John Einarson
Author John Einarson stands in front of a photo of his teenage self, back when his band Euphoria opened for Led Zeppelin in 1970.
It’s a Wednesday in early June, and John Einarson — rock journalist, historian, and former long-haired, youthful bandmember who once opened for Led Zeppelin — is about to set foot in Fort Worth for the very first time. A place he’s heard of, maybe flown over, but never touched down in.
That changes June 5.
He’s not coming for the barbecue (though he should), or the record stores (though he will), but for two reasons that somehow make perfect sense in the rock 'n' roll mythology he’s spent decades chronicling: to promote his new book, “From Born to Be Wild to Dazed and Confused – Rock Music’s Revolution in 1968,” and to lecture at the dinner before The BEATLEukemia Ball, a long-running Fort Worth tradition benefiting Leukemia Texas.
Before the gala lights go up and the first chords play, Einarson is going to do what he’s always done best: tell the real story behind the music. The one that doesn't get wrapped in nostalgia or whitewashed for box sets. The one that starts not with flower power, but with fire.
“I was playing guitar in bands in ’68, had hair past my shoulders,” he opined. “We went from ‘If You’re Going to San Francisco’ and ‘Incense and Peppermints’ to hearing ‘Summertime Blues’ by Blue Cheer and ‘Hush’ by Deep Purple, and then ‘Born to Be Wild,’ all within a couple of months.”
Einarson speaks like someone who lived it — and he did. He made his journalistic bones when the very private rock legend Neil Young allowed him to tell his story.
“I credit Neil Young for my writing career because he doesn't do a lot of interviews,” Einarson says. “He doesn't cooperate with books, and there's dozens of books on him. But he invited me down to his ranch and allowed me to interview him about those early days and cooperated with me on that book. So when my Neil Young book, called ‘Neil Young: Don't Be Denied,’ came out, it opened doors for me. Because when I would pitch to publishers, and there in the little résumé it says, well, did a book with Neil Young — it sort of said, ‘Well, if Neil Young thinks this guy's okay, he must be okay.’ And Neil Young has remained a friend of mine still to this day. But he really gave me a big break, probably when I didn't even deserve it. I was still a novice writer, but he definitely gave me a boost up.”
Much like this story, Einarson has spent his life documenting how that cultural pivot point in 1968 — between peace signs and riot shields, between Monterey and the Democratic National Convention — reshaped rock forever.
“The Monterey Pop Festival was the turning point,” he explains. “It’s when people stopped calling it rock and roll and started calling it rock music. There’s a difference. Rock and roll was still the greasy kid stuff. Rock music? That was heavier. Harder. It had something to say.”
It’s the kind of observation that lights up Einarson’s latest book — his 24th (he’s already working on number 25). And in true Einarson fashion, it’s less about puffed-up legend-making and more about connecting the dots between the sound, the scene, and the seismic cultural shifts happening just outside the studio walls.
“1967 was this beautiful hallucination,” he says. “But then came the Tet Offensive, the MLK (Martin Luther King Jr.) and RFK (Robert F. Kennedy) assassinations, the My Lai massacre, and the riots in Chicago. Suddenly, the music had to grow teeth. It had to match the world.”
Einarson’s book traces this moment with care and muscle, drawing a direct line from the chaos of ’68 to the dawn of what we now call classic rock — Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, The Who — all emerging from the rubble with a new kind of sonic authority. This wasn't pop. This was prophecy.
John Einerson
John Einerson with Randy Bachman and Fred Turner a couple of weeks ago — after he convinced the City of Winnipeg to rename an overpass after Bachman-Turner Overdrive.
Fort Worth might seem like an unexpected stop on this tour. However, it turns out that Cowtown has deep roots in the music that Einarson has spent a lifetime unpacking. He’ll be doing a whirlwind three-day visit that includes a book signing at Barnes & Noble Hulen Center (June 6, 6–8 p.m.), another at Record Town (June 7, noon–2 p.m.), and an appearance at the BEATLEukemia Ball that same night.
Record Town, by all accounts, is a bit of sacred ground in these parts. It’s where a young T Bone Burnett soaked in sounds before changing the course of American music. Einarson’s already interviewed Steve Bruton, the store’s longtime family link and local legend, for a past book on Gene Clark of the Byrds. He’s eager to make that connection in person.
There’s something poetic about Einarson arriving in Fort Worth at this moment — when the local music scene is in full creative bloom, when songwriters swap verses in living rooms like it’s 1971 in Laurel Canyon. The same kind of raw, intimate authenticity Einarson has spent a career advocating for.
“In Nashville, it’s all about the song,” he says. “It’s great to hear Fort Worth has that same vibe.”
Einarson’s visit feels less like a lecture tour and more like a homecoming for someone who’s never been here before. Like maybe this city has been waiting for someone like him, someone who knows how to tune into the deeper frequencies.
So yeah, on June 5, John Einarson’s stepping into Cowtown for the first time. But don’t call it a debut.
It’s a reunion — the kind that only happens when the music and the moment finally meet.
