{"id":2444839,"date":"2019-05-31T17:26:27","date_gmt":"2019-05-31T23:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=843105"},"modified":"2019-05-31T17:26:27","modified_gmt":"2019-05-31T23:26:27","slug":"roky-erickson-psychedelic-rock-pioneer-dead-at-71","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/music-news\/roky-erickson-psychedelic-rock-pioneer-dead-at-71\/","title":{"rendered":"Roky Erickson, Psychedelic Rock Pioneer, Dead at 71"},"content":{"rendered":"
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13th Floor Elevators frontman Roky Erickson<\/a>, a psychedelic rock icon whose career was cut short due to debilitating mental illness and years spent in a Texas mental hospital, has died of unknown causes at age 71. Erickson\u2019s death was confirmed by his brother Mikel, Variety<\/em> reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world lost a huge light and an incredible soul,\u201d his other brother Sumner Erickson told Austin360<\/a><\/em>. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t the easiest life, but he\u2019s free of all that now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fueled by Erickson\u2019s howling voice, the 13th Floor Elevators played a pivotal role in the creation of psychedelic rock with their 1966 debut LP The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators.<\/em> The group didn\u2019t generate much attention outside of their native Texas and they broke up in 1969 without a single hit song, not long after Erickson began exhibiting symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia. He was arrested in 1969 for possession of a single joint and was sent to a mental hospital where he was essentially tortured by electroconvulsive therapy and Thorazine treatments. He wasn\u2019t set free until 1972.<\/p>\n