Robert Hilburn
Encyclopedia
Robert Hilburn is a pop music
critic and author. As critic and music editor of the Los Angeles Times
from 1970 to 2005, his reviews, essays and profiles have appeared in hundreds of publications around the world. Hilburn reflects on those years in a memoir, “Corn Flakes with John Lennon
(And Other Tales from a Rock ‘n’ Roll Life),” which was published on Oct. 13, 2009 by Rodale. He is a member of the nominating committee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
and lives in Los Angeles.
, and lived until he was 5 mostly on his grandfather’s cotton plantation
in nearby Campti
. During those years and when visiting his grandparents in later summers, he was exposed to the blues and country music
styles that eventually gave birth to rock ‘n’ roll. After a few years in Dallas, Texas
, he moved with his family to Southern California
, where he graduated from Reseda High School
in 1957 and California State University, Northridge
(journalism degree) in 1961. His first musical hero was Elvis Presley
. He worked as a news reporter on a suburban Los Angeles newspaper (the Valley Times TODAY) for two years, but tired of journalism and became a public information officer
for the Los Angeles Unified School District
in the mid-1960s. While there he began missing writing around the same time he fell in love with the work of Bob Dylan
and the Beatles
. Eager to write about music, Hilburn did a series of freelance pieces on such figures as Johnny Cash
and Janis Joplin
for the Los Angeles Times before being hired full-time by the paper.
concert. He also went with Elton John
when John became the first Western rock figure to play in Russia; with Paul Simon
on the “Graceland” tour stop in Zimbabwe; with Bob Dylan on his first concert swing through Israel, and with Michael Jackson
on much of his “Victory” tour. He also spent a week on the road with the Sex Pistols
during their first and only U.S. tour. At the Times, Hilburn was an early defender of such new pop culture movements as punk, techno and, especially rap when it was under attack by law enforcement agencies and members of Congress.
, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen
, Stevie Wonder
, Phil Spector
, Michael Jackson, U2
, Kurt Cobain
and N.W.A. He also wrote a biography, “Bruce Springsteen,” in 1985 as one in a series of Rolling Stone Press books that also included biographies of Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones
.
helped kick things off. But he eventually realized that concept was naïve. If you took away as few as four dozen artists from that endless row of dominoes, rock would have collapsed as an art form. Imagine your record collection without Bob Dylan, the Beatles or U2. Because of that, he felt one of the main challenges of a critic was to focus on those musicians who contributed to expanding that art form. In search of those artists, he says he frequently ended up writing about false promises; artists who ran out of ideas, self-destructed or compromised their music in hopes of wider sales. But he was also fortunate enough to connect with the most important artists of the rock era.
Interacting with those figures, Hilburn came to appreciate the tremendous toll that rock can put on an artist’s personal life; how there is often far more drama off-stage than on. In the end, all it takes to be a star is luck and a commercial sound, which explains why we have so many mediocre hit-makers. To be a true artist, you need enormous talent, fierce ambition, an original vision and an unyielding toughness. He saw some artists triumph because they were tough and others die because they weren’t tough enough.
“What linked Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash and Ray Charles
, the Beatles and Bob Dylan was the old fashioned American notion that each individual can make a difference, whether you are a truck driver
from Memphis or a blind piano paper from southwest Georgia. Rock ‘n’ roll was the promise of a better day and the best artists spread that message with an almost missionary zeal,” he declares on his website. “I’ve always believed in that liberating message, which is probably why I responded most to artists who fought to keep the promise alive.”
Hilburn is married and lives in Los Angeles.
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
critic and author. As critic and music editor of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
from 1970 to 2005, his reviews, essays and profiles have appeared in hundreds of publications around the world. Hilburn reflects on those years in a memoir, “Corn Flakes with John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
(And Other Tales from a Rock ‘n’ Roll Life),” which was published on Oct. 13, 2009 by Rodale. He is a member of 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 lives in Los Angeles.
Early life
Born in Natchitoches, LouisianaNatchitoches, Louisiana
Natchitoches is a city in and the parish seat of Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, United States. Established in 1714 by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis as part of French Louisiana, the community was named after the Natchitoches Indian tribe. The City of Natchitoches was first incorporated on February...
, and lived until he was 5 mostly on his grandfather’s cotton plantation
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...
in nearby Campti
Campti, Louisiana
Campti is a town in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 1,057 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Natchitoches Micropolitan Statistical Area. Campti is a flat area of mostly farmland. It sets on the eastern bank of the Red River...
. During those years and when visiting his grandparents in later summers, he was exposed to the blues and country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
styles that eventually gave birth to rock ‘n’ roll. After a few years in Dallas, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
, he moved with his family to Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
, where he graduated from Reseda High School
Reseda High School
Reseda High School, established in 1955, is located in the Reseda section of the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, California.The school currently is home to the Reseda High School Science Magnet HS and the Reseda Police Academy Magnet HS, in addition to Reseda High's four small learning...
in 1957 and California State University, Northridge
California State University, Northridge
California State University, Northridge is a public university in Northridge, a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, California, United States....
(journalism degree) in 1961. His first musical hero was Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
. He worked as a news reporter on a suburban Los Angeles newspaper (the Valley Times TODAY) for two years, but tired of journalism and became a public information officer
Public information officer
Public Information Officers are the communications coordinators or spokespersons of certain governmental organizations . They differ from public relations departments of private organizations in that marketing plays a more limited role...
for the Los Angeles Unified School District
Los Angeles Unified School District
Los Angeles Unified School District is the largest public school system in California. It is the 2nd largest public school district in the United States. Only the New York City Department of Education has a larger student population...
in the mid-1960s. While there he began missing writing around the same time he fell in love with the work of Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
and the Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
. Eager to write about music, Hilburn did a series of freelance pieces on such figures as Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash
John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
and Janis Joplin
Janis Joplin
Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...
for the Los Angeles Times before being hired full-time by the paper.
The Los Angeles Times
While at the Times, Hilburn was the only music writer to accompany Johnny Cash for his landmark Folsom PrisonFolsom State Prison
Folsom State Prison is a California State Prison located in the city of Folsom, California, northeast from the state capital of Sacramento. Opened in 1880, Folsom is the second-oldest prison in the state of California after San Quentin and was the first in the country to have electricity...
concert. He also went with Elton John
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
when John became the first Western rock figure to play in Russia; with Paul Simon
Paul Simon
Paul Frederic Simon is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.Simon is best known for his success, beginning in 1965, as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote most of the pair's songs, including three that reached number one on the US singles...
on the “Graceland” tour stop in Zimbabwe; with Bob Dylan on his first concert swing through Israel, and with Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
on much of his “Victory” tour. He also spent a week on the road with the Sex Pistols
Sex Pistols
The Sex Pistols were an English punk rock band that formed in London in 1975. They were responsible for initiating the punk movement in the United Kingdom and inspiring many later punk and alternative rock musicians...
during their first and only U.S. tour. At the Times, Hilburn was an early defender of such new pop culture movements as punk, techno and, especially rap when it was under attack by law enforcement agencies and members of Congress.
“Corn Flakes with John Lennon”
The book is a highly opinioned and deeply personal look at rock ‘n’ roll, focusing on a group of artists who not only helped build rock as an art form but whose craft and commentary helped shape the social values of our times. They include John LennonJohn Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, 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...
, Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris , better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist...
, Phil Spector
Phil Spector
Phillip Harvey "Phil" Spector is an American record producer and songwriter, later known for his conviction in the murder of actress Lana Clarkson....
, Michael Jackson, U2
U2
U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...
, Kurt Cobain
Kurt Cobain
Kurt Donald Cobain was an American singer-songwriter, musician and artist, best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the grunge band Nirvana...
and N.W.A. He also wrote a biography, “Bruce Springsteen,” in 1985 as one in a series of Rolling Stone Press books that also included biographies of Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
.
Critical philosophy
When he started writing about music, Hilburn writes on his website, RobertHilburnOnline.com, he thought of rock as an inevitable chain of events—much like thousands of dominoes in a line that neatly fell one after another once Elvis Presley and Chuck BerryChuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
helped kick things off. But he eventually realized that concept was naïve. If you took away as few as four dozen artists from that endless row of dominoes, rock would have collapsed as an art form. Imagine your record collection without Bob Dylan, the Beatles or U2. Because of that, he felt one of the main challenges of a critic was to focus on those musicians who contributed to expanding that art form. In search of those artists, he says he frequently ended up writing about false promises; artists who ran out of ideas, self-destructed or compromised their music in hopes of wider sales. But he was also fortunate enough to connect with the most important artists of the rock era.
Interacting with those figures, Hilburn came to appreciate the tremendous toll that rock can put on an artist’s personal life; how there is often far more drama off-stage than on. In the end, all it takes to be a star is luck and a commercial sound, which explains why we have so many mediocre hit-makers. To be a true artist, you need enormous talent, fierce ambition, an original vision and an unyielding toughness. He saw some artists triumph because they were tough and others die because they weren’t tough enough.
“What linked Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash and Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
, the Beatles and Bob Dylan was the old fashioned American notion that each individual can make a difference, whether you are a truck driver
Truck driver
A truck driver , is a person who earns a living as the driver of a truck, usually a semi truck, box truck, or dump truck.Truck drivers provide an essential service to...
from Memphis or a blind piano paper from southwest Georgia. Rock ‘n’ roll was the promise of a better day and the best artists spread that message with an almost missionary zeal,” he declares on his website. “I’ve always believed in that liberating message, which is probably why I responded most to artists who fought to keep the promise alive.”
Hilburn is married and lives in Los Angeles.
External links
- RoberHilburnOnline.com - official website
- CornFlakesWithJohnLennon.com