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Nick Tosches

Nick Tosches

Nick Tosches was the author of the novels Cut Numbers, Trinities, and In the Hand of Dante, as well as of nonfiction works such as Hellfire, Dino, The Devil and Sonny Liston, Where Dead Voices Gather, The Last Opium Den, and King of the Jews.

Michael Herr described Tosches as "about the best writer on rock 'n' roll there is, or ever has been", and the Observer Music Monthly declared Hellfire – Tosches' Jerry Lee Lewis biography – to be the greatest music book ever written. Tosches first found his way into print in the pages of Fusion, Rolling Stone, and Creem, and his first book was the classic Country: The Biggest Music in America (1977). He wrote for numerous publications, including Esquire, The Village Voice, The New York Times, Ring magazine, and Vanity Fair, of which he was a contributing editor.

Thirty years of his writing were represented by The Nick Tosches Reader. His poetry was widely published; his collection of poetry Chaldea was a bestseller in Hell, and his latest volume of poetry, Never Trust a Loving God, was all but banned there. Nick died in New York on 20th October, 2019.

New York Times obituary

Richard Williams' Guardian obit

66 articles

List of articles in the library

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Ed Sanders, The Fugs: Ed Sanders: We Reach The Moon

Interview by Nick Tosches, Fusion, 17 October 1969

This interview between Ed Sanders and Nick Tosches took place on Labor Day evening, 1969 at Ed Sanders' Lower East Side apartment in New York ...

The Mothers of Invention: Weasels Ripped My Flesh (Reprise/Bizarre 2028)

Review by Nick Tosches, Fusion, 2 October 1970

THIS ALBUM should be had for the cover art alone. Cal Schenkel's art direction has gone itself one better this time with Neon Park's acrylic ...

The Band, Seatrain: The Band at Central Park

Live Review by Nick Tosches, New Haven Rock Press, Fall 1970

ON THE night of June 29, The Band played to the biggest crowd in the four-year history of the now-traditional Central Park Summer Beer Festival ...

Spirit: 12 Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus

Review by Nick Tosches, Rolling Stone, 4 March 1971

ANY ILLUSIONS that might still be clung to along the order of Spirit's being an Epic house organ anthropomorphization-of-eclecticism shuck, complete with baldpated, cerebral – ...

Captain Beefheart

Discography by Nick Tosches, Fusion, 19 March 1971

"The Chatanooga Choo-Choo careens headlong into the hub of an exploding galaxy. The cadavers of 19 raped and strangled astronauts float de-pants'd, froggish in the ...

Black Sabbath: Paranoid (Warner Bros. WS1887)

Review by Nick Tosches, Rolling Stone, 15 April 1971

A YOUNG girl's voice. She is dressed in a nun's habit. The boy turns and faces her. She proffers a chalice of cervical exudate and ...

Waylon Jennings: The Taker/Tulsa (RCA 4487)

Review by Nick Tosches, Fusion, 28 May 1971

EVEN THOUGH this album stinks it wasn't always like that for Mr. Jennings. ...

The Holy Modal Rounders: Good Taste Is Timeless

Review by Nick Tosches, Rolling Stone, 10 June 1971

PETER STAMPFEL, who, with Steve Weber, was, and remains, half of the driving force behind the Rounders, later paid off a debt he owed me ...

Alice Coltrane, John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders: Alice Coltrane: Journey In Satchidananda (Impulse AS-9203)

Review by Nick Tosches, Rolling Stone, 2 September 1971

THIRTY-THREE year-old Alice Coltrane met her late husband in 1963. They were married shortly thereafter and, in late 1966, she replaced McCoy Tyner on the ...

Paul Butterfield Blues Band: Sometimes I Just Feel Like Smilin'

Review by Nick Tosches, Fusion, 29 October 1971

ALL OF Butterfield's albums are beauts that never obsolesce. The complete Catholicism of his/their approach to musical communication has already resulted in more than your ...

Spirit in Flesh: God Crazed Hippies Reap Boffo B.O.

Report by Nick Tosches, Creem, November 1971

HENNY YOUNGMAN SMASHES HIGHEST ENERGY FORCE IN UNIVERSE ...

Charles Manson, Ed Sanders: Charles Manson: Stalking Manson – The Sanders Saga

Essay by Nick Tosches, Fusion, 24 December 1971

Ed Sanders spent the summer of the Tate-LaBianca murders yodeling the ditties that were to come to comprise Sanders Truckstop into an overhead mike at ...

J. Geils Band: The Morning After (Atlantic)

Review by Nick Tosches, Phonograph Record, January 1972

GOOD HARD fast kool kat musick is the best kind. Anything without any metaphysical pretentions and with a lot of rebop raunch. ...

Dionne Warwick: "...The Holy Ghost, Of Course."

Overview by Nick Tosches, Fusion, 7 January 1972

ONCE THERE was a little pickaninny girl from East Orange, N.J. She used to play organ and sing in the choir at the church of ...

Blue Öyster Cult: Blue Öyster Cult (Columbia 31063)

Review by Nick Tosches, Fusion, May 1972

NEVER JUDGE a fellow earthling by the way he/she looks; this was perhaps the first lesson I gleaned from the Blue Öyster Cult — upon ...

Captain Beefheart: The Spotlight Kid (Reprise 2050)

Review by Nick Tosches, Fusion, May 1972

POTENTIOMETERS pop (the odor of electricity) behind the silvery mugs of android dervishes. A gasket goes. The old Aristotelean construct programs splatter into a mess ...

David Ackles: American Gothic (Elektra)

Review by Nick Tosches, Creem, October 1972

WHAT IS THIS sophomoric obsession with didactic irony and moralism anyway? I mean, is this guy serious or what? I've heard of living in the ...

Archie Shepp

Profile by Nick Tosches, Creem, November 1972

ARCHIE SHEPP was born in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, in 1937. He grew up in the Philadelphia ghetto and later attended Goddard College in Vermont, where ...

Muddy Waters Rarely Eats Fish

Interview by Nick Tosches, Oui, January 1973

THREE OF Oui's finest encountered Muddy Waters in his hotel room one recent afternoon, and an interview took place. Here it is: ...

Christopher Milk: Some People Will Drink Anything (Warner Bros. MS 2111)

Review by Nick Tosches, Rolling Stone, 4 January 1973

CHRISTOPHER MILK are poseurs, part of the great American tradition of standing in front of the mirror and pretending you're Mick Jagger. ...

Lou Reed: Transformer (RCA)

Review by Nick Tosches, Rolling Stone, 4 January 1973

A REAL COCKTEASER, this album. That great cover: Lou and those burned-out eyes staring out in grim black and white beneath a haze of gold ...

Tammy Wynette: My Man (Epic KE-31717)

Review by Nick Tosches, Country Music, March 1973

THERE HAS always been something about Tammy Wynette that has set her slightly apart from the rest of country music's singing queens. Her songs deal ...

Yoko Ono: Approximately Infinite Universe (Apple SVBB-3399)

Review by Nick Tosches, Rolling Stone, 15 March 1973

Then suddenly we realized that this time we were both drifting out in a cosmos somewhere together, like God's two little dandruffs floating in the ...

Screamin' Jay Hawkins

Interview by Nick Tosches, Creem, August 1973

Valerie's torrid flesh sings with the lyrics of passion and singes with the heat of burning desire ...

Country Music: There's Glitter in Them Thar Hills

Comment by Nick Tosches, Zoo World, 31 January 1974

THE CONCERT hall darkens. The band's rhinestone-studded, sequined. custom-tailored Harvey Krantz suits glimmer in the dim like so many jars of snared fireflies. Morphemes of ...

Waylon Jennings: Maybe They Don't Even Know I'm There

Interview by Nick Tosches, Zoo World, 1 August 1974

LOOKING MORE like an Exxon station grease monkey on his lunch break than the Pontifex Maximus of Nashville's Telecaster outlaws, Waylon Jennings sits there washing ...

Dolly Parton: The — travails of dualism

Profile by Nick Tosches, The Village Voice, 26 September 1974

SINCE SHE first hit the country Top 20 with 'Something Fishy', Dolly Parton has earned a reputation as one of the best songwriters in country ...

Patti Smith: 'Hey Joe' b/w 'Piss Factory' (Mer601)

Review by Nick Tosches, Creem, November 1974

REMEMBER WHEN rock 'n' roll as poetry was a hot issue? All those wheezing old-before-their-timers trying to legitimize that fine honky noise by jamming its ...

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band: The Wit And Wisdom Of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

Interview by Nick Tosches, Creem, January 1975

JUST WHAT THE hell is "good time music" supposed to mean? Is it John Sebastian lilting those fruity dry-hump ditties like 'You Didn't Have To ...

Hank Thompson: The Hank Thompson Saga

Retrospective and Interview by Nick Tosches, Country Music, July 1975

Reflections of the King of Swing ...

Willie Nelson: Red Headed Stranger (Columbia)

Review by Nick Tosches, Creem, August 1975

I USED TO think Willie Nelson wrote sissy songs, that he was just another doily-brained sensitivo. Then, about two years ago, I came across an ...

Jessi Colter, Tompall Glaser, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson: Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Jessi Colter, and Tompall Glaser: Wanted! The Outlaws (RCA)

Review by Nick Tosches, The Village Voice, 26 January 1976

Waylon &c. Pull a Fast One ...

Gary Stewart: Honky-Tonk Puree

Profile by Nick Tosches, Penthouse, February 1976

HONKY-TONK, the most profane form of country music, came out of Texas in the mid-thirties. It spread from the beer and punch-out joints of east ...

Patti Smith: A Baby Wolf With Neon Bones

Interview by Nick Tosches, Penthouse, April 1976

PATRICIA LEE SMITH hit the linen on December 30, 1946, in Chicago, and was raised, the eldest of four children, in Deptford Township, New Jersey. ...

Billy Swan: Billy Swan (Monument PZ-34183)

Review by Nick Tosches, Rolling Stone, 17 June 1976

BILLY SWAN'S music is a baptism of rhythm. Two years ago, when America heaved morbidly beneath the weight of Watergate and encroaching poverty, Swan's 'I ...

Tom T. Hall: The Magnificent Music Machine (Mercury)

Review by Nick Tosches, Country Music, January 1977

WHAT TOM T. Hall has done in The Magnificent Music Machine is very good and very smart. His music lately has been pretentious and drab. ...

George Jones: "I'm Never Gonna Sell Pop"

Interview by Nick Tosches, High Fidelity, May 1977

"I HAVE used strings," says George Jones in the same way that one would say "I have sinned." It is not penance, but regret. "I ...

Elvis Presley: The Rise Of Rockabilly

Retrospective by Nick Tosches, Country Music, December 1977

MONDAY, JULY 5th, 1954. The most popular albums in America are Jackie Gleason's Tawny on Capitol, Frank Sinatra's Songs for Young Lovers, also on Capitol, ...

Jerry Lee Lewis: Loud Covenants: Jerry Lee Lewis, God's Garbage Man

Book Excerpt by Nick Tosches, Creem, March 1978

[The following is excerpted from the book, COUNTRY: The Biggest Music In America by Nick Tosches, published by Stein & Day Publishers.] ...

Elvis Presley, Hank Williams: Death in Hi-Fi or First Tastes of Tombstone

Overview by Nick Tosches, Waxpaper, 3 March 1978

Music deaths are big news nowadays. It seems hardly an ish of Rolling Stone goes by when we aren't treated to a eulogy for a ...

Patti Smith Group: Easter

Review by Nick Tosches, Creem, June 1978

CHARLES OLSON was invited to give a reading at Berkeley in 1965. It was a time – a springtime – when rose incense bore a ...

Carlene Carter: Miss Carter Speaks

Interview by Nick Tosches, Waxpaper, 2 June 1978

N.T.: What's Johnny Cash really like? ...

Patti Smith: Straight, No Chaser

Interview by Nick Tosches, Creem, September 1978

WE ARE SITTING in the Tropical, the darkest bar in New York. Outside on Eighth Avenue it's late afternoon. In here it's midnight on the ...

The Rolling Stones: Some Girls (Rolling Stones)

Review by Nick Tosches, Circus, 14 September 1978

Stones Rise From The Dead ...

Dean Martin: Once In A While

Review by Nick Tosches, Waxpaper, October 1978

God created Dean Martin in his own image, then stood back ...

The Doors: An American Prayer

Review by Nick Tosches, Rolling Stone, 1 January 1979

WHAT JIM MORRISON wanted more than anything – more than fame, more than wealth, more than the women's wet submission that fame brought with it ...

Dean Martin: Once In A While (Reprise)

Review by Nick Tosches, Creem, March 1979

I HAVE MUCH to say about Dean Martin, and it is all good. Here, first, some facts. ...

Blondie Plucks Her Legs

Interview by Nick Tosches, Creem, June 1979

DEBORAH HARRY, formerly of Hawthorne, New Jersey, sits there. Deborah Harry, who arrived at the Seventies from the Sixties in a Camaro, eats tuna salad ...

Jerry Lee Lewis: Jerry Lee Lewis (Elektra)

Review by Nick Tosches, Creem, July 1979

JERRY LEE'S STILL ROCKIN' HIS LIFE AWAY ...

Wynonie Harris: Unsung Heroes of Rock 'n' Roll — Wynonie Harris: The Man Who Shook Down The Devil

Retrospective by Nick Tosches, Creem, August 1979

WE KNOW that rock 'n' roll, like panty hose and the sea, was not a human invention; that it was the work of the Holy ...

Jerry Lee Lewis: The Gospel According to Jerry Lee

Interview by Nick Tosches, Country Music, October 1979

DRESSED LIKE A side-street gambler from the days when chrome was chrome, Jerry Lee Lewis sits in the dressing-room of the Palomino Club, holding loosely ...

Louis Jordan: Hep And The Art Of Alto-Sax Repair

Retrospective by Nick Tosches, Creem, October 1979

IN THE 1940's, there were two black singers who crossed over from Race Records (as Billboard called its bluegum charts until 1949, when the phrase Rhythm & ...

The Rolling Stones: The Sea's Endless, Awful Rhythm & Me Without Even a Dirty Picture

Book Excerpt by Nick Tosches, Stranded, Ed. Greil Marcus, December 1979

CALL ME Gilligan. As I confront in earnest the problems of divine retribution, way-out sex, and the value of the Folk Mass, so I confront ...

Cecil Gant: Unsung Heroes of Rock'n'Roll: Cecil Gant — Owl Stew, and All That

Retrospective by Nick Tosches, Creem, January 1980

CECIL GANT was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1915. His early years are a faded stain, of which nothing is known, nor probably ever will ...

Jerry Lee Lewis: How The Devil's Music Possessed Jerry Lee Lewis

Retrospective by Nick Tosches, The History of Rock, 1981

THERE HAVE been only two figures of mythic dimension in the history of rock'n'roll. First and foremost was Elvis Presley, the guileless star-god who rendered ...

The Rolling Stones: Tattoo You (Rolling Stones Records)

Review by Nick Tosches, Creem, November 1981

LIKE THE countless cruel-belching flotskies who sit in the countless unferned and uncedared bars of this one-horse universe grimacing into mirrors, not so much at ...

Jerry Lee Lewis: Hellfire

Special Feature by Nick Tosches, Penthouse, March 1982

IT WAS 3 O'CLOCK in the morning and the master bedroom of Graceland was still. Elvis Presley lay in his blue cotton pajamas dreaming. ...

Hank Ballard and the Midnighters: Hank Ballard & The Midnighters: From The Sins Of Annie To The Twist

Retrospective by Nick Tosches, Creem, March 1983

IT WAS TOWARDS the end of 1951 that Johnny Otis (born John Veliotes; he found it gainful to pass as black), the 30-year-old Savoy recording ...

Carly Simon: Free, White, & Pushing 40

Interview by Nick Tosches, Creem, January 1984

"Maybe It Was My Big Mouth" ...

Wanda Jackson: Unsung Heroes of Rock 'n' Roll: Wanda Jackson — Unlaced By The Lord

Retrospective by Nick Tosches, Creem, February 1984

WANDA LAVONNE Jackson was, simply and without contest, the greatest menstruating rock 'n' roll singer whom the world has ever known. Born in Maud, Oklahoma, ...

Jerry Lee Lewis: Killer: The Mercury Years

Review by Nick Tosches, Spin, March 1990

I'M SITTING there in Dennis Quaid's house, this white thing on La Sombra, last spring, a few months before that stiff Great Balls of Fire ...

Hail, Hail Rock'n'Roll

Essay by Nick Tosches, Spin, August 1990

NOW THAT the 1980s, whatever the fuck they were, are, like the great Liberace himself, dead and gone, can't we get this whole dumb business ...

The Doors: James Douglas Morrison, 1943-1971

Essay by Nick Tosches, Foreword to David Dalton's 'Mr. Mojo Risin'', 1991

JERSEY CITY, June 1968. 'Hello, I Love You'. I remember not only where I was but also whom I was with when it came through ...

Louis Jordan, Forefather of Rock 'N' Roll

Retrospective by Nick Tosches, The Village Voice, 18 August 1992

He made some of the greatest music that has ever been made; if any one man is to be given credit for siring rock 'n' ...

Lester Bangs: Jook Savages

Memoir by Nick Tosches, The Nick Tosches Reader, 1995

LESTER BANGS, with whom I had drunk but whose writing I had never read, had died not long after Hellfire came out, in the spring ...

Miles Davis: The Hat Makes the Man

Book Excerpt by Nick Tosches, The Nick Tosches Reader, 2000

THE WORD ITSELF is deadening: art, a devalued dollar of a word, no longer backed by meaning, as drained of worth as the politician's viability, ...

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