Richie Unterberger

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Richie Unterberger (b 1962) is an American author and journalist whose focus is popular music and travel writing.

From 1985 to 1991, Unterberger was an editor for Option. Since 1993, he has been a prolific contributor to All Music Guide, the on-line database of music biographies and album reviews for which he has written thousands of entries. (Many of Unterberger's on-line contributions have also found their way into the print versions of the All Music Guides.) Unterberger contributes to various local and national publications, including Mojo, Record Collector, Rolling Stone, Oxford American, and No Depression. He has written liner notes to dozens of CD reissues for labels like Rhino, Collectors' Choice, and Sundazed.

Unterberger's books draw extensively upon first-hand interviews [1] [2] [3] [4] with musicians and their associates. His books include:

Unknown Legends of Rock'n'Roll (1998) - profiles of 60 under-appreciated cult rock artists of all styles and eras
The Rough Guide to Music USA (1999) - a guidebook to the evolution of regional popular music throughout America in the twentieth century
Urban Spacemen & Wayfaring Strangers: Overlooked Innovators and Eccentric Visionaries of '60s Rock (2000) - another look at under-appreciated cult rock artists
Turn! Turn! Turn!: The '60s Folk-Rock Revolution, (2002) - the history of folk rock
Eight Miles High: Folk-Rock's Flight from Haight-Ashbury to Woodstock (2003) - the second volume of the author's history of folk rock
The Unreleased Beatles: Music and Film, (2006) - an illustrated 400-page guide to the music the Beatles recorded but did not release, as well as musical footage of the group that hasn't been made commercially available

Unterberger has given numerous talks on music and popular culture at public libraries throughout San Francisco, Berkeley, and San Mateo County, California. He is also a speaker at area bookstores, including The Booksmith in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco.

Unterberger has also written on travel, including The Rough Guide to Seattle (1998); and is co-author of The Rough Guide to Shopping with a Conscience (2007), a book about ethical products, investment, and related topics. He has traveled to more than thirty countries, and is an advocate of independent travel and alternative culture.

His nephew Andrew writes for Stylusmagazine.com