SMART ASS: The Music Journalism of Joel Selvin

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Let Paul McCartney Introduce You To Bert Berns, The Best Songwriter You’ve Never Heard Of
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HERE COMES THE NIGHT PRESS:

• New York Times: Many-Hit Wonder, Out of Obscurity Bert Berns, Songwriter and Producer, Remembered
Even in his mid-1960s heyday, Bert Berns was barely known beyond the obsessives who studied songwriters and producers credits on 45 r.p.m. records and LP album jackets. And then, after his death in 1967 at the age of 38, something truly odd happened: Though the songs he wrote and produced, like Twist and Shout and Hang On Sloopy, proved to have durability, growing in stature and popularity as the years passed, Bernss own reputation receded even further into obscurity..

• Bette Midler on Twitter

"Ok, just finished the book on Bert Berns "Here Comes The Night" and it was great. Anyone who loves early Rock and Soul will love it."

• New York Times: Sunday Book Review
Hit Man: ‘Here Comes the Night,’ by Joel Selvin
Bert Berns the producer is the Phil Spector you’ve never heard of. Bert Berns the songwriter is the Leiber and Stoller you’ve never heard of. Bert Berns the label exec is the Jerry Wexler you’ve never heard of..

• CBS This Morning: New biography explores unknown hitmaker, history of R&B
He was responsible for some of music's most enduring hits, and now a new biography brings unknown hitmaker Bert Berns to life. Rock journalist Joel Selvin joins "CBS This Morning: Saturday" to discuss the R&B legend and his new book "Here Comes the Night: The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm and Blues."

• NPR: Obscure Producer's Clear Impact On 'The Dirty Business' Of R&B
Many of the hit-making songwriters of the 1960s are remembered by name: Burt Bacharach, Carole King, Lennon-McCartney, Holland-Dozier-Holland. But the man who wrote (or co-wrote) classics like "Twist and Shout," "Piece of My Heart," "Hang on Sloopy," "I Want Candy" and "Here Comes the Night" remains unknown to all but the most ardent music fans.. ...

• Paste Magazine: Here Comes the Night by Joel Selvin
Every so often, a music bio arrives that becomes “the book to read.” Think of Last Train To Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley and Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley, Peter Guralnick’s exhaustive considerations on the arc and impact of rock’s first true superstar.

• Los Angeles Review of Books: Stephen Deusner on Here Comes the Night : The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm & Blues
IN HIS NEW BOOK, Joel Selvin describes three different recordings of the song “Twist and Shout.” Two were not simply big hits, but seminal contributions to the rock ’n’ roll canon. ...

• The Irish Times: Bert Berns: label boss, friend to wiseguys and foe to Van Morrison
Remembered with equal parts animosity and affection, the Bronx-born music man blazed a trail in an era of industry pimps, visionaries and gangsters

• WNYC's Soundcheck: Bert Berns, Writer Of Massive Rock Classics, Gets His Moment In The Spotlight
Bert Berns is not a household name. But the names of his songs are. "Twist And Shout," "I Want Candy," "Hang On Sloopy" -- that last one especially well-known to people living in Ohio.

• WNYC's The Takeaway: Bert Berns: An Unsung Hero of Early Rock and R&B
The Oscar for Best Documentary at this year's Academy Awards went to "20 Feet from Startdom," a beloved film about the back-up singers, the unsung heroes of the early days of rock and roll and its R&B roots...

• CLEVELAND.com: He wrote 'Hang On Sloopy' - and dozens of other hits. Meet Bert Berns via this brilliant new bio
He wrote or produced "Twist and Shout," "Hang on Sloopy," "Brown
Eyed Girl" and "Piece of My Heart." And you almost certainly don't know his name. But you'll know that and a lot more after you meet Bert Berns, courtesy of Joel Selvin, whose biography of Berns represents a masterpiece of research, writing and investigative literature about one of the most influential and little-known songwriters in rock history.

• WNYC Leonard Lopate Show: Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm and Blues
Music critic and reporter Joel Selvin gives an account of the golden age of rhythm and blues of the early 1960s and the tragic story of songwriter and record producer Bert Berns, whose heart was damaged by rheumatic fever when he was young, and he wasn’t expected to live to see 21...

• WFMU Michael Shelley Show: May 17, 2014: Guest: Joel Selvin, author of the Bert Berns bio "Here Comes The Night"

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READ MORE EXCLUSIVE NEWS FROM JOELSELVIN.COM

Browse all of Joel's San Francisco Chronicle pieces here.

On tour with Janis Joplin — an insider’s view
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
John Byrne Cooke strides across Washington Square, a place familiar to him because he lived around the corner of 45 years ago when he was road manager for Big Brother and the Holding Company.

The guys in Big Brother all wanted to know why I didnt live in the Haight, he says, and I told them 'Im a beatnik, not a hippie. ...sfgate

Emmylou Harris touring for reissue of cult classic 'Wrecking Ball'
Friday, March 28, 2014
The country music career of Emmylou Harris was already finished when she set foot in the studio in winter 1995 to make "Wrecking Ball" with producer Daniel Lanois. Country radio had stopped playing her records, and her label had no idea what to do....sfgate

Jeff Beck, Brian Wilson review: perfect harmony
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Brian Wilson and Jeff Beck have lived their lives in parallel musical universes, but in the wide, wonderful world of rock 'n' roll, parallel lines do meet. At the Paramount Theatre in Oakland on Tuesday, in an unforgettable tableau, the exquisite British blues-rock guitarist drew out Wilson's sunny melodies in silvery, wavering guitar lines as the combined forces of his band and the Beach Boys founder's backing group stitched together the complex harmonies and orchestrations from Wilson's lost masterpiece, "Smile." ...sfgate

Rascals' show revisits era of good lovin', playin'
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
How did Little Steven find the time?

He tours the world playing guitar with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. He maintains a thriving acting career launched by a long-running part in "The Sopranos." He hosts a syndicated weekly radio show and runs his own record label, among other enterprises....sfgate

Fillmore's Poster Room filled with walls of sound
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
They ran out of space on the walls of the Poster Room at the Fillmore Auditorium years ago. The most recent addition advertises a Black Keys concert from 2007. Every available inch of the wall space in the upstairs bar and restaurant as well as the adjacent balcony room is covered with framed posters from sold-out Fillmore shows of the past ...sfgate

Giving credit to Woodstock hero Alvin Lee
Friday, March 8, 2013
His frantic, flashy guitar playing on the nearly 10-minute "I'm Going Home" made British rock musician Alvin Lee, who died this week at age 68 in southern Spain, one of the heroes of Woodstock, both the music festival and the subsequent movie....sfgate

Singer Rick Stevens embraces 2nd chance
Monday, January 28, 2013
Wearing a glacial-white suit and tie, set off by a blood-orange shirt, the compact, dark-haired vocalist Rick Stevens leaned into "You're Still a Young Man," his signature song as lead vocalist of Tower of Power, when the band burst out of the East Bay funk scene 40 years ago and Stevens had a promising future. ...sfgate

Review: Johnny Cash Columbia boxed set
Monday, December 3, 2012
Johnny Cash had to disappear from the skyline before it became obvious how tall a tree he truly was.

If any doubts remain, the newly released 63-disc boxed set, "Johnny Cash - The Complete Columbia Album Collection" - takes the full measure of the man's recorded legacy. With the addition of a single disc covering his first three years of recording for the Sun Records label - and Cash's absent latter-era sessions with producer Rick Rubin notwithstanding - this unwieldy set is an American treasury along the lines of....sfgate

Browse all of Joel's San Francisco Chronicle pieces here.

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Contact Joel: joelselvin@aol.com

Literary Agent: Frank Weimann: fweimann@theliterarygroup.com