"[Jonathan Taplin] was the one who made Mean Streets and The Last Waltz possible, for which I will always be grateful. We had quite a few adventures on both projects, and they’re all chronicled in this memoir of his colorful life in show business." —Martin Scorsese " The Magic Years reads like a Magical Mystery Tour of music, loss, beauty, family, justice, and social upheaval." —Rosanne Cash Jonathan Taplin’s extraordinary journey has put him at the crest of every major cultural wave in the past half century: he was tour manager for Bob Dylan and the Band in the ’60s, producer of major films in the ’70s, an executive at Merrill Lynch in the ’80s, creator of the Internet’s first video-on-demand service in the ’90s, and a cultural critic and author writing about technology in the new millennium. His is a lifetime marked not only by good timing but by impeccable instincts—from the folk scene to Woodstock, Hollywood’s rebellious film movement, and beyond. Taplin is not just a witness but a lifelong producer, the right-hand man to some of the greatest talents of both pop culture and the underground. With cameos by Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Martin Scorsese, and countless other icons, The Magic Years is both a rock memoir and a work of cultural criticism from a key player who watched a nation turn from idealism to nihilism. Taplin offers a clear-eyed roadmap of how we got here and makes a convincing case for art’s power to deliver us from “passionless detachment” and rekindle our humanism. "This is a unifiedstory, from Taplin's time as road manager for Bob Dylan and the Band to movieproducing to investment banking to technology writing, and what makes it so isthinking: someone always wondering what's behind the curtain, if only because what'sbehind it is almost certainly going to make a better story than what's in frontof it. So in a concise and burrowing manner, he tells you about the musicbusiness, with Meyer Lansky behind both MCA and Warner Communications; MichaelMilken as the architect of the media landscape that Donald Trump harvested; howwith their version of Marvin Gaye's "Don't Do It" the Band, having "trappedthemselves within a sort of puritan destiny," at least for a few minutes "shedthe hair shirt"; or for that matter why Gaye's What's Going On "was aspolitically symbolic as track star's John Carlos's raised fist at the 1968Olympics." And a hundred other tales and grace notes." - Greil Marcus, music journalist and cultural critic "Jonathan Taplin notonly believed in magic, he made magic happen. From the 1960s to the presentday, he supported and traveled with entertainment royalty, from Bob Dylan andGeorge Harrison to Martin Scorsese and Wim Wenders, helping them get their artout to the world. And through it all, he kept his head and his integrity. Theresult is a memoir of exceptional humanity and credibility."- Louis Menand ,author of The Free World Jonathan Taplin waseverywhere you weren't, from Dylan's electric debut at the Newport FolkFestival to the Rolling Stones' recording of Exile on Main Street on the Côted'Azur to the filming of Mean Streets on the Lower East Side—and more. He tellshis tale with wisdom, humor, historical grounding, and an unblunted passion forjustice, not to mention the curiosity, gumption, and lust for life that got himto those places to begin with. - Luc Sante , author of Maybe the PeopleWould Be the Times "Great book — it's rare that someone can tell afirst-person account of the earliest Dylan concerts, the civil rights movement,JFK's assassination, MLK's rallies, the Beatles' first arrival inAmerica." - Scott Galloway "Arock and roll tour of all the great cultural shifts of the last halfcentury!" -Thomas L.Friedman "CoolestBook Of The Week! The Magic Years! Get it now! Action packed! The Band!Scorsese! Mean Streets! The Last Waltz! George Harrison's Bangladesh! And a lotmore!" -Steven Van Zandt The Magic Years is an extraordinary autobiography, in that it isn't just thechronicling of a life, but it is an extended meditation on the artistic,social, political, and cultural changes that have taken place in the last fortyyears. Taplin grapples with some truly big ideas in this book—and he condemnsin robust terms the present cynical and dystopian age, in which thecontemporary left is compared, unfavorably, with the left of the Sixties."- DouglasPreston , President of the Authors Guild, author Lost City of theMonkey God "A really importantbook... The Magic Years is not nostalgia. It really puts youfront and center, where we are." -Robert Scheer , ScheerIntelligence, KCRW "Jonathan Taplin has lived many lives andall of them have intersected with greatness. In this candid, insightful memoir,he chronicles his collaboration with seminal artists. This is a fascinatinginsider perspective of a time that forever changed music and film." -Don Henley " The Magic Years remarkably shares how Jon Taplin was on the front lines o