According to "The New York Times", "Crawdaddy" was "the first magazine to take rock and roll seriously", while the magazine's rival "Rolling Stone" acknowledged it as "the first serious publication devoted to rock & roll news and criticism". Preceding both "Rolling Stone" and "Creem", "Crawdaddy" was the training ground for many rock writers just finding the language to describe rock and roll, which was only then beginning to be written about as studiously as folk music and jazz. The magazine spawned the career of numerous rock and other writers. Early contributors included Jon Landau, Sandy Pearlman, Richard Meltzer and Peter Knobler.