DeCurtis is a contributing editor at
Rolling Stone, where his work has appeared for more than thirty years. He received a B.A. from
Hunter College in 1974 and a Ph.D. in American literature from
Indiana University Bloomington in 1981 and is a Distinguished Lecturer in the creative writing program at the
University of Pennsylvania. He collaborated with
Clive Davis on Davis's autobiography,
The Soundtrack of My Life, which was published by
Simon & Schuster in February 2013 and rose to number two on the
New York Times nonfiction best-seller list. He appears in
Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives, a documentary based on the book that opened the
Tribeca Festival in April 2017. His biography of
Lou Reed, titled
Lou Reed: A Life, was published by
Little, Brown and Company on 10 October 2017. DeCurtis's essay accompanying the 1988
Eric Clapton box set
Crossroads won a
Grammy Award in the "Best Album Notes" category, and on three occasions he has won
ASCAP's Deems Taylor awards for excellence in writing about music. He has appeared as a commentator on
MTV,
VH1, the
Today Show, and many other news and entertainment programs. In the 1990s, DeCurtis served as the moderator on the VH1 show
Four on the Floor and as editorial director for the channel's nonfiction programming. He has served as a member of the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominating committee for more than twenty years. From 2006 through June 2008, DeCurtis directed and helped design the arts-and-culture curriculum at the
City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. He was an editorial consultant and the primary interviewer for "Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound," a documentary for the
PBS series
American Masters. DeCurtis appeared in the 2011 documentary
Reggae Got Soul: The Story of Toots and the Maytals which was featured on
BBC and described as “The untold story of one of the most influential artists ever to come out of Jamaica”. In 2015, DeCurtis joined the judging panel of the 14th annual
Independent Music Awards to assist independent musicians' careers. He was a judge for the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th Independent Music Awards. ==Works==