David Browne is a senior writer at Rolling Stone and a longtime music journalist. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Time, New York, Spin, the New Republic, Men's Journal, Wired, and other outlets. 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. He was a reporter and 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.
Browne is the author of eight books: "Dream Brother" (2001), a dual biography of the late musicians Jeff and Tim Buckley; "Amped" (2004), a history of the world 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), about the ground-breaking events of that year in America; "So Many Roads: The Life and Times of the Grateful Dead" (2015), which includes new interviews with band members and their associates; "Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young: The Wild, Definitive Saga of Rock's Greatest Supergroup" (2019), and "Jeff Buckley: His Own Voice" (2019) a collection of Buckley's journals and lyrics, co-edited with his mother, Mary Guibert.
"Dream Brother" 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 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 and Germany. "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). Meanwhile, The Washington Post called "Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young" a book "for music lovers, but it should also be required reading for students of group dynamics," and "one of the great rock and roll stories--it’s like a Greek myth" (The New York Times, “Summer Reading 2019” issue).
Browne is the recipient of a Music Journalism Award for criticism. Born and raised in New Jersey, he lives and works in New York City. (Author photo: Griffin Lotz.)
