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Chris Salewicz Chris Salewicz

Chris Salewicz, who lives in London, has documented world popular music and culture for over three decades, both in print and on television. His writing, on subjects from film to foreign affairs as well as music, has appeared in the Sunday Times, The Independent, The Face and in many other publications.

As a senior features writer for NME from 1975 to 1981, he saw service at the frontlines of glam rock, punk rock, reggae music, and the Los Angeles and New York music scenes and their subcultures.

In 1978 he worked on DOA, the definitive US film about punk rock. As a contributing editor of Time Out, he wrote pieces on glue-sniffing gangs, filming in Nicaragua, and housing estate horrors, amongst many others. For the Sunday Times Magazine, he wrote on subjects as varied as Polish Solidarity, the restoration of Robert Owen's New Lanark model village, and a twenty page cover story on reggae music. After writing many of the early cover stories on The Face, he provided two of the cover stories in issue one of Q. For The Sunday Correspondent he wrote regularly, on such diverse topics as the civil war in El Salvador and healing through dolphins’ energy. He also wrote for and syndicated to countless publications worldwide.

Part of the team that set up MTV-Europe, Chris Salewicz presented "Kino", a weekly film programme, and edited and directed. He has written many books, including biographies of Jimi Hendrix, Paul McCartney, George Lucas, Oliver Stone, Noel Coward, and Bob Marley - the last, which was authorised by Marley’s family, the result of his abiding love of Jamaica. In 1995 at the instigation of Chris Blackwell, he and director Don Letts went to the island to develop film ideas. Fired by the idea of a film that showed the moral redemption of a Kingston killer cop set in the style of a Hong Kong action movie, and drawing on extensive research, Salewicz embarked on the writing of Third World Cop – the most successful film ever in the Caribbean when it was released in 1999.

Following his time living in Jamaica, Chris Salewicz wrote Rude Boy: Once Upon a Time in Jamaica, a critically acclaimed book that was part-thriller, part-travelogue, part subjective history of the island. Reggae Explosion: the Story of Jamaican Music, and Mick and Keith, a joint biography of two Dartford schoolboys, followed.

Mick and Keith was "probably" the last book read by Joe Strummer, according to his widow. In October 2006 Salewicz published Redemption Song: the Definitive Biography of Joe Strummer (HarperCollins), an exhaustive, epic biography of the Clash frontman, a bestseller; it was published in the USA by FSG the following May. The paperback edition was published in October 2007.

Chris Salewicz has recently edited Keep On Running: the Story of Island Records, to be published on June 1 2009; he is currently writing a large text-format biography of Bob Marley; and he has just completed work on a documentary feature film about how Polish rock’n’roll helped bring down Communism.


List of articles in the library by artist

NME

NME

NME

The Face

The Face

Creem

Time Out

Let It Rock

NME

NME

Let It Rock

NME

NME

Q

Creem

NME

NME

NME

NME

NME

NME

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NME

NME

NME

The History of Rock

NME

Mojo

Mojo

Trouser Press

NME

The Face

NME

The Face

NME

Creem

NME

NME

The Face

NME

NME

NME

NME

NME

NME

NME

Creem

NME

NME

NME

NME

Let It Rock

NME

NME

NME

Q

Let It Rock

NME

Trouser Press

Let It Rock

Let It Rock

Time Out

NME

NME

NME

NME

Gig

Creem

Creem

NME

NME

NME

Let It Rock

NME

NME

NME

NME

NME

NME

The Record

Time Out

Creem

The Face

Q

NME

The Face

NME

NME

Let It Rock

NME

NME

NME

NME

NME

Let It Rock

Creem

Gig

The Face

NME

NME

The Face

NME

NME

NME

The Face

The History of Rock

Mojo

The Face

NME

NME

The Face

Q

NME

Q

NME

Q

NME

NME

NME

NME

NME

NME

Rock's Backpages

NME

Let It Rock

Q

Creem

NME

Creem

NME

NME

NME

NME

The Face

NME

NME

NME

NME

NME

NME

Sunday Times

NME

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NME

NME

NME

NME

The History of Rock

NME

NME

NME

The Face

NME

Let It Rock

NME

NME

Time Out

NME

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NME

NME

NME

NME

NME

Let It Rock

The Face

Creem

NME

NME

Creem

NME

NME

Creem

NME

NME

NME

NME

NME

NME

Let It Rock

NME

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Q

The Face

Creem

Mojo

NME

The Face

NME

NME

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List of genre pieces

The History of Rock

NME

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