Mike Greenblatt

All Mike Greenblatt has ever done in his entire life is listen to music and tell people about it, be it as a New York City publicist, editor or freelance journalist. It’s been five decades of journalistically chronicling rock’n’roll in all of its many permutations. Whether flying with Hank Williams, Jr. in his private jet, driving around the Jersey Shore with Springsteen, getting angrily thrown against a backstage wall by Meat Loaf or being locked in a dressing room with Jerry Lee Lewis threatening to kill him, Greenblatt’s voice—influenced by Nick Tosches, Henry Miller and James Ellroy—has yelled loud and long. It all started in New Jersey as Music Editor of the Aquarian Weekly. As Editor of Modern Screen’s Country Music, Wrestling World and Metal Maniacs, it was this bizarre triumvirate that illustrates the rebel yell within his soul, thus he went on to write about Serial Killers, Vampires, Zombies and Republicans. His ‘80s “Pot Page” column was way ahead of its time. Interviews with Elton John, the Eagles (where he extemporaneously interviewed Joe Walsh at side-by-side urinals deep within the bowels of Giants Stadium), Paul McCartney, Blondie, The Allman Brothers, Waylon Jennings and hundreds of others have preceded his first book, at 68, Woodstock 50th Anniversary: Back To Yasgur’s Farm (Krause Publications, a Division of F + W Media). The author has long maintained that his political demeanor and the state of musical zen he can still achieve at concerts today, despite his surroundings, is a direct result of his Woodstock experience. Greenblatt lives in Easton, Pennsylvania with his music-teacher wife and their two rescue Beagles. He is the proud parent of two and grandfather of two, yet still finds time to watch as much baseball as humanly possible.