Cerphe's Up: A Musical Life with Bruce Springsteen, Little Feat, Frank Zappa, Tom Waits, CSNY, and Many More

Cerphe’s Up is an incisive musical memoir by Cerphe Colwell, a renowned rock radio broadcaster for more than forty-five years in Washington, DC. Cerphe shares his life as a rock radio insider in rich detail and previously unpublished photographs. His story includes promotion and friendship with a young unknown Bruce Springsteen; his years at radio station WHFS 102.3 as it blossomed in a new freeform format; candid interviews with Little Feat’s Lowell George, Tom Waits, Nils Lofgren, Stevie Nicks, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Steven Van Zandt, Robert Plant, Danny Kortchmar, Seldom Scene’s John Duffey, and many others; hanging out with George Harrison, the Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, John Entwistle, Jackson Browne, and many more; testifying on Capitol Hill with friend Frank Zappa during the “Porn Rock” hearings; and managing the radio syndication of both G. Gordon Liddy and Howard Stern. Player listings and selected performances at legendary DC music clubs Childe Harold and Cellar Door are also chronicled.

Cerphe’s Up is both historically significant and a fun, revealing ride with some of the greatest rock-and-roll highfliers of the twentieth century. Cerphe’s Up belongs on the reading list of every rock fan, musician, and serious music scholar.

Cerphe Colwell began his career on WHFS 102.3 radio, one of the first freeform stations in the United States. Cerphe (pronounced “Surf”) helped promote the early careers of Bruce Springsteen, Lowell George, Tom Waits, Frank Zappa, and many other rock luminaries. Cerphe’s radio resume includes WAVA, DC101, WJFK, and current station Music Planet Radio. Cerphe lives in Leesburg, Virginia.

Stephen Moore has coauthored three books, Johnny Holliday: From Rock to Jock, Helen Hayes: A Bio-Bibliography, and Hoop Tales: Maryland Terrapins Men’s Basketball. A research technologist at Georgetown University, he plays in the Bethesda, Maryland, rock cover band The Razors.