Bruce Fessier

Fessier was born in Los Angeles and raised in Whittier, California. He attended Whittier High School, alma mater of the 37th U.S. President, Richard Nixon, and was taught piano by Nixon’s cousin, Margaret Smith. He earned a journalism B.A. from San Francisco State University in 1975, placing second for enterprise reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists, Western U.S., for a story on Nixon’s “Road to Watergate.”

Fessier covered Frank Sinatra’s home life and the Coachella Valley underground music scene from which Queens of the Stone Age emerged. He appears in Leo Zahn’s 2018 documentary, “Sinatra in Palm Springs” and Joerg Steineck’s 2015 documentary, “Lo Desert Sound”. He co-founded a Desert Rock at the IPAC series with Mario Lalli that evolved into the Tachevah Music Showcase produced by The Desert Sun, Goldenvoice, the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, P.S. Resorts and Harold Matzner. He taught classes on “Elvis Presley in Palm Springs” for UC Riverside Palm Desert in 2007 and “The History & Legends of the Joshua Tree Music Scene” for Desert Institute at Joshua Tree National Park. He was roasted by a panel including Bono and jazz artist Georgie Auld in 1987 to raise funds for the Desert Theatre League, which he co-founded with actor Steve Meek. He served on Bono’s founding Palm Springs International Film Festival committee in 1987 and co-founded the Jazz Celebrity Golf & JAMS Session in 1997 with his wife Jane Fessier and singer Frankie Randall. He hosted and produced the last tribute to Merv Griffin in 2007 to benefit the La Quinta Arts Foundation. He co-wrote the title track to Pat Rizzo’s 2011 LP, “It’s Not You, It’s We.”

Fessier has covered every Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, Stagecoach country music festival and Palm Springs International Film Festival, plus the first US Festival in San Bernardino, Calif. His awards include Best News Reporting, AP, California-Arizona 2005 for his stories on Ronald Reagan’s death; Best Writing, California Newspaper Publisher Association 2018 for his story on the death of Sonny Bono; and Best Video, Gannett 2015 for his history of the Mafia in Palm Springs.

Fessier covered Southern California entertainment news for 44 years for two separately-owned “Desert” magazines, USA Today, Racquet Club Magazine, The Truth Seeker, Freedonia Gazette and more. He covered the 1978 California Jam II music festival in Ontario, Calif., and U.S. attempts to start a 1981 world expo in Ontario for The Herald-News of Fontana, Calif., 1977-78. He joined a Bloomington, Calif., Crime Prevention Commission after a riot in his neighborhood. His subsequent reporting of state Attorney General Evelle Younger’s pilot crime prevention program in an area identified by author Hunter Thompson as the home of the Hells Angels was called by local police, “an integral part of the successful effort to reduce crime within the greater Fontana area.” The United Way honored him for community service in January 1979. In 2019, he retired from The Desert Sun after 40 years to pursue writing and speaking opportunities and was feted with a California Assembly resolution, a lifetime achievement in journalism CV Music Award (sponsored by the Coachella Valley Weekly newspaper), and an endowment in his name from the College of the Desert Foundation to pay for Desert Sun internships.

Bruce Fessier (born June 6, 1953) is an American arts and entertainment journalist.