Gil Turner

Gil Turner (May 6, 1933 – September 23, 1974) was an American folk singer-songwriter, magazine editor, Shakespearean actor, political activist, and for a time, a lay Baptist preacher. Turner was a prominent figure in the Greenwich Village scene of the early 1960s, where he was master of ceremonies at New York's leading folk music venue, Gerde's Folk City, as well as co-editor of the protest song magazine Broadside. (see also Broadside Records
Turner was a founding member of New World Singers in 1963 with Happy Traum and Bob Cohen. His most notable musical credit, however, was his association with Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind". He was both the first person to perform the song - at Gerde's on April 16, 1962, the night Dylan completed it - and with The New World Singers, the first to record it.