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Paul Williams: The Cage Mix
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 April 2020
Abstract
Demystifying a largely misunderstood chapter in John Cage's biographical narrative, this article explores the pivotal role architect and philanthropist Paul Williams played in Cage's life, and for whom Cage named his famous magnetic tape composition Williams Mix (1952–53). Retracing the activities of both men, beginning with their earliest encounter at the experimental Black Mountain College in North Carolina in 1948, this investigation documents for the first time the extent of their mutually devoted relationship. Newly uncovered source material and photographs also reveal the valuable contributions Williams made as primary benefactor and mastermind of the intentional community called the Gatehill Cooperative (a.k.a. “Stony Point”), a place Cage called home for seventeen years (1954–71). There Cage developed a “hunger for nature,” wrote his widely read and influential book Silence (1961), and undertook some of his most significant musical projects.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © The Society for American Music 2020
Footnotes
I would like to thank Merce Williams (Paul Williams's son) for generously allowing access to his family papers, including photographs and material related to his father's architecture. Special thanks to Vera B. Williams, David Weinrib, Patsy Wood, Richard Hora, Naomi Rosenblum, and Betsy Williams for their personal recollections (and photographs); to Mies Hora and Sean Folley, and to more current members of the Gatehill Cooperative at whose sixtieth–anniversary celebration an early version of this article was initially presented (June 27, 2015). I would also like to thank Thomas L. Riis for his editorial comments and feedback on a more recent draft presented at the Annual Conference of the Society for American Music, Kansas City, MO, March 3, 2018. This article draws on my larger history of the Gatehill Cooperative (forthcoming) with support by the John Cage Research Grant, Northwestern University, the Western Regional Archives in Asheville, NC (archivist Heather South, in particular), and multiple travel and research grants from Regis University, Denver.