Pat Thomas

Pat Thomas is a counterculture historian and archival music producer (and liner-note writer) whose expertise and interests have helped him author such books as Listen, Whitey! The Sights & Sounds of Black Power 1965–1975 and Did It! Jerry Rubin: An American Revolutionary. He has co-curated Invitation to Openness: The Jazz & Soul Photography of Les McCann 1960-1980, co-edited My Week Beats Your Year: Encounters with Lou Reed, an anthology of interviews about the iconic musician, and contributed to The (Original) Adventures of Ford Fairlane: The Long Lost Rock n’ Roll Detective and Kerouac on Record: A Literary Soundtrack. Thomas was a consultant on the PBS documentary The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution and compiled the 3-CD box set The Last Word on First Blues for the Allen Ginsberg Estate (1970s recordings of Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, and Arthur Russell), and the 2-CD set Songs of Innocence and Experience of Ginsberg’s 1969 recordings (with Don Cherry and Elvin Jones) putting William Blake poems to music with vocals by Allen.

Pat Thomas has worked with a range of musicians including Les McCann, Gene McDaniels, Black Panther Elaine Brown, the Watts Prophets, and members of the Last Poets. Other projects include organizing the first-ever American release of Public Image Limited’s debut album (with rare bonus material), Roky Erickson’s 1970s & 80s solo albums, and previously unreleased recordings from Tim Buckley, Judee Sill, The Dream Syndicate, and Herbie Mann with Sonny Sharrock. He was a co-music supervisor/co-producer for the new Judee Sill documentary, Lost Angel: The Genius of Judee Sill.

In addition to Material Wealth, he is also working on a book about comedian/TV personality Ernie Kovacs.