Cameron Crowe started his unusual career as a 16-year-old rock journalist for Rolling Stones. He went on to become a Golden Globe nominated filmmaker with Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous. This past summer he went back to the world of rock and roll with his first TV series, Roadies, co-produced with JJ Abrams. The short-lived series starred Luke Wilson, Carla Cugino and Imogen Poots, and followed colorful road crew working behind the scenes for the fictional Stanton-House Band.“Music still kind of guides my life in so many ways,” Cameron told us.  “I just love music, and it’s kind of the poetry that is always in my soul I guess.  And it comes in various ways in everything that I have done." We asked him to give us an example.

"What’s Going On is in the top three, if not the top one, of greatest recordings ever.  And one of the reasons is that it’s so timeless in the message that it’s sending out there.  And it’s about Marvin’s (Gaye) brother coming back from Vietnam, but it’s about being lost and feeling lost in a time that’s feeling very dangerous and where is your personal center in all of that?  And Marvin made that album at a time where he felt personally lost and he was about to retire and this thing comes out that is personal and true and is beholden to nobody commercially.  They didn’t want to release that album.  But he had this thing to say.  And it’s so pure and simple and coming from the right place that it’s timeless.  And a young man or a young woman listening to that record now is just as moved now as they were in 1971.  And that is a story that I like to tell, like how powerful music can be.  It’s different than a painting or live theater, or television or movies, it’s just something that’s like kind of holy and kind of poetic and you can make it your own.   That’s what music can do at its finest place."