Books of 2026, #2 - "The Uncool," Cameron Crowe

Cameron Crowe's first years at Rolling Stone corresponded roughly with the time I first began buying the magazine (or asking mom or dad to buy it for me), the Summer of 1974.  At the time I had no idea who Crowe was, or that he had begun writing for the magazine the same year I finished elementary school (1972). 

I started subscribing in 1976, but it wasn't until I bought all of the remaining bound versions of the magazine when they closed the San Francisco warehouse in 1978 that I really began to delve into the past issues.  Via those bound editions I have every issue from November 1972 through April 1976, which many (if not most) observers would probably agree represented the peak years of the publication.  I feel exceptionally lucky to have those bound issues; they are a treasure trove of musical and political history, not to mention personal memories.  For example, when I see the May 1975 cover with John Denver on the cover, I remember exactly where I was on the day I bought the issue - in Berkeley, as part of a high school field trip to visit the UC Berkeley campus.

I don't know that I read every single one of Crowe's features for the magazine, but certainly read most of those that play a role in The Uncool.  To this day, the one that sticks in my memory the most (and which he references in the book) is his contribution to "The Men's Issue," a very funny piece based on his adventures (and more often, misadventures) learning about sex while on many occasions being surrounded by rock stars, roadies, and groupies.  Not every 15-year old boy would have turned down an offer to be seduced to instead go back to his room to watch Steely Dan on The Midnight Special, but kudos to Crowe for making what was almost certainly the right choice.

Where Crowe fits into the pantheon of the first and second generation of RS writers is an interesting question.  If you accept Robert Draper's 1990 "uncensored history" of the magazine as the definitive account of those years (I'd certainly trust it more than Almost Famous, and Draper definitely talked to all the right people), there isn't really evidence of him being among the famous or prolific of the RS stable of writers.  The "most famous" title would probably fall to either Hunter S. Thompson or Annie Leibovitz, and maybe throw in an honorable mention for Ralph J. Gleason.  Crowe wrote a lot of features, but Ben Fong-Torres (and maybe even David Felton) wrote more.  Among those with more mentions in Draper's book than Crowe include Lester Bangs, Jonathan Cott, Fong-Torres, Gleason, Jon Landau, Leibovitz, Greil Marcus, Dave Marsh, Paul Nelson, Charles Perry, Paul Scanlon, Thompson, Charles M. Young, and of course Jann and Jane Wenner.  

Crowe didn't write reviews for RS, but he was among those asked to name their ten favorite records for the Tenth Anniversary issue.  Crowe's ten selections (and what he wrote about each) were:

Katy Lied, Steely Dan.  Anonymous, absolutely impeccable swing pop.  No cheap displays of human emotion.

Something/Anything, Todd Rundgren.  Gloriously cheap displays of human emotion.

For the Roses, Joni Mitchell.  In which Joni Mitchell so far outstrips anything else to emerge from the singer/songwriter boom that half the field promptly drops out.

Physical Graffiti, Led Zeppelin.  Harder than Exile on Main Street and three times as convincing.

At the Fillmore East, The Allman Brothers Band. The tragic and ultimately garish aftermath of the Allman Brothers Band began immediately after the release of this magnificent live album.  Now their memory is all but obscured; no one even yells out "Whipping Post" at concerts anymore.  Their spooky pinnacle remains.

Jackson Browne, Jackson Browne.  Taken as a whole, this album is a southern California Catcher in the Rye.  Jackson will doubtlessly continue to make more finely crafted records, but nothing as wide-eyed and endearing as the first.  

Spinners, The Spinners.  Thom Bell, ladies and gentlemen.  Thom Bell!

"Take it Easy," The Eagles.  Those first two chords mean instant top-down summer...anywhere, any time.  Not, however, worth the trip to Winslow, Arizona.

"Ohio," Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.  If punk is any indication of the alternative I'll stick with the Sixties wimps.

Reading The Uncool, none of those choices (with the possible exception of The Spinners) should come as a huge surprise.  So given all of this, where should one place Crowe in the RS pantheon?  I'd say at or near the top tier, for a couple of reasons.  One, he served as a bridge of sorts, both between a new generation of potential RS readers and the old guard, and between a group of artists that either Wenner, one of his feature writers, or one of his critics had offended over the years.  Without Crowe, it is possible that there never would have been feature cover stories on the Allmans, Joni, Zeppelin, Eagles, or David Bowie.  Those are all major artists, and an important piece of that era which otherwise might have gone totally untouched.

So to the book.  Let me start by saying that I enjoyed it a great deal.  In thinking about how Crowe approached the material, I think he could have gone two ways.  Chet Flippo, for example, wrote a wonderful book - On The Road With The Rolling Stones - based largely on his reporting on the Stones tours of the 1970s and his features about the band that appeared in RS during those years.  Crowe takes a different route - he is telling his story and his family's story, and in many ways the big rock stars are just his supporting cast.  You're as invested in the ultimate outcomes for his mother, father and two sisters as you are in what happens during his crazy times with Kris Kristofferson, David Bowie, Gregg Allman or Jimmy Page - legendary curmudgeons all.

For me, the best parts of the book were less the encounters with those legends - after all, we've all read a million stories over the years about Eagles, Zeppelin, Bowie et al. - but the quick connections with people like Jim Croce and Maury Muehleisen, Ronnie Van Zant and Billy Powell, Lee Michaels, Ronnie Wood.  Because I'm familiar with many of the Riverside County and San Diego locales that play prominent roles, that added to my enjoyment.  Hey, I saw Bruce Springsteen at the same venue where Cameron Crowe saw Elvis!  Making those types of connections are always cool.

My favorite chapter of the book is the one in which he describes his first meeting with Jann Wenner.  The meeting occurred on the day that Ralph Gleason died, so Wenner was really in no shape for the conversation, but kept his commitment.  At that point, in the early Summer of 1975, Crowe was on a real high - he had penned the cover story on Zeppelin, which had turned out to be one of the highest selling issues ever.  But Wenner wasn't there to clap him on the back, he was there to help make Crowe a better writer:

"Listen," he finally said.  "You missed the story."  My heart sank.  "I mean, you clearly love Led Zeppelin, but what was your purpose here?"

I stammered something about wanting to accomplish what was once unthinkable.  A cover story on the band who hated the magazine the most.  Like me, there were many fans who wanted to read about them in Rolling Stone.  

"But you didn't write about what you saw, what you felt."  He rubbed his face.  It was still red with tears. "You wrote what they wanted you to write, not what you wanted to write.  What did you see?  What did you feel?  What did you want to say about them?  Because this article could have been dictated by the band.  What would a real writer have written?"

Jann Wenner has deservedly gotten a lot of heat and outright over the years for some questionable decisions, but in this passage Crowe provides a valuable insight into just why Wenner was so successful for so long.  I've seen Greil Marcus and Dave Marsh both say how Wenner contributed to their skills as writers, but I've never seen an example quite as good as this one.

One thing people should know before buying the book  If you're looking for a lot of material about Crowe's work in film or much of anything about music of the past two decades, this is not the book for you.  But it definitely was the book for me.

Next in the queue: Gambler: Secrets from a Life at Risk, Billy Walters.