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Writers often use specific years in the titles of their books to demonstrate what the book is about. The year 1776 has been used many times as shorthand for the American Revolution. So has 1865, for the end of the American Civil War.
Veteran journalist Ron Brownstein, now of the Atlantic magazine and CNN, has chosen 1974, although the complete title of his new book is the mouthful “Rock Me On The Water: 1974, The Year Los Angeles Transformed Movies, Music, Television, and Politics.”
For those not around in 1974, “Rock Me On The Water” is the title of a Jackson Browne song. Browne figures prominently in Brownstein’s L.A. tale. So does a Brown without the “e” – Jerry.
The year 1974 is not obviously important in history. It’s remembered best for President Richard Nixon’s resignation during the summer, following the Watergate revelations. Brownstein tells us vividly why 1974 mattered.
Brownstein offers the story of 1974 Hollywood largely through its bright stars, especially Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty and those associated with them, like Robert Towne, who wrote the script for “Chinatown,” and Julie Christie, who appeared with Beatty in “Shampoo.”
“Chinatown” is a story of corruption so deep and pervasive that it is ultimately unfathomable to J.J. Gittes — played by Nicholson. The rich and powerful have stolen the water that feeds Los Angeles. Then they go on to unspeakable intimate crimes. Director Roman Polanski wasn’t unspeakable to Nicholson’s co-star, Faye Dunaway — the criminal acts that forced him to flee the country came later — but he was nasty and abusive on the set.
“Shampoo” is a much more serious film than the subject would suggest — a day in the life of a sexually ambitious hair dresser, Beatty. How sexually ambitious? The hair cutter beds a wealthy businessman’s wife, mistress and daughter all in one day. (Whether appalled or envious, you have to admit this would be quite a feat — and probably should not be attempted by any male lacking Beatty’s handsome face, inveterate charm and remarkable stamina.) In the movie, Beatty, relentlessly politically active throughout his adult life, has chosen Election Day in 1968, when Richard Nixon became president, for what seems like an L.A. “Canterbury Tale.” The film never strays far from the election, as Beatty, Christie and the others face the consequences of their choices.
L.A. music, in the Brownstein telling, is almost exclusively rock/pop, although there is a chapter on Motown’s Berry Gordy moving to southern California and Bill Withers coming from nowhere to stardom at Sussex Records.
Rock/pop is those who make gold and platinum records. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Linda Ronstadt. The Eagles. And Jackson Browne, who is presented as the reflective voice of the L.A. studios and a tragic figure — his wife commits suicide — who overcomes adversity. Crosby and company are the hitmakers whose megatours become mobile drugfests. Graham Nash reports the band had one employee whose job was to provide cocaine. The Eagles struggled for years to find their voice and their material, but their success eventually rivaled that of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, with some of the biggest-selling albums of all time. Brownstein says that if you want to understand what happened to the band, compare 1972 and 1977 photos of stars Glenn Frey and Don Henley. The drug use, the long hours of touring and squabbling over money, the relentless pressure to live up to their reputation was damaging to body and soul.
It’s no wonder Linda Ronstadt recorded “Poor Poor Pitiful Me.” Before she became a megastar, the men in the music industry had only two things to say to her: “I want your body,” and “Shut up, you don’t know anything, you’re a girl.” The relentless sexism of pop music circa 1974 is not surprising but hard to take for a male reader of almost 50 years later — even one not woke. If you were after the world’s cutest girl, wouldn’t it make sense to smile at her? The groupie culture intensified the sexism. Women were constantly available and expendable. It may be that Ronstadt took up with Gov. Jerry Brown because he didn’t pinch her in the elevator and would ask “What do you think, Linda?”
Comedian Bob Hope said “We can all be proud of TV, and its owner Norman Lear.” For Lear and CBS, the mid-1970s were the hit shows starting with “All in the Family” and the money that followed. Lear dominated the ratings, his shows accompanied on CBS by “M*A*S*H” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” Brownstein explains that CBS executive Robert Wood was instrumental in putting “All in the Family” on the air. Wood saw no future for rural-themed shows — “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “Hee Haw” — and was willing to take risks with Lear.
Politics. This, in the Brownstein telling, is in good measure left-wing activist Tom Hayden turning to elective politics — with Jane Fonda — and the rise of Jerry Brown from son of a governor of California to governor himself. Hayden, in effect, is a metaphor for people like myself who went from chanting “Dump the Hump” in the 1968 presidential election — Hubert Humphrey was the Democratic presidential candidate — to later in life campaigning for candidates whose politics were not much different from the Hump’s.
Jerry Brown as man, governor, and today 83 year-old senior statesman — what a guy. His first term was largely a policy failure, but his commitment to racial equality, social justice, the marginalized and the environment electrified the country. Brownstein says, “No one did more than Brown to integrate the concerns of the sixties activists into the mainstream.” And in his seventies, he had two more terms as governor that were so successful even some Republicans were sad to see him go.
Ron Brownstein has written a wonderful book, but it may not be quite the book he imagined.
“Rock Me On The Water” is in many respects a chronicle of desire — for money, for power, for sex, for celebrity — for living beyond the expectations and experiences of mere mortals. You want to live in the fast lane? This was what it was like in 1974.
Michael Carey is an occasional columnist and the former editorial page editor of the Anchorage Daily News.
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