THE MUSIC MAN, USA (R.I.)

   THE MUSIC MAN ran in Rhode Island from 1975 to 1978 as a free newspaper. It began in the summer of 1975 by Edward Dalton as editor, Bob Angell as consulting editor and Laura Golly as art director.
    By June of 1977 another start-up called Grass Roots began publishing their own local paper and a shift in THE MUSIC MAN came about. Edward Dalton knew the paper was doing well but lacked the advertising dollars which was needed for it to be a viable business so he sold the paper to Mederick Bellaire and Tom Farnsworth,Jr. By the summer of 1977 the paper was now back to its scaled down staff and Mederick decided that the paper would now be publish with genuine concern for the local musician and bands. THE MUSIC MAN encouraged musician to write about the music scene as it was happening in Rhode Island.
    By 1978 the market for independent newspapers began to expand as Ty Davis who originally started with THE MUSIC MAN began publishing his own paper called the NewPaper. Even though THE MUSIC MAN did not last long, it still left a nice legacy of great interviews and articles. (https://www.rirocks.net/Newspapers/Music%20Man.htm)

Thank you to Eric Galzi for the images and information.

November 1975

July 1978