Greil Marcus

Greil Marcus (né Gerstley; born June 19, 1945) is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a broader framework of culture and politics. Marcus was born Greil Gerstley in San Francisco, California, the only son of Greil Gerstley and Eleanor Gerstley (née Hyman). Marcus is Jewish. His father, a naval officer, died in December 1944, when a Philippine typhoon sank the USS Hull, on which he was serving as second-in-command. Admiral William Halsey had ordered the U.S. Third Fleet to sail into Typhoon Cobra "to see what they were made of," and, despite the crew's urging, Gerstley refused to disobey the order, arguing that there had never been a mutiny in the history of the U.S. Navy and that "somebody had to die". The incident inspired the novel The Caine Mutiny. Eleanor Gerstley was three months pregnant when her husband died. In 1948, she married Gerald Marcus, who adopted her son and gave the boy his surname. Greil Marcus has several half-siblings.