Jonathan Taplin | |
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Born | |
Occupation(s) | Scholar, film producer, writer |
Spouse(s) | Rosanna DeSoto (1974—1978) Maggie Smith |
Children | 3 |
Jonathan Trumbull Taplin (born July 18, 1947) is an American writer, film producer and scholar. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and has lived in Los Angeles since 1973. Taplin graduated from Princeton University in 1969 and is the Director Emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Taplin is Chairman of the Board of the Americana Music Foundation.
Taplin's early production work included producing concerts for Bob Dylan and The Band. In 1973, he produced Martin Scorsese's first major feature film, Mean Streets , which was selected for the Cannes Film Festival. Between 1974 and 1996, Taplin produced 26 hours of television documentaries (including The Prize and Cadillac Desert for the Public Broadcasting Service) and 12 feature films including The Last Waltz , Until the End of the World , Under Fire and To Die For . His films were nominated for Academy Awards and Golden Globe Awards and chosen for the Cannes Film Festival six times.
Taplin began working as a part-time tour manager on weekends and school breaks for Albert Grossman Management in the summer of 1965. [1] Grossman was a manager of folk and rock musicians in the 1960s, with clients including Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul and Mary, Janis Joplin and The Band. Taplin began work for the Jim Kweskin Jug Band while studying at Princeton University. He managed tours for Judy Collins in 1967 and helped Collins's manager Harold Leventhal produce A Tribute to Woody Guthrie at Carnegie Hall in January 1968; in addition to Collins, Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie, the concert featured Bob Dylan and The Band in their first live appearance since 1966. [2]
After graduating from Princeton in May 1969, Taplin moved to Woodstock, New York to serve as The Band's full-time tour manager. [2] In mid-August of that year, The Band played at the Woodstock Festival, and in late August Taplin managed Bob Dylan and The Band's appearance at the Isle of Wight Festival in England, Dylan's first full-length public concert in three years. [2]
In early 1973, Taplin moved to Los Angeles where he was introduced to a young film editor who had worked on the Woodstock documentary, Martin Scorsese. Scorsese, who had just finished shooting his second feature, Boxcar Bertha , for Roger Corman, showed Taplin his script named Season of the Witch (co-written with Mardik Martin). Changing the title to Mean Streets at the suggestion of their mutual friend Jay Cocks, Taplin later told Peter Biskind that "I was naive enough to think that if I could have produced 150 concerts, I could produce a movie." [3]
Taplin raised US$500,000 independently and Scorsese cast Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro. Shot in 34 days, the film was eventually sold to Warner Bros. for distribution. The film was hailed by many critics[ who? ] as one of the most original American films of the 1970s; The New Yorker's Pauline Kael said it was "a true original, and a triumph of personal filmmaking" [4] and "dizzyingly sensual". [5] In 1997, Mean Streets was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
After Mean Streets Taplin produced or executive produced The Last Waltz , Under Fire , My Science Project , [6] Until the End of the World , To Die For and three long-form documentary series The Prize (Public Broadcasting Service), Native Americans (TBS), and Cadillac Desert (PBS). He was also instrumental in the distribution of Shine when he ran the American division of Pandora (a Paris-based film distributor that controlled the distribution rights to Shine).
In January 2004, Taplin joined the faculty of the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication as an adjunct professor. In 2008 he was appointed a full Clinical Professor for the Communications School. His area of specialization is in the field of digital entertainment and International Communication Management. He conducts three seminars a year with communication leaders called The Art of The Long View. He is a member of the Annenberg Research Network for International Communication.
In August 2010, Taplin was appointed Director of the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab. The Lab is funded by the University as well as corporations such as IBM, Intel, Cisco, Verizon, Warner Bros., Orange, DirecTV, EPB, Levi Strauss, and Petrobras. In December 2010, Annenberg Press published Taplin's breakthrough enhanced eBook, Outlaw Blues: Adventures in the Counter-Culture Wars. The Wall Street Journal noted, "What makes Outlaw Blues stand out from the similar cultural memoirs is that Taplin packaged it specifically for the iPad, which he embraced on day one. He lovingly embedded 105 videos into the book's pages." [7] Taplin serves on the State of California Broadband Policy Taskforce and the Singapore Government Media Development Authority Advisory Board.
Taplin is the author of Move Fast and Break Things: How Google, Facebook and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy, which was published in April 2017. Taplin's memoir, The Magic Years: Scenes from a Rock and Roll Life was published in May 2021. The End of Reality: How 4 Billionaires Are Selling a Fantasy Future of the Metaverse, Mars and Crypto was released in September 2023.
Taplin is married to the photographer Maggie Smith. He has two children from his previous marriage to Lesley Gilb: Nicholas Taplin, a recording engineer and Blythe Taplin, a human rights lawyer. He has another daughter from a previous marriage to actress Rosanna DeSoto: Daniela Taplin Lundberg, a film producer.
Mean Streets is a 1973 American crime film directed by Martin Scorsese, co-written by Scorsese and Mardik Martin, and starring Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel. It was produced by Warner Bros. The film premiered at the New York Film Festival on October 2, 1973, and was released on October 14. De Niro won the National Society of Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as "Johnny Boy" Civello.
The Band was a Canadian-American rock band formed in Toronto, Ontario, in 1967. It consisted of Canadians Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, Robbie Robertson, and American Levon Helm. The Band combined elements of Americana, folk, rock, jazz, country, and R&B, influencing musicians such as George Harrison, Elton John, the Grateful Dead, Eric Clapton and Wilco.
Paul Vaughn Butterfield was an American blues harmonica player, singer and bandleader. After early training as a classical flautist, he developed an interest in blues harmonica. He explored the blues scene in his native Chicago, where he met Muddy Waters and other blues greats, who provided encouragement and opportunities for him to join in jam sessions. He soon began performing with fellow blues enthusiasts Nick Gravenites and Elvin Bishop.
Richard Pierce Havens was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. His music encompassed elements of folk, soul, and rhythm and blues. He had a rhythmic guitar style. He was the opening act at Woodstock, sang many jingles for television commercials, and was also the voice of the GeoSafari toys.
Jaime Royal "Robbie" Robertson was a Canadian musician. He was lead guitarist for Bob Dylan in the mid-late 1960s and early-mid 1970s, guitarist and songwriter with the Band from their inception until 1978, and a solo artist.
Pauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker from 1968 to 1991. Known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated and sharply focused" reviews, Kael's opinions often ran contrary to those of her contemporaries.
Mark Lavon "Levon" Helm was an American musician who achieved fame as the drummer and one of the three lead vocalists for The Band, for which he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. Helm was known for his deeply soulful, country-accented voice, multi-instrumental ability, and creative drumming style, highlighted on many of the Band's recordings, such as "The Weight", "Up on Cripple Creek", and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down".
Al Kooper is a retired American songwriter, record producer, and musician, known for organizing Blood, Sweat & Tears, although he did not stay with the group long enough to share its popularity. Throughout much of the 1960s and 1970s he was a prolific studio musician, including playing organ on the Bob Dylan song "Like a Rolling Stone", French horn and piano on the Rolling Stones song "You Can't Always Get What You Want", and lead guitar on Rita Coolidge's "The Lady's Not for Sale". Kooper produced a number of one-off collaboration albums, such as the Super Session album that saw him work separately with guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills. In the 1970s Kooper was a successful manager and producer, recording Lynyrd Skynyrd's first three albums. He has had a successful solo career, writing music for film soundtracks, and has lectured in musical composition. Kooper was selected for induction for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2023.
The Last Waltz was a concert by the Canadian-American rock group The Band, held on American Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1976, at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. The Last Waltz was advertised as The Band's "farewell concert appearance", and the concert had The Band joined by more than a dozen special guests, including their previous employers Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan, as well as Paul Butterfield, Bobby Charles, Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, Emmylou Harris, Dr. John, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Ringo Starr, Muddy Waters, Ronnie Wood, and Neil Young. The musical director for the concert was The Band's original record producer, John Simon.
American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan has released 40 studio albums, 96 singles, 18 notable extended plays, 54 music videos, 15 live albums, 17 volumes comprising The Bootleg Series, 29 compilation albums, 22 box sets, seven soundtracks as main contributor, thirteen music home videos and two non-music home videos. Dylan has been the subject of seven documentaries, starred in three theatrical films, appeared in an additional eight films and 10 home videos, and is the subject of the semi-biographical tribute film I'm Not There. He has written and published lyrics, artwork and memoirs in 11 books and three of his songs have been made into children's books. He has done numerous collaborations, appearances and tribute albums. The albums Planet Waves and Before the Flood were initially released on Asylum Records; reissues of those two and all others were on Columbia Records.
The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack is a compilation album by Bob Dylan. The fifth installment in the ongoing Bob Dylan Bootleg Series, it was released in 2005 in conjunction with the Martin Scorsese PBS television documentary on Dylan, No Direction Home, and was compiled with Scorsese's input. It features mostly previously unreleased material from Dylan's formative years to his rise as an international figure, from 1959 to his 1966 world tour.
No Direction Home: Bob Dylan is a 2005 documentary film by Martin Scorsese that traces the life of Bob Dylan, and his impact on 20th-century American popular music and culture. The film focuses on the period between Dylan's arrival in New York in January 1961 and his "retirement" from touring following his motorcycle accident in July 1966. This period encapsulates Dylan's rise to fame as a folk singer and songwriter where he became the center of a cultural and musical upheaval, and continues through the electric controversy surrounding his move to a rock style of music.
Ronee Sue Blakley is an American actress, singer-songwriter, composer, producer and director.
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter. Generally regarded as one of the greatest songwriters ever, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his 60 year career. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" (1963) and "The Times They Are a-Changin'" (1964) became anthems for the civil rights and antiwar movements. His lyrics during this period incorporated political, social, philosophical, and literary influences, defying pop music conventions and appealing to the burgeoning counterculture.
By 1965, Bob Dylan was the leading songwriter of the American folk music revival. The response to his albums The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan and The Times They Are a-Changin' led the media to label him the "spokesman of a generation".
The 1969 Isle of Wight Festival was held on 29–31 August 1969 at Wootton Creek, on the Isle of Wight. The festival attracted an audience of approximately 150,000 to see acts including Bob Dylan, the Band, the Who, Free, Joe Cocker, the Bonzo Dog Band and the Moody Blues. It was the second of three music festivals held on the island between 1968 and 1970. Organised by Rikki Farr, Ronnie and Ray Foulk's Fiery Creations, it became a legendary event, largely owing to the participation of Dylan, who had spent the previous three years in semi-retirement. The event was well managed, in comparison to the recent Woodstock Festival, and trouble-free.
The Bob Dylan World Tour 1966 was a concert tour undertaken by American musician Bob Dylan, from February to May 1966. Dylan's 1966 World Tour was notable as the first tour where Dylan employed an electric band backing him, following him "going electric" at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. The musicians Dylan employed as his backing band were known as the Hawks, who later became famous as the Band.
Robert Alan Fraboni is an American, California-born record producer and audio engineer, well known for his work with Bob Dylan, The Band, Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, Tim Hardin, The Beach Boys, Joe Cocker, and Bonnie Raitt, and as Vice President at Island Records where he oversaw the remastering of the entire Bob Marley catalog. He produced the soundtrack on Martin Scorsese's groundbreaking concert movie, The Last Waltz, which included an all-star cast of famous rock and roll performers. He built and designed the legendary Shangri-La studios in Malibu to the specification of Bob Dylan and The Band. Referred to as a "genius" by Keith Richards in his bestselling autobiography Life.
Samuel Julian Lay was an American drummer and vocalist who performed from the late 1950s as a blues and R&B musician alongside Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Paul Butterfield, and many others. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015.
William Clifford Brown, who went by the name Big Brown, was a mid-twentieth century American street poet, performer, and recording artist. Prominent among the Beats in New York City from the late 1950s to the late 1960s, his distinctive language and style influenced a number of artists and musicians, including Bob Dylan, who declared Brown's to be the best poetry he had ever heard. Brown also influenced the later genres of hip hop and rap. In 1973, after moving to California, he recorded an album, The First Man of Poetry, Big Brown: Between Heaven and Hell, produced by Rudy Ray Moore. Brown was murdered in Los Angeles seven years later.