Irwin_Chusid

Irwin Chusid (born April 22, 1951 in Newark, New Jersey) is a journalist, music historian, radio personality, record producer, and self-described "landmark preservationist". His stated mission has been to "find things on the scrapheap of history that I know don't belong there and salvage them." Those "things" have included such previously overlooked but now-celebrated icons as composer/bandleader/electronic music pioneer Raymond Scott, Space Age Pop avatar Esquivel, illustrator/fine artist Jim Flora, various outsider musicians (including William "Shooby" Taylor, a.k.a. "The Human Horn"), and The Langley Schools Music Project. Chusid calls himself "a connoisseur of marginalia," while admitting he's "a terrible barometer of popular taste."Chusid oversees the catalog of the late Afrofuturist artist/composer/bandleader Sun Ra and administers Ra's music rights on behalf of the artist's heirs. His book, Sun Ra: Art on Saturn — The Album Cover Art of Sun Ra's Saturn Label, compiled with Chris Reisman, was published by Fantagraphics in November 2022.His journalism has appeared in Mojo, The New York Times, Film Comment, Mix magazine, New York Press, Pulse! and other publications. In 2021 he authored a biography of 19th century baseball legend Joe Start for the Society for American Baseball Research's BioProject.Chusid has lived in Hoboken, New Jersey, since 1992. He describes his political views as "leaning libertarian".