Cameron Crowe is more acknowledged as a filmmaker these days, best known for his autobiographical 2000 comedy drama Almost Famous, which was inspired directly from his start in music journalism.
Crowe entered the field at exactly the right time. Magazines like Rolling Stone were the last word on contemporary rock and roll commentary, but in their early stages and run by very slapdash people and processes, nobody cared that Crowe was only 15. And because rock stars were becoming godlike thanks to the new reach of media age, he found himself interviewing, hanging out with, touring and befriending the biggest names in the music industry before he’d even left school.
His memoir details his upbringing, how he mostly fell into his line of work thanks to little more than a devoted passion for the music (and being in the right place at the right time), family tragedies and discord that shaped him as an artist and adult, and it’s presented in the framing device of the Almost Famous stageshow, a project Crowe was intimately involved in and was sure would fail. As always, it’s nice to see a writer or filmmaker talk about doubts and impostor syndrome when all we usually see are the successes.
The chapters are short and digestible and, as a writer first and foremost, Crowe does a better job at this than most celebrity memoirists. If you came of age loving the music of the 70s and 80s, you’ll love the stories of the larger-than-life personalities (and how sometimes-shockingly human they actually were) he was there to witness up close.