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10 unusual facts about Greil Marcus


Greil Marcus

His next book, Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century (1989), stretched his trademark riffing across a century of Western civilization.

Harmonica Frank

In his 1975 book Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music, author Greil Marcus presented a unique vision of America and music, and how they relate by using (as metaphors) six musicians, one of whom was Harmonica Frank.

Invisible Republic

Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes is a book by music critic Greil Marcus about the creation and cultural importance of The Basement Tapes, a series of recordings made by Bob Dylan in 1967 in collaboration with The Hawks, who would subsequently become known as The Band.

King Solomon Hill

As noted by rock critic Greil Marcus, the "dead train" in the Newman version is used as a metaphor for impotence.

Live at The Gaslight 1962

The Gaslight recordings had been warmly received by critics and collectors alike ever since Greil Marcus wrote about them in the late 1960s.

Lloyd Price

Greil Marcus, in a critical analysis of the song's history, has written that Price's was an enthusiastic hard rock version with a screaming saxophone.

Oren Bloedow

Career highlights for Oren include being named Artist of the Year by Greil Marcus in 2004, musical directing the Randy Newman tribute at UCLA's Royce Hall for impresario Hal Willner, performing with Lou Reed, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, and once with Bruce Springsteen at Carnegie Hall.

Rock and the Pop Narcotic

Carducci's tendency was directly counter to the politically progressive and relatively mainstream attitude of such writers as Dave Marsh or Greil Marcus, neither of whom answered the charges Carducci made against them (of ignoring quality music for political reasons).

The Aesthetics of Rock

Writer Greil Marcus, in his introduction to the Da Capo edition of Aesthetics, maintains that the book is "the best and most obsessive book about the Beatles ever written," and that the work seeks to illuminate "the collapse of art into everyday life, and vice versa."

The Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower

Their name is taken from the book Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century by Greil Marcus, itself a reference to a line in Guy Debord's 1978 film In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni.


Ann Marlowe

Marlowe is one of 220 contributors of entries to A New Literary History of America (Harvard University Press, 2009), edited by Greil Marcus and Werner Sollors.

Greg Shaw

Bomp featured many writers who would later become prominent, including Lester Bangs, Greil Marcus, Richard Meltzer, and Ken Barnes.

Who Put the Bomp

"Bomp!" was an early publishing venue for many subsequently well-known writers, including Lester Bangs and Greil Marcus.