{"id":2107908,"date":"2025-10-22T10:05:59","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T10:05:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2107908"},"modified":"2025-10-22T10:05:59","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T10:05:59","slug":"cameron-crowe-on-his-new-memoir-and-the-stories-he-regrets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/cameron-crowe-on-his-new-memoir-and-the-stories-he-regrets\/","title":{"rendered":"Cameron Crowe on his new memoir and the stories he regrets"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

Twenty-five years after \u201cAlmost Famous\u201d put his origin story on movie screens, Cameron Crowe is thinking again about his roots as a teenage music journalist.<\/p>\n

The Oscar-winning filmmaker\u2019s new memoir, \u201cThe Uncool,\u201d is a tender and insightful account of his adventures covering the likes of the Eagles<\/a>, Led Zeppelin and Joni Mitchell<\/a> for Rolling Stone in the 1970s. Back then, a relative scarcity of serious rock writing meant that bands would open the doors of their private jets and let him tag along with a notebook and tape recorder for weeks at a time.<\/p>\n

Due Oct. 28, the book explores Crowe\u2019s relationships with David Bowie, whom he shadowed across Los Angeles as Bowie constructed his Thin White Duke persona, and with Rolling Stone\u2019s founder, Jann Wenner, whom he depicts as a kind of mentor-slash-antagonist. But it also ponders what Crowe, now 68, calls the \u201codd chemistry\u201d of his loving yet complicated family, including his parents\u2019 handling of his older sister Cathy\u2019s suicide at age 19. (He\u2019ll discuss the book Nov. 20 and 21 at the Montalb\u00e1n Theatre.)<\/p>\n

Crowe, whose movies include \u201cSay Anything\u201d and \u201cJerry Maguire,\u201d is at work on a Mitchell biopic rumored to star Meryl Streep and Anya Taylor-Joy; next year, he plans to issue a volume of his collected journalism. Over coffee and bagels on a recent morning in Culver City, he talked about \u201cThe Uncool,\u201d a missed opportunity with Bob Dylan and Wenner\u2019s much-discussed ouster<\/a> from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s fair to say that you were known back in the day for being pretty sympathetic toward your subjects. Who\u2019d you get crosswise with?<\/b>
When I was starting out, there were some editors at Rolling Stone that really felt like they needed to tell me that you can\u2019t just write about people that you admire. There were two assignments that I took, and I thought, OK, I\u2019m gonna try out what later became known as snark.<\/p>\n

I thought Bachman-Turner Overdrive were kind of goofy, but they were having big hits and Rolling Stone wanted the story, so I went on the road<\/a> for three days. Opening for them: Bob Seger, who was between career successes. I remember sad Bob Seger on a pay phone in a hallway talking to somebody \u2014 like, \u201cI\u2019m headed to Michigan, where I should be a god, but I\u2019m opening for Bachman-Turner Overdrive.\u201d<\/p>\n

I once beheld Bob Seger in a dressing room eating a chocolate-chip cookie off a styrofoam plate.<\/b>
That\u2019s like an Edward Hopper portrait.<\/p>\n

Sorry, continue with BTO.<\/b>
They were full of themselves \u2014 three big hits, and they think they\u2019re the Beatles. So I just quoted them being completely pompous. Then I felt like s\u2014.<\/p>\n

Because you\u2019d been asked to do something that wasn\u2019t you, and you\u2019d obliged?<\/b>
Yeah. I remember seeing William Buckley on TV as a little kid and being like, He bites. What if I<\/i> bit? Here was the interesting thing, though: They loved the story. \u201cThis sounds like us, man!\u201d But I felt soiled by it.<\/p>\n

Another thing I\u2019m still kind of bummed about: I wrote about John Travolta [for Playgirl in 1977<\/a>]. He was in a particular place, not unlike Bachman-Turner Overdrive, where he was just kind of trying out stardom, and I made a comment like, \u201cYeah, good luck.\u201d He had a journalist friend who was a good friend of mine, and he called the guy up and he goes, \u201cWhy did Cameron do that? I really enjoyed talking to him, and he was looking where he could shoot an arrow at me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Years go by, and I end up at the same table with him when \u201cJerry Maguire\u201d came out. Kelly Preston, his wife, had been in the movie, and he\u2019d advocated for her to do it and everything. There was a moment where I said, \u201cI really regret what I wrote about you because it wasn\u2019t me, and I don\u2019t think it was you either.\u201d F\u2014ing Travolta looked at me and he said, \u201cI appreciate what you\u2019re saying, but there\u2019s no road back to trusting you.\u201d I can still see his face. And it wasn\u2019t \u201cI\u2019m so hurt,\u201d you know? It was \u201cYou weren\u2019t honest with yourself, were you?\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s some writing you\u2019re especially proud of in the book? You\u2019ve got a scene where you\u2019re in Chicago with Led Zeppelin and you meet this woman in a bar. You say, \u201cShe was a single mother and a schoolteacher on her day off. She invited me to her apartment, and I watched her pay the babysitter.\u201d<\/b>
I\u2019m proud of that. What that did \u2014 and you can\u2019t really do it with screenwriting in the same way \u2014 it just caught a feeling. It felt real to me, and honest, and a little sad. I\u2019m also proud of the writing about Ronnie Van Zant [of Lynyrd Skynyrd]. That guy was cut short, and there was a huge career ahead of him. More people need to put a crown on his head.<\/p>\n

You do a nice job in the book of speeding up and slowing down as you go through your memories. It\u2019s got some changes in tempo.<\/b>
Hopefully like music.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/picture>\n
\n

Cameron Crowe at the Sundance film festival in 2019.<\/p>\n

(Jay L. Clendenin \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

One of the longest sections revisits an encounter with Gregg Allman. He spoke candidly to you about his music and about the death of his brother Duane. Then he kind of turned on you \u2014 accused you of being a cop, took your interview tapes.<\/b>
The Allman thing was sitting in my gut for decades, and so that just wrote the way it did. It was very violent emotionally, and more violent than I think Gregg \u2014 well, no, I think Gregg knew it. But it was a tour bus anecdote in his autobiography. I felt like, Come on, man \u2014 that\u2019s not real.<\/p>\n

When I did the audiobook the other day, I started crying. He really scared the s\u2014 out of me. I didn\u2019t have a family where I heard domestic stuff happening in the next room. So to be 16, on your big ride, and to have somebody beat you up with hard fists \u2014 it was still in there.<\/p>\n

In a way, that scene feels like \u2014<\/b>
But I never hated him for it.<\/p>\n

No, I didn\u2019t get that impression from the writing.<\/b>
I felt like I\u2019d uncovered a wound somehow. I wasn\u2019t a doctor, but there was the wound, and I was like, \u201cI\u2019m sorry that you\u2019re so angry about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The scene feels like the heart of the book to me.<\/b>
Look at the guy: He wasn\u2019t that much older than me, and there was so much going on inside him \u2014 so much pain. And I too had that kind of pain because I\u2019d also lost a sibling.<\/p>\n

Who\u2019s an artist you got wrong?<\/b>
I did an interview with Bob Dylan for Los Angeles magazine, and I got it so wrong that they didn\u2019t publish it. It was around the time of \u201cStreet-Legal,\u201d and we did it where they were recording. He had a room in the rehearsal space, and the top 10 albums of the moment were spread out on this bed \u2014 like he\u2019d asked someone to bring him the top 10 albums. I think Seger was one of them. The interview just really didn\u2019t go well. It was like no good answers. Or maybe my questions weren\u2019t big enough. He\u2019d done \u201cRenaldo & Clara,\u201d and he was talking about how Shelley Winters was a very important artist. I\u2019m like, \u201cShelley Winters? That person on the Johnny Carson show?\u201d<\/p>\n

Years later, I got the job to do the liner notes for [Dylan\u2019s box set] \u201cBiograph.\u201d He came over to my house for two hours and sat down at this little red table in our living room. Because it was for him, I think, he had something to say. The interview was basically me saying, \u201c\u2018Forever Young\u2019 \u2014 go.\u201d And he f\u2014ing answered the questions! \u201cWell, I wrote it in Arizona, and I was thinking about\u2026\u201d I was like, \u201cWho is this<\/i> guy?\u201d<\/p>\n

Who disappointed you?<\/b>
I was given the assignment to do a cover story on Steve Miller. It wasn\u2019t like I was burning with desire to write about Steve Miller, but I liked the records \u2014 the early stuff was great. So I went to San Francisco, to the top of this hotel. It was really cold and all the windows were open. Everybody was kind of shivering except for Steve Miller, who had a big coat on. I started talking to him a little bit, and he said, \u201cWhat makes you think you know enough to interview me? I think you\u2019re too young to grasp my complete musical scope.\u201d Everybody in the room is looking at me \u2014 like, \u201cHow you feel about what Steve just told you?\u201d The ping-pong ball\u2019s rattling in front of me. Am I gonna hit it back? I was like, \u201cWell, I think I do, and\u2026\u201d But I went and wrote a memo to Jann about why I didn\u2019t want to do the story, which he gave to Steve Miller. <\/p>\n

Have you talked to Miller since?<\/b>
No, but I think he still remembers. He said something<\/a> at the Rock Hall about it.<\/p>\n

In 2023, Wenner was booted from the Rock Hall\u2019s board after <\/b>an interview<\/b><\/a> with the New York Times\u2019 David Marchese about his book \u201cThe Masters.\u201d Marchese asked why Wenner interviewed only white men in the book, and Wenner suggested that women and Black artists \u2014 including Joni Mitchell and Marvin Gaye \u2014 weren\u2019t sufficiently articulate. Did you interpret those comments as a betrayal of Wenner\u2019s true self, or was that the true Jann coming out?<\/b>
I think it was the true Jann on that day. The guy you would imagine he was [by] reading those comments, I didn\u2019t recognize that guy as Jann. I recognize that guy as probably having written that book and feeling really good about the people that he interviewed and explaining why he chose the people he chose to call masters. But it\u2019s a \u201cHave you stopped beating your wife?\u201d question, you know? I don\u2019t know that Marchese was trying to play gotcha, but I think that\u2019s how Jann answered the question on that day.<\/p>\n

To me, Jann is a guy that got a lot of people psyched to link arms and write about music at a time when nobody had a place to really do it. To be a young person going into that office and seeing those vibrant people who were five or six years older than you but rowing together to tell these stories \u2014 it was super exciting. And Jann created that atmosphere. Later, as a director, I realized how important it is to be the person that brings everybody together. And it\u2019s not easy.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Cameron <\/picture>\n
\n

Cameron Crowe and Joni Mitchell in San Diego in 2019.<\/p>\n

(Bruce Glikas \/ WireImage)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

Would you say the opprobrium that came down on him was justified or excessive?<\/b>
Probably excessive if you weren\u2019t able to get more of the story. If you were able to see Jann from a different perspective, you might understand what he was trying to say better. But this is the thing in clickbait culture: You get the four sentences that get people crazy or super happy but mostly outraged. He\u2019d probably say it differently today.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m certain he would. But is that because he feels different or because he got stung and now he\u2019d be wary?<\/b>
I think he was wrong about Joni and knows he was wrong about Joni. She\u2019s the most articulate of them all.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s a type of music that makes you feel old now?<\/b>
I have two sons who are into melodic death metal. That was never my thing, but I went to a Sleep Token<\/a> concert with them and I was blown away at how emotional it was.<\/p>\n

I love that I asked you about music you don\u2019t understand and you told me about something you totally do understand.<\/b>
I mean, Sleep Token \u2014 in a way, it\u2019s singer-songwriter music.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re known for your excellent needle drops. Who uses music in their movies even better than you do?<\/b>
Quentin [Tarantino] often does. To use Jim Croce the way he did [in \u201cDjango Unchained\u201d], or using the Delfonics in \u201cJackie Brown\u201d \u2014 that was a crusher. I saw this series \u201cWayward\u201d with Toni Collette that hurt for me to watch. Michael Angarano, who\u2019s in \u201cAlmost Famous\u201d \u2014 he plays the little guy: \u201c11!<\/a>\u201d \u2014 he made a really nice movie called \u201cSacramento,\u201d and there in the middle of it is this obscure Ron Wood track that\u2019s fantastic<\/i>. I\u2019m like, F\u2014, I gotta make another movie and show some muscles.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twenty-five years after \u201cAlmost Famous\u201d put his origin story on movie screens, Cameron Crowe is thinking again about his roots as a teenage music journalist. The Oscar-winning filmmaker\u2019s new memoir, \u201cThe Uncool,\u201d is a tender and insightful account of his adventures covering the likes of the Eagles, Led Zeppelin and Joni Mitchell for Rolling Stone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2107909,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2107908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Cameron-Crowe-on-his-new-memoir-and-the-stories-he.com2F882Fad2F2c9b2803403d80e6fff8c0f2.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2107908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2107908"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2107908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2107910,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2107908\/revisions\/2107910"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2107909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2107908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2107908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2107908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}