Royston Ellis, Bridge Between Beat Poets and the Beatles, Dies at 82
Royston Ellis, a British Beat poet of the late 1950s and early ’60s who rose to fame with spoken-word performances to a rock ’n’ roll accompaniment, including gigs with the Beatles and Jimmy Page before they were famous, died on Feb.
27 in Induruwa, Sri Lanka. He was 82. His death, in a hospital, was announced in a Facebook post by his longtime assistant and close friend, Neel Jayantja Pathitrana.
Emmalena Ellis, a grandniece, said the cause was heart failure. Over the course of a six-decade career, Mr. Ellis was as peripatetic as he was prolific: He published more than 60 books, including poetry compilations, novels, travel books and memoirs of his time in the limelight.
Nevertheless, he is best remembered for his forays into what he called “rocketry”: rock-accompanied poetry readings that bridged the jazz-soaked Beat era of the ’50s and the chaotic rock ’n’ roll era that would soon shake the ’60s.
