Editing Greil Marcus

{{Short description|American author, music journalist and cultural critic (born 1945)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=August 2021}}
{{Infobox person
 | name             = Greil Marcus
 | image            = Greil Marcus SRN (cropped).jpg
 | alt              = 
 | caption          = Marcus at [[:es:Festival SOS 4.8|Festival SOS 4.8]] in [[Murcia]], 2014
 | birth_name       = Greil Gerstley
 | birth_date       = {{birth date and age|1945|6|19}}
 | birth_place      = [[San Francisco]], [[California]], U.S.
 | known_for        = Rock critic for ''[[Rolling Stone]]'', ''[[Creem]]'', the ''[[The Village Voice|Village Voice]]'', and ''[[Pitchfork (website)|Pitchfork]]''
 | occupation       = Author, critic, journalist
 | website          = 
 | spouse           = {{marriage|Jenny Marcus|1966}}<ref name="Beckett">{{cite news| url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/a-surfer-on-the-zeitgeist-this-isnt-exactly-life-on-the-edge-greil-marcus-is-married-nearly-50-and-lives-in-a-nice-big-house-in-northern-california-but-he-is-still-making-something-new-out-of-writing-about-rock-2324670.html | location=London | work=The Independent | first=Andy | last=Beckett | title=A Surfer on the Zeitgeist: This isn't exactly life on the edge: Greil Marcus is married, nearly 50, and lives in a nice big house in northern California. But he is still making something new out of writing about rock | date=May 23, 1993}}</ref>
}}

'''Greil Marcus''' (né '''Gerstley'''; born June 19, 1945) is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a broader framework of culture and politics.

== Biography ==
Marcus was born Greil Gerstley in [[San Francisco]], [[California]], the only son of Greil Gerstley and Eleanor Gerstley (''née'' Hyman).<ref name="Conversations with Greil Marcus">{{cite book|editor-first=Joe|editor-last=Bonomo|title=Conversations with Greil Marcus|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ySa5JQtut0YC&pg=PR17|date=2012|publisher=[[University Press of Mississippi]]|location=Jackson, Mississippi|isbn=978-1-61703-622-4|pages=xi-xvii}}</ref> Marcus is Jewish.<ref>{{cite web |last=Reynolds |first=Simon |date=2012-04-27 |title=Myths and Depths: Greil Marcus talks to Simon Reynolds (Part 1) |url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/myths-and-depths-greil-marcus-talks-to-simon-reynolds-part-1/ |website=[[Los Angeles Review of Books]] |quote=But I'm Jewish, there's no question about that. |access-date=2025-01-02}}</ref> His father, a [[U.S. Navy|naval officer]], died in December 1944, when a Philippine typhoon sank the [[USS Hull (DD-350)|USS ''Hull'']], on which he was serving as [[Chief mate|second-in-command]].<ref name="Conversations with Greil Marcus"/> Admiral [[William Halsey, Jr.|William Halsey]] had ordered the [[United States Third Fleet|U.S. Third Fleet]] to sail into [[Typhoon Cobra (1944)|Typhoon Cobra]] "to see what they were made of,"<ref name="Threepennyreview.com">{{cite magazine|url=http://www.threepennyreview.com/samples/marcus_sp08.html|title=Tied to History|first=Greil|last=Marcus|magazine=[[The Threepenny Review]]|date=Spring 2008}}</ref> and, despite the crew's urging, Gerstley refused to disobey the order, arguing that there had never been a mutiny in the history of the U.S. Navy and that "somebody had to die". The incident inspired the novel ''[[The Caine Mutiny]]''.<ref name="Conversations with Greil Marcus"/> Eleanor Gerstley was three months pregnant when her husband died. In 1948, she married Gerald Marcus, who adopted her son and gave the boy his surname.<ref name="Threepennyreview.com"/> Greil Marcus has several half-siblings.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://lareviewofbooks.org/interview/myths-and-depths-greil-marcus-talks-to-simon-reynolds-part-1# |title=Myths and Depths: Greil Marcus Talks to Simon Reynolds (Part 1) |magazine=[[Los Angeles Review of Books]] |date=April 27, 2012|access-date=August 11, 2014}}</ref>

His wife is Jennelle Marcus (''née'' Berstein).<ref name="Conversations with Greil Marcus" />

Marcus earned an undergraduate degree in American studies from the [[University of California, Berkeley]], where he also undertook graduate studies in [[political science]].<ref name="Una's Lectures – Greil Marcus">{{cite web|url=http://townsendcenter.berkeley.edu/una_marcus.shtml|title=Una's Lectures – Greil Marcus|publisher=Townsend Center for the Humanities, University of California, Berkeley|access-date=December 3, 2009}}</ref> He often cited as a major influence a Berkeley political science professor, [[Michael Rogin]], of whom he said: "That course had more to do with putting me on the path I've followed ever since, for good or ill, than anything else."<ref name="chronicle-obit">{{cite news|first=Charles|last= Burress|url=http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Michael-Rogin-64-well-known-writer-critic-UC-3656592.php |title=Michael Rogin, 64, well-known writer, critic, UC professor|newspaper=[[San Francisco Chronicle]]|date= November 30, 2001}}</ref>

He has been a rock critic and columnist for ''[[Rolling Stone]]'' (where he was the first reviews editor) and other publications, including ''[[Creem]]'', the ''[[The Village Voice|Village Voice]]'', ''[[Artforum]]'', and ''[[Pitchfork (website)|Pitchfork]]''. From 1983 to 1989, he was on the board of directors of the [[National Book Critics Circle]].<ref name="Una's Lectures – Greil Marcus" /> Since 1966 he has been married to Jenny Marcus, with whom he has two daughters.<ref name="Beckett" /> Marcus' daughter Emily died on January 31, 2023 of cancer.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://greilmarcus.substack.com/p/emily-rose-marcus-1969-2023 | title=Emily Rose Marcus 1969-2023 | date=February 2023 }}</ref>

His book ''[[Mystery Train (book)|Mystery Train]]'' (published in 1975 and in its sixth revised and updated edition in 2015) is notable for placing [[rock and roll]] in the context of American cultural archetypes, from ''[[Moby-Dick]]'' to ''[[The Great Gatsby]]'' to [[Stagger Lee Shelton|Stagger Lee]]. Marcus's "recognition of the unities in the American imagination that already exist" inspired countless rock journalists.<ref name="The 50 greatest music books">{{cite news|url=http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,,1797478,00.html|newspaper=[[The Observer]]|title=The 50 greatest music books ever|date=June 18, 2006|access-date=December 3, 2009}}</ref> On August 30, 2011, ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine published a list of its selection of the 100 best nonfiction books since 1923, when the magazine was first published; ''Mystery Train'' was on the list, one of only five books dealing with culture and the only one on the subject of American music. Writing for ''[[The New York Times]]'', [[Dwight Garner (critic)|Dwight Garner]] said, "''Mystery Train'' is among the few works of criticism that can move me to something close to tears. It reverberated in my young mind like the E major chord that ends the [[Beatles]]' "[[A Day in the Life]]."<ref>{{cite book|last=Garner|first=Dwight|authorlink=Dwight Garner (critic)|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/03/books/just-a-book-no-more-like-a-trusty-companion.html|title=Just a Book? No, More Like a Trusty Companion|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=September 4, 2015}}</ref>

His next book, ''[[Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century]]'' (1989), stretched his trademark riffing across a century of Western civilization. Positing [[punk rock]] as a transhistorical cultural phenomenon, Marcus examined philosophical connections between subjects as diverse as [[medieval]] [[heretics]], [[Dada]], the [[Situationists]], and the [[Sex Pistols]].

Marcus published ''[[Dead Elvis (book)|Dead Elvis]]'', a collection of writings about [[Elvis Presley]], in 1991, and ''Ranters and Crowd Pleasers'' (reissued as ''In the Fascist Bathroom: Punk in Pop Music''), an examination of post-[[Punk rock|punk]] political pop, in 1993.

Using [[bootleg recordings]] of [[Bob Dylan]] as a starting point, he dissected the American subconscious in ''[[Invisible Republic (book)|Invisible Republic]]: Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes'', published in 1997.<ref>Marcus's longstanding critical relation to Bob Dylan is so well-known that it has become the subject of fiction; see "The Critic" by Timothy Parrish in ''Ploughshares'' (Solo 5.7 2017).</ref>

He writes the column "Elephant Dancing" for ''[[Interview (magazine)|Interview]]'' and "Real Life Rock Top Ten"<ref>{{cite web|title=Contributors: Greil Marcus|url=http://www.believermag.com/contributors/?read=marcus,+greil|work=[[The Believer (magazine)|The Believer]]|access-date=March 27, 2009|archive-date=February 13, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090213044124/http://www.believermag.com/contributors/?read=marcus,+greil|url-status=dead}}</ref> for ''[[The Believer (magazine)|The Believer]]''. He occasionally teaches graduate courses in [[American Studies]] at the [[University of California, Berkeley]],<ref name="Una's Lectures – Greil Marcus" /> and teaches a lecture class, "The Old Weird America: Music as Democratic Speech – From the Commonplace Song to Bob Dylan", at the [[The New School|New School]].<ref name="The New School">{{cite web|url=http://www.newschool.edu/eventDetail.aspx?id=30930|title=Riggio Forum: Samuel R. Delany|publisher=The New School University|access-date=December 3, 2009|archive-date=September 26, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090926142923/http://www.newschool.edu/eventDetail.aspx?id=30930|url-status=dead}}</ref> During the fall of 2008, he held the Winton Chair in the College of Liberal Arts at the [[University of Minnesota]], where he taught and lectured on the history of American pop culture.<ref>{{cite web|title=Blackface: Then and Now – A Talk by Greil Marcus|url=http://ias.umn.edu/2008/11/10/marcus-greil-2/|archive-url=https://archive.today/20121212202439/http://ias.umn.edu/2008/11/10/marcus-greil-2/|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 12, 2012|access-date=November 20, 2012}}</ref>

His book ''When That Rough God Goes Riding: Listening to Van Morrison'' was published in March 2010.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.booksmith.com/event/greil-marcus-when-rough-god-goes-riding-listening-van-morrison|title=Greil Marcus/When That Rough God Goes Riding|work=The Booksmith|date=April 13, 2010|access-date=March 26, 2010}}</ref> It focuses on "Marcus's quest to understand [[Van Morrison]]'s particular genius through the extraordinary and unclassifiable moments in his long career".<ref name="Marcus on Morrison">{{cite web|url=http://www.bhamweekly.com/2010/04/28/marcus-on-morrison/|title=Marcus on Morrison|author=Thompson, Brent|publisher=Birmingham Weekly|date=April 28, 2010|access-date=April 29, 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100607091154/http://www.bhamweekly.com/2010/04/28/marcus-on-morrison/|archive-date=June 7, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/publicaffairsbooks-cgi-bin/display?book=9781586488215|publisher=publicaffairsbooks.com|title=Public Affairs Books: When That Rough God Goes Riding|access-date=December 3, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716082003/http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/publicaffairsbooks-cgi-bin/display?book=9781586488215|archive-date=July 16, 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref> The title is derived from Morrison's 1997 song "[[Rough God Goes Riding]]".

He subsequently published ''Bob Dylan by Greil Marcus: Writings 1968–2010'' (2010) and ''The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years'' (2011).

The ''[[Los Angeles Review of Books]]'' in 2012 published a 20,000-word interview with Marcus about his life.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20210224033809/https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/myths-and-depths-greil-marcus-talks-to-simon-reynolds-part-1"Simon Reynolds Interviews Greil Marcus"]. ''Los Angeles Review of Books''. April 27, 2012.</ref> A collection of his interviews, edited by [[Joe Bonomo]], was published by the University Press of Mississippi in 2012.

== Bibliography ==
{{Expand list|date=October 2015}}
* ''Rock and Roll Will Stand'' (1969), editor
* ''Double Feature: Movies & Politics'' (1972), co-author with Michael Goodwin
* ''[[Mystery Train (book)|Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music]]'' (1975, sixth edition 2015)
* ''Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island'' (1979), editor and contributor
* ''[[Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung]]'' by Lester Bangs, edited by Greil Marcus (1987)
* ''[[Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century]]'' (1989)
* ''[[Dead Elvis (book)|Dead Elvis: A Chronicle of a Cultural Obsession]]'' (1991)
* ''In the Fascist Bathroom: Punk in Pop Music, 1977–1992'' (1993, originally published as ''Ranters & Crowd Pleasers'')
* ''The Dustbin of History'' (1995)
* ''[[Invisible Republic (book)|Invisible Republic]]: Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes'' (1997; also published as ''The Old, Weird America: Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes'', 2001)
* ''Double Trouble: Bill Clinton and Elvis Presley in a Land of No Alternatives'' (2001)
* ''The Manchurian Candidate: BFI Film Classics, 68'' (2002, revised edition 2020)
* ''The Rose & the Briar: Death, Love and Liberty in the American Ballad'' (2004), co-editor with Sean Wilentz
* ''Like a Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads'' (2005)
* ''The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy in the American Voice'' (2006)
* ''[[A New Literary History of America]]'' (2009), co-editor with Werner Sollors
* ''Best Music Writing 2009'', 10th anniversary edition (2009),  guest editor with Daphne Carr (series editor)
* ''Songs Left Out of Nan Goldin's Ballad of Sexual Dependency'' (lecture and essay) (2009)
* ''When That Rough God Goes Riding: Listening to Van Morrison'' (2010)
* ''Bob Dylan by Greil Marcus: Writings 1968–2010'' (2011)
* ''The Old, Weird America: The World of Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes'' (2011)
* ''The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years'' (2011)
* ''Conversations with Greil Marcus'' (2012), edited by [[Joe Bonomo]]
* ''The History of Rock 'n' Roll in Ten Songs'' (2014)
* ''Three Songs, Three Singers, Three Nations'' (2015)
* ''Real Life Rock: The Complete Top Ten Columns, 1986–2014'' (2015)
* ''Under the Red White and Blue: Patriotism, Disenchantment and the Stubborn Myth of the Great Gatsby'' (2020)
* ''Folk Music: A Bob Dylan Biography in Seven Songs'' (2022)
* ''What Nails It'' (2024)

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
{{Commons category}}
{{Wikiquote|Greil Marcus}}
* [https://greilmarcus.net/ GreilMarcus.net] – Writings by (and about) Greil Marcus
* {{YouTube|n4CnseuDLtw|Video interview with Marcus on "The Shape of Things to Come"}} on ''The Alcove with Mark Molaro''
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080123112742/http://www.hugohouse.org/newwork/marcus_obsessive_memories/ "Obsessive Memories,"] essay on memory and his father, Greil Gerstley, who died in [[World War II]]
* [http://rockcriticsarchives.com/interviews/greilmarcus/01.html Exchange with Greil Marcus] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111001234129/http://rockcriticsarchives.com/interviews/greilmarcus/01.html |date=October 1, 2011 }} at rockcritics.com
* {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20111214084611/http://fora.tv/2007/08/22/Greil_Marcus_Shape_Of_Things_to_Come "The Shape of Things to Come"]}} at fora.TV
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100102183629/http://powells.com/authors/marcusg.html Author Interview: Greil Marcus] by Dave Welch @ powells.com
* [https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/greil-marcuss-critical-super-power "Greil Marcus's Critical Super Power"] article on ''The New Yorker''.
* [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/feb/17/greil-marcus-life-in-writing "Greil Marcus: a life in writing"] article on ''The Guardian'' by Simon Reynolds.
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Marcus, Greil}}
[[Category:1945 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:20th-century American Jews]]
[[Category:American essayists]]
[[Category:American music critics]]
[[Category:American music historians]]
[[Category:American male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:American music journalists]]
[[Category:Writers from San Francisco]]
[[Category:Rock critics]]
[[Category:American Book Award winners]]
[[Category:Historians from California]]
[[Category:21st-century American Jews]]
[[Category:Rock music historians]]