Jeff Tamarkin
Encyclopedia
Jeff Tamarkin is an American editor
, author
and historian
specializing in music and popular culture
.
, a magazine for record and CD collectors. Prior to that, he served as the first editor of CMJ (College Media Journal) and as editor of Relix
. He was also the first editor of Grateful Dead Comix, and has written for many other publications, including Billboard, Pulse, Boston Phoenix, Newsweek Japan, Playbill
, Creem
, Spirit, Mojo
, M: Music & Musicians, East Bay Express, The Aquarian Weekly
, Newsday
, Sing Out, Tracks, Harp, The New York Daily News and ICE. He has contributed to the Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music and Allmusic.
Tamarkin has written the liner notes
for more than 75 CDs, for such artists as The Beach Boys
, Tom Jones
, Jefferson Airplane
, Dick Clark, The J. Geils Band, Chubby Checker
, Merle Haggard
, Dean Martin
, Charlie Gracie
and many others, including ABKCO Records
' Cameo-Parkway
label reissue series. He has also served on the Nominating Committee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
and as a consultant to the Grammys
.
In the course of his work Tamarkin has interviewed hundreds of musicians and celebrities, including Roy Orbison
, Brian Wilson
, Jerry Garcia
, Yoko Ono
, B.B. King, Carlos Santana
, Dave Brubeck
, Ricky Nelson
, the Ramones
, Herbie Hancock
, Ray Davies
, Elvis Costello
, Dexter Gordon
, Lou Reed
, Peter Tosh
, Wynton Marsalis
, Frank Zappa
, Ringo Starr
, Keith Jarrett
, Solomon Burke
, Youssou N'Dour
, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones
, Dionne Warwick
, Chick Corea
, the Monkees
, Bobby McFerrin
, Pat Metheny
, Little Richard
, Annie Lennox
, String Cheese Incident
, Stanley Jordan
, Arlo Guthrie
, and Nancy Sinatra
. As a consultant to the Music Club CD label, he assisted in releasing over 180 reissues and compilations, in styles including rock, jazz, country, world music and pop.
After writing short books on Billy Joel
and Bruce Springsteen
, his first full-length book, Got a Revolution! The Turbulent Flight of Jefferson Airplane (Atria Books), was published in June 2003. The first biography of the San Francisco
band, it was written with the cooperation of all of the band members and placed the Airplane into the context of their times, the volatile 1960s. Got a Revolution was named one of the best books of 2003 by the San Francisco Chronicle
and the Boston Phoenix
, and received very positive reviews from, among others, Publishers Weekly
, Kirkus, Austin Chronicle
, New York Daily News
, and The Onion
. It was published in paperback in July 2005. Tamarkin is currently collaborating with Howard Kaylan
, the lead vocalist of '60s/'70s groups the Turtles
, The Mothers of Invention
and Flo & Eddie
, on Kaylan's autobiography. It will be published in 2012 by Backbeat Books.
From 2002-2006, Tamarkin was editor-in-chief of Global Rhythm
, the leading magazine for world music and global culture, in which he also wrote about music, film, cuisine, politics and other topics. In 2007 Tamarkin was named Associate Editor of JazzTimes
magazine, a position he continues to hold today while simultaneously freelancing for many outlets.
, with his wife, the novelist and book reviewer Caroline Leavitt
, and their son Max.
Editing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
, author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
and historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
specializing in music and popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
.
Career
For 15 years Tamarkin was editor of GoldmineGoldmine (magazine)
Goldmine, established in 1974, is an American magazine that focuses on the collectors' market for records, tapes, CDs, and music-related memorabilia. Each issue features news articles, interviews, discographies, histories, current reviews on recording stars of the past and present. Discographies...
, a magazine for record and CD collectors. Prior to that, he served as the first editor of CMJ (College Media Journal) and as editor of Relix
Relix
Relix magazine was launched in 1974 as newsletter devoted to connecting people who recorded Grateful Dead concerts. It rapidly expanded into a music magazine covering a wide amount of artists...
. He was also the first editor of Grateful Dead Comix, and has written for many other publications, including Billboard, Pulse, Boston Phoenix, Newsweek Japan, Playbill
Playbill
Playbill is a monthly U.S. magazine for theatregoers. Although there is a subscription issue available for home delivery, most Playbills are printed for particular shows to be distributed at the door...
, Creem
Creem
Creem , "America's Only Rock 'n' Roll Magazine," was a monthly rock 'n' roll publication first published in March 1969 by Barry Kramer and founding editor Tony Reay. It suspended production in 1989 but received a short-lived renaissance in the early 1990s as a glossy tabloid...
, Spirit, Mojo
Mojo (magazine)
MOJO is a popular music magazine published initially by Emap, and since January 2008 by Bauer, monthly in the United Kingdom. Following the success of the magazine Q, publishers Emap were looking for a title which would cater for the burgeoning interest in classic rock music...
, M: Music & Musicians, East Bay Express, The Aquarian Weekly
The Aquarian Weekly
The Aquarian Weekly is a regional alternative weekly newspaper based in New Jersey. Founded in 1969, its focus is popular music. It is accompanied by a pull-out section, The East Coast Rocker, which is freely distributed throughout the New Jersey/New York City/Eastern Pennsylvania region.The paper...
, Newsday
Newsday
Newsday is a daily American newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties and the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, although it is sold throughout the New York metropolitan area...
, Sing Out, Tracks, Harp, The New York Daily News and ICE. He has contributed to the Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music and Allmusic.
Tamarkin has written the liner notes
Liner notes
Liner notes are the writings found in booklets which come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for vinyl records and cassettes.-Origin:...
for more than 75 CDs, for such artists as The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys are an American rock band, formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, California. The group was initially composed of brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Managed by the Wilsons' father Murry, The Beach Boys signed to Capitol Records in 1962...
, Tom Jones
Tom Jones (singer)
Sir Thomas John Woodward, OBE , known by his stage name Tom Jones, is a Welsh singer.Since the mid 1960s, Jones has sung many styles of popular music – pop, rock, R&B, show tunes, country, dance, techno, soul and gospel – and sold over 100 million records...
, Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco in 1965. A pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement, Jefferson Airplane was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success....
, Dick Clark, The J. Geils Band, Chubby Checker
Chubby Checker
Chubby Checker is an American singer-songwriter. He is widely known for popularizing the twist dance style, with his 1960 hit cover of Hank Ballard's R&B hit "The Twist"...
, Merle Haggard
Merle Haggard
Merle Ronald Haggard is an American country music singer, guitarist, fiddler, instrumentalist, and songwriter. Along with Buck Owens, Haggard and his band The Strangers helped create the Bakersfield sound, which is characterized by the unique twang of Fender Telecaster guitars, vocal harmonies,...
, Dean Martin
Dean Martin
Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"...
, Charlie Gracie
Charlie Gracie
Charlie Gracie is an American rock pioneer and singer. He was born the same day as another rock and roll singer, Bobby Darin.His father encouraged him to play the guitar...
and many others, including ABKCO Records
ABKCO Records
ABKCO Music & Records, Inc. is a major independent record label, music publisher, and film and video production company. It owns and or administers the rights to music by Sam Cooke, The Rolling Stones, The Animals, Herman's Hermits, Marianne Faithfull, The Kinks as well as the Cameo Parkway label,...
' Cameo-Parkway
Cameo-Parkway Records
Cameo-Parkway Records was the parent company of Cameo Records and Parkway Records, which were major American Philadelphia-based record labels from 1956 and 1958 to 1967...
label reissue series. He has also served on the Nominating Committee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, engineers and others who have, in some major way,...
and as a consultant to the Grammys
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
.
In the course of his work Tamarkin has interviewed hundreds of musicians and celebrities, including Roy Orbison
Roy Orbison
Roy Kelton Orbison was an American singer-songwriter, well known for his distinctive, powerful voice, complex compositions, and dark emotional ballads. Orbison grew up in Texas and began singing in a rockabilly/country & western band in high school until he was signed by Sun Records in Memphis...
, Brian Wilson
Brian Wilson
Brian Douglas Wilson is an American musician, best known as the leader and chief songwriter of the group The Beach Boys. Within the band, Wilson played bass and keyboards, also providing part-time lead vocals and, more often, backing vocals, harmonizing in falsetto with the group...
, Jerry Garcia
Jerry Garcia
Jerome John "Jerry" Garcia was an American musician best known for his lead guitar work, singing and songwriting with the band the Grateful Dead...
, Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono
is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
, B.B. King, Carlos Santana
Carlos Santana
Carlos Augusto Alves Santana is a Mexican rock guitarist. Santana became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band, Santana, which pioneered rock, salsa and jazz fusion...
, Dave Brubeck
Dave Brubeck
David Warren "Dave" Brubeck is an American jazz pianist. He has written a number of jazz standards, including "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The Duke". Brubeck's style ranges from refined to bombastic, reflecting his mother's attempts at classical training and his improvisational skills...
, Ricky Nelson
Ricky Nelson
Eric Hilliard Nelson , better known as Ricky Nelson or Rick Nelson, was an American singer-songwriter, instrumentalist, and actor...
, the Ramones
Ramones
The Ramones were an American rock band that formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, in 1974. They are often cited as the first punk rock group...
, Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
, Ray Davies
Ray Davies
Ray Davies, CBE is an English rock musician. He is best known as lead singer and songwriter for the Kinks, which he led with his younger brother, Dave...
, Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...
, Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and an Academy Award-nominated actor . He is regarded as one of the first and most important musicians to adapt the bebop musical language of people like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell to the tenor saxophone...
, Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
, Peter Tosh
Peter Tosh
Peter Tosh, born Winston Hubert McIntosh , was a Jamaican reggae musician who was a core member of the band The Wailers , and who afterward had a successful solo career as well as being a promoter of Rastafari.Peter Tosh was born in Grange Hill, Jamaica, an illegitimate child to a mother too young...
, Wynton Marsalis
Wynton Marsalis
Wynton Learson Marsalis is a trumpeter, composer, bandleader, music educator, and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Marsalis has promoted the appreciation of classical and jazz music often to young audiences...
, Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
, Ringo Starr
Ringo Starr
Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...
, Keith Jarrett
Keith Jarrett
Keith Jarrett is an American pianist and composer who performs both jazz and classical music.Jarrett started his career with Art Blakey, moving on to play with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the early 1970s he has enjoyed a great deal of success in jazz, jazz fusion, and classical music; as...
, Solomon Burke
Solomon Burke
Solomon Burke was an American singer-songwriter, entrepreneur, mortician, and an archbishop of the United House of Prayer For All People. Burke was known as "King Solomon", the "King of Rock 'n' Soul", and as the "Bishop of Soul", and described as "the Muhammad Ali of soul", and as "the most...
, Youssou N'Dour
Youssou N'Dour
Youssou N'Dour is a Senegalese singer, percussionist and occasional actor. In 2004, Rolling Stone described him as, in Senegal and much of Africa, "perhaps the most famous singer alive." He helped develop a style of popular music in Senegal, known in the Serer language as mbalax, a type of music...
, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones
Béla Fleck and the Flecktones
Béla Fleck and the Flecktones is a primarily instrumental group from the United States, that draws equally on bluegrass, fusion and jazz, sometimes dubbed "blu-bop". The band formed in 1988, initially to perform once on the PBS series Lonesome Pine Specials. The Flecktones have toured extensively...
, Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick is an American singer, actress and TV show host, who became a United Nations Global Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization, and a United States Ambassador of Health....
, Chick Corea
Chick Corea
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, and composer.Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis' band in the 1960s, he participated in the birth of the electric jazz fusion movement. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever...
, the Monkees
The Monkees
The Monkees are an American pop rock group. Assembled in Los Angeles in 1966 by Robert "Bob" Rafelson and Bert Schneider for the American television series The Monkees, which aired from 1966 to 1968, the musical acting quartet was composed of Americans Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork,...
, Bobby McFerrin
Bobby McFerrin
Robert "Bobby" McFerrin, Jr. is an American vocalist and conductor. He is best known for his 1988 hit song "Don't Worry, Be Happy". He is a ten-time Grammy Award winner.-Life:...
, Pat Metheny
Pat Metheny
Patrick Bruce "Pat" Metheny is an American jazz guitarist and composer.One of the most successful and critically acclaimed jazz musicians to come to prominence in the 1970s and '80s, he is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group and is also involved in duets, solo works and other side projects...
, Little Richard
Little Richard
Richard Wayne Penniman , known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, recording artist, and actor, considered key in the transition from rhythm and blues to rock and roll in the 1950s. He was also the first artist to put the funk in the rock and roll beat and...
, Annie Lennox
Annie Lennox
Annie Lennox, OBE , born Ann Lennox, is a Scottish singer-songwriter, political activist and philanthropist. After achieving minor success in the late 1970s with The Tourists, with fellow musician David A...
, String Cheese Incident
String Cheese Incident
The String Cheese Incident is a band from Crested Butte and Telluride, Colorado formed in 1993. The band is composed of Michael Kang , Michael Travis , Bill Nershi , Kyle Hollingsworth , and Keith Moseley...
, Stanley Jordan
Stanley Jordan
Stanley Jordan is an American jazz/jazz fusion guitarist and pianist, best known for his development of the tapping technique for the guitar....
, Arlo Guthrie
Arlo Guthrie
Arlo Davy Guthrie is an American folk singer. Like his father, Woody Guthrie, Arlo often sings songs of protest against social injustice...
, and Nancy Sinatra
Nancy Sinatra
Nancy Sandra Sinatra is an American singer and actress. She is the daughter of singer/actor Frank Sinatra, and remains best known for her 1966 signature hit "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'"....
. As a consultant to the Music Club CD label, he assisted in releasing over 180 reissues and compilations, in styles including rock, jazz, country, world music and pop.
After writing short books on Billy Joel
Billy Joel
William Martin "Billy" Joel is an American musician and pianist, singer-songwriter, and classical composer. Since releasing his first hit song, "Piano Man", in 1973, Joel has become the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States, according to...
and Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
, his first full-length book, Got a Revolution! The Turbulent Flight of Jefferson Airplane (Atria Books), was published in June 2003. The first biography of the San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
band, it was written with the cooperation of all of the band members and placed the Airplane into the context of their times, the volatile 1960s. Got a Revolution was named one of the best books of 2003 by the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
and the Boston Phoenix
The Phoenix (newspaper)
The Phoenix is the name of several alternative weekly newspapers published in the United States by Phoenix Media/Communications Group of Boston, Massachusetts including the Boston Phoenix, the Providence Phoenix, the Portland Phoenix and the now-defunct Worcester Phoenix...
, and received very positive reviews from, among others, Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...
, Kirkus, Austin Chronicle
Austin Chronicle
The Austin Chronicle is an alternative weekly, tabloid-style newspaper published every Thursday in Austin, Texas, United States. The paper is distributed through free news-stands, often at local eateries or coffee houses frequented by its targeted demographic...
, New York Daily News
New York Daily News
The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....
, and The Onion
The Onion
The Onion is an American news satire organization. It is an entertainment newspaper and a website featuring satirical articles reporting on international, national, and local news, in addition to a non-satirical entertainment section known as The A.V. Club...
. It was published in paperback in July 2005. Tamarkin is currently collaborating with Howard Kaylan
Howard Kaylan
Howard Kaylan is an American rock and roll musician, best known as a founding member and lead singer of the 1960s band, The Turtles, and "Eddie" of 1970's rock band Flo & Eddie.-Early days:...
, the lead vocalist of '60s/'70s groups the Turtles
The Turtles
The Turtles are an American rock group led by vocalists Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman. The band became notable for several Top 40 hits beginning with its cover version of Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me Babe" in 1965...
, The Mothers of Invention
The Mothers of Invention
The Mothers of Invention were an American band active from 1964 to 1969, and again from 1970 to 1975.They mainly performed works by, and were the original recording group of, US composer and guitarist Frank Zappa , although other members have had the occasional writing credit...
and Flo & Eddie
Flo & Eddie
Flo & Eddie are a comedic musical duo.The two were the original founding members of the Top 40 rock group the Turtles. After the Turtles dissolved, Volman and Kaylan first joined the Mothers of Invention as "Phlorescent Leech & Eddie"...
, on Kaylan's autobiography. It will be published in 2012 by Backbeat Books.
From 2002-2006, Tamarkin was editor-in-chief of Global Rhythm
Global Rhythm
Global Rhythm is a New York-based monthly music and lifestyle magazine featuring coverage of world music, film, cuisine and travel. It is published monthly and circulated across North America, Europe and hundreds of other locations worldwide....
, the leading magazine for world music and global culture, in which he also wrote about music, film, cuisine, politics and other topics. In 2007 Tamarkin was named Associate Editor of JazzTimes
JazzTimes
JazzTimes is a magazine that dates back to Radio Free Jazz, a publication founded in 1970 by Ira Sabin when he was operating a record store in Washington, DC. It was originally a newsletter designed to update shoppers on the latest jazz releases and provide jazz radio programmers with a means of...
magazine, a position he continues to hold today while simultaneously freelancing for many outlets.
Personal life
He lives in Hoboken, New JerseyHoboken, New Jersey
Hoboken is a city in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population was 50,005. The city is part of the New York metropolitan area and contains Hoboken Terminal, a major transportation hub for the region...
, with his wife, the novelist and book reviewer Caroline Leavitt
Caroline Leavitt
Caroline Leavitt is an American novelist.She is the New York Times bestselling author of nine novels:*"Pictures of You"*Girls In Trouble*Coming Back To Me*Living Other Lives*Into Thin Air*Family*Jealousies*Lifelines...
, and their son Max.