Storytellers: Robert Hilburn, 'Cornflakes With John Lennon (And Other Tales From a Rock 'n' Roll Life)'

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AFTER 35 YEARS of asking the questions, former Los Angeles Times pop music critic and editor Robert Hilburn is finally on the other side of the recorder. His first book since his 2005 retirement from the paper, "Cornflakes With John Lennon," is a memoir, yes, but it's more the story of one man's take on rock 'n' roll — from Elvis Presley to the White Stripes.

Hilburn's interviewed nearly every important figure in popular music since 1970 — in the book he focuses on his many conversations with Presley, Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Bono — and talking to him feels like you're listening to one of the great storytellers, the kind to which he's devoted his career.

"It's interesting: You get the sense of what a recording artist has to go through," Hilburn said of now being the interviewee. "It's fascinating, some of the questions you get asked. That's what Dylan used to say: 'Often people would ask questions I've never thought about and they'd ask me to give them an answer. It's hard.' One time he said, 'People will ask me questions and two or three hours later I'll be driving home and I'll think of an answer. So I said, 'Well, if that's the case, Bob, here's my phone number, call me if there's anything you think of after the interview.'

"The next day I was in the paper, it was a Saturday morning, and the phone rings — it was Dylan. The thing he said was: 'These times are so crazy — people don't know whether to follow the president or the Green Bay Packers.' That was the line he came up with. It just came out of the blue. He actually did think about it, and called."

It's no surprise that "Cornflakes With John Lennon's" extended title is "(And Other Tales From a Rock 'n' Roll Life)" — because Hilburn's full of them. He seems to have a story for everything. In the book, his insight into Dylan and Springsteen, in particular, is revelatory. There are few rock journalists who had quite the same access and tenure Hilburn had.

When Hilburn started freelancing for the Times, there wasn't enough space for music — a copy editor covered rock on the side — and he had to create his own niche. Hilburn was 30 when he became full-time at the Times, in 1970, and he thought this was something he'd do for a few years, maybe until he was 40, then he'd move to something more serious.

"I was getting calls in 1970 from teenagers, little girls, and they'd say, 'Oh, I like your stories about so-and-so so much, how old are you? 20?'" Hilburn recalled. "'No. Older than that.' '30?' 'No. Older than that." And they'd hang up.

"As time went on there was only new things to write about," he continued. "If rock 'n' roll had gone through a decline and there weren't interesting artists I would have thought about leaving earlier."

But the music kept him interested: Kurt Cobain, Radiohead, Public Enemy, The Arcade Fire and so on. Hilburn said he's lost touch a little in recent years — a result of no longer being a full-time critic — but he's still getting behind new bands. The Avett Brothers are a new favorite and you can read micro-reviews on his blog, Roberthilburnonline.com.

Hilburn is often credited with helping take rock journalism to a new, more serious frontier, but he's quick to play down his contributions.

"I don't take any credit for that," he said. "I think there's a lot of writers who took rock music more seriously: Greil Marcus, Jon Landau ... [they] took it in a more scholarly way. I viewed myself as more of a fan always. I was always conscious of being the kid — I always used to picture me [as a kid]. I didn't want to write over that person's head.

"I thought the message of the artist was more important than the writing style," he added. "I tried to be clear, I wanted everyone to be welcome. I think some of the more serious writers wrote to a more elite audience than that. They're the ones who were defining the seriousness of rock 'n' roll. I was interested in the interview much more than those other people. I want to know what Bob Dylan thinks. The songwriter series I did with Dylan in Amsterdam, he was sitting there telling me how he writes songs. That had never been done before anywhere else before."

Hilburn dug for the person behind the persona, and his conversations with Bono on grappling with the responsibility and pressures of success, on how Dylan writes songs and the way he brought out the deeply depressed soul Janis Joplin left backstage every night are simply fascinating studies on the human condition.

"When I met Johnny Cash I didn't know what to ask: where were you born, who was your favorite recording artist, what's your favorite color — I didn't know," Hilburn said. "So I went to dinner with Cash after that article came out and he started telling me about his life: drug use, struggles, pain he was going through, ambitions. And I said, 'My lord this guy has a lot to say.'

"I want to know about the person besides the music," he continued. "Joplin came along and she was the perfect artist to ask that. So, I said, I'll ask those questions I asked Cash in a private interview in a real interview and see what happens. And it was so good. Those quotes were so revealing, so emotional, told me so much about her music. And I said that's what I'm always going to try to do. [Ask] what they think about the world, what they think about themselves, what they think about the music, what motivates them."

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