Robert Greenfield
An award-winning journalist, novelist, playwright, and screenwriter, Robert Greenfield is the author of nine books, among them the classic STP: A Journey Through America With the Rolling Stones. Both his novel Temple, which won the National Jewish Book Award and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and Timothy Leary: A Biography, which he spent ten years researching and writing, were reviewed favorably on the front page of the New York Sunday Times Book Review.
In May, 2009, Da Capo Press/Perseus Books published A Day In The Life: One Family, The Beautiful People, and the End of the Sixties, an iconic account of the social revolution of that time. Dark Star, Greenfield’s critically acclaimed oral biography of Grateful Dead lead guitarist Jerry Garcia was re-published in January, 2009 by Harper Books with a new introduction by Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead. Film rights to the book were purchased and Greenfield became involved in the production of an independent film based upon it.
Greenfield is also the author of Bill Graham: My Life Inside Rock and Out (co-written with Bill Graham), which won both a Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award and the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for Excellence and has been re-published by Da Capo Press with a new introduction by Pete Townshend of the Who. Greenfield’s one-character play about Bill Graham was named the Outstanding Theatre Presentation at the Aspen Comedy Arts Festival and was produced at the Canon Theatre in Los Angeles with Ron Silver as Bill Graham. Greenfield is currently involved in a feature film project based on Bill Graham’s life as well as an HBO series about the early days of Rolling Stone magazine.
A former Associate Editor of the London bureau of Rolling Stone, Greenfield’s journalism has been published in eight different anthologies. His extensive profile of Owsley Stanley, "The LSD King," appeared in Rolling Stone magazine’s 40th anniversary Summer of Love edition. Having written the tribute to Ahmet Ertegun, the founder of Atlantic Records, that appeared in the magazine after Ertegun’s death in 2006 as well as the tribute to Jerry Wexler after his death in 2008, Greenfield wrote the authorized biography of Ahmet Ertegun, published by Simon & Schuster in 2011.The play Greenfield wrote based on his novel Temple, featuring Judd Nelson and Ron Rifkin, was presented off-Broadway in New York City at the American Jewish Theatre. Greenfield has reviewed books for the New York Sunday Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review, and California magazine. His short fiction has appeared in Esquire, GQ, and Playboy magazines. STP: A Journey Through America With the Rolling Stones has been republished twice in England as well as in America by Da Capo Press in a 30th anniversary edition.
In November, 2006, Da Capo Press/Perseus Books published Exile On Main Street: A Season In Hell with the Rolling Stones, Greenfield’s account of his time with the band 35 years ago in the south of France as they recorded their classic double album. An excerpt from the book was featured in Rolling Stone. The book has been published in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, and Brazil.
Having co-written the Emmy Award nominated mini-series, The Sixties, Greenfield is a long time member of the Writers Guild who has written feature film scripts for Columbia, Paramount, and Twentieth Century Fox as well as television movies and mini-series for the NBC, HBO, FX, TNT, and Lifetime networks. He worked as Creative Consultant/Producer for three short documentary films that are on permanent exhibit in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio.
Mr. Greenfield has taught English at Cabrillo College in Aptos, California; film at Chapman College in Monterey, California; and served as an Adjunct Professor of Composition and Literature at the University of San Francisco. He lives in California.
23 articles
List of articles in the library
The Velvet Underground c/o New York, NY
Report and Interview by Robert Greenfield, Fusion, 6 March 1970
NONE OF THIS concerns anything except maybe the back room at Max's Kansas City, which is on Union Square in Manhattan but not worth finding ...
Crazy Horse, Neil Young: Neil Young: Songs of Innocence, Songs of Restraint
Profile and Interview by Robert Greenfield, Fusion, 17 April 1970
NEIL YOUNG HAS A voice like a sunrise, fresh with promise, wise with years and practice, something you turn to for light encouragement and warmth. ...
Report by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, 29 October 1970
LONDON — Rain is sloshing down all the streets and windows, and when Bob Hite of Canned Heat wakes up in his hotel room in ...
Report and Interview by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, 12 November 1970
LONDON – "If this is the revolution, why are the drinks so fucking expensive," someone has written on the wall in the toilet of London's ...
Jackie Lomax is Leaving London
Interview by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, 26 November 1970
LONDON – Jackie Lomax is from Liverpool. He's 26 and he writes songs and sings them. ...
Tim Leary: or, Bomb for Buddha
Interview by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, 10 December 1970
JUST OUTSIDE Algiers, on the balcony of a white stone hotel by the sea, Timothy Leary sits in the sunlight. Aquiline nose, high cheekbones, eyes ...
Germaine Greer: A Groupie in Women's Lib
Report and Interview by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, 7 January 1971
LONDON — ON a crazy Sunday afternoon in London, Germaine Greer lolls in the corner of a crowded room with a silver knit flapper's hat ...
Interview by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, 7 January 1971
LONDON – It's the universal riff. When some kid in Laguna Beach finally stops driving all the neighbors crazy with it, a kid sitting by ...
John Cale, Nico, The Velvet Underground: Shards of Velvet Afloat in London: Nico and John Cale
Report and Interview by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, 18 February 1971
JOHN CALE REACHES too hard for the pay phone in the lobby of his hotel. Bang. It explodes into the soft corner of his forehead, ...
Report by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, 4 March 1971
LONDON — With any kind of luck, you could sleep long enough to save two hits. Take them down to Piccadilly and sell one, then ...
Leon Russell: Working Hard At the Lyceum
Live Review by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, 1 April 1971
LONDON – "Aw...bet you thought I couldn't rock and roll," the piano player says, plunging into the music. ...
The Rolling Stones: Goodbye Great Britain: The Rolling Stones On Tour
Report and Interview by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, 15 April 1971
LONDON – "Boogie, Bobby, boogie," Marshall Chess is saying over and over to Bobby Keys in the seat next to him, slamming out the phrase ...
Keith Richards, The Rolling Stones: The Rolling Stone Interview: Keith Richards
Interview by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, 19 August 1971
KEITH PLAYS in a rock & roll band. Anita is a movie star queen. They currently reside in a large white marble house that everyone ...
The Oz Obscenity Trial: Guilty
Report by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, 2 September 1971
LONDON — Great Britain no longer need envy America its Chicago Conspiracy Trial. They've come up with a pretty good one of their own and ...
Dexter Gordon, Ben Webster: A Lonely Trumpet Wail in Denmark
Report by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, 9 December 1971
COPENHAGEN — The old black man was sitting in The Montmartre, bobbing his head to the music, snapping his fingers and diggin' on the sounds, ...
Stone The Crows: Brash Tales of Stone The Crows
Profile and Interview by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, 6 January 1972
ALL ALONG the super ye-ye, tres decadent beaches of St. Tropez this summer, the absolute super coolest most single chic garment one could be seen ...
The Rolling Stones: The Stones in LA: Main St. Exiles
Report and Interview by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, 27 April 1972
LOS ANGELES – One year, to the weekend, after the Rolling Stones played the final concert of their "farewell" tour of England, Mick Jagger is ...
The Rolling Stones Tour: Rock & Roll On The Road Again
Report by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, 6 July 1972
LOS ANGELES – Danny has no shirt, no shoes, no wallet, no keys. The shirt went when he took it off and stuck it in ...
The Rolling Stones: Jumpin' Gas Flash Bops In Heartland
Report by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, 20 July 1972
IN TRANSIT – Underway at last. In flight and moving. Denver, Minneapolis, and Chicago in one Sunday, the limo to the plane to the limo ...
Report by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, 3 August 1972
IN CHICAGO, in the house that Playboy built, an anonymous brownstone on a quiet leafy street that Hugh Hefner calls home, the scene is a ...
The Rolling Stones: Villa Nellcote: Tommy Weber Arrives at the Rolling Stones' French Stronghold
Book Excerpt by Robert Greenfield, 'A Day in the Life' (Da Capo), July 2009
In this excerpt from his brilliant new A Day in the Life: One Family, the Beautiful People, and the End of the '60s, Robert Greenfield ...
Ahmet Ertegun: A Day of Tribute in New York
Book Excerpt by Robert Greenfield, 'The Last Sultan' (Simon & Schuster), 2011
APRIL 17, 2007. In the tiny village New York can sometimes become when it honors one of its own who has fulfilled the dream of ...
Keith Richards, The Rolling Stones: The Time We Said Hello: The Day I Met Keith Richards
Book Excerpt by Robert Greenfield, 'Ain't It Time We Said Goodbye' (Da Capo), May 2014
Having been selected to conduct the Rolling Stone interview with Keith Richards in May 1971, the author embarks on a perilous journey to meet his ...
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