Crawdaddy!

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This article is about the US rock music magazine. For the English music venue please see Crawdaddy Club.

Crawdaddy! was the first US magazine of rock music criticism. It was started on the campus of Swarthmore College in 1966 by Paul Williams. Williams was a science fiction fan with an interest in rock music who at the age of 17 started mimeographing and distributing a collection of criticisms (at first mostly his own) about rock and roll music and musicians. Crawdaddy! quickly moved from its fanzine roots to become one of the first rock music "prozines", with newsstand distribution.

You are looking at the first issue of a magazine of rock and roll criticism. Crawdaddy! will feature neither pin-ups nor news-briefs; the specialty of this magazine is intelligent writing about pop music.... -- No. 1, February 7, 1966

Preceding both Rolling Stone and Creem, Crawdaddy! is regarded as the U.S. pioneer of rock journalism, and was the training ground for many rock writers just finding the language to describe rock and roll music, which was only then beginning to be written about as seriously as folk and jazz. The zine spawned the career of numerous rock music critics. Early contributing writers included Chester Anderson, Jon Landau, Sandy Pearlman, and Richard Meltzer. Williams left the magazine in 1968. He has since written over 25 books. Crawdaddy! briefly suspended publication in 1969, but returned, with its title unpunctuated, in 1970 with national mass market distribution, first as a newsprint tabloid (like Rolling Stone), then as a standard-sized magazine. It continued through the decade, led by editor Peter Knobler and senior editor Greg Mitchell, featuring contributions from the likes of Joseph Heller, John Lennon, Tim O'Brien, Michael Herr, Dan Aykroyd, P.J. O'Rourke and Cameron Crowe, plus a roster of columnists including at times William S. Burroughs, Paul Krassner, David G. Hartwell, the Firesign Theater, and sometimes even Paul Williams himself. Among its scoops: the first major profile of Bruce Springsteen, in early 1973. As the decade progressed, Crawdaddy's staff included Tim White (music critic) (later editor of Billboard and author of books on Bob Marley and Brian Wilson), Mitch Glazer (now a screenwriter) and Jon Pareles (currently a chief music writer at The New York Times). Its focus expanded to cover more general aspects of popular culture, particularly politics and movies, but its sales slumped and, after changing its title to Feature for three issues at the beginning of 1979, it ceased publication. Both Knobler and Mitchell went on to write numerous books; Mitchell became the editor of Editor and Publisher magazine.