Paul Oliver

Paul Hereford Oliver MBE (25 May 1927 – 15 August 2017) was an English architectural historian and writer on the blues and other forms of African-American music. He was equally distinguished in both fields, although it is likely that aficionados of one of his specialties were not aware of his expertise in the other. He wrote some of the first scholarly studies of blues music, and his commentary and research have been influential.

Early life and career Oliver was born in Nottingham in 1927, the son of architect W. Norman Oliver. In the late 1930s, his family lived in Pinner, Middlesex, where he attended Longfield Primary School in Rayners Lane and then went to Harrow County School for Boys between 1938 and 1942.

He attended Harrow Art School, where he met his wife, Valerie. After a period in the War Office, Oliver gained his Art Teacher's Diploma at Goldsmiths College at the University of London. He then taught art in two secondary schools, and was Head of Art at Harrow County School for Boys from 1949 to 1960.

Work as architectural historian Oliver started work as an artist at the Architectural Association in 1960, and after a few years began teaching the history of architecture. particularly stimulated by a trip to Ghana in 1964 to research appropriate housing for people displaced after the building of the Akosombo Dam.

He became a researcher at the Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development (Department of Architecture, Oxford Brookes University), and from 1978 to 1988 was Associate Head of the School of Architecture. He was an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (1999) and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Gloucestershire (2007).

Blues historian Oliver was a leading authority on the blues and gospel music, described in the New York Times as "a scrupulous researcher with a fluent writing style, [who] opened the eyes of readers in Britain and the United States to a musical form that had been overlooked and often belittled." followed by Blues Fell this Morning: The Meaning of the Blues in 1960. The latter book was "one of the first efforts to examine closely the music's language and subject matter." and included early research into the influence of Islamic music from North Africa on its origins. His work, which began in the 1950s, included interviews, field work and research in recording and printed sources tracing the origin and development of African-American music and culture from the time of slavery and before. Paul Oliver's Archive of African American Music is held at Oxford Brookes University Special Collections and Archive.

He made several trips to the US in the 1960s to interview and record blues musicians, financed by the State Department and the BBC.

Personal life and death He married Valerie Coxon in 1950; she died in 2002. They had no children. Oliver died from complications of dementia at a care home in Shipton-under-Wychwood, Oxfordshire, on 15 August 2017.

Selected bibliography Architectural writings

(with Ian Davis and Ian Bentley)

(with Marcel Vellinga and Alexander Bridge)

Blues books

Revised edition:

Selected tracks discussed in the book were issued on a CBS album of the same title.

(Editor)

(with Mack McCormick)