RIP Roky Erickson

[Rev. Rye]

The man who brought the word "psychedelic" into the public lexicon, and spent much of the last half century in a schizophrenic funk (including a stint in a mental hospital in Rusk, Texas that happened after he pled insanity for possession of a single joint [to be fair, he did have a nervous breakdown earlier in the year and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia there]), but when he was still lucid, he could still make some incredible music:













Ave Atque Vale, Roky.

PS. I got reacquainted with Roky two years ago, and around that time, I discovered that he was at a small club in Chicago on September 15. Sadly, I had tickets to see Smokey Robinson that same day, so I couldn't see him. I wish I could have had a chance to see him.

[Rev. Rye]

Okay, it turns out Roky did not introduce the word psychedelic into the public lexicon. It was first created by Humphry Osmond in 1956 in a letter to Aldous Huxley, because he figured out that Huxley's term phanerothyme didn't have the same ring to it. And it turns out the 13th Floor Elevators aren't even the first ones to apply the word to music: that would be the Holy Modal Rounders with their 1964 version of "Hesitatin Blues." But Roky is the first one to do so in a context people actually listened to.