I suffer from 1960s envy: too young to have been a hippie but old enough to remember that magical era of musical history, especially in California, where the rock gods made the soundtrack of my life. Cameron Crowe, an unassuming teenager, bore witness to all of it as a sidekick journalist, living a life the rest of us mere mortals dreamed of. And he has the audacity to call himself uncool!
His latest book of that title is a great journey through his pre Fast Times at Ridgemont High fame (yes, I do own a first edition of that book, thank you very much), when he was just a really smart boy who fell in love with writing and the musicians who would go on to fame and fortune.
Of course, we all know that the movie Almost Famous (and later a musical!) was born from a Rolling Stone article about his time with the Allman Brothers Band and that Penny Lane put Kate Hudson on the movie map, so we are destined to associate Crowe with rock and roll. Heck, he was even married to Nancy Wilson, badass guitarist from Heart.
But this autobiographical account isn’t just about the men and women who would be giants (The Eagles, Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Jim Croce, even David Bowie!); it’s also a love letter to his mother, father, and sisters. It’s quite charming and reverential. Theirs was not an easy life, but Crowe clearly powered through it and was anointed one of the chosen ones while still in high school.
It’s hard to believe that someone so young could go on tour with the likes of Greg Allman and Dickey Betts, but times were different - the world was a much smaller, safter place. And Crowe’s “uncool” demeanor, which I would describe as earnest innocence, paved the way for him to blend into the background and get that coveted interview. Sometimes it didn’t work out so great (If you don’t know why, read the book), but most times it did.
This guy has led the most charmed writing life, I think I might have Cameron Crowe envy too!
