Jon Landau

Jon Landau
Landau at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival
Born	(1947-05-14) May 14, 1947 (age 78) New York City, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Record producer, music critic
Spouse(s)	Janet Maslin Barbara Downey
Children	2

Jon Landau (born May 14, 1947)^[1] is an American music critic, manager, and record producer. He is most known for his work with Bruce Springsteen. He is the head of the nominating committee for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,^[2] and received that institution's Ahmet Ertegun Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2020.^[3]

Born in New York City, Landau grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn and then in Queens before his family moved to the Boston suburb of Lexington, Massachusetts when he was 12.^[4] He attended Lexington High School and then Brandeis University, where he earned a degree in history with honors.^[5]

Aligning himself with the growing underground culture of late-1960s Boston, Landau carved out a niche while writing for the music magazine Crawdaddy. A failed performer yet a passionate, devoted fan, Landau championed the straightforward rock and roll that he loved, and wrote scathing reviews of what he saw as the overblown, pretentious San Francisco scene.^[6]

As a critic, Landau wrote for Rolling Stone from its first issue and for other publications. In Volume 1, Number 1 of Rolling Stone, published on November 9, 1967,^[7] Landau compared Jimi Hendrix and his debut album, Are You Experienced, to Eric Clapton and Cream's debut album, Fresh Cream (both released months before, and both Hendrix and Cream having made huge American splashes as live performers that summer). The next few issues saw Landau staking out more traditional R&B and soul territory with profiles of Aretha Franklin,^[8] and Sam and Dave,^[9] plus a posthumous Otis Redding appreciation.

Landau's 1974 article in The Real Paper,^[1] wherein he claimed, "I saw rock and roll's future and its name is Bruce Springsteen!," is credited by Nick Hornby^[10] with fostering Springsteen's popularity. Landau was then hired by Springsteen, and is cited as co-producer on Springsteen studio records from 1975's Born to Run through 1992's Human Touch and Lucky Town. Landau is considered to have influenced Springsteen artistically^[11] as well as professionally.

In January 2024, it was announced that a film based on the making of Springsteen's 1982 album Nebraska was being produced with Springsteen and Landau involved along with Scott Cooper serving as the director and writer.^[12] The film, which will be titled Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere and will be based on the 2023 book written by Warren Zanes, will be produced by former Netflix Films chairman Scott Stuber for A24. Actor Jeremy Allen White will play Springsteen^[13] and Jeremy Strong will play Landau.^[14] It was later announced that 20th Century Studios had acquired the film in a bidding war with A24, joining the project as financier and distributor.^[15][16]

Other artists that Landau has managed or produced include MC5, Livingston Taylor, Jackson Browne, Natalie Merchant, Alejandro Escovedo,^[17] Train,^[18] and Shania Twain.

Landau has been responsible for the liner notes for The Atlantic Albums Collection by Aretha Franklin (2015), Soul Manifesto: 1964–1970 by Otis Redding (2015), and The Complete Atlantic Albums Collection by Wilson Pickett (2017).

Landau was once married to The New York Times film critic (and later book reviewer) Janet Maslin. He later married Barbara Downey, a former Rolling Stone editor. They have two grown children. In 2011, Landau had a growth in his brain surgically removed. The surgery resulted in the loss of sight in one eye.^[19]

Jon endowed a fine arts scholarship at Brandeis University in 1997.^[20] He received an honorary degree from Brandeis in 2019. He emphasized the importance of art in his speech: "I believe art is life,” Landau said. “And, without art, there is no life. So let’s all of us carry on – creating, seeking, searching and making art a part of our lives. It’s art that brings out the human in all of us.” ^[21]

Landau and his wife Barbara own an important art collection that focuses primarily on Old Masters (Italian painting and sculpture from the 13th through 17th centuries) and 19th century Realist, Romantic, and Barbizon works. The Boston Globe referred to it as "the envy of the most serious and committed collectors."^[22] With the exceptions of his family and work, collecting is reportedly Jon Landau's greatest interest in life. He declared that if he went back to school, “I would study Renaissance art.”^[23]

The Renaissance and Baroque section of the collection holds particularly rare works, including paintings by Titian, Tintoretto, Tiepolo, and sculptures by Donatello, Ghiberti, Verrocchio, della Robbia, and Pietro and Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Nineteenth century works include Géricault, Delacroix, and Corot, one of the largest private holdings of Courbet, with fifteen works (which took 20 years to amass), and English paintings.^[24][23][25] Landau discussed his art collection on a panel at the Clark Institute in Williamstown, MA, in 2016.^[26][27] He also served on a Sotheby's panel called "Collecting Masters: The Auction, Museum & Individual" in 2017.^[28]

Works from the collection have been lent to leading museums, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Prado in Madrid, the Louvre in Paris, and the National Gallery in London.^[20] The couple has gifted artworks to museums, including a Poussin to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which they regard as "the greatest artistic institution in the country.” They have also promised a Théodore Rousseau landscape to the Metropolitan.^[29] They donated a Barocci sketch to the St. Louis Art Museum in 2020.^[30]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jon Landau.

• All Music.com Profile
• Jon Landau discography at Discogs
• Jon Landau at IMDb
• Blog on Huffington Post