Robert Shelton, a music critic who championed the talents of Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin and a host of other singers and musicians, has died at the age of 69.
Shelton died Monday at the Royal Sussex County Hospital following a stroke.Born in Chicago, Shelton moved to New York in the mid-1950s where he worked for The New York Times.
In the 1960s, he often reviewed the young folk and country singers he heard at Gerde's Folk City in New York's Greenwich Village.
His review of a performance by Dylan on Sept. 29, 1961, said "There is no doubt he is bursting at the seams with talent." He also championed 15-year-old Joplin, which helped launch her career, and assisted many other musicians including Judy Collins, Jose Feliciano, Peter, Paul and Mary and Mothers of Invention.
Dylan continued to fascinate him and they became close friends. In 1968, Shelton left the Times to write a biography of the singer.