Peter Knobler


Peter Knobler is an American writer living in New York City. He has collaborated on several national best sellers and was the editor-in-chief of Crawdaddy magazine from 1972 to 1979.

Writing

Knobler specializes in collaboration, having written best-selling books with James Carville and Mary Matalin, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, William Bratton, Texan Governor Ann Richards, Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Sumner Redstone, among others. He worked with David Dinkins on the former New York City mayor's memoirs. His collaboration with Tommy Hilfiger, American Dreamer, was published in November 2016.
His magazine work has appeared in Sports Illustrated, More, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times sports and Op Ed pages, and been collected in The Bob Dylan Companion, Racing in the Streets: The Bruce Springsteen Reader, and The Subway Series Reader.
His piece "Dancing in the Dark," about Alzheimer's disease, klezmer music and his mother, was published by the New England Review.
Knobler has co-written songs with Chris Hillman, Steve Miller, Freedy Johnston, and the E Street Band's Garry Tallent. His songs have been recorded on Hillman's solo albums, and by McGuinn, Clark & Hillman, and the Desert Rose Band. The title song of the Oak Ridge Boys' Step on Out album was a Hillman-Knobler composition.
Knobler received a 2008-2009 Sports Emmy Award nomination for his work on the program Baseball's Golden Age. He has written championship films for the National Basketball Association and the United States Tennis Association.

''Crawdaddy''

Knobler first wrote for Crawdaddy! under its original editor Paul Williams in 1968. He became editor-in-chief in 1972. Under Knobler the magazine included contributions from Joseph Heller, John Lennon, Tim O'Brien, Michael Herr, Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd, P.J. O'Rourke and Cameron Crowe, plus a roster of columnists including at times William S. Burroughs, Paul Krassner, The Firesign Theater, and sometimes Williams himself. While on the run from the law, Abbie Hoffman was Crawdaddys travel editor.
Crawdaddy was a generational magazine known for its profiles particularly of musicians, but also actors, athletes and other celebrities prominent in 1970s popular culture. Knobler's profiles included Bruce Springsteen, Sly Stone, Mel Brooks, Muddy Waters, Linda Ronstadt, Sylvester Stallone, Loudon Wainwright III, the Souther Hillman Furay Band, Stephen Stills. Under Knobler, Crawdaddys editors often assigned artists to write about other artists; Al Kooper profiled Steve Martin, Martin Mull interviewed Woody Allen, William S. Burroughs talked magic and mysticism with Jimmy Page.
The record reviews section, driven by editors John Swenson and Noe Goldwasser, had an iconoclastic reputationwell-known and respected by the music industry for its fierce independence. Crawdaddy's features section regularly covered scenes from New Orleans funk to Austin, Texas' cosmic cowboys to Scientology, est and disco. Its renowned sense of humor produced the Crawdoodah Gazette, The Whole Earth Conspiracy Catalogue and "The Assassination Please Almanac".
Knobler and Greg Mitchell collected a wide range of the magazine's articles in the book Very Seventies: A Cultural History of the 1970s from the pages of Crawdaddy, published in 1995.

Bruce Springsteen

In December 1972, after seeing the performer play at Sing Sing prison and Kenny's Castaways, Knobler wrote the first interview and profile of Bruce Springsteen, with special assistance from Greg Mitchell. "He sings with a freshness and urgency I haven't heard since I was rocked by 'Like a Rolling Stone,'" Knobler wrote. Knobler's Crawdaddy discovered Springsteen in the rock press and was his earliest champion. Springsteen and the E Street Band acknowledged by giving a private performance at the Crawdaddy 10th Anniversary Party in New York City in June 1976. Knobler profiled Springsteen in Crawdaddy in 1973, 1975, and 1978.

Biography

Knobler was born and raised in New York City. He took part in 1965 in the Selma to Montgomery march with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Knobler graduated in 1968 with a degree in English literature from Middlebury College. He sang bass in that school's a cappella group, the Dissipated Eight. Knobler has written for the college's alumni magazine. He attended the Columbia University School of the Arts, Creative Writing Division.
He briefly managed the career of saxophonist and E Street Band member Clarence Clemons in the 1980s.
Knobler is the father of Dan Knobler, producer, songwriter and guitarist in the bands Captain Coconut and Flearoy and co-founder of the audio/visual production company and creative collective Mason Jar Music. Dan Knobler's studio, Goosehead Palace, is located in Nashville, TN.

Books