Nicholas P. Tosches (; October 23, 1949 – October 20, 2019) was an American

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others asp ...

biographer Biographers are authors who write an account of another person's life, while autobiographers are authors who write their own biography. Biographers Countries of working life: Ab=Arabia, AG=Ancient Greece, Al=Australia, Am=Armenian, AR=Ancient Rome ...

, and

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

. His 1982 biography of

Jerry Lee Lewis Jerry Lee Lewis (September 29, 1935October 28, 2022) was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. Nicknamed "The Killer", he was described as " rock & roll's first great wild man". A pioneer of rock and roll and rockabilly music, Lewis ma ...

, '' Hellfire'', was praised by ''

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 ...

'' magazine as "the best rock and roll biography ever written."

Biography

Tosches was born in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.Albanian settlers in Italy, known as

Arbëreshë Arbën/Arbër, from which derived Arbënesh/Arbëresh originally meant all Albanians, until the 18th century. Today it is used for different groups of Albanian origin, including: * Arbër (given name), an Albanian masculine given name * Arbëresh ...

; his grandfather emigrated from the village of

Casalvecchio di Puglia Casalvecchio ( aae, Kazallveqi) is an Arbëreshë ''comune'' and village in the Province of Foggia, Apulia, southern Italy. Mostly originating from a 15th-century migration of Albanians, the residents have subsisted by family farming. Of those na ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

in the late 19th century. According to his own account, Tosches "barely finished high school". He did not attend college but was published for the first time in ''Fusion'' magazine at 19 years old. He also held a variety of jobs, including working as a porter for his family's business in New Jersey, as a paste-up artist for the Lovable

underwear Undergarments, underclothing, or underwear are items of clothing worn beneath outer clothes, usually in direct contact with the skin, although they may comprise more than a single layer. They serve to keep outer garments from being soiled o ...

company in

, and later, in the early 1970s, as a snake hunter for the Miami Serpentarium, in Florida. A fan of early

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 a ...

and "oddball" records, he wrote for several

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 an ...

magazines, including ''

Creem ''Creem'' (often stylized in all caps) is a monthly American music magazine, based in Detroit, whose main print run lasted from 1969 to 1989. It was first published in March 1969 by Barry Kramer and founding editor Tony Reay. Influential crit ...

'' and ''

''. He was also reviews editor for ''

Country Music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

'' magazine''.'' He has been described as "the best example of a good rock journalist who set out to transcend his genre and succeeded," and as someone who "along with

Lester Bangs Leslie Conway "Lester" Bangs (December 14, 1948 – April 30, 1982) was an American music journalist, critic, author, and musician. He wrote for '' Creem'' and ''Rolling Stone'' magazines, and was known for his leading influence in rock music ...

Richard Meltzer Richard Meltzer (born May 10, 1945) is an American rock critic, performer, writer and songwriter. He is considered by some rock historians to be the first to write real analysis of rock and roll and is credited with inventing "rock criticism". B ...

and a handful of other noble notables from the era... elevated rock writing to a new plateau." He was fired by ''Rolling Stone'' for collaborating with Meltzer in filing record reviews under each other's

byline The byline (or by-line in British English) on a newspaper or magazine article gives the name of the writer of the article. Bylines are commonly placed between the headline and the text of the article, although some magazines (notably ''Reader's ...

. Tosches' first book, '' Country: The Biggest Music in America'' (later retitled ''Country: The Twisted Roots of Rock and Roll''), was first published in 1977. It was followed in 1982 by ''Hellfire'', a biography of

, and in 1984 by ''Unsung Heroes of Rock 'n' Roll: The Birth of Rock in the Wild Years Before Elvis''. He subsequently wrote biographies of the singer and entertainer Dean Martin, the Sicilian financier

Michele Sindona Michele Sindona (; 8 May 1920 – 22 March 1986) was an Italian banker and convicted felon. Known in banking circles as "The Shark", Sindona was a member of Propaganda Due (#0501), a secret lodge of Italian Freemasonry, and had clear connecti ...

, the

heavyweight boxer Heavyweight is a weight class in combat sports and professional wrestling. Boxing Professional Boxers who weigh over are considered heavyweights by 3 of the 4 major professional boxing organizations: the International Boxing Federation, the Wor ...

Sonny Liston, the

country A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, while ...

singer Emmett Miller, the soul/rock band Hall & Oates and the

racketeer Racketeering is a type of organized crime in which the perpetrators set up a coercive, fraudulent, extortionary, or otherwise illegal coordinated scheme or operation (a "racket") to repeatedly or consistently collect a profit. Originally and ...

Arnold Rothstein Arnold Rothstein (January 17, 1882 – November 4, 1928), nicknamed "The Brain", was an American racketeer, crime boss, businessman, and gambler in New York City. Rothstein was widely reputed to have organized corruption in professional athletic ...

. Tosches worked as a contributing editor of '' Vanity Fair'' magazine. His work was also published in '' Esquire'' and ''

Open City In war, an open city is a settlement which has announced it has abandoned all defensive efforts, generally in the event of the imminent capture of the city to avoid destruction. Once a city has declared itself open the opposing military will be ...

''. He published five novels, '' Cut Numbers'' (1988), ''Trinities'' (1994), '' In the Hand of Dante'' (2002), ''Me and the Devil'' (2012), and ''Under Tiberius'' (2015); and a collection of poetry, '' Chaldea and I Dig Girls'' (1999). He also worked on ''Never Trust a Loving God'', a book he did in collaboration with his friend the French painter Thierry Alonso Gravleur. He described his literary influences as "

Hesiod Hesiod (; grc-gre, Ἡσίοδος ''Hēsíodos'') was an ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded by western authors as 'the first written poet ...

, Sappho, Christopher Marlowe, Ezra Pound,

William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most o ...

Charles Olson Charles Olson (27 December 1910 – 10 January 1970) was a second generation modern American poet who was a link between earlier figures such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, which includes the New York ...

, and God knows who else." A

compendium A compendium (plural: compendia or compendiums) is a comprehensive collection of information and analysis pertaining to a body of knowledge. A compendium may concisely summarize a larger work. In most cases, the body of knowledge will concern a sp ...

, ''The Nick Tosches Reader'', collects writings from over the course of his career. Tosches was featured on the

Travel Channel Travel Channel (stylized as Trvl Channel since 2018) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, which had previously owned the channel from 1997 to 2007. The channel is headquartered in New York, New York, United S ...

show '' Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations'' in the episode " Disappearing Manhattan", in which he and Bourdain shared a drink at Sophie's in the East Village, a

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

dive bar A dive bar is typically a small, unglamorous, eclectic, old-style drinking establishment with inexpensive drinks; it may feature dim lighting, shabby or dated decor, neon beer signs, packaged beer sales, cash-only service, and a local clientele ...

, and discussed the changing nature of the city. Tosches died on October 20, 2019, at his home in Manhattan, three days before his 70th birthday.

Bibliography

Biographies

* 1982 – * 1984 – * 1986 – * 1992 – * 2000 – * 2001 – * 2005 –

Fiction and poetry

* 1988 – * 1994 – * 1999 – * 2002 – * 2012 – * 2014 – * 2015 –

Journalism

* 1977 – * 1984 – * 1991 – * 1999 – * 2002 – * 2009 – * 2011 –

Collections

* 2000 –

Discography

* '' Blue Eyes and Exit Wounds'', with

Hubert Selby Jr. Hubert "Cubby" Selby Jr. (July 23, 1928 – April 26, 2004) was an American writer. Two of his novels, ''Last Exit to Brooklyn'' (1964) and ''Requiem for a Dream'' (1978) explore worlds in the New York area and were adapted as films, both of whi ...

, produced by the author Harold Goldberg, 1998 * ''Nick & Homer'', with Homer Henderson, 1998 * ''Fuckthelivingfuckthedead'', 2001 * '' For the taking: Vol. I from CHALDEA'' *
Autohagiography
', with Austin Brookner, 2018

Film and television appearances

* '' Louis Prima: The Wildest!'', 1999 * '' Hubert Selby Jr: It/ll Be Better Tomorrow'', 2005 * '' Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S. Thompson on Film'', 2006 * '' Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations'' in the episode "Disappearing Manhattan", 2009

References

External links

Brief bio
*
''Rolling Stone''

''Vanity Fair''Episode 579 – Nick Tosches
of ''

WTF with Marc Maron ''WTF with Marc Maron'' is a weekly podcast and radio show hosted by stand-up comedian Marc Maron. The show was launched in September 2009. The show is produced by Maron's former Air America co-worker Brendan McDonald. Background The show's ti ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Tosches, Nick 1949 births 2019 deaths 20th-century American biographers 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American novelists 20th-century American poets 21st-century American biographers 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American novelists 21st-century American poets American male novelists American male poets American music critics American people of Arbëreshë descent Boxing writers Novelists from New Jersey Writers from Newark, New Jersey American male biographers