Nearly thirty years ago, Dave Marsh became the first rock writer I read on a regular basis. Certainly, I admired his writing and (usually) agreed with his critical opinions. Beyond that, though, I identified with him in ways that were, in my still amorphous mind, ill-defined. I was a middle-class kid from a conservative household, and my rebellion was just beginning to coalesce. Greil Marcus frequently flew over my head, and Lester Bangs seemed like he was from another planet. Marsh, however - despite the fact that he could be brainy, radical, and outspoken - was approachable, somehow normal in contrast to his whacked out peers. He had the aura of a "regular Joe" rock fan about him, and this helped him lead me to some of the music (much of it "regular Joe" rock 'n' roll) I value to this day more than life itself.

Dave Marsh's career as a journalist began at Creem magazine. He co-founded the legendary rock rag after dropping out of Detroit's Wayne State University in 1969, and he quickly became a champion of the Motor City's MC5 and Bob Seger (then a much less mainstream artist) as well as the garage rock and soul music that had long inspired him. It was at Creem that, if reports are to be believed, Marsh coined the phrase "punk rock" while reviewing a performance by ? & The Mysterians.

After brief stints at Newsday and The Real Paper, Marsh went to Rolling Stone, spending five years as an associate and contributing editor writing features, columns, and reviews. Like so many of rock journalism's first graduating class (Bangs and Marcus among them), this was where Marsh made his name. With his distinctive, authoritative style blending plainspoken passion and irreverent humor, Dave Marsh became what he remains today: a leading voice among rock critics, a prolific author, an outspoken critic of the record industry, and an advocate for social change through music. Apart from his many books, his later efforts have included founding the Rock & Roll Confidential (now called the Rock & Rap Confidential) and writing a longstanding column, American Grandstand, currently published online at StarPolish.com. A lengthy, interesting interview with Marsh by Scott Woods (circa 2000) is posted on RockCritics.com.

Marsh's first book, Born to Run: The Bruce Springsteen Story (1979), made history as the first best-selling rock book, and it set a new standard for rock biographies. No longer would tabloid-style, teen-oriented filler be acceptable. Marsh's studied, intimate portrait of a rock star as an American hero (while decried by some as slanted and subjective), was unprecedented in the still young field, and it helped put both its author and its subject on the map. From there, Marsh produced major works about rock giants like Elvis Presley and The Who; ephemeral (yet entertaining) efforts such as The Book Of Rock Lists and Merry Christmas Baby; and a landmark volume immodestly billed as "the world's lengthiest act of rock criticism," The Heart of Rock and Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made. In addition to these and others reviewed below, Marsh has written, edited, or contributed to many books. These include:

• The Rolling Stone Record Guide (first edition, 1978; second edition, 1982)
• Rocktopicon (1982)
• Pastures of Plenty (the papers of Woody Guthrie, 1990)
• Sun City: The Making of the Record (1985)
• The First Rock and Roll Confidential ReporT (1985)
• Trapped: Michael Jackson and the Crossover Dream (1986)
• 50 Ways to Fight Censorship (1990)
• Heaven Is Under Our Feet: A Book For Walden Woods (1991)
• Mid-Life Confidential (1994)
• The Great Rock 'n' Roll Joke Book (1997)
• For The Record (multi-volume oral history series, 1998-1999)

Dave Marsh is also frequently tapped to write liner notes, a skill that earned him a "Best Album Notes" Grammy award in 1992 for Aretha Franklin's boxed set, The Queen of Soul: The Atlantic Recordings. Other notable contributions include The Who's Thirty Years of Maximum R&B (1994), Elvis Presley's Walk A Mile in My Shoes: The Essential 70's Masters (1995),  Fit To Be Tied: Great Hits by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts (1997), The Best of Faces: Good Boys When They're Asleep (1999), and The Very Best of Jackson Browne (2004).

Born To Run: The Bruce Springsteen Story
by Dave Marsh (1981, revised 1996)
The author would probably punch me in the face for saying so, but Dave Marsh is the Bruce Springsteen of rock journalism. Egalitarian, passionate, and hard-working, Marsh brings his whole, open-minded self to his subjects, and whether he loves or loathes their work-at-hand, he gives it a fair shot. In his own words, he trusts his ears. This approach, together with his long-standing attraction to working-class rock 'n' roll, made Marsh the ideal biographer for Bruce Springsteen. Not surprisingly, Born To Run helped lift Springsteen to icon status as well as establish the nascent rock press as a viable economic enterprise. Detractors have claimed that Marsh gets too close to his subjects, but his willingness to do just that is what made Born To Run such a thrilling read. Marsh is a fan first - albeit one who can be brutally honest when necessary - and Bruce Springsteen in 1981 warranted just about every last syllable of Marsh's praise. The Bruce Springsteen story up till that time was a fascinating parable of faith, adversity, and triumph that said as much about the record industry and the human condition as it did about "The Boss."

With Glory Days: Bruce Springsteen In The 80's (1987, revised 1996), criticisms of Marsh began to ring true. His writing seemed rushed, and the sequel felt premature, but Springsteen's accomplishments of the period (The River, Nebraska, Born In The USA, Live 1975-1985) more than vindicated Marsh's earlier messianic pronouncements. Say what you will about Marsh's relationship to Springsteen - Born To Run is a landmark book, and I think being "the Bruce Springsteen of rock journalism" is high praise, indeed.

Consumers Notes. Born To Run is still available in mass market paperback, but if you can search out the out-of-print 1996 revision, I highly recommend doing so. Even better, in 2003 Marsh combined and revised both books as Two Hearts: The Definitive Biography 1972-2003. Marsh's update was cursory - though I would argue justifiably so, given Springsteen's fitful and overwrought output during the last two decades. In 2005, Marsh oversaw Bruce Springsteen On Tour: 1968-2005, a lavish pictorial with entirely new text. [top of page]

The New Book Of Rock Lists
by Dave Marsh and James Bernard (1994)
Truly, I come in praise of the first edition of The Book Of Rock Lists (1981), written by Marsh and Kevin Stein. Not that there's anything wrong with Marsh's later, all-new edition, but the first book was a constant companion of mine as I first began to explore the world of rock - past, present, and future. It's binding now disintegrated, it served as a roadmap for me as I expanded my record collection beyond the Top 40 pop and AOR rock that formed the soundtrack of my adolescence. The next-to-last chapter, "Tops Of The Pops" (the authors' favorite singles and albums, 1955-1980) became, with a little revision and plenty of additions, my "want list" for the next twenty years. The preceding chapters were nearly as useful and a lot more entertaining. From "Discredited Rock Theories" (rock lyrics are poetry) to "Onan's Greatest Hits" (songs about masturbation) to "David McGee Picks The Essential Christmas Albums" (the origin of my obsession with Christmas music), it's a book made by rock fans for rock fans. The 1994 edition updates the concept ("10 Worst Things About MTV") and is just as much fun - and is much easier to track down. [top of page]

Elvis
by Dave Marsh (1982, revised 1997)
Dave Marsh's next biography after his celebrated Bruce Springsteen tome was this tribute to Elvis Presley - a logical step for any true believer in the power of rock 'n' roll. Surprisingly slim on text, it was nevertheless the definitive biography of "the King" until Peter Guralnik's far more weighty examination more than ten years later, and the Marsh book is still the first one I would recommend to any Elvis neophyte. Though many times more column space is devoted to the gorgeous photographs (kudos to art director Bea Feitler) than Marsh's well-researched, thoughtful telling, the net effect is a satisfying (if ultimately heartbreaking) portrait of an American legend - just five years gone at the time. Released in the wake of Albert Goldman's infamous, hateful, slanderous hack job, Marsh's Elvis was the first book to put the scandalous excesses of Presley's later life and the senseless tragedy of his premature death into proper perspective with his heroic past and his revolutionary music. (Revised in 1997 on the twentieth anniversary of Presley's death.) [top of page]

Before I Get Old: The Story of the Who
by Dave Marsh (1983)
Reading the reactions of Who fans to this book can be quite entertaining - Marsh gets called things like "an arrogant, snotty know-it-all" for simply telling the truth - e.g. Pete Townshend is not God - or at least Marsh's version of it. The irony is, Marsh is a Who fan (a big one) but he possesses a quality rare among fanatics: objectivity. (One has to wonder, as well, if Marsh's firm, cold stance concerning the Who had something to do with criticisms he had received for being too much the fan and not enough the journalist.) The story of the Who has an arc, taking them from their hard scrabble days as tough, loud Mods through the creative breakthrough of Tommy to their artistic fulfillment with Who's Next - the making of which is an epic tale unto itself. But that arc (according to Marsh, and, for what it's worth, I concur) ended abruptly when Keith Moon, the band's maniacal drummer, died somewhat expectedly in 1978. The Who's subsequent albums were disappointing, and their endless cycle of farewell and reunion tours (which were just beginning when Marsh published Before I Get Old) has been all but embarrassing. Nevertheless, the Who are arguably the greatest rock 'n' roll band ever, and no one has yet come close to Dave Marsh in chronicling exactly why. [top of page]

Fortunate Son: The Best Of Dave Marsh
by Dave Marsh (1985)
This retrospective anthology takes Marsh from his days as a rockin' rollin' rabble rouser for Creem magazine through his ascendancy to top of his profession as a biographer of the legends of rock 'n' roll. Along the way, however, he kept writing like a dervish, for Rolling Stone, The Record, Musician, and more. Never a shrinking violet, it's a gas to see how his faith in rock is challenged - by fallen idols (Bob Seger) and a corrupt industry (MTV) - and yet survives and thrives, growing ever more radical as he matures. Marsh's appeal is how, despite his keen wit, muscular intelligence, and healthy cynicism, he still believes so resolutely that rock 'n' roll will stand. The desperate kid listening to the radio under the covers is still there in Marsh's writing, still very much alive inside the author himself. And that, if nothing else, makes him worth reading. [top of page]

Heart of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made
by Dave Marsh (1989, revised 1999)
It's no secret that record geeks love lists. Nick Hornby's book High Fidelity (later a movie starring John Cusack) forever immortalized this compulsive tendency - the endless compiling of "Top 10" lists infected the protagonist's personal life nearly as much as his listening habits. And, what are rock critics but professional record geeks? They do what we do - obsess about records like they hold some sort of secret to life (well, they do) - but they get paid for it. One hopes, then, that Dave Marsh got a hell of a paycheck for this, the self-proclaimed "world's lengthiest act of rock criticism." Though that boast was undoubtedly made tongue-in-cheek, Marsh tackles his subject with utter seriousness. The single - then in its final days as a viable commercial format - represented to Marsh the ultimate expression of rock 'n' roll music. Rock was, from its beginning, a product of the recording studio and the radio transmitter, and the best rock statements were made in three-and-a-half minutes on a seven-inch piece of plastic - not spread across two or more sides of vinyl. This book is an unironic paean to the garage bands, girl groups, heavy metal heroes, and soul men who built the foundation of what would eventually become a bloated and segregated art form. To Marsh, rap, punk, and, well, Bruce Springsteen helped save it from that ignoble fate, but it's no surprise that a large part of Marsh's list was released before 1972. Nevertheless, The Heart Of Rock & Soul is a monumental act of faith, and it's an essential roadmap to record collecting. (By the way, someone has digitized Marsh's list and posted it online.) [top of page]

Merry Christmas Baby: Holiday Music From Bing To Sting
by Dave Marsh & Steve Propes (1993)
Dave Marsh - especially as an editor or contributor - has been involved in some fairly slight literary efforts. Possessed of a healthy grasp of the absurd, he's lent his name to some books that make you wonder exactly who wanted to read them. Merry Christmas Baby is just such a book, and I am just such a reader. Compared to most of Marsh's books, this isn't particularly well-written, nor is it as exhaustively researched or well annotated. But, I love rock & soul Christmas music (the modern variety, at least), and this is the only book ever written about it (to my knowledge, anyway). Marsh and his coauthor (Steve Propes, author of several books about record collecting) run rapidly through nearly 100 years of recorded history, from the Hayden Quartet's "Jingle Bells" (1902) to A Very Special Christmas, an all-star effort from 1992 (which Propes and Marsh like way too much, incidentally). The most useful features of the book are the lists, including "Christmas Every Day," which concludes the book with the 365 greatest Christmas singles. Despite their inclusion of Kenny Rogers (Kenny Rogers?!?), Marsh and Propes know their stuff, and you could do a lot worse than Merry Christmas Baby when investigating this irresistible genre. [top of page]

Louie Louie
by Dave Marsh (1993)
Subtitled, "The History and Mythology of the World's Most Famous Rock 'n' Roll Song; Including the Full Details of Its Torture and Persecution at the Hands of the Kingsmen, J. Edgar Hoover's F.B.I., and a Cast of Millions; and Introducing, for the First Time Anywhere, the Actual Dirty Lyrics," this book really needs no further explanation. It will take most readers, in fact, nearly as long to read the subtitle as it will to listen to the song! Suffice to say, Louie Louie is the rock book to read when you've read all the other rock books, but it's definitely a rock book you should read. It captures well the reason why this one frivolous song has so enraptured the rock audience, and it goes a long way towards explaining why (or at least illustrating how) rock fans can be such an obsessed bunch of kooks. In the process, Dave Marsh dissects the fascinating tale of "Louie Louie" from its inception in the febrile mind of Richard Berry to its celebrated frat rock rendering by the Kingsmen to the literally thousands of cover versions by everyone from the Sandpipers to Iggy Pop to Black Flag. [top of page]