Richie Unterberger
Richie Unterberger has been writing about rock and popular music of all kinds since the early 1980s. Of his ten books, the most recent is White Light/White Heat: The Velvet Underground Day-By-Day. Published in June 2009 by Jawbone Press, this details the band's recording sessions, record releases, concerts, press reviews, and other major events shaping their career. Drawing on about 100 interviews and exhaustive research through documents and recordings rarely or never accessed, it unearths stories that have seldom been told, and eyewitness accounts that have seldom seen print, from figures ranging from band members to managers, producers, record executives, journalists, concert promoters, and fans.
His sixth book, Eight Miles High: Folk-Rock's Flight from Haight-Ashbury to Woodstock (Backbeat, 2003), is the second book in a two-volume history of the 1960s folk-rock movement. Eight Miles High covers folk-rock from mid-1966 to the end of the 1960s, drawing on more than 100 first-hand interviews, as did its predecessor, Turn! Turn! Turn!: The '60s Folk-Rock Revolution, which covers the history of folk-rock through mid-1966.
His book Unknown Legends of Rock'n'Roll, published by Backbeat in 1998, profiled 60 underappreciated cult rock artists of all styles and eras. Its sequel, Urban Spacemen & Wayfaring Strangers: Overlooked Innovators and Eccentric Visionaries of '60s Rock, was published by Backbeat in the fall of 2000. Both of these books draw extensively upon first-hand interviews with the musicians profiled, as well as interviews with many of their close associates.
He is also author of The Rough Guide to Music USA, a guidebook to the evolution of regional popular music styles throughout America in the twentieth century, and The Rough Guide to Jimi Hendrix.
He is a contributor to MOJO, Record Collector, Ugly Things, and numerous other publications, and has written liner notes to several hundred CD reissues on various labels.
He regularly presents events featuring rare rock films in the San Francisco Bay area and elsewhere, at public libraries and other venues. He lives in San Francisco.
30 articles
List of articles in the library
Interview by Richie Unterberger, unpublished, 1986
Author’s note: This was based around one of the first significant historical interviews I did. The essay wasn't published anywhere, just typed out for a ...
Interview by Richie Unterberger, Perfect Sound Forever, 18 November 1996
RICHIE UNTERBERGER interviewed Robert Wyatt on November 18, 1996 for his book Unknown Legends of Rock'n'Roll, which profiles 60 of the most interesting cult acts ...
Interview by Richie Unterberger, Perfect Sound Forever, 28 December 1996
THE SPIN Alternative Record Guide wrote that Crass were "probably the first rock band whose liner notes are not only indispensable, but often better reading ...
Interview by Richie Unterberger, Perfect Sound Forever, 28 December 1996
THE SPIN Alternative Record Guide wrote that Crass were "probably the first rock band whose liner notes are not only indispensable, but often better reading ...
Young Marble Giants: Stuart Moxham on Young Marble Giants
Interview by Richie Unterberger, www.richieunterberger.com, 1997
STUART MOXHAM was guitarist and principal songwriter for the Young Marble Giants. Their 1980 album, Colossal Youth, is one of the most highly regarded indie ...
Interview by Richie Unterberger, Perfect Sound Forever, 10 February 1997
"If you know the extension of the party with whom you wish to speak, dial it and stop wasting our time! If you have money ...
Book Excerpt by Richie Unterberger, 'Unknown Legends of Rock 'n' Roll' (Backbeat), 1998
IT WAS LATE 1966, and Fontana Records had assembled several dozen members of the press to hear the label's newest and most adventurous act at ...
Outsiders, The (Holland): Wally Tax of the Outsiders: An Interview
Interview by Richie Unterberger, Ugly Things, 1998
OF ALL THE GREAT BANDS who sang in English as a second language in the 1960s, the Outsiders were the coolest. It's a subjective judgment, ...
Blue Cheer, Randy Holden: Randy Holden
Interview by Richie Unterberger, Perfect Sound Forever, 24 April 1999
RANDY HOLDEN might be the Great Lost Guitar Hero of the 1960's. ...
Bonzo Dog Band: The Bonzo Dog Band: Neil Innes
Interview by Richie Unterberger, Perfect Sound Forever, 26 June 1999
IF THERE was ever an equivalent to Spike Jones in rock music, the Bonzo Dog Band were it. ...
Vashti Bunyan: Just Another Diamond Day
Review by Richie Unterberger, AllMusic.com, Fall 2000
ABOUT FIVE YEARS after briefly surfacing as part of Andrew Loog Oldham's stable, Vashti — now billing herself with her full name, Vashti Bunyan — ...
Interview by Richie Unterberger, unpublished, 27 March 2001
ONE OF THE most eclectic early-1960s folk singers, Judy Henske started to use band backup and even drums on some of the recordings in 1963 on ...
Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger: Irwin Silber of Sing Out!
Interview by Richie Unterberger, Perfect Sound Forever, July 2001
IN THE mid-1960's Irwin Silber was editor of Sing Out! magazine, the leading folk periodical in the United States. Here he talks about his personal ...
Obituary by Richie Unterberger, No Depression, September 2001
FRED NEIL, one of the most influential singer-songwriters of the early folk-rock era, died in his sleep on July 7 at the age of 65. ...
The Incredible String Band: Robin Williamson
Interview by Richie Unterberger, Perfect Sound Forever, Fall 2001
IN THE 1960s, Scotland's Incredible String Band put together elements of folk and world music into something that was called folk-rock, in part, because it ...
Sleeve notes by Richie Unterberger, Collector's Choice Records, 2002
WHEN DAVID BLUE came out in August 1966, folk-rock singer-songwriters with folk roots were scurrying to ride Bob Dylan's coattails into the rock mainstream. For ...
Sleeve notes by Richie Unterberger, Collector's Choice Music, 2002
ELEKTRA RECORDS was thought of as a folk label in the early 1960s, and Judy Henske's early albums might have been filed under the folk ...
Bob Gibson and Bob Camp: Bob Gibson & Bob Camp: At the Gate of Horn
Sleeve notes by Richie Unterberger, Collectors' Choice Music, 2004
GIBSON AND CAMP's At the Gate of Horn was one of the most influential folk albums of the early 1960s, striking a chord with many ...
Isaac Hayes, Rufus Thomas, The Staple Singers: Wattstax
Retrospective by Richie Unterberger, MOJO, July 2004
THE BIGGEST soul concert ever was about to end in a riot. ...
Retrospective and Interview by Richie Unterberger, MOJO, January 2005
MID JULY 2004. In the dark-wooded, rich red subterranea of San Francisco's Cafe du Nord a song is building off little more than a two-chord ...
The Beatles, Paul McCartney: Geoff Emerick
Profile and Interview by Richie Unterberger, Record Collector, June 2006
BESIDES GEORGE Martin, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, Geoff Emerick worked on more Beatles sessions than any other individual. ...
Overview by Richie Unterberger, MOJO, March 2007
"I SAW THIS face looking up at me out of the trashcan. It was a woman. It looked like a flamenco dancer staring at me. ...
Judy Dyble, Fairport Convention: Judy Dyble
Retrospective and Interview by Richie Unterberger, Record Collector, September 2007
IMAGINE BEING the original woman singer in the most esteemed British folk-rock group of all – only to be replaced, after just one album, by ...
Retrospective and Interview by Richie Unterberger, MOJO, Summer 2007
THE RELEASE of Big Brother And The Holding Company's self-titled debut album in the summer of 1967 should have been a highwater mark in both ...
The Beatles, George Harrison: George Harrison Visits Haight-Ashbury In Summer 1967
Retrospective by Richie Unterberger, MOJO, Summer 2007
UNCOMMON sightings were downright common in the Haight-Ashbury during the Summer of Love. But even in that colorful context, the visit of George Harrison to ...
Sleeve notes by Richie Unterberger, Asylum Japan, 2009
WHEN NED Doheny's self-titled debut LP appeared in 1973, the artist had already been active in the Southern California singer-songwriter scene for several years. In ...
Brewer and Shipley: Weeds/Tarkio Road
Sleeve notes by Richie Unterberger, Collector's Choice, 2010
AFTER INTRODUCING their harmony-driven brand of folk-rock on their late-'60s A&M debut album Down in L.A., singer-songwriter-guitarists Brewer & Shipley moved to the Kama Sutra label ...
Retrospective and Interview by Richie Unterberger, Record Collector, May 2010
Richie Unterberger celebrates a legendary who's who of rock and soul royalty caught live in their prime, and now finally available on DVD. ...
Sleeve notes by Richie Unterberger, Real Gone Music, 2012
TO LISTENERS in the United States and most of the world, Rick Springfield's name was not familiar until he rocketed to pop music and television ...
Retrospective and Interview by Richie Unterberger, Please Kill Me!, 19 August 2020
Influenced by the punk scene centered at Mabuhay Gardens, and the fun, bohemian spirit of a city that was, back then, an affordable place to ...
back to LIBRARY
