rock music
Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States and ...
magazine launched in 1966. It was created by
Paul Williams Paul Williams may refer to:
Authors
* Paul O. Williams (1935–2009), American science-fiction author and poet
* Paul L. Williams (author) (born 1944), FBI consultant, journalist
* Paul Williams (journalist) (1948–2013), American founder of mu ...
, a Swarthmore College student at the time, in response to the increasing sophistication and cultural influence of popular music. The magazine was named after the Crawdaddy Club in London and published during its early years as ''Crawdaddy!'' (with an exclamation point).
According to ''
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 ...
'', ''Crawdaddy'' was "the first magazine to take rock and roll seriously", while the magazine's rival ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its co ...
'' acknowledged it as "the first serious publication devoted to rock & roll news and criticism". Cited in Preceding both ''Rolling Stone'' and '' Creem'', ''Crawdaddy'' was the training ground for many rock writers just finding the language to describe
rock and roll
Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm an ...
,Peter Knobler on ''Crawdaddy'' /ref> which was only then beginning to be written about as studiously as
folk music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has ...
and
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a majo ...
Peter Knobler
Peter Knobler (born 1946) is an American writer living in New York City. He has collaborated on fifteen books, ten of them best sellers and was the editor-in-chief of '' Crawdaddy'' magazine from 1972 to 1979.Peter Knobler on ''Crawdaddy'' /ref> From 1993 to 2003 Williams self-published a ''Crawdaddy'' reincarnation. In 2006 it was sold to Wolfgang's Vault and later resurrected as a daily webzine. Effective August 5, 2011, visits began redirecting to the music website ''
Paste
Paste is a term for any very thick viscous fluid. It may refer to:
Science and technology
* Adhesive or paste
** Wallpaper paste
** Wheatpaste, A liquid adhesive made from vegetable starch and water
* Paste (rheology), a substance that behaves a ...
'', which announced that ''Crawdaddy'' "relaunches as a blog on Paste, where we’ll share stories from the Crawdaddy archives and publish new content on legacy artists".Post at pastemagazine.com/blogs/crawdaddy /ref>
Fanzine roots
Named after the legendary Crawdaddy Club in England at which the Rolling Stones played their first gig, ''Crawdaddy'' was started on the campus of Swarthmore College. Williams was a science fiction fan who at the age of 17 started mimeographing and distributing a collection of criticisms (at first mostly his own) about rock and roll music and musicians. (He had begun publishing a science fiction fanzine, ''Within'', at the age of 14, and later recruited some of his fellow fans to help.) ''Crawdaddy'' quickly moved from its fanzine roots (the first issue was mimeographed by fellow fan Ted White) to become one of the first rock music "prozines", with newsstand distribution.
You are looking at the first issue of a magazine of rock and roll criticism. ''Crawdaddy'' will feature neither pin-ups nor news-briefs; the specialty of this magazine is intelligent writing about pop music....
:—Issue 1, February 7, 1966
Mass market magazine
''Crawdaddy'' briefly suspended publication in 1969, then returned, with its title unpunctuated, in 1970, as a monthly with national mass market distribution, first as a quarterfold newsprint tabloid, then as a standard-sized magazine. ''Crawdaddy'' continued through the decade, led by editor-in-chief
Cameron Crowe
Cameron Bruce Crowe (born July 13, 1957) is an American journalist, author, writer, producer, director, actor, lyricist, and playwright. Before moving into the film industry, Crowe was a contributing editor at '' Rolling Stone'' magazine, for w ...
the Firesign Theater
The Firesign Theatre (also known as the Firesigns) was an American surreal comedy troupe who first appeared on November 17, 1966, in a live performance on the Los Angeles radio program ''Radio Free Oz'' on station KPFK FM. They continued appe ...
, and sometimes Paul Williams himself. While on the run from the law, Abbie Hoffman was ''Crawdaddy''s travel editor.
As the decade progressed, the ''Crawdaddy'' staff included Timothy White (later, an editor of '' Billboard''),
Mitch Glazer
Mitchell Aram Glazer (born 1952/1953) is an American writer, producer, and actor.
Life and career
Glazer was born in Key Biscayne, Florida, and was raised in Miami, the son of Leonard and Zelda Glazer, an English teacher. Glazer is a relative o ...
Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Lynn Raitt (; born November 8, 1949) is an American blues singer and guitarist. In 1971, Raitt released her self-titled debut album. Following this, she released a series of critically acclaimed roots-influenced albums that incorporate ...
, Linda Ronstadt, Roxy Music, Little Feat, George Carlin, Randy Newman, Paul Butterfield, Brian Eno and Roy Orbison. Under Knobler, ''Crawdaddy''s editors often assigned artists to write about other artists; Al Kooper profiled Steve Martin, Martin Mull interviewed Woody Allen, William S. Burroughs talked magic, mysticism and Aleister Crowley with Jimmy Page.
The magazine's record reviews, capsule reviews and film reviews sections, driven by editors Goldwasser and Swenson, shared an iconoclastic reputation that was well known by the music and film industries for its fierce independence.
''Crawdaddy''s features section regularly covered scenes from New Orleans funk to Austin, Texas' cosmic cowboys to Scientology, est and disco. Its renowned sense of humor produced the Crawdoodah Gazette, The Whole Earth Conspiracy Catalogue and "The Assassination Please Almanac".
In 1976 the magazine published the first in-depth article on the life and bizarre death of country-rock pioneer Gram Parsons, anticipating the wealth of information published about him in later years. Greg Mitchell, who wrote that piece, went on to write various books concerning U.S. political events.
Discovers Bruce Springsteen
Among ''Crawdaddy''s scoops: the first major profile of Bruce Springsteen, written in December 1972 by Peter Knobler with special assistance from Greg Mitchell. "He sings with a freshness and urgency I haven't heard since I was rocked by '
Like a Rolling Stone
"Like a Rolling Stone" is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on July 20, 1965, by Columbia Records. Its confrontational lyrics originated in an extended piece of verse Dylan wrote in June 1965, when he returned exhausted fr ...
,'" Knobler wrote. Knobler's ''Crawdaddy'' discovered Springsteen in the rock press and was his earliest champion. Springsteen and the E Street Band acknowledged by giving a private performance at the ''Crawdaddy'' 10th Anniversary Party in New York City in June 1976. Knobler profiled Springsteen in 1973, 1975 and 1978.
Rename and closure
Under Peter Knobler's editorship from 1972 to 1979, ''Crawdaddy''s focus expanded to cover more general aspects of popular culture, particularly politics, sports and movies, and in 1979 the magazine changed its title to ''Feature''. When the music business retrenched, ''Feature'' lost much of its advertising revenue, and after five
issues at the beginning of 1979 it ceased publication. Knobler went on to collaborate on numerous best-selling books, including the political memoir ''All's Fair'' by James Carville and Mary Matalin and the autobiographies of
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Kareem (alternatively spelled Karim or Kerim) ( ar, کریم) is a common given name and surname of Arabic origin that means "generous", "noble", "honorable". It is also one of the Names of God in Islam in the Quran.
Given name Karim
* Karim ...
Paul Williams reclaimed the punctuated title in 1993, publishing 28 issues until financial pressures forced him to end its run in 2003. In 2006 Williams sold the rights to the ''Crawdaddy'' name as well as all of his published works in back issues and a handful of his authored books to Wolfgang's Vault. In May 2007, the magazine was re-launched as an online publication at Crawdaddy.com, equipped with video and MP3 capability. Credited for its reputation for "thinking man's music writing" by
Magnet
A magnet is a material or object that produces a magnetic field. This magnetic field is invisible but is responsible for the most notable property of a magnet: a force that pulls on other ferromagnetic materials, such as iron, steel, nic ...
, ''Crawdaddy'' operated as a daily music news blog and source for longform music journalism, with a team of freelancers spanning the globe and a small San Francisco-based editorial staff headed by Editor-in-Chief Angela Zimmerman, who succeeded Jocelyn Hoppa. At the film, music and culture website PasteMagazine.com, where ''Crawdaddy'' appeared as a blog on August 5, 2011, the host site undertakes to import and maintain the ''Crawdaddy'' archive, and promises to continue to post not only archival but new material from "many of the columnists and writers you might have enjoyed at the Crawdaddy website".
The magazine's content spanned the entire age of rock 'n' roll from its inception (and all of the genre's derivatives) to extensive coverage on new and breaking bands. Regular columns and features included interviews, reviews, song histories, lyrical dissections, interviews on songwriting, roadie tales courtesy of Dinky Dawson, new classics, music and politics, crate diggers, the weakest cut, memoir and fiction pieces, in-house video sessions and interviews, and more.
''Very Seventies''
Peter Knobler and Greg Mitchell edited the book ''Very Seventies: A Cultural History of the 1970s from the Pages of Crawdaddy'',"Very Seventies" Table of Contents /ref> published in 1995.
The Simpsons
''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer Simpson, Homer, Marge ...
'' episode " A Midsummer's Nice Dream" (season 22, episode 16; airdate March 13, 2011) features a scene with Homer in the attic reminiscing to Bart about the 1970s, while sitting amongst stacks of old ''Crawdaddy'' magazines.
The magazine has been also referenced by ''
Mystery Science Theater 3000
''Mystery Science Theater 3000'' (abbreviated as ''MST3K'') is an American science fiction comedy film review television series created by Joel Hodgson. The show premiered on KTMA-TV (now WUCW) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on November 24, 1 ...
'', such as in the episode " The Skydivers" (in a gag about a reporter "covering the event" for Crawdaddy, although the movie predates the founding of the magazine) and the episode " The Incredible Melting Man" (in a gag about a very 1970s woman having a collection of back issues).