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Rock Me on the Water: 1974—The Year Los Angeles Transformed Movies, Music, Television and Politics
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About This Book
In this exceptional cultural history, Atlantic Senior Editor Ronald Brownstein tells the kaleidoscopic story of one monumental year that marked the city of Los Angeles' creative peak, a glittering moment when popular culture was ahead of politics in predicting what America would become. Los Angeles in 1974 exerted more influence over popular culture than any other city in America. Los Angeles that year, in fact, dominated popular culture more than it ever had before, or would again. Working in film, recording, and television studios around Sunset Boulevard, living in Brentwood and Beverly Hills or amid the flickering lights of the Hollywood Hills, a cluster of transformative talents produced an explosion in popular culture which reflected the demographic, social, and cultural realities of a changing America. At a time when Richard Nixon won two presidential elections with a message of backlash against the social changes unleashed by the sixties, popular culture was ahead of politics in predicting what America would become. The early 1970s in Los Angeles was the time and the place where conservatives definitively lost the battle to control popular culture. Rock Me on the Water traces the confluence of movies, music, television, and politics in Los Angeles month by month through that transformative, magical year. Ronald Brownstein reveals how 1974 represented a confrontation between a massive younger generation intent on change, and a political order rooted in the status quo. Today, we are again witnessing a generational cultural divide. Brownstein shows how the voices resistant to change may win the political battle for a time, but they cannot hold back the future.
Reviews
"But he has interviewed artists like Linda Ronstadt, Warren Beatty, and others in depth, and explores the backstories of songs, TV shows, and movies in ways that recreate the energy and excitement of the era ..."
"But those hungry for a more substantial nostalgia trip would be better off focusing on books and films that don't try to serve so many masters."
"Brownstein also takes in a wide swath of the world outside LA ..."
"It's unfortunate that Brownstein spends so little time exploring the Black film and music worlds."
"What lifts the book out of familiar terrain...are the interviews with actors, singers, writers, producers and executives who reflect on the creative urgency of the '70s ..."
"In his brilliant cultural history...Brownstein drops enough names to fill the once-massive Los Angeles phone book (remember those?), elicits memorable moments from several entertainment industries, and recalls political machinations across decades ..."
"There was also a lively comedy scene that was jump-started in 1972 when Johnny Carson moved The Tonight Show to Burbank and Mitzi Shore opened the Comedy Store, where a new brand of humor developed, more freewheeling and less neurotic than its East Coast counterpart."
"While the music of the '70s was rife with talent and broken barriers, Brownstein focuses only on Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, and the Eagles as examples that transcended genres, and his coverage of politics is limited to Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda and the gubernatorial candidacy of Jerry Brown ..."
"into an era when the 1960s counterculture became mainstream."
"An insightful, expertly written book."
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