Nik Cohn

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Nik Cohn 2014

Nik Cohn (* 1946 in London ) is a British-American music journalist and travel writer. King Cohn is considered to be the progenitor of a new kind of music, travel and social journalism.

Life

Cohn grew up in Ireland . His father was the historian Norman Cohn , his mother the writer Vera Broido . Since the age of 15 he has been publishing essays and books on rock music, popular and underground culture. In 1969 his book Pop from the Beginning (German title AWopBopaLooBop ALopBamBoom, 1971) was published, an entertaining story of modern pop music and youth culture and the first ever pop chronology. In 1973 he published the rock picture book Rock Dreams, "a heated, sultry dream in candy colors" ( taz ) together with the Belgian artist Peellaert .

Cohn moved to New York in the mid-1970s and was supposed to report on the newly emerging disco scene there shortly after his arrival. His article Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night (German: " Tribal rites of the new Saturday night") from 1975 became the basis of the disco film Saturday Night Fever ( only Saturday night ) . Cohn later admitted that he hadn't understood the New York disco scene at all and had come up with the article based on his knowledge of the British mod scene. In the early 1980s, Cohn was sentenced to five years suspended sentence and fined $ 5,000 for illegally importing heroin worth $ 4 million; Cohn had been able to obtain the low verdict on the basis of his confession and extensive statements.

In the early 1990s, Cohn drew attention to himself with a successful New York book: The Heart of the World received the Thomas Cook Prize for the best travel report of the year. In 1997 the writer published his apocalyptic novel Need again, a story from the urban jungle. In 1999 he delivered a report on the multiethnic sub- and youth cultures of his noticeably changed homeland England. The quality of his journalistic work is compared by some critics with the social reports of George Orwell . Nik Cohn writes regularly for the British newspaper The Guardian .

Nik Cohn lives alternately in the USA and England.

Publications

  • Pop. From the beginning. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1969 (also in Stein & Day, New York 1969); as a paperback edition with a new title: Awopbopaloobop Alopb Bäumen. Paladin, London 1970; German title: AWopBopaLooBop ALopBamBoom - Nik Cohn's Pop History. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1971; New edition ibid 2001, ISBN 3-499-11542-5 .
  • Rock Dreams (with colored illustrations by Guy Peellaert ) (1973, new edition 2003, also German-language edition 1982 by Rogner & Bernhard )
  • The Heart of the World (1992), German: Das Herz der Welt (1992/94)
  • Need. A Novel (1997), German: Manhattan Babylon (1999/2001)
  • Yes We Have No: Adventures in the Other England (1999)
  • Twentieth Century Dreams (with color illustrations by Guy Peellaert, 2001)
  • Soljas (with Julia Dorner , 2002)
  • Triksta: Life and Death and New Orleans Rap (2005), German: Triksta: Life, Death and Rap in New Orleans (Hanser 2008)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Leduff, Charlie (1996). Saturday Night Fever: The Life , The New York Times, June 9, 1996