Dispatches from the Front: The Life and Writings of Ralph J. Gleason

Celebrated music journalist Ralph Joseph Gleason (1917–75) is recognized as one of the founders of popular music criticism. Gleason began his career as a jazz writer in the 1940s, wrote extensively about rock and roll in the 1950s, and became a seminal rock music critic and co-founder of Rolling Stone magazine in the 1960s. He framed a set of aesthetic themes and concerns which continue to influence popular music journalism today. Yet, despite his significance, Gleason has not been the subject of a career-long retrospective. A gap is left in our understanding of the development of popular music journalism during its formative postwar years, and of the impact of jazz writing on rock criticism. This study addresses Gleason’s role in that development. It draws on a comprehensive survey of Gleason’s writings, including little-known record reviews and articles from the 1930s, a deep sampling from the thousands of newspaper columns he wrote from the 1950s to the 1970s, and his Rolling Stone writings (during his lifetime, Gleason had more of his columns and articles printed in Rolling Stone than did many of the other major rock music critics on its staff). Other key sources include the authors’ interviews with people close to Gleason, his personal correspondence, and the literature about Gleason, including certain assertions that are challenged. The intent is to provide a fuller understanding of Gleason’s significance and, in so doing, expand our understanding of the early development of postwar popular music journalism.