Robert Cremer

Robert Cremer grew up speaking the blues in his hometown of Chicago and has listened to the blues ever since. Blues LPs were at his side when he worked as a freelance journalist in Asia covering the Cultural Revolution on mainland China. The blues followed him to LA where he worked as a syndicated columnist for the trade paper Hollywood Reporter and published two books—Lugosi: The Man Behind the Cape and Basic Orienteering: A Guide to the Use of Map and Compass. Later in San Francisco, Cremer created a state-wide cable TV network and directed the FCC-licensed radio station at the University of California at Berkeley.

After moving to Germany in the early 1990s, he became a lecturer at the University of Bayreuth in Bavaria where he taught a graduate course in writing. In retirement, he lives in Bamberg, Germany, which boasts the highest concentration of breweries in the world—a perfect environment for getting into the mood for writing a book about the blues.