Laurel Canyon

Book excerpt: A “richly anecdotal” account of the secluded LA neighborhood’s legendary music scene, a tale of groupies, cocaine, and California dreaming (Salon). Finalist, SCBA Book Award for Nonfiction A Los Angeles Times Bestseller In the late sixties and early seventies, an impromptu collection of musicians colonized a eucalyptus-scented canyon deep in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles and melded folk, rock, and savvy American pop into a sound that conquered the world as thoroughly as the songs of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones had before them. Decades later, the music made in Laurel Canyon continues to pour from radios, earbuds, and concert stages around the world. In Laurel Canyon, veteran journalist Michael Walker draws on interviews with those who were there to tell the inside story of this unprecedented gathering of some of the era’s leading musical lights—including Joni Mitchell; Jim Morrison; Crosby, Stills, and Nash; John Mayall; the Mamas and the Papas; Carole King; the Eagles; and Frank Zappa, to name just a few—who turned Los Angeles into the music capital of the world and forever changed the way popular music is recorded, marketed, and consumed. “An exhaustively researched and richly anecdotal book that will fascinate both rock aficionados and cultural historians.” —Salon “Captures all the magic and lyricism of an almost mythological geographical spot in the history of pop music . . . the story of a more melodious time in rock and roll where the great talents of the ‘60s and ‘70s cloistered together in a sort of enchanted valley populated by an all-star cast of characters.” —Steven Gaines, author of Philistines at the Hedgerow