Q’s With Jon Landau, The Rock Hall’s 2020 Ahmet Ertegun Honoree (And The World’s Most Successful Ex-Rock Critic)

Jim Spellman / Getty Image –
Born To Run For Five Decades: Springsteen and Landau attending the 2017 Kristen Ann Carr Fund gala at TriBeCa Grill in New York.

Pollstar: I just watched Bruce’s “Letter to You,” that scene where he sings “I’ll See You in My Dreams” was pretty wrenching. I guess the movie helps answer how you promote an album during a pandemic.
Jon Landau: I managed to choke up on camera. There’s amazingly little footage that exists of Bruce recording with the E Street Band. Bruce wrote these songs for the band. He, [producer- director] Thom [Zimny] and I talked about filming the recording sessions at Bruce’s own studio. They made the record in four days pre-COVID, with minimal overdubs around last Thanksgiving. Thom shot it with three inconspicuous cameras. In fact, you never see a camera in any of the shots. It was as cinema verité as you can get. The idea of going on tour with the band to play these songs was certainly on my mind. We never actually put a hold on any buildings, though. So I guess you can say, wearing my manager’s hat, thank God we have the film and the album to release simultaneously on Apple TV and the streaming services even though we don’t have live dates. We just want people to see the movie.

There’s a real elegiac feel to the album, a sense of looking back and hopefully moving forward, recapturing the spirit of youth and combining it with the wisdom of experience. Especially with the three earlier songs.
That’s the story in a sense, even given my own history with Bruce, which goes back to 1974, and has been continuous in one way or another. Most movies about bands are about their rise and fall, the “Behind the Music” template. This is that rare story with guys who started playing with Bruce in the late ‘60s before he was signed and continued to do so for most of their lives. They are more harmonious, better musicians, better band members, Bruce is a better artist, they are better than any of them have ever been before. It’s a story of growth and people who found a way to make a connection to each other and triumphed. The song, “I’ll See You In My Dreams,” has this life force to it, a big picture. Much of Bruce’s writing, in his biography and for the Broadway show, has a very spiritual dimension to it.

His writing has become so evocative and life-affirming, almost like a preacher delivering a sermon.
He certainly has that in him…

How do you see the future of live concerts for rock legends of a certain age in the COVID era?

You were one of the first of that pioneering group of rock critics that included Paul Williams, your editor at Crawdaddy, Greil Marcus, Paul Nelson, Dave Marsh, Lester Bangs, Ellen Willis and Robert Christgau. Was writing about music just a means to an end for you?
I wrote my first record review in 1962 for an underground local paper when I was still in high school. I would attend the Club 47 [in Boston] night after night, which was the most incredible place to see live music at the time. I was working at a record store called Briggs & Briggs in Harvard Square, which is where I first met Paul Williams, who asked me if he could sell copies of Crawdaddy there next to the cash register. Half the inventory was classical music, the other half rock, which is where I worked. So, I started to write for Crawdaddy with people like Sandy Pearlman and Richard Meltzer. This is where I really got going as a writer and I loved it. One way or another, rock music was going to be my life. In 1967, when Jann Wenner started Rolling Stone, he asked me to be the lead music writer, which is what I did for the next 10 years. That was a significant component of my induction with the Ahmet Ertegun Award, for a non-musician.

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Jon Landau. Photo by Danny Clinch

Can we start a rock critics’ wing for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?
[Laughs] I guess it starts with me. And I would say Paul Williams, in his own way, with Crawdaddy, was the beginning of intelligent people writing seriously about rock ‘n’ roll, and certainly deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. In general, back then, writing about rock music for a daily paper was done by the sportswriter or TV critic.

For me, there was a direct thread from seeing Pete Seeger at four years old at a children’s concert, and realizing right then, that’s where I wanted to go. I learned how to play guitar at age seven and played in a series of bands through college at Brandeis.

At what point did you give up your dreams of becoming a professional musician?
I didn’t have a usable voice. I actually turned into a very good guitar player, but I realized I would never be a great one. I was still at Brandeis when I began writing for Rolling Stone. The more I studied music, I started to be drawn to record producing. Maybe there was someplace behind the scenes where I could fit in. As a rock critic, I met a great many record executives. Elektra’s Jac Holzman asked me to give him some ideas about a band they just signed, the MC5, which I did. I went to Detroit, saw them play and wrote up 10 single-spaced pages analyzing each guy, every note. Jac and the band decide they’re going to make the album, Kick Out the Jams, live. When I first met the guys at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit, I realized they were all looking at the memo, which was meant for Jac to read, not them. Wayne Kramer said, “Who the hell is this guy? But you make a couple of good points.”

After they had a falling out with Elektra over an inflammatory ad they put in a local alternative weekly, Danny Fields, one of the first true modernists to work for a record company, called me up and asked where they could go. I told [Atlantic’s] Jerry Wexler about them, and he signed them, then hired me to produce the album, “Back in the U.S.A.” That was my first production. There’s a song on that record, “Human Being Lawnmower,” that is 2:24, and I would say no one has said more in that short a period of time. The first 15 minutes of MC5’s live show was certainly the most exciting thing I’d ever seen in rock ‘n’ roll to that point. The problem was, the show was so front-loaded, they had no place else to go. It was difficult keeping that train moving. I lived with them in a commune in Ann Arbor for a while working on that album. That was a helluva place to start. Rob Tyner, Wayne Kramer, Fred “Sonic” Smith… They were great to me; I learned so much from them. The MC5 is one band not in the Hall of Fame I’d like to see inducted. They’d be No. 1 on my list.

After they had a falling out with Elektra over an inflammatory ad they put in a local alternative weekly, Danny Fields called me up and asked where they could go. I told [Atlantic’s] Jerry Wexler about them, and he signed them, then hired me to produce the album, “Back in the U.S.A.” That was my first production. There’s a song on that record, “Human Being Lawnmower,” that is 2:24, and I would say no one has said more in that short a period of time. The first 15 minutes of MC5’s live show was certainly the most exciting thing I’d ever seen in rock ‘n’ roll to that point. The problem was, the show was so front-loaded, they had no place else to go. It was difficult keeping that train moving. I lived with them in a commune in Ann Arbor for a while working on that album. They wanted to be rock stars. That was a helluva place to start. Rob Tyner, Wayne Kramer, Fred “Sonic” Smith… They were great to me; I learned so much from them. The MC5 is one band not in the Hall of Fame I’d like to see inducted. They’d be No. 1 on my list.

Your famous statement about Bruce in The Real Paper, “I saw rock ‘n’ roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen…And on a night when I needed to feel young, he made me feel like I was hearing music for the very first time,” referred to his ability as a live performer after you’d seen him at the Harvard Square Theater on May 9, 1974.
The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle was already out, and I loved the songs and the basic musicality. After a decade of writing about rock music, and publishing my book, “It’s Too Late To Stop Now” – a collector’s item, I might add – I thought I had something to offer as a record producer. I had just made an album with a very talented singer-songwriter in Livingston Taylor, who was a very different sort of artist.

Were you looking at Bruce as someone you wanted to produce?
If I had the talent, Bruce was doing what I would’ve liked to do. In the months that followed, I was going to find a way to work with him, one way or another.

In retrospect, it was your own future in rock ‘n’ roll you saw.
That’s very astute and fair to say. Bruce and I created this somewhat unique relationship. I’ve worked on all of his records from Born to Run through “Streets of Philadelphia.”  My relationship with Bruce began as a producer and only afterward became management. There came a point in time where we expanded the relationship. I never thought for a second about going into management before. I always thought of artist managers as the bad guys. They didn’t have a great image. My title was manager, but my approach was very personal.

Letter To You shows how those professional relationships turn personal over time, transcending even the music.
They are for life. Being able to continue these deep friendships over the course of 45 years is unusual.

How did you build Bruce from a club and theater performer into a stadium act?
To me, it was all seamless, everyone working together for a common goal. When I had an idea that worked, it got used. When I had one that didn’t work, it didn’t get used. That’s why they call him the Boss. Bruce is a very open person who has given me the room to contribute creatively. We trusted each other tremendously.

Is the story true that you turned Bruce on to John Ford and introduced a cinematic perspective to his songwriting?
There’s some truth to that. I was a film critic? for three years for Rolling Stone. It’s just another area I bring to the table.

What does receiving this Ahmet Ertegun Award mean to you?
It’s for people that went about their work in a creative way. By enhancing and improving the world of music in some manner. It’s not about power, but influence and positive contributions. Writing my acceptance speech made me realize how important this honor is to me. I wanted to express my appreciation for the fact I was able to spend my life in the world of music. It’s a great thing to be able to get up each day and be involved with this creativity. And maybe help it along. There is nothing else I’d rather have done.

What is the future of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in a post-rock universe?
I have always felt it was to honor what Berry Gordy once called “the sound of young America.” And that’s what’s being recognized, our lodestar. For me, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is meant to be expansive, inclusive, not narrow nor exclusionary. We want to celebrate all the tributaries that flow from and through rock and soul music. It’s not music for children, nor adults. It was a form of rebellion. We want to honor styles we don’t even know are coming.