Lisa Robinson has done just about every kind of music writing there is. She's followed Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones on tour, covered the scene around CBGB in the 1970s, been a syndicated newspaper columnist, written live reviews for The New York Post and cover stories for Vanity Fair. In that time –- four decades plus, beginning as a filing clerk for a late-night radio DJ — she got to know everybody, and held her own as a woman in the quintessential boys' club of rock and rock journalism.
Robinson's new memoir, There Goes Gravity: A Life in Rock and Roll, is an insider's look at some of the biggest personalities in music, and how their hopes and fears changed as the industry changed around them. She spoke with NPR's Wade Goodwyn; hear the radio version at the audio link, and read more of their conversation below.
It's sometimes astonishing, and perhaps a little frightening, the age in which our destinies can be set in motion. You write that your destiny began with a transistor radio, listening to Symphony Sid's jazz radio show as a kid in New York City.