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Dave Zimmer

Dave Zimmer

A music journalist and rock historian since the late '70s, Dave Zimmer is the author of Crosby, Stills & Nash: The Authorized Biography (St. Martin’s Press, 1984; Da Capo Press, 2000; Da Capo Press, 2008) and editor of 4 Way Street: The Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Reader (Da Capo Press, 2004), a book which features interviews with CSN&Y, individually and collectively, by such writers as Ben Fong-Torres, Cameron Crowe, Ellen Sander, Joel Selvin, Roy Carr, Ritchie Yorke, Lenny Kaye, Jaan Uhelszki, Peter Knobler, Penny Valentine, Vicki Wickham and Dave himself, among others.

His first published rock writings were for BAM: The California Magazine, in 1977, when he met BAM publisher Dennis Erokan and managing editor Blair Jackson at a Santa Cruz, California bar called the Crossroads, where a local band called the Ducks (featuring Neil Young that summer) was performing. Dave would go on to pen more articles, reviews and columns for BAM than any other writer, working as a full-time editor for the magazine in Oakland and Los Angeles from 1981 to 1990.

Dave also wrote articles for Creem, Hit Parader, Music + Sound Output, Good Times ( Santa Cruz , CA ), and the Peninsula Times-Tribune, among other US publications. After interviewing Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and David Crosby extensively in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, he became Crosby, Stills & Nash’s biographer in 1982. The third edition of his CSN book was published in 2008, redesigned and fully updated, featuring more than 300 photographs by Henry Diltz.

Beyond his music writing and editing, since 1990 Dave has worked as a communications director for MCA Records, Universal Studios, Seagram, Vivendi and, most recently, Penguin Group. A native Californian, Dave currently lives in West Orange , New Jersey with his wife and son.

60 articles

List of articles in the library

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The Ducks, Jeff Blackburn: Jeff Blackburn Bucks the Odds

Report and Interview by Dave Zimmer, Good Times, 8 June 1978

QUACK, QUACK: A familiar sound last summer in Santa Cruz when the Ducks were the musical hit of the town. But as the summer of ...

Crazy Horse, Neil Young: Crazy Horse: In Full Gallop

Profile and Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 19 January 1979

SAN FRANCISCO – During the past several years Billy Talbot, Ralph Molina, and Frank Sampedro played before standing room only crowds in some of the ...

Buffalo Springfield, Crosby Stills and Nash, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Stephen Stills: Stephen Stills Carries On

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 6 April 1979

LOS ANGELES – Ambitious, blunt but expressive, forceful, aggressive when the occasion requires it, capable of manic dedication and drive towards work and life goals...a ...

Doobie Brothers, Tom Johnston: Tom Johnston: The Former Doobie Still Listens To The Music

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 19 October 1979

THE YEAR was 1972. Summer had waned and I was driving along Highway 101, with the only source of music being a static-laden AM car ...

Crosby and Nash, Crosby Stills and Nash, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Graham Nash, The Hollies: Graham Nash: The Winds Of Change

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 1 February 1980

INTEGRITY, MORE than any other word seems to define what Graham Nash is all about. ...

Aerosmith, Joe Perry: Joe Perry: Joe Perry Project Takes Off

Interview by Dave Zimmer, Creem, August 1980

My brand new ship is stellar boundTo search out a place I've never foundWhere I go only time will tellThere's a lot of space betweenHeaven ...

Grace Slick, Jefferson Starship: Grace Slick: Making Her Own Dreams

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 1 August 1980

MILL VALLEY – "I can't do anything middle of the road. My music is either very polite, with classical instruments, or, its rude and offensive." ...

The Eagles, Randy Meisner: Randy Meisner: Ex-Eagle Flies High Solo

Profile and Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 7 November 1980

DURING THE FRANTIC throes of the late '60s, this city devoured more musicians than it rewarded. The situation hasn't changed much since. But back in ...

Rosanne Cash Comes Into Her Own

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 10 April 1981

COTATI – LONESOME steel guitar moans waver and echo throughout the Inn of the Beginning – a classic Old West watering hole 50 miles due ...

Jefferson Starship: Return of The Band That Will Not Die

Report and Interview by Dave Zimmer, Creem, November 1981

YOU CAN'T last any longer than the Jefferson Starship, a band that's been at the top of the charts with regularity since, unbelievably, 1966. ...

George Thorogood & The Destroyers: George Thorogood Cuts Through The USA

Interview by Dave Zimmer, Creem, February 1982

YOU COULD see it coming. About a hundred yards off, an old Checker Marathon cab was roaring along the asphalt, eating up the broken white ...

Tom Waits Undercover

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 26 February 1982

Everybody looked like a broken-down movie extra; a withered starlet, disenchanted stuntmen, midget auto racers, poignant California characters with their end-of-the-continent sadness, handsome, decadent, Casanova-ish ...

Crystal Gayle, Tom Waits: Tom Waits: Hollywood Confidential

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 26 February 1982

LA's Hobo Laureate Creates the Score for Coppola's One From the Heart. ...

Crosby Stills and Nash: Crosby, Stills & Nash: Together Again

Report and Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 30 July 1982

CLOSED SESSION No Admittance – these words are scrawled on the door of Studio 2 on the Zoetrope film lot in Hollywood. A young woman, ...

The US Festival: A Celebration of Music, Technology and People

Report and Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 13 August 1982

SAN BERNARDINO — The Police, Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac, Pat Benatar, Talking Heads, Jackson Browne, Santana, The B-52s, Eddie Money and over 20 other top ...

Crosby Stills and Nash: Crosby, Stills & Nash: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

Report and Interview by Dave Zimmer, Hit Parader, October 1982

INSIDE DEVONSHIRE Studios in North Hollywood, California, Graham Nash puts one of the tape machines into reverse. "Grrp Wrr, Grrp Wrr," the machine moans. ...

Missing Persons: Found In L.A.

Profile and Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 5 November 1982

I MUST CONFESS something. Before even having heard Missing Persons produce a single note, I was attracted to the group because of a photograph I'd ...

Joni Mitchell: Wild Things Run Fast

Review by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 3 December 1982

JONI MITCHELL'S in love. At least she was while writing and recording Wild Things Run Fast. You can hear it in the loose and easy ...

David Crosby, Crosby Stills and Nash, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Joni Mitchell, Graham Nash: Joni Mitchell (1983)

Interview by Dave Zimmer, Rock's Backpages audio, February 1983

Joni talks about the Canyon scene: the people, her house, what it was like; she talks about playing the coffee house circuit in New York, and meeting David Crosby; leaving New York for Los Angeles; Crosby producing her first album; meeting the foppishly dressed Graham Nash; and Crosby, Stills & Nash getting together; she then talks about not getting to Woodstock, and subsequently writing the song.

File format: mp3; file size: 26.8mb; Interview length: 27' 54"; sound quality: **

Crosby and Nash, Don Henley, Danny Kortchmar: Danny Kortchmar: The Standup Rocker

Interview by Dave Zimmer, Record, March 1983

"I HATE folk music, I always have," snaps Danny Kortchmar. Such a revelation is surprising, in view of the fact that Kortchmar (aka "Kootch") has ...

Mike Love & Dean Torrence: Rock City Here We Come

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, May 1983

Mike Love and Dean Torrence Are Making Oldies Sound New ...

The Band, Bob Dylan, Robbie Robertson: Robbie Robertson: Between Trains

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 6 May 1983

QUALITY IS something that Robbie Robertson definitely understands. ...

The Brat, Carlos Guitarlos, Los Illegals, Los Lobos, The Plugz, Ruben and the Jets: East LA Rocks!

Report and Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 1 July 1983

But bands find it's a long way from the Barrio to Hollywood... ...

The Motels: Dual Life of Martha Davis

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 18 November 1983

"I GUESS I'M basically a simple girl." Such words, when spoken by a successful chanteuse, somehow ring hollow amidst the social trappings of stardom. How ...

Randy Newman: The Natural Soundtrack (Warner Bros.)

Review by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 13 July 1984

WHEN IT COMES to capturing the flavor of America at various points in this century, few songwriters have been able to do it as well ...

The Pretenders: Spending Time With The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 24 August 1984

THE PRETENDERS have landed in Pittsburg. It's a Monday night, about 9 pm, and Chrissie Hynde is bored. ...

Bill Graham: Legacy of a Dance Hall Keeper

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 21 September 1984

Taking a look at his life as it is and as it was, Bill Graham addresses his place in rock and roll's order of power, ...

Cyndi Lauper Bops Through The Night

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, January 1985

PADDING SLOWLY through Burbank Airport, clutching a grey handbag and a Walkman cassette player, Lauper, at first glance, resembles a simple immigrant from "the old ...

Vanity: Dressed For Success: Behind Closed Doors With Vanity

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, June 1985

SAN FRANCISCO — "I know this is the right key," a Tri-Star Pictures publicist sighs while trying in vain to unlock the door to the ...

Utopia: Better Living Through Electricity

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, June 1985

Todd Rundgren And Utopia Get Wired ...

John Lee Hooker: King of the Boogie

Interview by Dave Zimmer, Buzz, November 1985

JOHN LEE Hooker is a prideful man. When he looks back over his lengthy blues career – more than five decades old now – he ...

Bruce Springsteen, Nils Lofgren: Nils Lofgren: The E Street Flip

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, November 1985

NEW JERSEY – There he is, taking windmill swipes at his guitar with wild abandon, then doing a complete flip on the Meadowlands stage while ...

Jefferson Starship: The Starship Strikes Back

Profile and Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 11 December 1985

"Say ya don't know me?Or recognize my face?...Don't you remember?We built this city on rock and roll!"– from 'We Built This City'by Bernie Taupin, Martin ...

The KBC Band: Kantner Balin Casady Band: Old Flight Mates Carry On

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 20 December 1985

"WE DON'T play many tapes submitted by unsigned bands," said KFOG DJ John Russell on the air a couple of weeks ago. "But I think ...

10,000 Maniacs: At Least Six Are Not Insane

Profile and Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, February 1986

JAMESTOWN, NEW York, about 400 miles from NYC, is home for 10,000 Maniacs. ...

Alan Parsons: The Alan Parsons Project: Studio Rats

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, April 1986

"You know Poe has been a big influence on me and Alan," says Parsons collaborator Eric Woolfson. "And when I saw this word, 'stereotomy,' I ...

The Beatles: The Final Invasion

Retrospective by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 5 September 1986

Twenty-four thousand screaming fans couldn't be wrong. But what they didn't realise on that late August evening was that the Beatles didn't want to be ...

Peter Case: Travellin' Man

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 10 December 1986

NO ONE will ever accuse Peter Case of being a schemer or a planner. "When it comes to building a career," admits the 32-year-old singer/songwriter, ...

David Crosby: Scared Straight

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 16 January 1987

THE FIRST thing you notice is the twinkle in his eyes. That is the clearest signal that David Crosby is, indeed, back among the living. ...

Fleetwood Mac: Dirty Dancing

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 23 October 1987

Fleetwood Mac Swap Partners For Tango Tour ...

Rock & Advertising: The Selling Of A Revolution

Report by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 4 December 1987

Madison Avenue Buys A Big Piece Of The Rock: How The Ad Industry Takes Your Favorite Songs And Turns Them Into Jingles For Toothpaste, Tennies ...

Buster Poindexter, David Johansen: David Johansen: Buster Poindexter Does L.A.

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 29 January 1988

"I LOVE L.A.," announces Buster Poindexter, fingering the stem of a martini glass. "I think it's great." And why shouldn't he? ...

Ry Cooder: Fascinatin' Rhythms

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 12 February 1988

FIVE YEARS may have passed since Ry Cooder last put together an album of non-movie music, but it's not as if the guy has been ...

Cindy Lee Berryhill: Beat Wise

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 11 March 1988

ONCE UPON a time Cindy Lee Berryhill tried to make it as a Top 40 singer in San Diego. ...

Neil Young: Blue Notes for a Restless Loner

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 22 April 1988

THE ROBERT De Niro of rock 'n' roll, Neil Young has continually transformed himself throughout his career and inhabited musical characters in much the same ...

Van Halen: Tales From The Crypt

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 1 July 1988

THE ITINERARY for Van Halen's Monsters of Rock Tour reads like a combined schedule for the Washington Redskins and University of Miami football teams. ...

Eric Burdon: An Ex-Animal Leaves His Cage

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 7 October 1988

LOOKING MORE LIKE A bantamweight boxer than a veteran rock singer, Eric Burdon stares out the window of his publicist's tenth floor office in the ...

Mark Knopfler, Randy Newman: Randy Newman And Mark Knopfler: Newman's Navigator to A Land of Dreams

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 21 October 1988

'IT'S MONEY That Matters', the first single from Land of Dreams, bristles with guitarist Mark Knopfler's trademark guitar licks, Randy Newman a la Dire Straits' ...

Randy Newman: A Nightmare on Main Street

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 21 October 1988

RANDY NEWMAN was sitting in the Forum Arena in Inglewood a while ago, watching the Lakers put on yet another basketball clinic at the expense ...

Chris Hillman, The Desert Rose Band: The Desert Rose Band: Chris Hillman's Hot Burrito #3

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 2 December 1988

ROCK IS no longer the dirty word it once was in Nashville. But after LA's Desert Rose Band placed four singles on the country charts ...

Was (Not Was): Spies In The House Of Funk

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 2 December 1988

MASTERS OF funkified musical left turns, that was one way to describe Was (Not Was) after listening to their 1983 LP, Born to Laugh At ...

Al Stewart: A British Eccentric Finds A House In Bel Air — And A Home

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 10 March 1989

SINGER-SONGWRITER Al Stewart has a theory about why he'll never sell as many records as Lionel Richie or Billy Joel. ...

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Traveling Wilburys: Tom Petty: Once In A Full Moon

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 5 May 1989

BY THE time Tom Petty became a Traveling Wilbury last year, he had every reason to stand shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Roy ...

k.d. lang: Prairie Fire

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 30 June 1989

WELCOME TO the Griffith Park Pony Rides. Assorted toddlers, most of them 2- or 3-something, are circling a dusty track, strapped onto tired ponies. Not ...

Stan Ridgway: Drawing Mosquitos With An Eye For Detail

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 20 October 1989

STAN RIDGWAY is a great painter of life. Rather than oil or water colors, however, his medium has always been the English language. He creates ...

Steve Vai, Whitesnake: Steve Vai: Vaiing For Attention

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 12 January 1990

NO, YOUR eyes aren't deceiving you. Steve Vai is holding a seven-string guitar, custom-made for him by Ibanez. ...

Whitesnake: Fangs of Fortune

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 12 January 1990

WAKING UP before noon is still a foreign idea to many working musicians, and not just the ones who are hopeless drug addicts. It's just ...

Dire Straits, Mark Knopfler, The Notting Hillbillies: Mark Knopfler: Going His Own Sweet Way

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 20 April 1990

NO, THE Notting Hillbillies are not Mark Knopfler's version of the Traveling Wilburys. In fact, there was never supposed to be a band at all. ...

Todd Rundgren: In Todd We Trust

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 15 June 1990

FOLLOWERS OF Todd Rundgren may not get as much publicity as Deadheads, but the loyal legions that flock to Rundgren's concerts – particularly in the ...

The Motels: The Dual Life Of Martha Davis

Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 18 November 1993

TAKE MARTHA DAVIS, the sultry, dark-eyed leader and lead singer of the Motels. Last year, her band's third album, All Four One, went Top 20 ...

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