Dalton, David 1945–

PERSONAL: Born 1945; married Coco Pekelis (a writer); children: Toby. Education: Attended Columbia University and art school.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, St. Martin's Press, 175 5th Ave., New York, NY 10010.

CAREER: Writer and editor. Founding editor of Rolling Stone; columnist for Gadfly magazine. Former photographer for rock groups.

AWARDS, HONORS: Columbia School of Journalism Award (with David Felton), for Rolling Stone interview with convicted murderer Charles Manson.

WRITINGS:

Janis (biography), Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1971.

(Editor, with David Felton and Robin Green), Mindfuckers: A Sourcebook on the Rise of Acid Fascism in America, Including Material on Charles Manson, Mel Lyman, Victor Baranco, and Their Followers (nonfiction), Straight Arrow Books (San Francisco, CA), 1972.

(Editor) Rolling Stones, Amsco Music (New York, NY), 1972.

James Dean, the Mutant King: A Biography, Straight Arrow Books (San Francisco, CA), 1974.

(With Lenny Kaye) Rock 100, Grosset & Dunlap (New York, NY), 1977, published as Rock 100: The Greatest Stars of Rock's Golden Age, Cooper Square Press (New York, NY), 1999.

(Editor) The Rolling Stones, Quick Fox (New York, NY), 1979.

(Editor) The Rolling Stones: The First Twenty Years, A. A. Knopf (New York, NY), 1981.

(Compiler, with Mick Farren) The Rolling Stones in Their Own Words, Delilah/Putnam Book (New York, NY), 1983.

James Dean, American Icon, photo editing by Ron Cayen, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1984.

Piece of My Heart: The Life, Times, and Legend of Janis Joplin, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1985.

Mr. Mojo Risin': Jim Morrison, the Last Holy Fool, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1991.

(Author of introduction) James Dean Revealed!, Delta (New York, NY), 1991.

(With Marianne Faithfull) Faithfull: An Autobiography, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1994.

(With Rock Scully) Living with the Dead: Twenty Years on the Bus with Garcia and the Grateful Dead, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1996.

El Sid: Saint Vicious, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1997.

(With Meat Loaf) To Hell and Back: An Autobiography, Regan Books (New York, NY), 1999.

Been Here and Gone: A Memoir of the Blues (novel), Morrow (New York, NY), 2000.

A Year in the Life of Andy Warhol, photographs by David McCabe, Phaidon Press (New York, NY), 2003.

(With Peggy Lipton and wife, Coco Dalton) Breathing Out, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2005.

Collaborator, with Jonathan Cott, on Beatles-commissioned book Get Back. Contributor to www.RocksBackPages.com.

SIDELIGHTS: David Dalton has written about rock-and-roll and pop culture since the late 1960s and was a founding editor and long-time contributor to Rolling Stone magazine. He is also the author or coauthor of numerous books focusing primarily on musicians and rock groups, writing biographies and often serving as a collaborator for magician memoirs. For example, Dalton collaborated with Rock Scully on Living with the Dead: Twenty Years on the Bus with Garcia and the Grateful Dead. Scully served for many years as the manager of the group the Grateful Dead, first meeting the band in the 1960s. Of all the members, Scully was especially close to Jerry Garcia, and he provides a personal view of the band's titular leader. Writing in Booklist, Mike Tribby noted that, "as an insider's view of a significant hunk of rock and pop culture history," the book "is valuable stuff." Referring to the band's faithful followers, a Publishers Weekly contributor noted that the book "is not addressed exclusively to an audience of Deadheads."

Dalton teamed up with rock singer Marianne Faithfull for Faithfull: An Autobiography. In the book Dalton and Faithfull recount the singer's early rise to fame at age seventeen with the hit song "As Tears Go By." However, after her relationship with singer Mick Jagger fell apart, Faithfull experienced a decade of heroin addiction, only to reinvent her persona and once again become a viable performer. Writing in Lambda Book Report, K. Kaufmann noted that the autobiography "covers the basic facts of its subject's life with unnerving honesty," while a Publishers Weekly contributor called the book an "engrossing if somewhat disturbing autobiography."

In his biography of punk rocker Sid Vicious, titled El Sid: Saint Vicious, Dalton not only reveals the rise and fall of the self-destructive rocker but also peers into the punk music scene of the late 1970s. Dalton writes that Vicious actually had little musical talent; he was recruited for the band the Sex Pistols merely for his punk persona. Eventually, as described by Dalton, the band fell apart and so did Vicious, who died from a heroin overdose while being investigated for the stabbing death of his girlfriend. A Publishers Weekly contributor felt that "the book, overall, is a maladroit affair." Mike Tribby, however, writing in Booklist, called the biography an "illuminating look at punk rock's crassest commercial manifestation," and in Billboard Porter Hall commented on the author's "sharp, well-written prose."

Dalton diverted his efforts from the rock-and-roll scene and collaborated with his wife Coco Dalton for Breathing Out, the memoir of actor Peggy Lipton. A star on the 1960s television series The Mod Squad, Lipton became a television icon of the 1960s "hippie" era. She eventually left show business behind to concentrate on raising a family after marrying Quincy Jones, a successful musician and music producer. In the book the Daltons and Lipton recall Lipton's early life and remembrances of sexual abuse, her later affairs with rock legends like Paul McCartney and Elvis Presley, and the demise of her marriage to Jones. Lipton, who struggled with depression, eventually found a guru who helped her to a spiritual reawakening. A Kirkus Reviews contributor wrote that "people who love star autobiographies will no doubt find this satisfying." In a review in the Detroit Free Press, John Smyntek commented that "you don't often see 'literary style' and 'celebrity bio' in the same sentence, but Lipton's coauthors, David and Coco Dalton, have done a great job of bite-sizing and not super-sizing her life." Smyntek also commented that Lipton's coauthors "mostly keep the revelations chatty" and gave the actor "credit for linking up with the right storytellers." A reviewer writing on the Ear Candy Web site noted that the Dalton's and Lipton's "retelling of her conquests are pretty discreet—this ain't no scandal biography!"

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Artforum International, November, 1994, Gary Indiana, review of Faithfull: An Autobiography, p. 8S.

Atlantic Monthly, July-August, 2005, Sally Singer, review of Faithfull, p. 137.

Billboard, October 25, 1997, Porter Hall, review of El Sid: Saint Vicious, p. 80.

Booklist, January 1, 1996, Mike Tribby, review of Living with the Dead: Twenty Years on the Bus with Garcia and the Grateful Dead, p. 775; August, 1997, Mike Tribby, review of El Sid, p. 1866.

Detroit Free Press, June 26, 2005, John Smyntek, "Cowriters Keep Lipton's Life Light," review of Breathing Out.

Entertainment Weekly, May 13, 2005, Margeaux Watson, review of Breathing Out, p. 94.

Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 2005, review of Breathing Out, p. 338.

Lambda Book Report, January-February, 1995, K. Kaufmann, review of Faithfull, p. 42.

Publishers Weekly, July 11, 1994, review of Faithfull, p. 71; November 20, 1995, review of Living with the Dead, p. 62; January 1, 1996, review of Living with the Dead, p. 39; July 7, 1997, review of El Sid, p. 62; April 11, 2005, review of Breathing Out, p. 41.

ONLINE

Ear Candy, http://www.earcandymag.com/ (September 24, 2005), review of Breathing Out.

Rockcritics.com, http://www.rockcritics.com/ (September 24, 2005), Stephen Ward, "El David: Saint Dalton Shoots His Mouth Off" (interview).

Rock's Back Pages: The Online Library of Rock and Roll, http://www.rocksbackpages.com/ (September 24, 2005), David Dalton, "Interior Day: A Small Cubicle at the Obsolete Rock 'n' Roll Writers' Residency."