Simon Warner

SIMON WARNER is a journalist, lecturer, broadcaster and Visiting Research Fellow in Popular Music Studies at the University of Leeds in the UK. He has a particular interest in the relationship between the Beat Generation writers - Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and others - and rock culture.

His latest title, Kerouac on Record: A Literary Soundtrack, a collection of essays co-edited with Jim Sampas, was published by Bloomsbury in March 2018. The book considers the influence that music, particularly jazz, had on Kerouac and the impact the writer had on generations of rock musicians followed in his wake.

Jazz Journal said that Kerouac on Record ‘is a lively and fascinating collection of essays, interviews and musings’ placing the writer ‘squarely – and convincingly – at the crossroads of bop and rock, with more relevance to both than has so far been accorded him’.

Warner's previous title Text and Drugs and Rock'n'Roll: The Beats and Rock Culture, appeared through Bloomsbury in 2013.

Pre-publication notices for Text and Drugs and Rock'n'Roll: 'Electrifying', Jonah Raskin, Beat historian; 'Fascinating', Prof Sheila Whiteley, pop scholar; 'Illuminating', Barney Hoskyns, rock biographer; 'Essential reading', Rock's Backpages (www.rocksbackpages.com)

Warner was also co-curator of the UK festival Louder than Words, celebrating popular music writing in all its forms, in its two inaugural years, 2013 and 2014.