About

According to Rock’sBackPages, ‘Charles Shaar Murray, “the rock critic’s rock critic” (Q Magazine), “front-line cultural warrior” and “original gunslinger” (Independent on Sunday), is the Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award-winning author of Crosstown Traffic: Jimi Hendrix And Post-war Pop (Faber & Faber), and Boogie Man: The Adventures of John Lee Hooker in the American Twentieth Century (Viking/Penguin), later short-listed for the same award. The first two decades of his journalism, criticism and vulgar abuse have been collected in Shots From The Hip (Penguin). He’s been appearing regularly in print for four decades, and has long been recognised as one of the most admired stylists in British pop-cultural journalism.’

He made his print debut in 1970, participating in the notorious ‘Schoolkids’ Issue of OZ magazine. By 1972, he was a staff writer, eventually becoming Associate Editor, on NME for most of the 1970s. He also subsequently contributed to a variety of newspapers and magazines including The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Independent On Sunday, The Observer, The Sunday Times, The [London] Evening Standard, New Statesman, Literary Review, Prospect, Rolling Stone, Vogue, The Face, Arena, Q, Mojo (as a founding contributor to both of the last two), The Word, The Big Issue, MacUser, Guitarist, Guitar Player,  Guitar World, Classic Rock … and the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Over the years, Murray has interviewed many cultural icons including, among others, Miles Davis, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Paul McCartney, Bob Marley, Pete Townshend, Joe Strummer (and the rest of The Clash), Johnny Rotten (and the rest of the Pistols), George Harrison, JG Ballard, Alan Moore, Kurt Vonnegut Jr, William Gibson, Patti Smith, Jimmy Page, Frank Zappa, Michael Moorcock, Elton John, The Ramones, Muddy Waters, BB King, John Lee Hooker, Spike Lee, Stan Lee and Christopher Lee. (He’s still waiting to complete the latter set by interviewing Ang Lee and Stewart Lee, and regrets never having had the opportunity to interview Bruce Lee.)

He’s also written and presented BBC radio shows on Lenny Bruce, Frank Zappa, Jaco Pastorius, Moondog and the history of jazz guitar; worked both in front of and behind the camera for the Dancing In The Streets and Seven Ages Of Rock TV series, and supplied quality punditry to innumerable radio and TV shows, including frequent appearances on Channel 4 News, BBC2 Newsnight and BBC World Service radio and TV.

Despite having played guitar and harmonica since his teens, he didn’t get serious about performing until the punk era, headlining the London club circuit and opening shows for (among others) The Clash, The Boomtown Rats, The Damned, Wilko Johnson, Dave Edmunds/Nick Lowe’s Rockpile, The Pirates and Joe Jackson  as frontman for Blast Furnace & The Heatwaves. He currently sings and plays guitar alongside harmonica maestro Buffalo Bill Smith for London blues band Crosstown Lightnin’, writes songs and occasionally plays live with singer/songwriter Peter Conway, jammed on harmonica with Wilko Johnson at the launch of Julien Temple’s Dr Feelgood documentary Oil City Confidential and recently participated in a Blast Furnace reunion show … playing an hour-long set with his old rockin’ homies after thirty-plus years apart and nine hours of rehearsal.

His first novel, The Hellhound Sample, is due for publication by HeadPress in early 2011.