Greil Marcus was born in Chicago in 1954, and raised in Evanston and the West Suburbs. He graduated from Evanston Township High School and received a B.A. from Columbia College of Columbia University in 1976. Though he has spent most of his career as a rock critic, Greil holds degrees in anthropology and music, and currently teaches writing at Columbia University
He has written for The Village Voice and Spin Magazine, and is a regular contributor to Rolling Stone and The New York Times Book Review. He is the author of several books including: The Old, Weird America: The World of Bob Dylan's Basement Tape & Other Recovered Works (2003), Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes (2006), Trust Us, This is All Made Up: The Rolling Stone Interviews (2007); among others.
Good art is always dangerous, always open-ended. Once you put it out in the world you lose control of it; people will fit it into their minds in all sorts of different ways.Greil Marcus
Patriotism in America, as I understand it, is a matter of suffering, when the country fails to live up to its promises, or actively betrays them.Greil Marcus
