Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus is author of Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock'n'Roll Music (1975; most recent English language edition from Faber & Faber, 2000), Lipstick Traces, Dead Elvis, The Old, Weird America (a retitled edition of the 1997 Invisible Republic), The Dustbin of History, In the Fascist Bathroom and Double Trouble. Greil has published columns, essays and reviews since 1968 in ROLLING STONE, ARTFORUM, INTERVIEW, SALON.COM, COMMON KNOWLEDGE and many other publications. In 2000 and 2002 he taught an American Studies seminar at Princeton University. He lives in Berkeley, California.
23 articles
List of articles in the library
Review by Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone, 17 May 1969
IKE AND TINA TURNER have been packing suitcases and riding buses for years, playing the Sportmen's Clubs and the Showcase Lounges, sometimes making it into ...
Essay by Greil Marcus, Good Times, August 1969
NEIL YOUNG used to be number one or number two man with the Buffalo Springfield, depending on your taste; after the group broke up for ...
Chuck Willis: I Remember Chuck Willis
Review by Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone, 9 August 1969
EVERY ONCE IN a while something happens that reminds one of the incalculable contribution Atlantic Records has made to rock and roll and rhythm and ...
Brian Jones, The Rolling Stones: Obituary: Brian Jones
Obituary by Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone, 9 August 1969
Not just a guitarist for the Rolling Stones, but an embodiment of the music itself. ...
Ronnie Hawkins: Ronnie Hawkins and Mr. Dynamo
Review by Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone, 9 August 1969
RONNIE HAWKINS came down out of the Ozarks, and after gigging with Carl Perkins and Harold Jenkins (later Conway Twitty), he decided he wanted to ...
The Band: We Can Talk About It Now
Report by Greil Marcus, Good Times, 15 August 1969
THE BAND has been together the best part of a decade, almost nine years. Little Richard has been Little Richard for about double that, but ...
Dusty Springfield: Dusty In Memphis
Review by Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone, 1 November 1969
A FEW MONTHS AGO I walked into the Rolling Stone office and palely inquired if the journal might possibly be interested in a review of ...
Charlie Rich: Life's Little Ups And Downs
Review by Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone, 27 December 1969
BOB DYLAN HAS SAID more than once that Charlie Rich is one of his favorite musicians – as a songwriter and as a singer. Nik ...
Review by Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone, 14 May 1970
WOP-BOP-A-LU-BOP-A-LOP-BAM-BOOM. Thud. 'Tutti Frutti', which opens the partly excellent MC5 album, is easily the worst cut on it, and in a way a clue to ...
Essay by Greil Marcus, Let It Rock, March 1973
IN THE NOVEMBER issue of Let It Rock, Tony White offered some rather hysterical opinions in his Dylan bootleg discography, and Tony Scaduto, author of ...
Doug Sahm: Doug Sahm And Band (Atlantic K40466)
Review by Greil Marcus, Let It Rock, April 1973
HI, WELCOME to 1973! (You’re probably used to it by now, but this was written in January) It’s gonna be a banner year for rock’n’roll ...
How the other half lives: The Best of Girl Group Rock
Guide by Greil Marcus, Let It Rock, May 1974
GIRL GROUP ROCK flourished between 1958 and 1965, and though, with the passing of the Brill Building and the coming of the sophistication of the ...
Patti Smith: Horses: Patti Smith Exposes Herself
Review by Greil Marcus, The Village Voice, 24 November 1975
THE FIRST QUESTION about Horses, Patti Smith's debut album, might be called the Janis question – it comes up whenever a particularly exciting performer has ...
The Band: Northern Lights - Southern Cross
Review by Greil Marcus, Creem, March 1976
A RECENT nation-wide telephone poll on Northern Lights-Southern Cross, the Band's first collection of new songs in four years, has produced a solid consensus. All ...
Review by Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone, 23 March 1978
WHEN I FIRST heard this record some months ago, I was appalled. "One bourbon, one Scotch and one beee-ah," George Thorogoood was mush-mouthing over the ...
Bruce Springsteen: The Man Who Would Save Rock And Roll
Essay by Greil Marcus, New West, February 1981
LAST OCTOBER Bruce Springsteen released his fifth album, The River, which went swiftly to number one in the States, and began a tour that will ...
The Rolling Stones: Stanley Booth: Myth and Misquotation
Essay by Greil Marcus, The Threepenny Review, Fall 1988
This was originally the address at the commencement ceremonies of the Department of History, University of California at Berkeley, on 20th May 1988. Greil Marcus ...
Sonny Til & The Orioles: Is This The Woman Who Invented Rock & Roll?: The Deborah Chessler Story
Retrospective and Interview by Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone, 24 June 1993
IN AN EARLY EPISODE of Homicide: Life on the Street, Barry Levinson's recent TV series about a team of Baltimore cops, the detective played by ...
Bob Dylan: Preemptive Obituaries
Comment by Greil Marcus, Interview, August 1997
I WAS IN England in late May, trying to get people to read a book about Bob Dylan's 1967 basement tapes recordings, when the story ...
Bob Dylan: A Map You Can Throw Away: Bob Dylan's Time Out of Mind
Review by Greil Marcus, The San Francisco Examiner, 2 November 1997
THE CHALLENGE of Bob Dylan's Time Out of Mind – his first collection of self-written songs since 1990 – is to take it at face ...
Retrospective by Greil Marcus, MOJO, October 2004
Buddy Holly was an ordinary Joe in the wild world of '50s rock'n'roll. But, says Greil Marcus, his magical songs and early, tragic death have ...
Them, Van Morrison: Them: 'Baby Please Don't Go' (1965)
Book Excerpt by Greil Marcus, 'When That Rough God Goes Riding', June 2010
IN 1965, THEM'S 'Baby Please Don't Go'–usually cited as a rock 'n' roll update of a song first recorded by the Mississippi blues singer Joe ...
Van Morrison: The Healing Game (1997)
Book Excerpt by Greil Marcus, 'When That Rough God Goes Riding' , June 2010
THE BLACK-AND-WHITE photo that appears on the face of The Healing Game–and on the disc itself, and on the back of the CD box, insisting ...
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