Englishman Nik Cohn was around when rock journalism was an ill-defined and poorly-read genre. While his books (including some completely outside the realm of popular music) are widely acclaimed, Cohn's place in rock history was made by several tangential connections - to a legendary song, an hallucinogenic picture book, and a phenomenally popular movie.

The Song. Having earned a certain notoriety as an influential critic, Cohn captured a footnote in rock history as the inspiration (well, precipitating factor) for the Who's "Pinball Wizard." Legend has it that Pete Townshend played an early, rough mix of Tommy for Cohn, who was duly unimpressed. On the spur of the moment, Townshend - who knew Cohn to be a pinball fanatic (later evidenced in his 1970 novella, Arfur Teenage Pinball Queen) - proposed the new song. "It'll be a masterpiece," Cohn enthused, prompting Townshend to incorporate pinball as a central theme for the entire rock opera.

The Picture Book. Rock Dreams (1972, more below) is primarily the work of Guy Peellaert. Cohn wrote little more than glorified captions for Paellaert's wickedly imaginative illustrations, but the book proved to be hugely influential. Arguably a precursor to the modern rock video, Rock Dreams opened the eyes (and/or validated the illicit fantasies) of a generation of rock fans.

The Movie. In 1976, Cohn wrote a piece entitled "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night," (also known as "Another Saturday Night") for New York magazine. A somewhat fictionalized account of the lives of some Brooklyn teenagers, the story was expanded into the screenplay for Saturday Night Fever, the 1978 movie that took disco out of the ghetto and moved it to Main Street, U.S.A. Cohn's story earned him cowriting credits on both the movie and the later stage adaptation - both, I would assume, significant financial windfalls for a serious writer.

In addition to these arguably dubious accomplishments, Cohn was reknowned (at least within rock circles) as a dandy and a character, and his work is infamously unburdened by an adherence to facts. Despite all that, it is Cohn's prolific writing - electric, fanciful, enthusiastic, and bitingly humorous - that is his glory.

(A good example of Cohn's love of mischievious promotional confabulation can be seen is his latter-day claim to having invented the phrases "Come Alive With Pepsi" and "the Pepsi Generation." Cohn's piece employing those words was published around 1970; the Pepsi advertising campaign dates back to 1963.)

As one of the first and best rock writers, Nik Cohn helped define and popularize the form. Then, he left music behind in the mid-70's - the golden age of rock was over, he said, and who can really argue? When Cohn moved on to more pastoral concerns, his legend as an rock author and raconteur crystallized.

Nik Cohn was one of the finest music writers ever, but his reputation as an author now extends far beyond the world of rock. Among his other books are King Death (1975); two books set in New York City, The Heart Of The World (1992, nonfiction) and Need (1997, fiction); and Yes We Have No (1999), a gonzo travelogue through what Cohn calls "the other England." In 2007, he returned to realm of music with Triksta: Life and Death and New Orleans Rap. (Read more about Nik Cohn in the All Music Guide.) [top of page]

Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age Of Rock
by Nik Cohn (1969, new edition 2001)
Nik Cohn was barely a teenager in 1957 when he discovered rock and roll, and he was still a teenager when he published his first novel. By the end of the 60's (with another book and countless articles to his credit), Cohn feared the golden age of rock was ending, the "superpop" he loved so fiercely threatened with extinction by pretense and self-consciousness. In an act of faith, he culled his wisdom about and love for the music in this brief and effervescent history. In retrospect, Cohn was often naive, vague, misguided, and plain wrong. What Awopbopaloobop lacked in scope, perspective, and historical accuracy, though, it made up for in style and passion. In many ways, a truer history of rock has yet to be written.

Cohn first published the book in England as Pop From The Beginning, then in America as Rock From The Beginning. He revised it in 1973 and republished it as Awopbopaloobop in 1996. Most of the book is reprinted in his compilation Ball The Wall (below). [top of page]

Rock Dreams
by Guy Peellaert & Nik Cohn (1973)
You just gotta see this book to understand it - strange, shimmering, impressionistic portraits of rock stars as, perhaps, how they ought to be rather than how they appear in unkind reality. Cohn's text is often as bizarre as Peelaert's jarring images - sometimes explaining the picture, sometimes adding to the disorientation. Of Chuck Berry, for instance, Cohn declares, "They called him the St. Louis Tiger and he was a poet, a lover, and a necromancer." On the eve of the millenium, Peelaert and Cohn reunited for a sequel of sorts, 20th Century Dreams - far less music-oriented, though still compelling. (Reprinted in 2003.) [top of page]

I Am Still The Greatest Says Johnny Angelo
by Nik Cohn (1966, revised 1970)
One of the earliest and best rock 'n' roll novels (in a still relatively uncrowded field), Johnny Angelo is Cohn's barely-concealed account of Texan P.J. Proby, a rocker most famous in England and whose very words ("I am an artist and should be exempt from shit") are spoken verbatim here by the title character. Fused in print with other seminal rock anti-heroes (Little Richard, pre-army Elvis), Proby becomes a demented, messianic, altogether unforgettable character (the inspiration, by the way, for David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust). Like Cohn's journalism of the era, this work of fiction crackles with the energy of rock itself. Johnny Angelo was briefly reissued in 1985 (pictured) but is now out-of-print; most of it is reprinted in Ball The Wall (below). [top of page]

Ball The Wall: Nik Cohn In The Age Of Rock
by Nik Cohn (1989)
This anthology was published only in England and is now out-of-print. It compiles nearly 400 pages of Cohn's early writing, fancifully claiming to begin in 1946 - the year of his birth! Cohn was, in fact, a precocious and productive writer (Market, his first novel, was published when he was just 16), and he produced a host of major works before his 30th birthday. Ball The Wall (which concludes in 1981, not counting a short, new piece) collects highlights from Johnny Angelo, Awopbopaloobop, and Arfur. It also samples from Cohn's work as a journalist, including "Another Saturday Night," the source material for Saturday Night Fever. Nothing from Rock Dreams (for obvious reasons), but Ball The Wall is darn close to all the Nik Cohn a brainy rocker would ever need - that is, if he or she can find it.... [top of page]