Local Pop Guitarist Gets Posthumous Honor

By JOHN HARLOW | Editor-in-Chief

Paul Atkinson, a British musician who raised his family in The Huntington, has been nominated for entry to the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame for his work with the long-lasting pop group The Zombies.

It is the first year that competition organizers have named musicians within a group as individual nominees, as many older groups could have had dozens of members over the years.

Atkinson, who died in a Santa Monica hospital in 2004, has been highlighted as a great guitarist.

The Zombies are known for a string of hits such as “She’s Not There” and “Time of the Season,” which are still heard in movies and TV advertisements.

The group is still performing more than six decades after Atkinson joined up with singer Colin Blunstone and organist Rod Argent as a school band in St. Albans, north of London, UK.

Atkinson left the band in the late 1960s to become a CBS music executive in New York, introducing European acts as Abba and Sir Elton John to North America.

Atkinson and his wife Helen moved west to the Palisades, first to Iliff in the Alphabet Streets and then moving to Topaya in The Huntington.

“It was a great place to raise our children: they went to St. Matthew’s Parish School,” said Helen, who now lives in Brentwood.

“The Zombies are doing as great as ever, working hard. But this is a special kind of recognition that Paul as a music professional would have appreciated,” she said. “I am so glad that out music company and everyone else seems to be behind the nomination.”

In December, the Hall of Fame will announce which five of the 19 nominees will be inducted into their prestigious organization next April. The process is secret, but blends legacy, popularity and, of course, music business politics.

It is, as the cliché goes, an honor to be nominated: heavily promoted acts that failed to make the cut this year include The Smiths, The Cure, Mariah Carey and Bon Jovi.

Last week Billboard Magazine gave Atkinson and The Zombies 6:1 odds of slipping past the ultimate velvet rope, behind Electric Light Orchestra and Janet Jackson but well ahead of the pack. And the rapper Tupac.