded in the meaning of life and how it’s about living it truly and with feeling, all gentle and giving people. His was a life of struggle and pain on many levels but also a life of ultimate beauty, beauty in deeds, beauty in thought, beauty in act and beauty in friendship. I adored him and I will miss and love him for eternity.