Welcome to the homepage of Steve Knopper, Rolling Stone’s former primary music news and business reporter for 15 years, then a Billboard editor at large until recently.

As a travel and features writer and personal essayist, I’ve published stories in GQ, the Wall Street Journal, National Geographic Traveler, Wired, New York, Time, Fortune and just about every section of the New York Times, including the magazine and Section A, Page 1.

I’m author of MJ: The Genius of Michael Jackson (Scribner/Simon & Schuster) and Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age (Free Press/Simon & Schuster). I’m working on a University of North Carolina Press book about ‘70s funk-music history.

I’ve been a featured expert source on NPR's Fresh Air (Terry Gross interviewed me for 38 minutes!), the ABC Nightly News, Good Morning America and films such as All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records and A&E’s The People vs. Michael Jackson.

Once I shared a bed in a tour bus with Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne and their blonde Pomeranian. Another time, I dusted mushrooms for a salad with Sia in her kitchen. And the late, great, similarly named Steve Cropper of Booker T. and the M.G.’s kindly gifted me this outgoing voicemail.

Have a soulful day, y’hear?