S1E128 - Paul Liberatore - "I look like a rock and roller. I am a rock and roller."
Marin County, north of San Francisco, CA, was a haven for rock stars in the 70s. A veritable treasure trove of rock and roll talk about Marin then and beyond with one-time aspiring rock musician and rock journalist Paul Liberatore takes place in this episode. Liberatore talked to Michael Krasny about his life and career with a focus on rock greats he knew and wrote about. He also talked to Krasny about getting kids involved in rock music and major changes in the music business. The two also exchanged thoughts on who the greatest guitarists were and are and the greatest rock journalists as well as of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen; the Beatles versus the Rolling Stones, and the greatest rock songs. They talked about interviewing, including the importance of listening, and Liberatore spoke about Billy Joe Shaver, Nick Gravenites, and Huey Lewis. An unusually rich, captivating, and nostalgia filled conversation.
Biography
Paul Liberatore is an award-winning Bay Area journalist who has written about rock music and pop culture over the past five-plus decades. He was on the staff of the San Francisco Chronicle in the 1980s as a feature writer and assistant city editor and currently writes a biweekly music and entertainment column for the Marin Independent Journal and the Bay Area News Group. As an author, his nonfiction book, “The Road to Hell,” an investigation of the Marin County Courthouse Shootout and the infamous case of “Soledad Brother” George Jackson and radical lawyer Stephen Bingham, was published by Atlantic Monthly Press and was a New York Times Book of the Times. In addition to numerous journalism awards, he was honored with a Milley Award from the City of Mill Valley in 2004 for his contributions to the arts and culture and became the eighth recipient of the County of Marin’s Cultural Treasure Award in 2014. He has also been a musician, fronting his own band, the Liberators, and was proud to be a member of the Bay Area writers band, the Rock Bottom Remainders.
Conversation recorded on May 16, 2025.