Richie Unterberger (born January 19, 1962) is an American author and journalist whose focus is popular music and travel writing.

Life and writing

Unterberger attended the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universit ...

, where he wrote for the university newspaper '' The Daily Pennsylvanian'' and in the early 1980s was a

deejay A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music festival), mobil ...

on the Penn radio station, WXPN-FM. Just prior to graduating in late 1982, he started reviewing records for '' Op'' magazine, which marked the start of his career as a freelance writer. From 1985 to 1991, Unterberger was an editor for ''

Option Option or Options may refer to: Computing *Option key, a key on Apple computer keyboards *Option type, a polymorphic data type in programming languages *Command-line option, an optional parameter to a command *OPTIONS, an HTTP request method ...

''. Since 1993, he has been a prolific contributor to

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the dat ...

, the on-line database of music biographies and album reviews, for which he has written thousands of entries, and many of his on-line contributions have been printed in the AllMusic guide series. Unterberger contributes to various local and national publications, including '' Mojo'', ''

Record Collector ''Record Collector'' is a British monthly music magazine. It was founded in 1980 and distributes worldwide. History The early years The first standalone issue of ''Record Collector'' was published in March 1980, though its history stretches ba ...

'', ''

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 ...

'', '' Oxford American'', and '' No Depression''. He has written liner notes for dozens of CD reissues from labels like Rhino Records, Collectors' Choice, and Sundazed. Unterberger's books draw extensively on first-hand interviews with musicians and their associates.

Travel writing; public speaking

Unterberger has given talks on music and popular culture at public libraries in San Francisco, Berkeley, and San Mateo County, California. He is also a speaker at area bookstores, including The

Booksmith The Booksmith is an independent bookstore located in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. When first opened in October 1976, the store was located at 1746 Haight Street, below the former I-Beam nightclub. In 1985, the store moved to ...

in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. Unterberger has also written on travel, including ''The Rough Guide to

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...

'' (1996), and co-authored ''The Rough Guide to Shopping with a Conscience'' (2007), a book about ethical products, investment, and related topics. He has traveled to more than thirty countries and is an advocate of independent travel and alternative culture.

Family

His nephew, Andrew, formerly wrote for Stylusmagazine.com, and in 2007 was part of the winning team on VH1's ''World Series of Pop Culture''. He has been a staff writer or featured contributor on music and sports blogs.

Selected publications

His books include: * 1998: ''Unknown Legends of Rock'n'Roll''. Profiles of 60 underappreciated cult rock artists of all styles and eras * 1999: ''The Rough Guide to Music USA''. A guidebook to the evolution of regional popular music throughout America in the twentieth century * 2000: ''Urban Spacemen & Wayfaring Strangers: Overlooked Innovators and Eccentric Visionaries of '60s Rock''. Another look at underappreciated cult rock artists * 2002: ''Turn! Turn! Turn!: The '60s Folk-Rock Revolution''. The first part of a history of

folk rock Folk rock is a hybrid music genre that combines the elements of folk music, folk and rock music, rock music, which arose in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s. In the U.S., folk rock emerged from the American fo ...

* 2003: ''Eight Miles High: Folk-Rock's Flight from Haight-Ashbury to Woodstock''. The second part of a history of folk rock * 2006: ''The Unreleased Beatles: Music and Film''. An illustrated 400-page guide to music that the Beatles recorded but did not release, as well as musical footage of the group that has not been made commercially available (winner of a 2007 Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections) * 2009: ''White Light/White Heat: The Velvet Underground Day-by-Day'' * 2009: ''The Rough Guide to Jimi Hendrix''. * 2011: ''Won't Get Fooled Again: The Who from Lifehouse to Quadrophenia''

References

External links

2002 interview with Unterberger

Richie Unterberger's Unknown Legends
at www.richieunterberger.com * Profile a
Rough Guides
// Allmusic.com/
IMDb

Article about Richie Unterberger in the ''SF Weekly''
* * The WELL interviews o

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Book review: Fleetwood Mac: The Complete Illustrated History by Richie Unterberger / Rocker Magazine
{{DEFAULTSORT:Unterberger, Richie 1962 births Living people American people of German descent AllMusic American music critics Rock critics American travel writers American male non-fiction writers