Robert Hilburn

Robert Hilburn (born September 25, 1939) is a pop music critic and author. As critic and music editor of the Los Angeles Times from 1970 to 2005, his reviews, essays and profiles have appeared in hundreds of publications around the world. Hilburn reflects on those years in a memoir, “Corn Flakes with John Lennon (And Other Tales from a Rock ‘n’ Roll Life),” which was published on Oct. 13, 2009 by Rodale. He is a member of the nominating committee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and lives in Los Angeles.

Early life

Born in Natchitoches, Louisiana, and lived until he was 5 mostly on his grandfather’s cotton plantation in nearby Campti. During those years and when visiting his grandparents in later summers, he was exposed to the blues and country music styles that eventually gave birth to rock ‘n’ roll. After a few years in Dallas, Texas, he moved with his family to Southern California, where he graduated from Reseda High School in 1957 and California State University, Northridge (journalism degree) in 1961. His first musical hero was Elvis Presley. He worked as a news reporter on a suburban Los Angeles newspaper (the Valley Times TODAY) for two years, but tired of journalism and became a public information officer for the Los Angeles Unified School District in the mid-1960s. While there he began missing writing around the same time he fell in love with the work of Bob Dylan and the Beatles. Eager to write about music, Hilburn did a series of freelance pieces on such figures as Johnny Cash and Janis Joplin for the Los Angeles Times before being hired full-time by the paper.

The Los Angeles Times

While at the Times, Hilburn was the only music writer to accompany Johnny Cash for his landmark Folsom Prison concert. He also went with Elton John when John became the first Western rock figure to play in Russia; with Paul Simon on the “Graceland” tour stop in Zimbabwe; with Bob Dylan on his first concert swing through Israel, and with Michael Jackson on much of his “Victory” tour. He also spent a week on the road with the Sex Pistols during their first and only U.S. tour. At the Times, Hilburn was an early defender of such new pop culture movements as punk, techno and, especially rap when it was under attack by law enforcement agencies and members of Congress.

“Corn Flakes with John Lennon”

The book is a highly opinioned and deeply personal look at rock ‘n’ roll, focusing on a group of artists who not only helped build rock as an art form but whose craft and commentary helped shape the social values of our times. They include John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Phil Spector, Michael Jackson, U2, Kurt Cobain and N.W.A. He also wrote a biography, “Bruce Springsteen,” in 1985 as one in a series of Rolling Stone Press books that also included biographies of Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

Critical philosophy

When he started writing about music, Hilburn writes on his website, RobertHilburnOnline.com, he thought of rock as an inevitable chain of events—much like thousands of dominoes in a line that neatly fell one after another once Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry helped kick things off. But he eventually realized that concept was naïve. If you took away as few as four dozen artists from that endless row of dominoes, rock would have collapsed as an art form. Imagine your record collection without Bob Dylan, the Beatles or U2. Because of that, he felt one of the main challenges of a critic was to focus on those musicians who contributed to expanding that art form. In search of those artists, he says he frequently ended up writing about false promises; artists who ran out of ideas, self-destructed or compromised their music in hopes of wider sales. But he was also fortunate enough to connect with the most important artists of the rock era.

Interacting with those figures, Hilburn came to appreciate the tremendous toll that rock can put on an artist’s personal life; how there is often far more drama off-stage than on. In the end, all it takes to be a star is luck and a commercial sound, which explains why we have so many mediocre hit-makers. To be a true artist, you need enormous talent, fierce ambition, an original vision and an unyielding toughness. He saw some artists triumph because they were tough and others die because they weren’t tough enough.

“What linked Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash and Ray Charles, the Beatles and Bob Dylan was the old fashioned American notion that each individual can make a difference, whether you are a truck driver from Memphis or a blind piano paper from southwest Georgia. Rock ‘n’ roll was the promise of a better day and the best artists spread that message with an almost missionary zeal,” he declares on his website. “I’ve always believed in that liberating message, which is probably why I responded most to artists who fought to keep the promise alive.”

Hilburn is married and lives in Los Angeles.

References

• Hilburn’s Official website
• Hilburn’s biography, Los Angeles Times

External links

• RoberHilburnOnline.com - official website
• CornFlakesWithJohnLennon.com