Craig Werner

Craig Werner teaches literature, music and cultural history. A member of the Nominating Committee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he has written liner notes for re-releases of classic soul albums and contributed to numerous radio and television documentaries on topics ranging from the Harlem Renaissance to Motown. He has won numerous teaching awards including the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching; the English Graduate Student Association’s Teaching Excellence Award; Best Summer School Course from the National Association of Summer School Sessions as part of the teaching team for “Sites and Sounds of the Freedom Struggle.”
Books include Up Around the Bend: An Oral History of Creedence Clearwater Revival; Higher Ground: Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, and the Rise and Fall of American Soul; and A Change Is Gonna Come: Music, Race, and the Soul of America.
A native of Colorado Springs, he was a member of a rock band that often played for GIs stationed at Fort Carson.
Interests: African American music, cultural history and literature; multicultural literature; multicultural responses to Joyce, Faulkner, Whitman, and Shakespeare.