Rock chronicler
"Assume that in 25 years you are asked to write an autobiography. What would you like to be able to say about yourself?" the Admissions Office asked young Dartmouth hopefuls in the fall of 1965. PAUL M. GAMBACCINI '70, a Connecticut high school senior, responded in part: "I have been able to overcome several big obstacles in becoming a nationally respected magazine editor. My job has taken me around the world.... "
Now, with his name already on the masthead of Rolling Stone, a rock-oriented bi-weekly tabloid with an international circulation over 400,000, and a base firmly established as a London pop music pundit. Gambaccini has come remarkably close to his hypothetical ideal.
To his original journalistic ambition, Dartmouth added a new dimension: radio, a field in which he is "fanatically interested - well, almost fanatically." The two have merged in happy amalgamation with his columns and features for Rolling Stone, articles in Radio Times, and a regular spot on the British Broadcasting Company's "Rock Speak," a weekly two-hour program of interviews, reviews, and pop records. He also contributes to the nightly "Radio Talk" and records general-news commenaries, "An American Look at the Scene," for United Press International's audio network.
All the while Gambaccini is working toward an Oxford degree in Philosophy-Politics-Economics, which he expects to receive in June. His double life, he says, "makes it easier to do both." Commuting between the tall gray spires of Oxford and swinging London allows him to "turn for solace from either one to the other."
A history major, Gambaccini graduated Phi Beta Kappa, was named a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, and started his Ox-ford Studies in 1970 on a Reynolds Scholarship. His senior year he won the Marcus Heiman Award for his work in radio and the Jones History Prize for a history of comic books, "Marijuana of the Nursery." He worked his way up to the general managership of WDCR. which he recalls as a "unique, flukishly good radio situation" during his undergraduate years.
Once at Oxford - with 'he intention of returning to enter an American law school when his course was completed - Gambaccini found he missed his radio work. Through connections with Rolling Stone already established as an undergraduate he landed a place on the London editorial staff and, indirectly thereby, his assignments for UPI and the BBC.
Within the past year, Gambaccini has done two cover interviews for Stone: one in August on Elton John, the other in January on ex-Beatle Paul McCartney. The latter, "severely edited" from a prodigious 32,000 words recorded during six sessions in London and New York, still ran an awesome seven four-column pages. Reader response, Gambaccini reports, was terrific, albeit a bit kooky on the fringes. McCartney pronounced the author "a good lad'" and himself well "chuffed, an idiosyncratic term apparently denoting satisfaction.
In England, Gambaccini maintains a solid reputation gained at WDCR for calling the comers in pop music. A record called "Tubular Bells," to which he gave a first-hearing rave - "In the world of should-be, it's already a gold album" - climbed to Number 1 on the charts and became part of the theme for TheExorcist. But he declines naming the new sound - "There is no one sound; rock is only one input, along with country, soul, and others." Although "everyone is waiting for the next big one, to match Presley in '54 and the Beatles in '64," he sees no similar breakthrough in '74.. "Current pop music," he says, "is a pleasant diversion, rather than an obsession. The charts are softer now. Pop fans are growing older, and they like the more mature artists. Familiar names like Elton John, Stevie Wonder, McCartney, and Ringo Starr are showing up on rock and easy-listening charts."
After he's done at Oxford, Gambaccini would like to remain in England "until 1 peak. When I find myself repeating, I'll bow out." The BBC has invited him to stay on, and he hopes to expand into more general news. Among his plans is a book on pop charts, in collaboration with the composer of Jesus Christ, SuperStar.
Law school is still not entirely discounted, if it seems relevant at the time to his new long-range ambition: broadcasting in the U.S. on the executive level. Of coming home eventually, in whatever capacity, Gambaccini is certain. "Nothing assures you more that you're an American than being away. You really miss the things you miss."
