'60s anti-war rocker Tuli Kupferberg dies in NYC

Tuli Kupferberg, a founding member of the Fugs, one of the first underground rock groups and a staple on the anti-war protest scene in the 1960s, has died. Kupferberg, who had suffered strokes in the past year, died Monday in a Manhattan hospital, said his friend and bandmate Ed Sanders. He was 86.

Tuli Kupferberg

"I think he will be remembered as a unique American songwriter," Sanders told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his home in Woodstock, N.Y. "Tuli had an uncanny ability to shape nuanced lyrics."

Sanders, who is writing a new memoir about the Fugs, said he visited his friend in the hospital on Thursday. Although Kupferberg was clearly ailing, he leaned into his ear and sang him the lyrics to a Fugs classic, "Morning, Morning," Sanders said.

"And then I said goodbye.




“One of the songwriting miracles from the Fugs Second Album on ESP-disk, 1966, by Tuli Kupferberg. It was just inspired, he doesn't know how he did it and can't do it again. The muse for "Morning, Morning" pictured in this video was Sally Eaton, actress, Wiccan priestess, the hippie witch in Jim Rado/ Gerry Ragni's 1968 musical "Hair." http://www.youtube.com/user/tulifuli