David Hajdu

David Hajdu
Hajdu in 2015
Hajdu in 2015
BornMarch 1955 (age 69)
Phillipsburg, New Jersey, US
OccupationProfessor, music critic, writer
Period1972–present
Notable worksLush Life
Positively 4th Street
The Ten-Cent Plague
Love for Sale
SpouseKaren Oberlin
Children3
Website
www.davidhajdu.com

David Hajdu (/ˈheɪdjuː/; born March 1955)[1] is an American columnist, author and professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He was the music critic for The New Republic for 12 years and is music editor at The Nation.

Biography

Hajdu is of Hungarian and Italian descent,[2] and was born and raised in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, he attended New York University, where he majored in journalism.[3]

His first professional work was illustrating for The Easton Express in 1972.[4] He started writing for The Village Voice and Rolling Stone in 1979, and was the founding editor of Video Review magazine, where he worked from 1980 to 1984.[4] In the late 1980s he began teaching at The New School, and was an editor at Entertainment Weekly from 1990 to 1999.[4] He was the music critic for The New Republic for 12 years[5] and is music editor at The Nation.[5][6]

He has taught at the University of Chicago (as nonfiction writer in residence), Syracuse University, and Columbia University,[4] where he is a professor of journalism.[5]

He has written biographies and other nonfiction about the musicians Billy Strayhorn, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina, and Richard Farina. He has also written about comic books.

In October, 2021, President Joe Biden nominated Hajdu to serve a six year term on the National Endowment for the Humanities.[7]

Awards

Hajdu in October 2014
  • 1997 ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award: Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn[8]
  • 2002:
    • ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award: Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina and Richard Farina[8]
    • Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award: Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina and Richard Farina[9]
    • Finalist, Firecracker Alternative Book Award: Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina and Richard Farina[9]
  • 2010 ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award: Heroes and Villains: Essays on Music, Movies, Comics, and Culture[8]

Bibliography

All books published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, unless otherwise noted.

  • Adrianne Geffel: A Fiction. W. W. Norton & Company. 2020. ISBN 9780393634228.
  • Hajdu, David (2016). Love for Sale: Pop Music in America. ISBN 978-0374170530.
  • Heroes and Villains: Essays on Music, Movies, Comics, and Culture. Da Capo Press. 2009. ISBN 978-0306818332.
  • Hajdu, David (2008). The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America. ISBN 978-0374187675.
  • Hajdu, David (2001). Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña and Richard Fariña. ISBN 978-0374281991.
  • Hajdu, David (1996). Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn. ISBN 978-0374194383.

References

  1. ^ Gabler, Jay (October 19, 2016). "The Current's Rock and Roll Book Club: David Hajdu's 'Love for Sale'". Minnesota Public Radio. Archived from the original on October 20, 2016. Retrieved September 4, 2019. 'I was born in March 1955,' writes David Hajdu in Love for Sale, 'the same month Blackboard Jungle was released.
  2. ^ Hajdu, David (May 19, 2011). "Review: Paul Simon, So Beautiful or So What". The New Republic.
  3. ^ Bell, Bill (April 30, 1999). "Long Live the Duke". Daily News. New York City. Archived from the original on August 11, 2007. Retrieved March 14, 2011. He was born in Phillipsburg, N.J., where his father was a mill worker and his mother a waitress. He majored in journalism at New York University, and except for a brief flirtation with the Episcopal priesthood as a seminarian at the New York General Theological Seminary, he has worked as a writer and editor for about 25 years.
  4. ^ a b c d "About". David Hajdu (official site). Archived from the original on January 18, 2013. Retrieved December 20, 2012.
  5. ^ a b c "Faculty: David Hajdu". Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Archived from the original on December 21, 2016. Retrieved December 20, 2012.
  6. ^ "Masthead". The Nation. March 24, 2010. Retrieved February 2, 2015.
  7. ^ "Phillipsburg native tabbed by President Biden for National Council on the Humanities". Lehigh Valley Live. October 30, 2021. Retrieved May 22, 2022.
  8. ^ a b c "Prof. David Hajdu wins Deems Taylor Award for music criticism". Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. November 17, 2010. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved December 20, 2012.
  9. ^ a b "Critics Announce Book Award Finalists". The New York Times. January 29, 2002. Retrieved June 26, 2008.
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