Bill Flanagan (born January 14, 1955) is an American author, television executive and radio host. He was born in
Rhode Island
Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly fewer than 1.1 million residents as of 2020, but it ...
and graduated from
Brown University in 1977. His books include ''Written in My Soul'' (1986), ''Last of the Moe Haircuts'' (1986), ''U2 at the End of the World'' (1995), and the novels ''A&R'' (2000), ''New Bedlam'' (2007), ''Evening's Empire'' (2010), and ''Fifty in Reverse'' (2020).
He is the screenwriter for the documentary ''Jimmy Carter: Rock n Roll President'' (August 2020) and produced Audible's best-seller ''Breakshot: James Taylor'' (2020) as well as Audible projects with St. Vincent: “St. Vincent: Words + Music” and Smokey Robinson (2020).
From 1995 until 2015 he was an executive at MTV Networks, retiring as Executive Vice President of the
Viacom Music Group. As EVP/Editorial Director of
MTV Networks
Paramount Media Networks (formerly known as Warner Cable Communications, Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment, MTV Networks, Viacom Media Networks, and ViacomCBS Domestic Media Networks) is an American mass media division of Paramount Global tha ...
, Flanagan oversaw the series ''
VH1 Storytellers'' and ''
CMT Crossroads
''CMT Crossroads'' is an American television program broadcast on CMT that pairs country music artists with musicians from other music genres such as alternative rock, pop, R&B, Rock, soul and more, frequently trading off performing one anot ...
''. He has also worked on ''
VH1's Legends'', ''VH1 Archives'', ''Hotel MTV'', and many other series and specials. He was one of the producers of
The Concert for New York City after the
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...
and has produced, co-produced, or executive produced two televised concerts from the
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...
; ''The Beatles Revolution'' for ABC; ''Elvis Lives'' for NBC; and
VH1 specials with
Garth Brooks,
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...
,
Clint Eastwood,
Bruce Springsteen, and
Oprah Winfrey.
Flanagan currently hosts four series on
Sirius XM Radio
Sirius XM Holdings Inc. is an American broadcasting company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City that provides satellite radio and online radio services operating in the United States. It was formed by the 2008 merger of Sirius Sat ...
Channels - ''Flanagan's Wake'' on Tom Petty Radio, ''Written In My Soul'' on Volume, and ''The Fab Fourum'' and ''Northern Songs'' on the
Beatles Channel.
Flanagan acts as Ombudsman of the
Sundance Channel Sundance Channel can refer to:
* Sundance TV, formerly known as Sundance Channel (United States).
* Sundance Channel (Canada)
* Sundance Channel (Netherlands)
* Sundance Channel (Europe) Sundance Channel can refer to:
* Sundance TV, formerly kno ...
series ''
Spectacle: Elvis Costello with...''. He also appears on air as an essayist on ''
CBS News Sunday Morning''.
He has written for Rolling Stone, The New York Times
Esquire, Spy, Men's Journal, Vanity Fair, GQ, Commonweal, The New Yorker, and The Village Voice.
References
Further reading
"A conversation with author Bill Flanagan" ''
Charlie Rose''. August 28, 2007
Evening's Empire: A Novel Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential econo ...
.
"A conversation between Bill Flanagan and Bob Dylan" March 22, 2017
"MTV's Bill Flanagan On Jackson's Music" CBS News. June 30, 2009
*Smith, Ethan
"Day in the Life: Behind the Music" ''
New York''. June 26, 2000
*Sisario, Ben
"The Day the Music Died" ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
''. February 25, 2010
"Bill Flanagan" ''
Slate''. June 5, 2000
*Flanagan, Bill
"Up Close & Personal with GRAMMY Winning Producer Steve Lillywhite" Grammy365. January 19, 2010
{{DEFAULTSORT:Flanagan, Bill
Living people
20th-century American novelists
American television executives
1955 births
Brown University alumni
American writers about music
21st-century American novelists
American male novelists
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American male non-fiction writers