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BILL FLANAGAN
HOMETOWN | Warwick
BIO | Sketch out a rock journalist's dream career and it might look something like Bill Flanagan's. The man has had bylines in Rolling Stone, Esquire, and Spy; interviews with Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, and Bob Dylan (among other immortals); a book project that took him on a world tour with U2; and a side gig writing critically acclaimed novels. Flanagan eventually transitioned from writing music news to making music news when he became an executive for MTV Networks in the 1990s, helping steer the legendary programs Storytellers and Crossroads (Bill was the matchmaker for Robert Plant and Alison Krauss). He is the first non-musician inducted to the RIMHOF and, as a writer for the Phoenix's predecessor, The NewPaper, we're particularly proud fans.
BOOKS | Last of the Moe Haircuts (1986); Written In My Soul: Rock's Great Songwriters Talk About Creating Their Music (1986), U2: At the End of the World (1996); and the novels A&R (2001), New Bedlam (2008), and Evening's Empire (2010)
FROM THENEWPAPER | During a 1986 interview with Keith Richards, Flanagan told the guitar-slinger that he was from Warwick. "I remember the tank in that town!" Richards said, before launching into a tale of getting arrested for accosting a ProJo photographer who woke him with a camera flash after Richards had fallen asleep on a fire truck.
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Music Features
, Paul Geremia, Bill Flanagan, George M. Cohan, More
, Paul Geremia, Bill Flanagan, George M. Cohan, Bobby Hackett, Sissieretta Jones, Steve Smith and the Nakeds, Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame, the Cowsills, Less