Hilly Kristal, a Rock Midwife, Is Dead at 75

By BEN SISARIO

Hilly Kristal, who founded
CBGB, the Bowery bar that became the cradle of punk and art-rock in New
York in the 1970s and served as the inspiration for musician-friendly
rock dives throughout the world, died in Manhattan on Tuesday. He was
75.

His son, Mark Dana Kristal, told The Associated Press that the cause was complications from lung cancer.

From its opening in late 1973, when Mr. Kristal, a lover of acoustic
music, gave the club its name, an abbreviation of the kinds of music he
originally intended to feature there — country, bluegrass and
blues — until a dispute with its landlord forced the club to
close last October, CBGB presented thousands of bands within its
eternally crumbling, flyer-encrusted walls.

Most famously, it served as the incubator for the diverse
underground scene of New York in the 1970s and early ’80s, with
acts like the Ramones, Patti Smith, Blondie, Television, Talking Heads
and Sonic Youth playing some of their earliest and most important
concerts there, at a time when there were few outlets in the city for
innovative rock music.

“There was no real venue in 1973 for people like us,”
Ms. Smith said today. “We didn’t fit into the cabarets or
the folk clubs. Hilly wanted the people that nobody else wanted. He
wanted us.”

Besides his son, Mr. Kristal is survived by a daughter, Lisa Kristal Burgman, and two grandchildren.

New York Times

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