AUTHOR & JOURNALIST

David Browne

David Browne is a senior writer at Rolling Stone and a longtime music journalist. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Time, Spin, the New Republic, and numerous other outlets. He was the music critic at the New York Daily News and then, for 16 years, the music critic at Entertainment Weekly, where he worked as a roadie for Kiss, shared a bagel with Leonard Cohen in Cohen’s Montreal home, and spent time on the tour buses with Coldplay and the Black Crowes and with James Taylor at his Berkshires home. At Rolling Stone he has written cover stories on Whitney Houston, Bob Dylan, Adele, Robin Williams and Philip Seymour Hoffman in addition to hundreds of articles and reviews.

Browne is the author of numerous books: Dream Brother (2001), a dual biography of the late musicians Jeff and Tim Buckley; Amped (2004), a history of extreme sports; Goodbye 20th Century (2008), a biography of the pioneering indie band Sonic Youth; Fire and Rain: The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor, CSNY and the Lost Story of 1970 (2011), about the confluence of music and politics during that under-chronicled year; The Spirit of ’76 (2014), a mini-book about the ground-breaking events of that year in America; and So Many Roads: The Life and Times of the Grateful Dead (2015), a major biography of the legendary band that includes new interviews with band members, friends and former employees, along with access to documents from the Dead archives.

In 2019, Browne will publish two books: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: The Wild, Definitive Saga of Rock’s Greatest Supergroup (Da Capo/Hachette, April 2, 2019) and a collection of the late Jeff Buckley’s journals and writing, His Own Voice (Da Capo/Hachette, October 2019), which he compiled and co-edited with Buckley’s mother, Mary Guibert.

Dream Brother, a steady seller for nearly 18 years, has been translated into French and Italian and is regularly cited as the definitive biography of Jeff Buckley, complete with access to friends, family, and archival material. Goodbye 20th Century was hailed as “an expressway to the soul of the influential band” by Vanity Fair, “a rollicking, epic biography” by Salon, and “compulsively readable” by Publishers Weekly. It has also been published in the UK, Germany and, soon, Japan. Fire and Rain was called “a worthy addition to anyone’s collection of such music histories” (Associated Press) and “one of the most entertaining and informative books of the year” (NPR). So Many Roads has been hailed as “an education and revelation even for the seasoned Deadhead reader” (Steve Silberman, best-selling author of NeuroTribes) and a book with “broader context and significance” (The Washington Post).

Browne is the recipient of a Music Journalism Award for criticism. Born and raised in New Jersey, not far from Bruce Springsteen territory, he lives and works in New York City.