Rock Me on the Water: 1974—The Year Los Angeles Transformed Movies, Music, Television and Politics

by Ronald Brownstein

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.

Genres: History, Music, Nonfiction, Politics, Film, Media Tie In, Pop Culture

448 pages, Hardcover

First published March 23, 2021

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

"[L.A.] was like a big garden to me. After those years in New York City, it was like the land of milk and honey . . . I think the east was totally confounded by the west. L.A. could not have cared less. [The city] knew it was having its moment in the sun." -- actress Anjelica Huston, on page 7

Journalist Ronald Brownstein shakes up his usual modus operandi - that being the recent American political scene - and branches out to delve into the entertainment industry during the calendar year 1974 in his often compelling Rock Me on the Water. Although U.S. politics are still discussed here - such as Jerry Brown's ascension to the governor's seat (one of the state's youngest candidates to ever hold that high office), and President Nixon's storied resignation (although it gets curiously brief page time, likely because it did not actually occur in L.A.) - a little more attention is understandably paid to the movies, music, and television shows of that year. And what an eventful twelve-month period it was! 1974 was arguably the moment, if you will, when all three types of popular media were truly centered within the Los Angeles region PLUS the substantial 'Baby Boom' generation was finally coming of age to make inroads to the performing / producing vanguard. The focus is on the movies either released and/or in production at the time (blockbusters such as Chinatown, Godfather, Part II, and Jaws - all now acknowledged as classics from Hollywood's brief 'second Golden Age'), the highly-rated and critically-acclaimed TV comedy shows from the CBS network's extraordinary Saturday night line-up (All in the Family, M*A*S*H, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show), and the popular country-rock music that personified the easygoing singer/songwriter 'California sound' of the mid-70's (the successful albums Late for the Sky by Jackson Browne, Heart Like a Wheel by Linda Ronstadt, and On the Border by the Eagles). As a sociological-historical text narrative this was a wonderfully informative book - filled with quotes from various actors, musicians, producers, and scriptwriters from that era - and probably my only complaint is that I wish it were more detailed at times.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rock Me on the Water is a nonfiction investigation into the transformative year of 1974 in LA; a time when music, tv, movies and politics all began a sea change in the accepted culture. As Brownstein says in an early chapter, it was a time when the medium matched the moment.
There was a lot of interesting history, especially concerning the democratic and accepting culture of the music scene, indicating who played with whom, slept with whom and covered each other’s songs. For example, I never knew the four men that went on to become the Eagles started out as Linda Ronstadt’s backup band. But I often got the feeling I was being told rather than shown - superlative adjectives were thrown around too often as opposed to leaving it to the reader to make their own realizations. Of course, it’s hard to express music in a book. Much easier to do it in the form of a documentary, such as Laurel Canyon on Epix or Echo in the Canyon on Netflix.
I enjoyed the sections on tv more because I knew less about it. I loved the story about Norman Lear styling All in the Family on an English show but modeling the characters on his own parents. The backstories of the tv shows I remember so well (MASH, All in the Family, MTM) were fun.
I was less enthralled with the sections on the movies. While Chinatown and Godfather, Part 2 were masterpieces, Shampoo was not. And other years had many more seminal movies that dealt with the cultural changes. He also includes several movies (Jaws, Nashville) that were filmed in 1974 but released in 1975. He does the same when discussing inclusion and other issues, going several years beyond 1974 to make a point.
The format of the book was confusing at times, with each chapter a month in the year. I would have preferred it if the book had tackled each subject in toto. On more than one instance, Brownstein relates the same story in different chapters.
In summary, this was an interesting book with lots of fun facts. But I didn’t really buy into the whole premise that 1974 was as important as Brownstein makes it out to be. It might have been more appropriate to make this about a larger range of years than a single one.

[Suzanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about Ronald Brownstein’s ROCK ME ON THE WATER: 1974. Brownstein is persuasive that the 1970’s was an extremely creative, productive period for Los Angeles, signaling a shift in the metro area as well as the entire country. But the book itself reads like a series of well-researched magazine articles placed back-to-back and formed into a book. Every time he mentions someone famous, he re-introduces them to readers. Every time Joni Mitchell is mentioned, and it is often, she is amazing, wonderfully talented and sleeping around. There’s not a real discussion of her work just the repetition of the same points. The book is filled with introductions of fascinating people and mini biographies. But two chapters later, Brownstein will act as though they are new to the book and start over again with the introductions. Perhaps the chapters were originally free-standing pieces, but greater integration was needed to make this book good. Otherwise it’s just a list; well-researched and with a great idea, but a list nonetheless. I received my copy from the publisher through edelweiss.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ronald Brownstein's Rock Me on the Water: 1974—The Year Los Angeles Transformed Movies, Music, Television and Politics is typical of most New York disquisitions about Southern California. That is especially true when dealing with the entertainment industry, which is much more than an industry.

I have been a resident in LA since late 1967 and saw all the changes happen. What Brownstein left out almost entirely is the cultural component: the Beats, the Hippies, the Teeny-Boppers, the Freep, the Sunset Strip, and most of Venice and the Valley. The reason for 1974 being a pivotal year is that artists were attracted to the ferment. They did not care a tinker's damn about the awards shows (unless the were in marketing).

To make things worse, the organization of the book is a mess, with each chapter being a month of the calendar -- for no particular reason. Movies, music, television, and politics are all scattered throughout, passim! And altogether too much attention is paid to box office and the business end of the entertainment industries, what with all the cocaine-snorting executives and their dollies.

The fact of the matter is that the culture's effect on the art is critical, irrespective of the Geffens and their ilk. Somehow, the think the word "Industry" belonged in the long subtitle of this book.

[Dave Schoettinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have heard it said that the music you listen to in high school remains your music of choice throughout your life. This has certainly been true for me. I graduated in 1967 and the Beach Boys, Mamas and Papas, Lovin' Spoonful, and other groups of the mid-60s are still my go-to selections. Ron Brownstein is nearly a decade younger than myself, so it makes sense that the music of 1974 maintains a special place in his life. However, while the only legacy of my musical preferences was that my kids were the only ones in their elementary school who knew the words to Memphis and Come a Little bit Closer, Ron Brownstein has essentially taken the liner notes of the albums he purchased as an adolescent and expanded them into this 400 page documentary on the Golden Age of Los Angeles Cultural Influence.

His thesis is that Los Angeles dominated not only American popular music in 1974, but also movies and television, as well. In order to support this thesis he has collected personal interviews with an impressive litany of the movers and shakers of the American entertainment industry during the early 70s. These include Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, Jane Fonda, Rob Reiner, Graham Nash, and many others whose names are not as familiar but worked behind the scenes to make Los Angeles the place to be. Plus, since Brownstein's day job is as a political pundit, he weaves in the story of Jerry Brown and California politics.

I will leave it to others to determine if Brownstein sufficiently made his case for the cultural dominance of LA during this period. For me, it was enough to bask in the nostalgia of the music, movies and TV that I experienced during that period.

[Dave · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a mess. There's nothing wrong with the idea of this book--I've read very good books that focus on the music of 1970 and of 1971, so why not 1974? In fact, if it had just concentrated on west coast music of 1974, it would've been fine--a couple of my favorite parts are the discussions of Heart Like a Wheel and Late for the Sky. But Brownstein wants to bring in the movies of 1974, and the television of 1974, and the California politics of 1974, and the transition from the sixties to the seventies, and the generation gap, and the changes wrought by 1974 on 1975, and the retrenchment of the late 70s, and....

It's too much. The organizing principle of 1974, LA, and movies/TV/music/politics could work, I suppose. But in order for Brownstein to talk about the people he wants to talk about (e.g., Jerry Brown, Jack Nicholson, Linda Ronstadt, Norman Lear, Bert Schneider, Tom Hayden, etc. etc. etc.) he starts with the beginning of their stories (usually in the '60s), concentrates on something that happened in 1974, and then follows their story further--sometimes to their death. So the discussion of Spielberg, for example, focuses on the filming of Jaws, which happened in 1974, though the film was released in 1975. And really, Brownstein wants to talk about what Spielberg and the younger filmmakers of the early '70s represented: a move away from social relevance in movies, and from the interests of filmmakers like Rafelson and writers like Towne. But how does Spielberg differ from George Lucas; and what about the older directors like Penn and Altman; and how did he and they and the other they differ from Paul Schrader and Peter Bogdanovich, etc. etc. etc.

What might have worked would be to focus on a few individuals--maybe Lear, Towne, David Geffen, and Jerry Brown, and their spheres. But instead, the book is arranged into monthly chapters (January - December 1974) that have very little to do with what really happened in that month. Brownstein's attempt to discuss all these forms of art and society means that the LA part is generally ignored, 1974 is just one year of many, and other issues (women/feminism, race issues, Vietnam, Watergate, the broader national/international scene) get short shrift. Which all leads to the "December" chapter trying to summarize everything that followed from 1974 to the present day.

To be fair, at least I finished the book. A lot of the personal stories are interesting--definitely not revelatory, but worth reading if you don't know them; I liked learning about Bert Schneider, for example, who to me was just the Monkees guy. However, what makes this a one-star book instead of a two-star book is Brownstein's horrible habit of mixing metaphors. Once you start to see that people are sunbursts who melt away, who burn their illusions and then rebuild them from the shards of what remains, and who are drawn to the center and then turn down the road leading to the landmark as the decade pivots, you want to throw the book across the room.

And the song "Rock Me On the Water" came out in 1971.

[Jim Thomsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

"In the struggle for control of popular culture, Los Angeles during the early 1970s was the right’s Gettysburg or Battle of the Bulge: the moment when it definitively lost the war."

— Ronald Brownstein, ROCK ME ON THE WATER

I was born in 1965, which is another way of saying that I knew the 1970s in their excruciating minutiae (Pop Rocks, Charo, Reggie Jackson, Pee Chees) but less so in perspective. I knew that cars were lining up for blocks from the gas station, but wasn't clear on why. I knew that there was a lot of talk on Chancellor and Brinkley about tapes and Cubans and plumbers and enemies' lists, but I couldn't have given you a cogent elevator pitch for "Watergate." So I grew up with a burning desire to better understand what forces shaped the specifics of my formative years.

All of which is to say that ROCK ME ON THE WATER, which tries to explain larger tectonic forces across America through the lens of 1974 Los Angeles, is precision-targeted to people like me. Like virtually anyone reading it, I already knew a lot about that time and place (the breakthrough of the Eagles, the emergence of Jerry Brown as a national figure, the ubiquitous of TV comedies that better mirrored the times than "Green Acres" or "The Brady Bunch.") But I didn't understand that the country's cultural plates were colliding under the surface, that my fourth-grade year was the year that a socially liberal correction to the staid conservatism of the mid-1960s was coming to an end and that conservatism across the board in politics, television and movies (and to some degree in popular music) was about to reassert itself, paving the way for Ronald Reagan and the "family values" 1980s of my popped-collar pubescence.

Ronald Brownstein not only does a first-rate job of putting this time of upheaval into perspective, but he does so in enormously enlightening and entertaining (and lyrically written) fashion. There's so much I didn't previously know bit was delighted to learn about Linda Ronstadt's rough path to superstardom and Jackson Browne's dedication to his craft, about how shows like "All In The Family" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "Maude" came to be, about how "Chinatown" was the end of one kind of Hollywood and "Jaws," which came out less than a year later, was the beginning of a vastly different other. I had no idea that Bert Schneider was much more than the co-producer of "The Monkees," and had an reductive sense of Norman Lear's impact on TV and David Geffen's on pop music. I had little idea how much Jane Fonda put on the line in the service of her political passions, or for that matter Tom Hayden. And so on and so on and son, as the popular 1970s TV commercial for a shampoo product went. As Ronstadt thoughtfully put it: "LA was a lens that American culture was focused through in those days, like Berlin before World War Two.”

ROCK ME ON THE WATER is a book I've read twice, and I suspect I'll wind up reading a lot more than twice. It not only illuminates my past, but imbues my present with more meaning. As Brownstein presciently put it: "One clear lesson from American history is that while the voices resistant to change may win delaying battles in politics, they cannot indefinitely hold back the future."

Some favorite quotes that might whet your appetite for reading the entire book:

— "It didn’t help that in the mid-1960s, and for many years to come, decisions in both industries were made almost entirely by older white men who might interact with young people only when they propositioned a starlet."

— "In LA, Browne was becoming the musical equivalent of a playground basketball legend in New York City: an underground sensation that everyone was convinced would someday hit the big time. But the big time remained elusively out of reach."

— "The LA music of the early 1970s represented the ’60s generation folding in on itself, shifting its focus from trying to change society from the top down through politics to changing it from the bottom up through the way they lived their lives."

— "Jerry Brown was a party of one. He lived in Malibu and then Laurel Canyon and spent little time in Sacramento. He would fly in, strafe the legislators with contempt, and then retreat to glittery LA for dates with Liv Ullmann, Natalie Wood, or Ronstadt."

— "For a gay man beginning his first serious romantic relationship with a woman, starting with Cher was like taking an interest in baseball by pinch-hitting for the Red Sox at Fenway Park."

— "Frey had concluded that none of the country-rock bands had reached the pinnacle of commercial success and that a harder sound would speak to a wider audience and carry them into that stratosphere.87 But their producer, Glyn Johns, continued to view the Eagles as a ballad band, not a rock band. 'He said, ‘You’re a shi**y rock band, and I’m not going to make a rock record with you.’”

— "At the peak of his power, wealth, and glamour, Schneider was a sunburst, but in his long fall, all that melted away. He was destroyed by the promise of unlimited freedom that beat down on Los Angeles as unstintingly as its desert sun. For the generation that transformed movies, music, and television, Bert Schneider lived and died as the Icarus of Los Angeles."

— "White artists, like the guitarist Danny Kortchmar, might jam with Black friends over beers and blunts at night, but they rarely found themselves working in the same studio the next morning."

— "As in movies and television, women in music faced an environment in which men held almost all the power in every facet of the business. But the music industry’s sexual politics, shaped by the era’s endemic groupie culture, seemed to especially encourage its men to believe that one of the perks of their position was the opportunity to have sex with almost any woman they met."

— "when women singers toured, they would sometimes hire female backup vocalists or wardrobe managers just so they had someone to talk to on the road besides a man."

— "The family hour, it turned out, was more a symptom than a cause of a cultural and political shift. It wasn’t only pressure groups and government officials pushing back against television’s advance into edgier and more contemporary content. A large slice of the viewing audience was ready for a break, too. ... a sizable audience of Americans no longer wished to continue relitigating the arguments from that decade, even for laughs."

— "A light saber, a shark, and, later, a superhero crossed cultural barriers more easily than one of Robert Altman’s conflicted antiheroes."

— "Anyone comparing photos of Glenn Frey and Don Henley in 1972 and, say, 1977 could track the price of the years of drugs and high living."

— "Once the cultural balance tipped from optimism to resignation, around 1975, the LA renaissance flickered. When the last hopes that America might fundamentally transform after the 1960s faded, so, too, did LA’s moment as the center of popular culture."

[David Berlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ron Brownstein says that Los Angeles 1974 stood as the pinnacle of the cultural renaissance. I’m not sure if 1974 was the key year, but that specific time period might have represented a transition of eras with a lot of residues of influence that still stands today. I would not get caught up as a reader that everything described in this book happened in 1974. The careers of such all-time great figures such as Robert Altman, Jane Fonda, Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Norman Lear, and many others did not start in 1974, but they all did landmark work around that time. In addition to Movies and TV, Brownstein also covers the Music and Politics, making a point that the movement of the 60s went from revolutionary to evolutionary by the mid-70s.

Personally, speaking for someone who loves to learn about cultural history from the 60’s and 70’s, this book was hard to put down. Anyone who is curious, will be rewarded for their curiosity if they read Rock Me on the Water. Brownstein does a great job of giving great contextual backgrounds of a lot of historical figures from that time, many from behind the scenes.

Hollywood was outdated in the early and mid-60’s compared to the French New Wave and other cinema that was coming overseas. In the latter part of the 60s the Studios released 3 major films that young people adopted as symbols of style, liberation, and rebellion. Those films were The Graduate, Bonnie & Clyde, and Easy Rider. Those films influenced American artistic expression like never before or after. Films were no longer traditional, authority was questioned, protagonists were flawed and often not heroic. Endings were not always happy, leading men like Pacino, Nicholson, Hoffman and DeNiro did not look like Clark Gable, Carry Grant, or John Wayne. The great 70s films were edgy, avant-garde, off beat, socially conscious while being entertaining. Some of the great films of that era discussed in this book were Chinatown, American Graffiti, The Godfather Part 2, The Last Picture show, Shampoo, and Nashville. Some of my favorites not discussed were Taxi Driver, Network, Rocky, A Clockwork Orange, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Deliverance, and One who flew over the Cuckoo’s nest to name a few.

The TV shows of the 1960s like Leave it to Beaver, My Three Sons, Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, The Andy Griffith show, and many more were safe, non-controversial, and rural. In the 1970s here came All in the Family, M*A*S*H and Mary Tyler Moore. The most talked about show at that time was All in the Family. The shows centers on blue-collar, angry, middle aged white man, Archie Bunker. Within minutes, is raging against “your spics and your spades” complaining about “Hebes” and “black beauties”. Calling his wife, Edith, a “silly dingbat” and telling her to “stifle” and describing is son-in-law, Mike as a “dumb pollack” and the laziest white man I’ve ever scene. The show was a carousel of Archie encounters with minorities- Blacks, Jews, Puerto Ricans, gay men, even transvestites – who didn’t conform to his stereotypes, and every minority character was smarter than Archie Bunker. The genius of Lear was showing a willfully ignorant, racist like Archie, who would no doubt be an avid Trump supporter today, and making him lovable, because he showed his humanity. A valid criticism of All in the Family was that Archie did not speak of minorities in the angry venom that real racists speak. But there was nothing like All in the Family before its time or after.

M*A*S*H was influenced by the Robert Altman film representing the Korean War, but symbolizing Vietnam. Alan Alda offered a combination of intelligence and irreverence. M*A*S*H was vaudeville, rapid fire and knowing the equivalent of Groucho Marx firing on Viet Nam through the guise of Korea. Mary Tyler Moore took on being a smart, highly capable, working, single, woman in a man’s world. Mary Tyler Moore” and “M*A*S*H,” took on socially conscious themes like civil rights, women’s liberation and the toll of war.

Rock Me on the Water also covered the politics of the time, particularly Jerry Brown as Governor of California, and the partnership of Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden. With the assassinations of MLK and RFK in 68 and Nixon winning two presidential elections it seemed that the 60’s decades dreams of fundamental transformation were dissolving. Rock Me on the Water covered the Laurel Canyon music scene of that time. All of the musicians played at the legendary Troubadour like Linda Ronstadt, The Eagles and Jackson Browne. Maybe I am not old enough, but I never thought that Linda Ronstadt and Jackson Browne were as significant as some of the great 60s LA groups like The Byrd’s, The Doors, and CSNY. To me the rock renaissance was from 1967-71. I will say that The Eagles and Ronstadt crossed genres with that county-rock sound that was popular in the music charts with both rock and country music lovers alike.

To me, the strength of the book is when Brownstein describes the film and television significance. One disheartening fact the book highlights is that many of the Norman Lear TV shows were written, directed and produced by white men, even though when they were specifically about Women and Black families. One of my personal favorites was Good Times. John Amos played James Evans, who to me was the greatest, bad ass, tv dad I have ever scene on television. I do not know the full story, but I know he feuded along with Ester Rolle who played his wife on how black characters were written. Esther Rolle was furious that the character of her son, J.J., was turned into a racist stereotype by the white writers. It still can’t be understated how culturally significant, funny, and entertaining the Norman Lear shows like All in the Family, Maude, Good Times, and The Jeffersons were. Few people would look to TV again as a source of social insight and cultural commentary until a new golden era began around 2000, with The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men and Breaking Bad.

ABC’s market research in 1975 concluded that after Watergate and Vietnam, viewers had tired of “social issue or confrontation comedy “and craved a return to traditional values, of an earlier time. Happy Days gave them exactly that. As Brownstein pointed out, "All in the Family" and "Happy Days" make very appropriate bookends to the way our television viewing tastes evolved in the 70s. Happy Days was the show that started the phrase, “jump the shark” was less adult orientated, and did not challenge and provoke, but did entertain. There was a change from political activism to personal pleasure that enshrined the 1970s as the Me decade and the 80’s on deck. The new hit shows were Cosby & Family Ties.

In film, the directors had more influence in their films than exposing their audiences to what they considered uncomfortable truths. The ’70s were morphing into long gas lines and inflation. Tired of confrontation, Americans just wanted to be entertained. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas accommodated them with Jaws and Star Wars. Lucas felt it was time that people felt better coming out of the theater than when they went in. Oh boy, did he capitalize! The studio influenced blockbusters started. Movies became franchises and Marvel comics films aim for the intellect of 10-year-old boys today.

In closing I would say Brownstein suggests the 60s and 70s were not politically transformative, but they won the cultural war. There is no more military draft, gay people can be married, looser sexual norms, you’re not considered a traitor if you question the government, women have made significant gains, there is way more minority representation in Hollywood than ever before, more personal freedoms, and a much greater concern for the environment.

A book like this could have used some photos – Especially at close to 400 pages. I still give it 5 stars because Brownstein has concisely written about people in an era where there was never a dull moment reading.

[Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

Each chapter reads like a magazine article about Los Angeles in the 1970’s, with not-so-behind-the-scenes celebrity anecdotes that might have been culled from TV Guide and Rolling Stone.

The over-arching argument - that 1974 was some kind of annus mirabilis in American politics and culture.- is specious, tenuous, strained and ultimately buried beneath page after page of celebrity profiles.

👎

[Jennifer Schultz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read if you: Want a detailed look at an important year in movie, television, and music history.

I've noticed a slight increase in books that focus on one specific year (Can't Slow Down by Michaelangelo Matos, which focuses on pop music and 1984; next year will bring a book that focuses on 1996 sports history). This is an entertaining account of 1974, as well as the city of Los Angeles. From the Eagles, to Jane Fonda's activism, the popularity of TV shows like All in the Family, MASH, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and movie stars such as Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson, 1974 brought about enormous cultural and political changes.

Librarians/booksellers: A great purchase for your entertainment and late 20th century history collection.

Many thanks to Harper and NetGalley for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Kevin Larose · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was 10 years old in 1974, the year this book details, and I was just becoming aware of the popular culture around me. I very well remember the greatest Saturday night in television history, my family were avid watchers. And I recognized much of the music discussed, and it has spurred me to find more from that time period. This was a truly great read for me.

[Trevor Seigler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was inclined not to take this book seriously for a few reasons: 1.) it's talking at times about the music of the pre-punk early Seventies, which to me was godawful if I'm just being honest. There are some outliers who were great either as one-hit wonders or artists with a sustained career, to be sure, but I freaking hate the Eagles, and guess what group gets profiled a lot in this book? and 2.) I wasn't sure that the various fragments of what Ronald Brownstein was profiling would tie together in the end.

You can tell from the five stars I gave it that this book defied my expectations.

"Rock Me On the Water" could read like a Boomer's lament about how "kids today" have no appreciation for the music, TV, and film of an earlier era, but it doesn't. It's a fantastic social history of one transformative era in pop culture that really peaked, according to the author, in the twelve months that saw not only Nixon resign but a burgeoning rebellion against conformity come into power in various ways in the entertainment capital of the world. Brownstein, who I know from his reporting on CNN, proves to be deft at interweaving all the strands of TV, music, movies, and politics that intersected in Los Angeles during that era.

Brownstein uses the year 1974 as the starting point to explore the lives and careers of very different people caught up in the moment when Hollywood (so argues Brownstein) was at its peak in terms of artistic swagger and confidence. From Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty to Glenn Frey and Linda Rondstadt, Brownstein shows that the bright lights of Hollywood could both nurture and crush an aspiring performer's dreams, with an all-boys club in terms of control at the top levels (few avenues for women or people of color to the boardrooms or CEO chairs in Hollywood, even today). There was a gradual move towards more openness and diversity, but there were still challenges (Black-led shows like "The Jeffersons" and "Good Times" were overseen by Norman Lear, and the writing staffs were universally white and male). But out of the unequal playing grounds, a new sense of rule-breaking could take place in television, long tethered to the concerns that losing an advertiser was more important than losing the young audiences eager to see themselves and their concerns on the small screen.

Inspired by the changes of the Sixties, the cinema in Hollywood was beginning to embrace more voices and more topicality, highlighting the corruption at the root of the American dream in such films as "Shampoo" and "Chinatown." And the world of music was becoming more personal, with singer-songwriters taking to Laurel Canyon to write about their lives and concerns. In Brownstein's telling, the era that culminates in 1974 is a bit of a lost idyll, a paradise that was slowly crumbling even as it reached for the heights that it sought.

I enjoyed the heck out of this book, I have to admit, and that's even with all the pages give over to the Eagles (ugh). This is a great social history of American culture and society at a time when we seemed to be on the cusp of a more open era but, in reality, were slowly coming into the downward slide that the Reagan era would bring. Conservatives, however, lost the culture war at this time, something that's not lost on today's merchants of nostalgia for a time to "make America great (read: white) again." But as Brownstein definitively shows, the year 1974 may have been the high-water mark for a lot of advances that have slowly slipped away, but it doesn't have to be the end of an era for more openness and tolerance. Plus, great art.

[Drew Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gives the reader the background and context to a pinnacle in Los Angeles history. The Music, Movies, Television, and politics from 1974 resulted from the two polarized decades before. It is a wonderful historical book that has many insights and lessons for today.

[Hkp · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars rounded down, because the book fails on its own terms.

As opposed to trying to pile everything on 1974 (which doesn’t work), Brownstein should probably have opted for organizing his narrative over a five-year period: 1969-1974. Then it might all have been more convincing, the argument less tortured.

As it stands, you have great characters, fascinating factoids, some good reporting, a lot of repetition, and a lot of questions.

(BTW, Season of the Witch, about San Francisco, opts for a different structure and is a better book.)

[Brandi Pearl Reynolds · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written and informative, "Rock Me on the Water: 1974-The Year Los Angeles Transformed Movies, Music, Television, and Politics" by Ronald Brownstein is educational, entertaining and detailed. I would definitely recommend it to those interested in the history of the last century, especially the mid-seventies. My copy of this book was won from a Goodreads giveaway and I appreciate the opportunity to read & review it.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m giving this book a 3, which I think is slightly generous since only about half of it dealt with the actual year 1974. Also the fact that he included a lengthy discussion of Linda Ronstadt which increased my rating. The book was also very repetitious, reciting events and names over and over again throughout.

What upset me the most with his book is the author’s seeming attempt to glorify many of the actions of the actors, musicians and politicians instead calling them out for their hypocrisy when appropriate. These people were no different than their predecessors- wanting fame, money and sex. It seemed many of them felt their actions were above those of the common man. I think the author should have called out these celebrities and movers and shakers for their self indulgence and continuation of the sins of their forefathers.

This is not to say that I don’t revel in 70’s music and admire many of them for their talent and their continued enhancement of my life. But I just can’t put them on a pedestal for how they lived their lives. They just perpetuated the same problems and tried to wrap them up in a glimmer of hope.

[Nick Verbeck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great now I have to go watch a bunch of old movies

[Jerry James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fast read, but each chapter sounds like it was written stand-alone as people and descriptions keep repeating.
I liked the semi-center of 1974 to the swirl of all the careers.

[Diane Scholten · Rating 3 out of 5]

I LOVED the parts about music and politics. Since I don't watch TV (then or now - though I DID watch the Smothers Brothers) and am not much of a movie buff I found those parts more tedious. That said, the book really captures the turn from the 60s to the 80s - such a radical turn, really - in the lens of 1974. I feel like Joni Mitchell really got passed over - didn't like that. Since I love Jackson Browne's music I was glad to see it highlighted. An enjoyable book - I liked the first chapters much more than the latter half of the book.

[Pabgo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent history book. I especially liked the over all view of American politics. Our bubbles are nothing new, it seems. The peace, love, and anti war groups, (hippies?) were sure that the world, and more importantly, the American landscape was transforming itself to an age of Aquarius cooperative, communicative future with nothing but red letter days ahead. Then in the election of 1968 their bubble was burst as the real America decided that what we needed was a heavy handed authoritarian big daddy to make 'merca great agin, and elected Nixon in a landslide. And then did it again in 1972!!
Lest we think that the Sapien has evolved past that these days, the real America elected another despot in 2025,(in a landslide), proving that the tribal warlord mentality will be with us for some time.
History sighs, repeats self.

[Sue Larson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thorough enjoyed reading about the pivotal role that LA played in 1974 in the realms of film, TV, and music. Many of the movies, musicians, and TV shows were familiar to me and it was fun learning more about the backdrop to those impressive times.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this one for an interview with author Ron Brownstein, but the subject matter -- pop culture and politics and L.A. in 1974 -- hits my sweet spot. A lot of the people and stories in this book are familiar, but the beauty of the book is how Brownstein pulls these different strands together to convincingly make the case that in 1974 in L.A. things came together in the arts, entertainment, culture, politics in ways they seldom do in any place or any time. As you read you see the connections and more greatly appreciate what a rare time it was.

Here's my interview with Brownstein: https://www.dailynews.com/2021/04/04/....

[Don · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an enjoyable journey through the music, film, television and politics of Los Angeles in the early 1970's. I found the sections on television and politics the most informative, primarily because I knew relatively little about the subjects. The section on music, about which I am more knowledgeable, was still interesting. I was less thrilled with the section on the movies.

My main problem with the book is that Brownstein makes a valiant, but ultimately unpersuasive case for 1974 being a watershed year. The focus on '74 is a bit artificial and, I suspect, the result of Brownstein trying to find a central theme. Treating the first half of the '70's as a focal point makes more sense for music and TV, at least.

The section on movies focuses on two films--Chinatown and Shampoo. Brownstein suggests that these represent the turning away from political-themed films of the late '60's and reflect the end of the younger generation of film makers before an even younger group (Spielberg, Lucas, etc.) lead a movement toward big commercial blockbusters. I think it's more accurate to say that the real revolution in Hollywood movies occured in the late '60's. I would recomment Mark Harris' Pictures at a Revolution as a book covering that moment that is more insightful Brownstein's somewhat cursory survey of the industry in the time period of Rock Me on The Water.

In the music sections, Brownstein treats his time period as the real flowering of the LA music scene as the center of the music business at that time. That's not inaccurate, but it is probably more historically correct to view the early '70's as the final movement of a scene that began in the mid-'60's with the Byrds, Doors, Buffalo Springfield, CSN&Y, Joni Mitchell, Mamas & Papas and others. Brownsteing does acknowledge that, and argues that the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Brown period represented a turning inward from a more political period in music. It's an interesting view although I think the reality was more complex than that.

In the political sections, Brownstein tells an interesting tale of the evolution of activism, as represented by Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda, from radicalism to a more mainstream progressivism.

For all of its weaknesses as an effort to define a period, the book is nevertheless an interesting, well-written guide through that time in Los Angeles.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

vacillated between 2 and 3 stars -- it didn't actively bother me. I love Linda Ronstadt and Jackson Browne, both of whom figure prominently and obviously gave the author extensive interviews, and it got me thinking (again) about what would have happened if Bernie Leadon had stayed in the Eagles (On the Border album came out in the year he's reviewing)......

.........but then there would be a chapter about how Jerry Brown's rise in California politics somehow had something to do with Roman Polanski's making Chinatown, which in turn relates to All in the Family's being No. 1 on TV (did you realize that a lot of TV shows and films are made right near Los Angeles? it's true) in the ratings that year, though it started several years earlier.

Just a lot a lot a lot of straining to make the case that '74 in particular (in LA in particular) was a creative, transformative year in all these areas.

If you start with that conclusion, you can generate all sorts of "comes at a time when......" stuff (the Late for the Sky album came out the same year Nixon resigned!). Might be more compelling, though, to approach it like a Bill James of entertainment and culture and ask "what years/periods and places/regions stand out as especially innovative/productive?", develop some criteria and have at it.

The prior probability of New York or LA as being where a lot is happening would need to be taken into account; it's not as though a lot of movies and record companies and TV studios are located in, to pick on my state, Maryland.

Might be able to borrow some of the methodology from the history of science people, who like to point out that the phenomenon of "multiples" (independent discoveries of same thing, like Newton and Leibniz both inventing the calculus -- thanks for nothing, you two) is self-confirming in that this principle itself has been independently discovered multiple times.

Anyway, if thinking about possible study methods not discussed in the book is my main takeaway, i obviously didn't get a whole lot out of the book, so i'll stop there.

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rock Me on the Water offers a solid cultural history of 60s/70s Los Angeles, digging deep into the popular music acts, films, and TV shows of the time, not to mention the background political upheaval. It's all fairly fascinating, if repetitive. Much is said of Chinatown, All in the Family, Jackson Browne, and Linda Ronstadt, and it's said multiple times over multiple chapters. Fortunately, these were all fairly unfamiliar topics to me, so the repetition didn't cause my interest to flag.

It does seem a little odd for the author to claim 1974 as the signal year of great change when actually very little of what he discusses takes place in 1974. The book's title, for example, references a track that came out in 1971. Still, a minor quibble, since the general cultural milieu is engaging, even as timelines aren't clear.

If nothing else, Rock Me on the Water will make you hunt down some 70s music, films, and TV. And it certainly proves its point that the mid-70s were a time of great change: the winding down of the radical 60s into the glitz and glamour 80s.

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining overall. The book is well-researched & largely well-organized. The chapter's organizational conceit is a calendar of 12 months (which is a decent organizational construct); however, the content, anecdotes, and relationship stories tended to ramble back and forth in time.

The overemphasis on the Eagles as metaphor and avatar seemed a bit forced toward the last chapter. And the emergence of yet another musical super-group in the making was dropped from the heavens-- deux ex machina-style.

All this said, Brownstein does a fine job making connections and uncovering earlier songs, albums, films, actors, politicians, and movies that sound fascinating-- and well worth exploring more.

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I so wanted to love this book. It started out strong, laying out its premise and introducing a legendary "cast of characters" - the artists and political figures at the heart of the story who I was excited to spend time with. But the more author Brownstein argued his case, the more it unraveled. I became convinced that 1974 was actually NOT a year of transformation. It may have been the year of Chinatown and Tom Hayden doing... (what again?) ... and Linda Ronstadt's "Heart Like a Wheel" (I mean, it's good, but transformational?) But it's also the year of "Kung Fu Fighting" and "Having My Baby" and "Billy, Don't Be a Hero," so...

[Todd Stockslager · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review title: L. A. Consequential

Brownstein weaves together the impact of music, movies, and television on politics and culture in the golden year of 1974 and the city: Los Angeles. This is multidimensional history of a formative year in my life and one of consequence to the country as culture and politics intersected and transformed in ways that put us on the route the next 50 years would unfold.

Brownstein sets the stage to provide context. By the end of the tumultuous 1960s:

--The civil right movement had made advances in equal rights in voting, education, housing and employment, but triggered segregationist backlash in many parts of the country.

--The sexual revolution had opened doors for new approaches to marriage (and divorce), gay rights, and interracial marriage, but triggered concerns that shifting morals were disintegrating the foundations of society.

--Vietnam, Watergate, assassinations of the Kennedy brothers and King, and mass protests against the war and racial injustice had shaken confidence in the foundations of government.

Yet on May 4, 1970, the day four Kent State students protesting the war were killed by the National Guard:

The evening broadcast schedule on CBS opened at 7:30 p.m. with Gunsmoke, a Western that had debuted on the network in September 1955. At 8:30 p.m., the network followed with Here's Lucy, starring Lucille Ball playing a variation on the daffy character she had first introduced ty television audiences in 1951. At 9 p.m. came Mayberry R.F.D., the spin-off and extension of The Andy Griffith Show, which had premiered in 1960. At 9:30 came The Doris Day Show, the eponymous vehicle for the singer and actress who had made her debut with Big Bands before World War II. (p. 90)

The context--and the contrast--is stunning. Television, and movies still in the last years of the studio era, and even music despite its greater political and cultural relevance, failed to reflect and reflect upon the world as it was in the new decade. It was as if the 1960s had never happened. How did these important sources of information and entertainment become so disconnected from the times, and what role did Los Angeles in 1974 play in reconnecting them?

Brownstein steps through the year 1974 month by month, citing a significant milestone event that occurred that month as the basis for discussing a key facet of the intersection of the three cultural pillars with the When (the politics of the time), the Who (the people in the studios writing, making, and selling the products), and the Where: the city of Los Angeles. His long tenure as a journalist for the Los Angeles Times placed him to uniquely observe and analyze why these elements came together so uniquely and powerfully placing Los Angeles on the fault line of culture and politics in this magical year.

In music, Brownstein focuses on Jackson Browne (one of his songs providing the book's title), Linda Ronstadt, and the musicians who would come together to form the Eagles. Their mellow relationship-focused blend of folk-rock was a distinctive "LA" sound when I was a teenager, and here Brownstein explains why that mix was culturally relevant as both in the clubs and studios--where musicians paired and shared their talents and songs--and in the bars and bedrooms after hours where they lived out the new freedoms that the 1960s had championed.

In television, he highlights the new CBS lineup that in 1974 included All in the Family, MASH, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which finally tackled the big issues their viewers were facing in their real-world lives: the generation gap, bigotry, the war, and the changing relationships between men and women in the home, the workplace, and the bedroom. The behind the scenes history of how these shows were imagined, created, written, cast, and scheduled is fascinating and often surprising. While Brownstein writes about the Baby Boom writers, directors, and executives who were more in tune with the times and slowly included more women and people of color, it was Norman Lear, a white Jewish comedian from the borscht-belt era, who created All in the Family, the ground-breaking show that proved that television could be funny, provocative, and popular at the same time.

Similarly, in movies, he contrasts the then-young innovators Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, who created the new blockbusters following the old-school pattern of the Saturday Matinee (Star Wars, Indiana Jones) and the drive-in horror show (Jaws, Close Encounters), with the previous generation directors who were making "the boldest statements about America, the most piercing social critiques." (p. 200). Brownstein focuses on two movies in production in Los Angeles in 1974 that transformed the movies as they addressed the shifting worlds of politics (Chinatown) and culture (Shampoo).

Critically acclaimed from the moment of its release, Chinatown is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest movies ever made. Shampoo, though not reaching those heights, was a huge box office hit and marked another landmark in early 1970s popular culture. Though different in tone and ambition, the movies represented matching parts, wth each reflecting the disillusion with political and social change common by 1974 among those who had once hoped the 1960s would transform the world. (p. 167)

Chinatown, with Jack Nicholson as the private detective trying to get to the bottom of what he thinks is just another domestic squabble but finding out hidden layers of corruption in Los Angeles politics and water supply, is one of my all time favorite movies (as is L. A. Confidential, also set in the mid-20th century years when the city was emerging from its small-town beginnings). Shampoo, which I must confess I've never seen, is about Warren Beatty's hairdresser character sleeping his way through his married clients without arousing suspicion because their husbands assume a male hairdresser must be gay.

lt was in this way that Shampoo represented a bookend to Chinatown. Each film documented the decline in early 1970s America by exposing the corruption and decadence of an earlier era in Los Angeles. One movie is about concealment, the other about display, and yet they reach the same bleak destination. In both movies, idealism is dashed. Nothing escapes the rot of corruption. . . . Chinatown portrayed corruption on a grand scale: a vast public conspiracy (to steal water) and a monstrous personal offense . . . Shampoo found its center in smaller moments of intimate betrayal and self-deception. Yet [Beatty's character] George’s dashed hopes for love, juxtaposed with Nixon's election, seemed to capture how dreams of personal and political transformation that so many harbored during the 1960s had all been extinguished. (p. 185)

Brownstein does a masterful job of writing his history into the weave of his monthly chapters, using specific events and situations to tell the broader story of the changes taking place in the three art forms. He touches on: the struggles of women to be taken seriously as creators and not sex objects; the struggles of African-Americans to find roles both in front of the camera and behind the camera as writers, directors, and executives; changes in agent representation of artists and executives relationships with the creators; the changes in television scheduling due to "family hour" guidelines; the impact of rampant drug use on both the product and the lives of the people making them.

While his scope and structure are somewhat arbitrary (he reaches both backward and forward in time and follows his topics to New York and elsewhere when necessary), he justifies them with his analysis and conclusions. This broad reach enables the kind of juxtaposition that catholic readers like me thrive on; while not turn-by-turn directions, it does provide a suggested route to the world we live in today. "Much of the Los Angeles story in the early 1970s was that culture preceded politics in reflecting the changes remaking the country." (p. 322). As we live in times as turbulent as those that preceded 1974, and as we see out of sync culture and politics colliding as never before, with the new content form of social media added to the cultural mix, learning history may help us shape our present and future history.

[Jane Cawthorne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book makes the case well that 1974 was Los Angeles’s moment.

Although it does zero in on 1974, it also has a lot of detail into the years leading up to 1974 and a a little less about after. The change that 1974 brings is described and then some examples of how that change presents itself in the future are offered. There is enough political context to help everything make sense. It doesn’t get bogged down. The real focus is popular music, movies, and television happening in Los Angeles.

I never quite understood the organizing principle as chapters stated as months of the year. It was occasionally repetitive, re-introducing people again and again.

It almost celebrates the misogynistic and hedonistic atmosphere at times with only the briefest notion that perhaps it might not have been an optimal situation and would, in the future, not be considered standard operating procedure in the business. I’m not expecting a feminist analysis from this book and you won’t find that here. It is supposed to be a breathless appreciation of certain creative geniuses of the time, and it is.

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a kid growing up in the 70’s, this exceptional book was a pleasant walk down memory lane. It was then that I discovered each of those talented singer/songwriters who graced the LA landscape with their beautiful voices and touching lyrics. Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell, CSNY, etc. injected life into the music scene with their unique style of music. The author, Ronald Brownstein, encapsulates the music scene, which was taking hold in 1974, in a succinct and well written style. He pays homage to the Laurel Canyon scene where many talented singers and bands gravitated were hoping to be discovered.

The author succeeds in providing a unique overview of the decade. Brownstein explores the world of music, television, movies and the political atmosphere. It was a year of great change, and he does a wonderful job introducing the reader to individuals who were pioneers in each of these cultural areas: Geffen, Lear, Jerry Brown, Polanski, etc. A great overview of the 70’s landscape.

A must read for those interested in cultural history during a year which saw the emergence of talented musicians, actors and politicians. Rock Me on the Water should be on your summer reading list. You won’t be disappointed.

Janet G.