Laurel
Canyon – The Inside Story Of Rock & Roll’s Legendary Neighborhood (Faber & Faber, Inc.)
By Michael Walker
Book: B
It is very hard to do a great book about Rock music
because you have to capture the history and energy of the music, and we all
know that this has been botched many times.
Michael Walker has attempted to cover the rise and fall of Laurel Canyon
as the U.S. Rock locale that followed The Brill Building as an unbelievable
center of dozens of legendary, innovative talents coming together to change the
course of music history. Laurel
Canyon – The Inside Story Of Rock & Roll’s Legendary Neighborhood
(2006) is a well-researched and nicely written account of how the Canyon slowly
changed from a locale where many actors of the late Classical Hollywood era
(mid-to-late-1950s) gave way to key musicians of the California Rock movement.
After a useful preface, the book begins with in 1964, as
The Beatles are about to arrive in the U.S. and change world music
forever. The Byrds become the early focus
of the book because their commercial success foreshadowed the surprising
commercial possibilities of Folk Rock and the synergy of counterculture music
with the record industry, more able to make the adjustment than Hollywood
itself.
The story continues with the fellow residences that would
become legends, like Frank Zappa, Dave Crosby, Stephen Stills, Neil Young,
Graham Nash, The Mamas & Papas, Jackson Browne, J.D. Souther, members of
The Beach Boys, future members of The Doors, The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac and
so many others. Mama Cass became one of
the unspoken matriarchs of the community that formed and it was not long before
massive amounts of vital music, art and pop culture came out of this locale
that was the capitol of Pop and Rock music for years.
Even members of The Monkees were hip enough to be a part
of the happenings. Brill Building ace
Carole King even found her solo-performing persona there when her album Tapestry
went through the roof. The success
continued for years after Charles Mansion and Altamont soured the 1960s and the
rise of Led Zeppelin crosses into the success.
We read about the drugs, wild parties, groupies, unsung heroes who made
the music happen and how the Canyon eventually faded away as this phenomenally
creative center of the music world.
Running 248 pages before footnotes and index, cramming
much information between the covers. My
only major complaint is that though Walker’s descriptions of the drugs and
basic explanations are key and useful in bringing home the impact of all this,
he assumes the reader understands the significance of all the music and
especially in an era where the Rock genre is in such trouble and has lost its
dominance to Dance & Hip-Hop, that is a big problem. If you are lucky enough to know the music
like this critic, than it reads fine, but this could have been done at the
sacrifice of more drug information than we needed to know. Otherwise, this is a good read and is one of
the better books of its kind.
- Nicholas Sheffo
