About Reebee

Reebee Garofalo is Professor Emeritus at UMass Boston, where he taught for 33 years, and has been a musician, activist, and educator for as long as he can remember. On the academic side, Garofalo has written or edited five books and numerous articles on popular music and lectured widely on a broad range of subjects relating to the operations of the music industry. He is a past President and remains an honorary member of the Executive Committee of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music-US. His most recent books are Rockin' Out: Popular Music in the USA and HONK! A Street Band Renaissance of Music and Activism.

As an activist and musician, Garofalo has spent years organizing and performing in progressive street festivals, benefit concerts, and other cultural events. He serves on the organizing committee for the annual HONK! Festival of Activist Street Bands in Somerville, MA, and enjoys raising a ruckus drumming with the Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Society Brass Band, an activist New Orleans-style street band, and with the Blue Suede Boppers, a fifties rock 'n' roll band.

In the community, Garofalo is a co-founder of the Collaborative Living Project, an aging-in-community project that is involved in redeveloping the Powder House Community School in Somerville, MA.