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New York Times bestselling author, GRAMMY-winning essayist, editorial director, producer and host

Bob Mehr is an award-winning writer, editorial director, producer and journalist with 20 years of experience creating acclaimed traditional, digital media, and audio content.

Author of the New York Times bestseller Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements. An NPR, Amazon and Rolling Stone book of the year, it earned the ASCAP Foundation’s “Timothy White Award” for Outstanding Biography, and was named one of Billboard’s “100 Greatest Music Books of All Time.

In addition to his roles as a music editor and critic for Village Voice Media and USA Today, Mehr is a contributor to The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Billboard,  and has been a U.S. correspondent for Europe’s leading music magazine, MOJO, since 2003. 

Since 2008, he has been an independent producer for Warner Music Group’s catalog division, Rhino Entertainment, conceiving, directing, and producing premier releases, boxed sets and series. 

In 2017, Mehr launched the highly successful catalog campaign for Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame nominees The Replacements, with titles including the Billboard chart-topping For Sale: Live at Maxwell’s 1986, the GRAMMY-winning boxed set Dead Man’s Pop and expanded versions of the classic albums Pleased to Meet Me and Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash.

A GRAMMY winner for “Best Album Notes” in 2021, Mehr has been an essayist for dozens of career-spanning retrospectives and projects from artists including Otis Redding, The Dixie Chicks, The Kinks, Warren Zevon, Al Green, The Staples Singers, and Big Star. 

In 2023, Mehr earned his second GRAMMY for the album notes to the 20th anniversary Super Deluxe Edition of Wilco’s landmark LP, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. 

Mehr also produced 2023’s most buzzed about release, a remixed and expanded version of The Replacements 1985 album Tim. The deluxe boxed set scored a rare perfect 10.0 review on Pitchfork, earned five stars in MOJO, was singled out as the Reissue of the Month in Uncut, and was the subject of deep dive features and think pieces in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Rolling Stone, among others.

Mehr has also served as an editorial director for the groundbreaking experimental culture platform, byNWR, from renowned international filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive, Neon Demon). Developing quarterly multimedia volumes, including original podcast and video programming, Mehr also served as liaison between byNWR and its strategic partners including MUBI, the Harvard Film Archive and Bureau Agency.

An experienced host and reporter, Mehr has contributed to NPR’s All Things Considered and World Cafe, Spotify’s Bandsplain, Warner Music’s Rhino Podcast, and Radio NWR. 

Work

The New York Times •

The New York Times: The Song That Connects Jackson Browne, Nico and Margot Tenenbaum

When he was 16, Jack Browne sat down at his parents’ kitchen table in Fullerton, Calif., and started picking out a tune on an old Kay guitar.In 1965, the fledgling songwriter and high school junior — inspired by books, records and his own suburban disaffection — began weaving together an existential number about loss and regret called “These Days.”It would be a year until he finished the song, nearly a decade before he recorded it properly. By the time Jackson Browne, as he would be known profes...
The New York Times •

The New York Times: ‘Romancing the Stone’ and Its Screenwriter’s Tragic Tale

Each day, before her waitressing shift began, Diane Thomas would plop herself onto the floor of her tiny Malibu studio apartment, in front of a low-slung desk, and begin typing. Throughout late 1978 and early 1979, she worked daily, hours on end, conjuring the tale of Joan Chase, a mousy romance novelist suddenly thrust into a life-or-death adventure.

“I wanted to write about a woman who became her own heroine,” Thomas would offer of her inspiration. “The notion that we can be whatever we imagi
The New York Times •

The New York Times: Randy Newman Is at His Best When America Is at Its Worst

Around the summer of 1966, a song on the radio recorded by the Italian American pop crooner Julius La Rosa caught Bob Dylan’s ear: a forlorn, impressionistic ballad called “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today,” penned by a 22-year-old publishing company staff writer from Los Angeles named Randy Newman.“Randy’s song was so mysterious,” Dylan recalled. “I never heard a song like that before; it was so cynical.” Newman’s own rendition later stood out to him for “the sadness in Randy’s voice. Sadness a...
The New York Times •

The New York Times: Kirsty MacColl’s Voice Was Singular. A New Box Aims to Bring It Wider.

The singer-songwriter, who died in 2000, is best known for duetting on “Fairytale of New York.” But in an unusual career, she also made her mark behind the scenes.

During a fitful 20-year solo career, the singer-songwriter Kirsty MacColl released just five full-length albums, achieving a modicum of success in her native England, and little notice in America. Yet MacColl — who died at 41 in 2000 — is omnipresent each holiday season: It’s her voice offering tart rejoinders to Shane MacGowan in th
The New York Times •

The New York Times: Dolby Atmos Wants You to Listen Up. (And Down. And Sideways.)

There have been efforts to convince the public to adopt advanced audio technologies in the past six decades — ‌including Quadraphonic sound in the ’70s ‌and 5.1 surround sound in the ’90s — but with little success.

True believers in the immersive audio format say it could restore a musical appreciation lost to a generation that has come up during the streaming era.

Dolby Atmos Wants You to Listen Up. (And Down. And Sideways.)

After more than 30 years as a producer and engineer, Brad Wood wasn

The New York Times: How Peter Asher, a Jack-of-all-Trades in Music, Mastered Them All

From left: Gordon Waller and Peter Asher, of the duo Peter & Gordon. Asher’s long career in music is the subject of a new biography.

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The British musician, manager, producer, executive and author known for his work with Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor, is the subject of a new book exploring his unique run in the industry.

MALIBU, Calif. — In December 1977, in an exceptionally rare move, Rolling Stone
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