What led to the DEMISE of Laurel Canyon’s Freewheeling Society of Sex and Rock n Roll?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ก.พ. 2024
- What led to the DEMISE of Laurel Canyon’s Freewheeling Society of Sex and Rock n Roll? Imagine living in a dreamy place where you look out your window to see Jim Morrison riding his bike past the Eucalyptus trees as you hear Joni Mitchell’s guitar echoing through the hills while ducks swim in the pond in your backyard? David Crosby and Frank Zappa breeze by you at the local country store before you stop by your neighbor’s house to enjoy a game of Ping Pong and a swim because it’s always a fun time with The Monkees. It may sound like a dream but it’s actually just another day in Laurel Canyon, 1967.
But then change creeps in when disturbing events take place and the laid back feeling dissolves into fear and hopelessness. So what happened to Laurel Canyon’s famously thriving community?
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An interesting but sad video. In 1971, I walked the street of Haight-Ashbury, then went to fight in the Vietnam War. On my return from the war, a changed young man, I ended up for a short time on the east coast near DC. I spent many late afternoons in a cafe drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes listening to Jackson Browne’s ‘Doctor My Eyes’ and Don McLean’s ‘American Pie’. Great music, indeed. But, it was the incredible music by the Moody Blues I credit for getting me through that tumultuous period of my life, enabling me to stay away from smoking weed and from excessive boozing and to finish college to graduation. Praise to the Lord God Almighty. Now, in 2024, I’m an old man long retired from two careers that involved global travel. From my experiences and education and from living and working with people smarter than me, it is clear (to me) that history virtually repeats itself, and that the more we learn, the less we know. (Bring it on)
"Welcome home, brother. Thanks for doing what our country had asked of you, and for being there for other servicemen who needed you."
Moody Blues 🕊️❤️✨
Glad to hear it. Good on you, brother. Love the Moody Blues.
Very cool! Thanks for sharing your life (relevant part of) story. I wasn’t born until ‘67, but I was immersed in this incredible music growing up. These songs move me deeply and touch a place in my soul that nothing else can. A wonderful part of who I am at the core.
@@BeeFunKnee Thank you for your kind comment.
The soundtrack of my life. I was 20 in '67, born and raised in LA, a student not a groupie, running around Laurel Canyon having fun with young musicians. Met so many of these future famous when all of us were young. Troubador, Ash Grove, Whiskey A Go Go. Viet Nam, Manson, thousands marching in the streets, all in the near future. I never talk about it because I barely believe it myself as I look at 80!
You certainly lived your youth in much better times than the today's youth. Peace !
What a great time to be alive and young...
I'm 2 years older than you. I loved growing up in the Hollywood Hills!!!
Are you still in California???
I imagine you have wonderful stories to tell !.All kinds from Beautiful to Hilarious to
Romantic ect ! I love your perspective. You were one of them but they went on to be famous. There is an amazing book in you Miss Meg ! All.of those people together at the same time learning from and helping each other ! You got to be a part of what it really was all about and that couldn't last for long. Nothing does. Think about writing some of your history down. Who knows, you may just get published. ! How awesome to hear it all from a woman of your age and wisdom ! ☘️🌱
Thanks for this. My brother was in Vietnam getting shot out of the sky. My alcoholic father killed himself and my family imploded. The music of the era saved me.
Wow, Man. I hate that you went through that, but I love that music helped you through it. Thanks for sharing.
what you say is so meaningful. sad but powerful.
💜 I'M SO SORRY TOM 😢 I CAN'T IMAGINE WHAT YOU WENT THROUGH. SENDING LOVE & HUGS 🫂💜
What a challenging life's journey you have had. Do write it down, a telling American story😢
I heard David Crosby say in an interview before he died that, "It was a magical time and a magical place. Someone should make a documentary about it". Looks like someone took his advice and I'm glad they did. Good work.
Thank you 🙏
David had the best weed was told.
About 4 years ago this documentary came out about what took place in Laurel Canyon during that magical time. It’s a wonderful piece. Hope you get a chance to view it. Here’s the trailer.
th-cam.com/video/QRVFBQHBUls/w-d-xo.htmlsi=2E0VPIpsL2xeP_4D
Echo in the Canyon is one. The rest all have laurel canyon in the title i believe
Have you heard him since he died?
I was born and raised in Laural Canyon. But it was before the musicians moved in. Dad was an artist for Universal Studio. Mom was an artist, and I've been a lifelong artist. Always been that way!
My mother and aunt grew up not far away on Irvine Ave, off of Laurel Canyon Blvd. My aunt would ride her horse through Laurel Canyon all the time. But that was in the 50's, probably before the drug scene hit. She stabled her horse just a couple blocks from her house... almost unimaginable today!
I just did a conversion calculator, and $70 in 1967 would be about $670 today; I was surprised it was that cheap to live
I imagine it's unaffordable now for most? Always my dream to live there
@@megmodaff5989 definitely not affordable now
I wish I'd been in my teens and 20s when I lived close to there in La Crescenta Cali in the late 80s.
The 60s were one of if not the best era of music in United States. You have the folk rock California rock sound, You also had the British invasion, You also had psychedelia from San Francisco. And Motown all happening and prospering at the same time. That's why this music will never die. The 60s then slid into the 70s which was another great era of rock You had More experimentation Harder edge sound, etc. I am so glad I was old enough to experience it and enjoy it and still do to this day. Many many people say I'm stuck in the 60's and 70's, and I'm happy with that lol
Great era
CIA mind control for the boomers.
You didn't mention the best of all, the jazz scene. Miles, Trane, Monk, Blakely, Ornette, and Mingus!!!
I was an 80s baby but the 70s music absolutely blows me away. I find far more great music from the 70s then I do the 60s or any other decade. So I really don't blame ya.
It's terrible so many of them smoked pot, though. Makes me lose respect for these people.
GREAT VIDEO!! Was living in Laurel Canyon during that time across the street from Inger Stevens. Remember the day the ambulance came for her. Unbelievable as she was drop dead gorgeous. We had the same midwife as Carole King. Had a Fiat 600 painted iridescent lime with floral upholstery which people would point to - even on Sunset Blvd. No other car brought as much a smile to my face as racing up (not down) Laurel Canyon and not missing a shift. The Fiat only had 21 horsepower and if you missed a shift it would bog down to nothing. NOSTALGIA: paid $64 for a set of FOUR NEW Michelin tires and could fill the tank for under $1.50 most of the time (gas was often $0.19 a gallon).
Amazing stuff
that's 'cause there's a lot less rubber in 4 fiat tires than one '55 chevy tire ;)
@@cloudshe The tires were only 12 inches in diameter.
Everytime I think there's nothing left to cover about Laurel Canion another Doc. pops up with so much more. Even the posts here were nostalgically informative. It's really interesting to see what was going on behind the scenes of those great songs that were the back drop of my young crowd on the other coast in the late 60"s - early 70's. I'm sure that after every great artist community had ended, like Greenage Village, Luarel Canion etc they thought it could never happen again. Artisans seem to always get priced out, but I can't help believing in that curious thirst that drives us in our youth. I didn't even dream that such a place as Laurel Canyon existed in my younger days while it was happening. There was a bit of a buzz about lots of curios places, but young folks have a tendency to exaggerate what they want to believe. Oddly enough that's where creation starts.
"But don't think too badly of one who's left holding sand. He's just another dreamer, dreaming of Everyman." - Jackson Browne. I understand that line fully now.
Laurel canyon is where I grew up. Frank Zappa was on the corner, Alex Karas and Susan Clark were my neighbors too. I’m a proud guitarist and am terrible at it.
Keep being proud man. Thats a great attitude.
"Mongo have deep feelings for Sheriff."
@@hannabaal150 very cool miss Hanna. You know who Alex is. I was their landscaper.
Proud drummer here, but not bad at it in bands in NYC, LA and Texas. Not rich,...not famous. Damn!
Frank Zappa did not do drugs, including alcohol. He smoked cigarettes, which are bad for you, but no one ever beat their wife & kids on nicotine or destroyed their career at 30 yo or smashed their car into a telephone pole at 80 mph, wasted on cigarettes.
...once again, I sense that Cass Elliot was an important figure in the Laurel Canyon scene, and not only for the contribution she'd made with her own music. She seems a friendly and open soul who'd had a talent for bringing other creative people together. As with others from the music field in the late sixties she'd passed away far too young. Her energy and good will, sorely missed.
so sad she was only 30. such a talent 😔
She was without a doubt the true Queen of the Canyon and everyone's Mama!😊
Yeah, seems if you were invited to one of her parties, you were made.
Yeah, Cass was a force. Amazing soul.
And, for the record, she did not choke on a Ham sandwich.
There is NOTHING… ON TODAYS TOP ONE MILLION… that holds a candle..
I watched this video and saw my own canyons…. And The fork in the road….
The rewards of the path I took….a stark change in direction…. And how I so miss the the evergreen sweetness …the music and the souls
I remember as a young kid watching this older generation in such confusion. I loved the music, but this whole era was a troubling time.
It could literally scare the hell out of you hanging out with older teenagers. It all involved drugs
Psychedelics are powerful medicine properly applied of course. the people in this story are all a few years older than me but we were careless in our use of these substances for recreation. Thankfully about 40 years ago I learned about their proper use.
The world changed in 1968. Almost overnight. Tet Offensive?
CIA & FBI (active in LC & other avenues such as Timothy Leary and Gloria Steinem) social engineering propaganda permating the media was the reason everything changed more or less overnight.
hippies were a threat to the establishment's position, the social brainwashing wasn't working on your generation so they had to subvert and neutralize it asap by any means necessary.
Yep. Change for the sake of change is never good.
Selfishness gone to extreme whilst preaching love and peace.
We know that there is no peace.
It was also the incoming of cocaine and heroin as opposed to just weed and alcohol. The culture is different with cocaine you begin to hide and get paranoid and that was not conducive to acoustic guitars and backyard barbecues
than you try heroin to come down,just a little bit turns into selling your guitars and so on.
hate to break it to you but morphein use was nothing new - Merle Haggard said if it weren't for methamphetamine there wouldn't be a Nashville - it is what it is
yes we know that, but the video is about the scene in laurel canyon, not nashville our nyc, when all the jazz players where doing smack in the 50s of course drugs were nothing new, but it was to these young kids, young adults that suddenly had a lot of money!!!@@davidrice3337
@@davidrice3337 I'm talking about California specifically and zeroed in on Laurel Canyon and the artistic residents of the time. I don't know anything about Nashville that might be true
Nailed it I say. I was around California through the 70s. Once Ken Kesey made LSD cool in 1965, it you were a cool musician you took LSD every chance you got. Then in 1969 Easy Rider made cocaine cool. If you were a cool musician you looked for cocaine daily. Different vibes, more addiction, more focus on getting drugs.
I was in LA in 1967, just back from Vietnam on my first ship, USS Waddell, DDG-24, home ported in Long Beach. That music which welcomed us home in April, 1967, became the sound track of my young adult life. I was hanging out in Glendale at the home of one of my Navy buddies whose family welcomed me to stay there on weekends. I loved the music and the scene and met my first wife there, but I did not know how close I was to the Laurel Canyon scene. If I had known, I might have explored those quaint, convoluted Hollywood Hills with my California girl soon-to-be wife and we might have had a brush with fame. As it was, we did go to Griffith Park and enjoy the hippie scene there, which was pretty wild for a Minnesota boy far away from home for the first time in his life. I still love that music of the sixties and seventies and I still believe it was the best soundtrack for a life that I could have asked for. After I was discharged from the Navy in 1969, my California girl wife and I moved back to Minnesota, but the marriage did not last. We were so young, too young to be married in those chaotic times. I was a Vietnam vet trying to get back on track in college, and the campuses were hostile to Vietnam vets in those days. We were the first military veterans to not be welcomed home. My marriage failed, my career path changed, and almost nothing turned out as I had expected it to. That's when I learned the truth that life is what happens while you are making different plans. American culture was changing, and not for the better. There were dark years ahead. Everything changed, but the music never let me down. That's why even today, as a 77 year-old man, I treasure that music and understand how lucky I was then to have it playing in the background as my life unfolded in ways I could never have predicted in spite of my best efforts. I went on to meet the woman I needed to meet, and she gave me the family I did not know I needed in order to give my life meaning. See? Life is what happens while you are making other plans! So here I am, an old man with two sons, one daughter, and four grandsons, grateful for all of my good fortune (dumb luck, really) and still loving and enjoying that great music of the sixties and seventies and the great music of the eighties and nineties which it inspired and influenced. Thank you for this great documentary about one of the essential cultural scenes which helped to create the sound track of my life.
Wow thank you for sharing your experiences
I was very happy for you to read a bit of your life and how you were able to reassimilate into the crazy times in America. I had two of the nicest cousins and both were able to come back, one minus most of his shoulder, and the other sadly succumbed to drinking and drugs towards his passing. They were both changed men. That useless war did a number on all who served, and even me as an 8 year old because I didn't understand enough about life. But I'll always miss them both for the sweetness and kindness they showed me just as a little kid.
This was my era too! My friend and I used to cruise the Sunset Strip, dance at the Hullabaloo Club and the Wiskey. I was asked to be one of the dancers at the Hullabaloo, but I was still in high school and didn't even drive yet.
I met my future husband at the Oar House and Buffalo Chips in Santa Monica to the tunes of the Buffalo Springfield.
Years later I went to a party with my college art history class, hosted by the professor, an elderly woman. It had an amazing views, like living in the trees. I wondered how she could have afforded this house because by this time, it was considered a ritzy area. I didn't realize that Laural Canyon was originally a cheap, affordable area.
Loved your thoughts and comments but think about paragraphs.
@@garyreams8123 I don't usually ramble on at such length.
I had a friend who lived in HALF a shack, it was actually a falling down garage, that used to be connected to the house the Byrds owned on top of Laurel Canyon. The house had burned down, and the property was bought by a very young sitcom star in the 1980’s. The guy who played SKIPPY on FAMILY TIES. He had enough money to buy the property, but NOT enough to rebuild the house. So he lived in front of the ruins of the house, in a silver trailer parked in the driveway. It overlooked a cliff and all of LA. The view at night was SPECTACULAR!!
He told me two great stories about the house.
1- The drive to the top of the hill was TREACHEROUS! The road was very winding, and caving in on both sides. You had to make several sharp turns. There were a series of THREE sharp turns that came quickly one after another. He said when the Byrds drove up that hill , they would all sing their hit song as they drove “Turn, turn, turn!” Then to the next series of sharp turns “ Turn, turn, turn!”
2-Donovan came over for an afternoon party and sat on the grass, smoked some grass, and looked out at the view. From that vantage point, you can see all the way across LA county, all the way to Orange County…where there is a large mountain. When it’s clear, you can see that mountain. When the haze blows in from the ocean, you can’t see it. Sometimes this effect changes quickly. So Donovan wrote his hit song there “ First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is. “
you've added perspective to the stories!! thanks. I miss the FEELING of those times, something brave and creative, a freedom.
People here in Calif, and especially L.A. area were horrified and chilled by Tate-La Bianca murders. I moved here after them, and only heard about them when I arrived (1975). However, the murders at Kent State of 4 STUDENT protestors, UNARMED, by our own president (Nixon ordered the National Guard on them), triggered the ultimate protest song imo "Ohio" by Neil Young--who saw the photo and "went into the woods & wrote the song & came back and sang it" to David Crosby. Now I've seen the woods in the video probably!
The result: our whole country of young people of my generation rebelled. Neil's song--or at the least its influence--isn't mentioned here oddly.
Love your addition about Donovan!
I watched a different documentary on Laurel Canyon a couple years ago. Must have been absolute magic to live there, in that era. Listening to the crap that our youth is listening to now, makes me so sad. I'm 70 and have been heavily into Progressive Rock since King Crimson arrived. A different genre of music from Laurel Canyon but the lengthier songs, layers of sounds, drew me in. As sad as it is to get old, growing up in that era, was a true treasure.
You decide how old you are
@Progmeister: Definitely not the sound of the Laurel Canyon bands, though all of that was wonderful too, but thank goodness for what came to be known as Progressive Rock with the likes of King Crimson and much more in depth and challenging music. Still, that Laurel Canyon scene must have been something while it lasted.
I don't understand why people are unable to wax poetic about the music that they love merely by describing that music and the way it makes them feel. Why is it necessary to compare the music that one loves to the music being listened to by any other people i.e. "... the crap that our youth is listening to now..." To be divisive in all discourse is so negative. I am glad that you enjoyed the music from Laurel Canyon as a youth and throughout your life: that's terrific! Just say that. Namaste.
@@GladysKravitz42 Hi there. A detailed answer to your above questions will likely disturb your sensibilities and upset you. Have a good one.
I really enjoyed this. I lived there on Kirkwood with my mother and her drug dealer boyfriend around 1970-71. I was a latch key kid and wandered around the neighborhood and explored the hillsides. I remember buying candy at the country store. Jim Henson also lived there and was part of the team that developed Sesame Street. I remember staying home sick from school one day and I got to stay in my mom’s bedroom and listen to records. They had a mirror above the bed. I listened to Frank Zappa Just Another Band from LA, James Taylor Sweet Baby James, Carole King Tapestry. I still have those albums. I don’t think I realized at the time they were our neighbors. I have the most wonderful memories of that area.
Was it a water bed? 😂
Tapestry is one of my favourite albums. I hope someone let Telemachus the cat out (in the window on the Tapestry album with Carole.) Otherwise he must be busting for a pee after being sat there for over 50 years! 😂😂😂
I also love the songs like Jazz Man and I’ve Been to Canaan. Later, Amy Winehouse cited Carole as an influence, and I think that Adele also did.
Her drug dealer boyfriend? That's terrible! Where were their morals??
Did... did you just out your mom having a mirror over her bed?
What a cool snapshot of a time and place
My mom use to love Carole Kings Tapestry album R.I.P mom 12/24/23😢 thanks for having such GREAT taste in music and giving me such a diverse ear
My first concert at 12.
1973
🙏🏼
@@brettsfav4 thank you
Ya My mom too. That generation mastered music. It will never be as good and that's cool. Just keep playing and passing them down.
All of those legends living in the same place just hanging out together making natural music. Unbelievable, and wonderful. Memories.
"Those were the days,my friend;we thought they'd never end.''
I was a child when all of this took place. I thought these artists were the coolest people on the planet. I couldn’t wait till I became a teenager so I could be a part of this scene. But it was all over by then.
How old are you 70?
I'm 69 and wanted to be there also. I feel the freshest time of all times.
It wasnt over so much. Just morphed into what they had socially engineered it to. The whole hippie scene was a psychological operation created to undue the true anti war movement that really getting started good. Vietnam was different. Everyone, normal everyday folks could see thru the war propaganda machine and knew there was no justifiable reason for us to be attacking Vietnam. They all were questioning the gulf of tonkin incident and many had begun questioning some things about ww2. Like why we brought all the high ranking nazis were brought here and to Russia. Put in charge of medical industry, pharma, research and development in many medical sciences, vaccine development. NASA was literally created by nazis. Operation paperclip if you never heard of it. America just claimed, well russia has recruited some nazis, we have too to for "national security"....and we know who runs Hollywood and the entertainment industry. Yeah we have been lied to about absolutely everything. You know about mk ultra and how all the acid used in the "acid test" was all coming from the cia? Owsley worked for the cia, so did Kesey...remeber the Grateful Dead was the house band for these parties and traveled on the merry pranksters bus w Kesey and all?...."im uncle Sam that's who I am. Been hiding out in a rock and roll band...summer times done come and gone my old my". while hollywood had always been involved heavily in the occult, they socially engineered the youth to welcome the "new age", the dawning of the age of aquarius, which is really nothing but the old age, the worship of the so called "gods" of "mythology". Literally the worship of satan and the rest of the fallen angels. No different than in ancient times when they practiced child and human sacrifice to honor these "gods" and performed all sorts of evil and wickedness in worship of their "gods". Same exact thing just called new instead of old. When they speak of people being free, they really mean free to commit all manners of sin and evil with no fear of retribution from the only CREATOR GOD. For corrupting HIS creation in such evil ways. What they seek to do now is what caused the great flood long ago, they are working to generically corrupt all humanity and all creation. If we are no longer human then we can no longer be redeemed to our FATHER GOD, our CREATOR. And if we can be changed into something other than human, then no longer will the sacrifice JESUS made to pay for the sins of humanity, of all who would believe on HIM and let HIM make them a "new creature", where the power of HIS spirit in us, gives us victory over our sinful nature and sinful desires...but no longer will that sacrifice apply to us. If we are no longer truly human.
I used to think the Turtles were so good, and then I learned they smoked pot as so many of these other musicians did. Even the Monkees. It's just SOOO disappointing to learn these people had such bad morals.
@@Cindybin46user-nu4hg2dx6uMorals? Bad morals for smoking pot?
LOL
LOVE the Ringo love starting at 14:39. True Beatles' and music fans have known for decades just how great he really is...the Beatles couldn't have been THE Beatles without him. It's awesome that he's getting his due credit, especially amongst younger Beatles' fans
Totally. Everyone I've ever heard putting Ringo down are those who know precisely nothing about drumming.
@@wattage2007 The joke back in the day was if the Beatles plane had crashed into the ocean with no survivors, the headline would read:
*_"Three Musicians and a Drummer Lost at Sea"_*
Even if they were all more or less the same age, the Beatles were so big they had already stopped touring at that time, so they had at least five years of professional experience over all the others at that time. Having Ringo walked in to be their professional drummer for a day must've turned the entire room to giggling fan girls.
@@ingvarhallstrom2306 Excellent point. Besides, I am quite sure that Ringo was the only one in that gaggle of gigglers who had a submarine that resembled an electrical banana _(which is bound to be the very next phase)._
Thoroughly enjoyed revisiting my youth. Growing up in the 60’s & 70’s was a gift!
It sure was. Now they keep kids locked up for 3 years unnecessarily and then teach them they might be a different sex.
OK boomer.
It was Awesome!!!🎉
@@tranzco1173Not Necessarily! Also I don't know anyone who got to choose their birth date! That makes it rather stupid to put people down for that particular fact of their life!
Former Baltimoron here. Loved it, hanging out at Mt. Vernon Place, saw Cream at the Civic Center.
I got to see Crosby Stills and Nash at the Brendan Byrne Arena in 1982 when I was 14, it was amazing how much presence was on that stage from 3 old dudes just sitting in chairs and playing. I feel so lucky to have seen that, and for free too!
Wow. A very powerful account. As an American, I'm ashamed of how people returning home from Vietnam were treated, and now by the VA's failure to take care of the current Iraq/Afghanistan veterans. People like you remind me that being cynical is not an accurate way to view this country. It's full of people who, in whatever theater, answered the call to serve your country, be the ethics behind the policy right or wrong. It is indeed highly admirable and, I'm afraid, a dying set of morals. But your story is indeed inspiring and I wish you nothing but the best.
Thank you for the kind words!
some politicians just don't care about what is the Military and the people involved in protecting the Peace. I remember the recent effort to boost the VA's interaction with actual Veterans, many employees were fired because of instances where they showed they just didn't give a shit. the atmosphere at VA clinics changed overnight. then the next crew of politicians rehired them all. hope that works out
This is far and away the best documentary on Laurel Canyon and the late 60's music scene.
Thank you so much 🙏
There's a darker side to it all. Look into the Tavistock institute and the CIA movie and music studio located there. It was primarily a social engineering program and an artistic expression second.
@@jeffreypierce1440 That makes some sense . Up to a point . Shouldn't the music have then been , meh , just very average ?
Maybe a happy accident ( for the ever fiendish CIA ! ) .
@@JayJay-xd5lmall of the artists parents were high ranking government officials and defense contractors.
@@jeffreypierce1440This comment gives me hope. If enough ppl question the narrative and actually start looking for the real history of this country, things might change
In Germany in 1968, I was in a band called the Daisy Chain. We were grooving on all these great groups. At a high school dance we played The End. One of the school monitors was actually listening to the words and pulled the plug on our show. Oh well. You got to let your freak flag fly.
Interesting
Did you perform the uncensored version that got the Doors kicked out of The Whiskey?
@@freewheelingideas and now the German geniuses have shut down all their nukes (having to use coal again), their pipe line got blown up (not by the Ruskies), and their industrialized powerhouse that created a wonderful life style is being shut down. yup "this is the end" you idiots. co2 is life on the planet and has nothing to do with the climate.
I was the drummer in a psych band from Indy in 69 (Gidians Bible). Since I had the lowest voice I got to sing & scream "The End". One time even on acid. Tho we had no faith, when I screamed "Save us! Jesus! Save us!" I always felt it was like a real desperate prayer. And amazingly, He eventually showed up & totally changed our lives and many in my generation.
Loved The End. I sang the song pretending it was about my father.
Those were the days, my friend. We thought they'd never end. We'd sing and dance forever and a day. We'd live the life we choose. We'd fight and never lose. Those were the days, oh, yes, those were the days.
Yeah what a great song too. Pull it up & have a listen, Mary Hopkin. Then tell me you didn't bawl your eyes out.
I was Bonnie Raits driver few years back for a show here in NZ. Not familiar with her music set up a chair by the sound desk to watch the show. Started crying before the end of the first song and truly did not stop for the entire set. Felt like I had just been told I was going to enter the kingdom of heaven after all.
Incredible! Yea she’s so soulful.
I was born in 1951 in Pasadena Ca (a semi-suburb of LA). In the late 60's I was in my late teens and still lived there --- and all these people were 'just people' to me. They had great sounds and I marveled at how talented they were --- but they were 'me'. We would often drive into Hollywood and cruise these streets, be 'part of the scene'. I still shed a tear when I recall the Manson horrors, and that with the war in VietNam seemed to be the time when everything changed. This video brings much of it together and leaves me with a sigh and another tear.... It has been a wonderful life, and I am feel fortunate to have been a small part of this period in time.
I Also born in Pasadena Saint Luke’s Hospital in 1956. Loved it. I would ditch H.S. And hitchhike with a couple friends to one of the beaches and bodysurf. Later Moved to Venice Beach for a couple years and landed in Encinal Canyon when I married my husband a Landscape Architect for Herb Alpert. Then hired me to work as a brick mason and tile setter at Herb Alperts in Malibu.
Great memories and a great place to grow up. 👍
Just be grateful you had a chance to live it - nothing lasts forever.
Pasadena raised, too, in this era. So much great music everywhere. Easily accessible. Troubadour, Golden Bear, Whiskey a go-go, the Ice house . To name a few.
@@karencahill4798 When I was a child I wanted to be a mason or in a string quartet. I did play in a string quartet for pay at functions at Shattuck in the small Episcopal church on campus there, with Dr. Heinz Bruhl's wife, Eva Bruhl, and St. Olaf's Beatrix Lien, then. Both have died, as has the music teacher at Shattuck then, Greg Larsen or Larson, who was a very positive man.
Herb Alpert!
People who live across the pond and weren't a part of that scene see it as the start of America's societal decline.
This was a fantastic podcast. I’m a 72-year-old guitar player who just lost his kitty of 16 years and I needed this. Thank you!
I am so glad I grew up during that era. In 66 I started high school & my first band. I’ve been playing guitar ever since. The music from the 60s and the 70s was pure Flippin magic. I remember in high school ruining three wheels of fire albums. Trying to figure out the guitar part to crossroads. Lol I play it every night I’m on stage.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Find the kitty
OK boomer.
Yes, this is xlnt!
Rip your friend. 💕🎶✨✨💕🎵🎶🎵 Rip.Bella😢
@@tranzco1173 Are you a troll or something? Grow up.
'52 boomer, old hippie chick, still here. We were for real, for free, and the 60s are forever in our hearts. Our cherished mantra indeed was LOVE. Love ❤️ of each other, freedom, and music. Too early, it all came crashing down due to the slow drift from weed and mushrooms, to hard drugs like coke. As long as we tripped on psychedelics it was all cool and peaceful. Music was everything then.
It wasn't the type of drugs that changed things. Things just change. Weed and mushrooms are still here but that Laurel Canyon is gone.
@pumpupthevolume4775 You are right, things do just change! The causation for change that I'm referring to is not that weed and mushrooms went away. In fact they're probably more prevalent now in the percentage of people using compared to the 60s and 70s. What happened was that many people began also using coke and downers like smack and prescription narcotics. I was there and saw many people change. The whole scene went from peaceful and loving, to overdoses, guns, and crime. It was sad. I'm reminded of Neil Young singing, "I've seen the needle and the damage done." Most of us left the hippie scene at that point, but some people just deteriorated into a life of addiction.
All that 'were were for free' did nothing good for women .
I lived in a house on a street one block east & parallel to Laurel Canyon Blvd in the San Fernando Valley from 1953-1973. I was hiking in the Hollywood Hills in the canyon part of Lauryl Canyon 2 days before the nearby Manson murders. It still gives me the willies to recall it by watching this documentary today, more than 50 years later. I barely missed all this music history in Laurel Canyon & Hollywood by about 2 years because I was only 12-15 when most of the stuff in this video was occurring. I didn't know most of this stuff - only 10-20 miles from my house, until now. WOW.
OK boomer.
@@tranzco1173 What's the point or implication of your reply?
@@anonymous19844just a troll. They’ve reply to many of the comments with the same😑
@@anonymous19844 He's been reported.
is the point that it was a micro sliver of a generation more relevant to a very few, while everyone else was on the outside looking in to Laurel Canyon. @@anonymous19844
I met Joni Mitchell in Iraklion, Crete, sitting in an open cafe with her traveling companions, in the spring of 1970 after she had broken up with Nash - she had just gotten her dulcimer, shown in one of the pictures in the video above, and was working on tunings and experimenting. I had just come from Madrid, where I'd been studying classical Spanish guitar, so we talked music for a bit. We all migrated down to a place called Matala on the South shore, which was an international hippie/musician community.
That's where Joni met Carey, a friend I hung out with; he was a colorful character who'd just come back from Afghanistan, and strolled about in a white bournous and sandals with an Afghani Shepherd's crook - in the hot Cretan weather as if he were still in the hills of Afghanistan. I'd spent some time living in the Spanish Sahara, so we had stories to share, and hit it off right quick. Joni wrote him into a song she composed on her dulcimer while there, that she published on her album Blue.
Caves carved into the face of a cliff there were effectively a free high-rise apartment building au naturel - mine was up on the 3rd level - and gatherings with music, retsina at the Mermaid Cafe, splashing in the tarry water, and walks to the magic valley to enjoy the pageant of flower colors in the springtime sun under the influence were how the days and nights were spent. I took up with a British girl working at the Mermaid, and we all left to go back to Athens at Easter time, crossing paths a few times again at concerts - Isle of Wight was one.
Memories of her crystal clear voice echoing in the big main cave on the first level, surrounded with musicians and wanderers from all over Europe, and mingled with strains from others' guitars and harmonies remain an unforgettable moment in time, when the world seemed a different place.
How incredible! I know exactly where you’re talking about!! I showed up there 10 years later! We hiked out there to the caves and stripped, and all ran into the ocean, naked. We sat and talked in the caves and looked at the sea. I thought it was perfect, but I can’t imagine how much more perfect listening to Joni sing in person! That’s mind blowing!!
Me too Mátala was magic for me around the early 70’s period, remember sharing a cave with 3 German girls, I was a young 18 year old travelling hippie, high times 😊
I also was there in '69 before the song Carey. But when I heard it, I was right back there......."The wind is in from Africa" "Come to the Mermaid Café and I'll buy you a bottle of wine".....those were the days.
Thank you for your wonderful recollection of Joni in Greece. I too fell in love with the islands there and cried Bitter tears when I had to leave. Born in 52, I grew up in the Hollywood hills not far from Laurel Canyon, had a musician boyfriend who lived there, went to Hollywood High. What an amazing time it was.
I once saw Joni, trying to be incognito sitting in the big front window of the Cafe Figaro...genius and ego, hand in hand...
I’m lying down in my house. By myself. My heart is in failure and watching this amazing program. So many new things I’m learning that I never knew! Thank you very much!
You’re welcome 🙏
This music moulded me into the songwriter I am today. Thank you Laurel Canyon. Best American music ever.
I grew up in SoCal not far from Laurel Canyon in the 60's and 70's. So much of all that was going on there had an influence on my life. What a great era.
OK boomer.
I grew up right on top in laurelwood in the 60's went to carpenter, Colfax, Reed & nhhs #GoHuskies
@@tranzco1173 go upstairs and tell your indulgent mommy to finish her job. You need to be in time out
@@tranzco1173 Stop with that. It's getting older then boomers. Just because someone is older doesn't mean they deserve to be ridiculed. Your lack of life experience doesn't make you superior. Last I will say..... since I know the best cure against weak ass internet trolls is to ignore them.
@@tranzco1173 You keep showing up in the comments here, if you don't like it just scroll on.
Excellent distillation of that uniquely magical place and time. I've seen several longer form docs on Laurel Canyon, but you really put a lot of "meat on the bone" in 30 minutes!
It's really amazing how many great artists lived up there in such close quarters. Their music was astounding and has stood the test of time. We all got swept away by
it, many of us naively thought that this music could "save the world". We got that totally wrong, but thankfully we still have the music to enjoy.
Thank you 🙏
I never realized how close that these musicians were to each other... Later on in life I leaned more towards Frank Zappa, in 1979, after being a big fan of Alice Cooper couldn't wait for Zappa's next record..Most of Zappa's earlier Mothers albums were hard to obtain and out of print..Now I listen to all those bands that came out of Laurel Canyon.. God be with you man,,,,, 🙏 for without God aka Elohim, none of that would have been possible...
It did save the world, but not for humanity.
Did we get that wrong? I'm not sure
@@DianeDixey Oh, yeah, we certainly did.
It was always a fairy tale.
Not everybody bought into it, it was mostly the "flowers in your hair" Cali crowd when looking back on it objectively.
Pete Townshend said "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss". He got it right.
My mom had the 'bamboo house' on the canal in Veniece beach and a home in Laurel Canyon. She was a doctor that had a practice there. She knew all of these people well. Jim Morrison lived w/ his GF a few doors down on the canal. lm adopted and met her at 20 years old when the Doors movie came out at the theater. Me being a musician you can imagine how learning about all this floored me.
I loved the 'contribute to society' statement. Sons and daughters of many military background families congregate in Laurel Canyon to produce a social engineering project. Even the U.S Military had a film studio up there. McGowan's book tells all.
yup and he died of a "FAST ACTING CANCER" 6 months after it was released. Funny how that keeps happening
That is a great book. Imagine the whole thing was coordinated by our government that is frightening. I firmly believe Jim Morrison did not die he was simply done with his detail! Lol
Every major cultural movement breaks down simply to a time and a place never meant to last. Be it Laurel Canyon late 60's, Manchester UK in the 80's, Seatle in the 90's, Brooklyn in the mid-late 00's. Current trends in culture/society have me wonder where/when the next one will be, if theres a next one at all.
Highly unlikely... it's all been done. Society is moving in a deep, dark direction.
Demographics change if you don't take time, money and mean girl DE-FENCE
@@stillnotwoke I agree and these are boring times. But I do what my sisters and I did when we were teenagers....make my own fun.
ask Tavistock
@@stillnotwokeLOL. Just wait. Things will change. It may take 20 years, but they'll change.
Thank you for this video. You actually got most of it right! I lived nearby and went to the Log Cabin twice in 1968. I gave a ride to an acquaintance and had no idea what a nexus of Sixties Rock Musicians the canyon was, in the spring of that year. I got a tour of the house and after about an hour, I was more than ready to go back to planet earth. Back in those days, and earlier in the 1950's, the Canyon was a bucolic, quiet place. To have a functioning bohemia, you need an abundant supply of affordable housing and under-the-radar jobs that allow creative people to pay the rent and still have energy left over to work on their art. When these disappear, bohemia disappears. The drugs ultimately claimed the sanity, physical health and lives of the musicians who lived there. Thanks for accurately portraying this.
Add Nashville to the list. It is quickly dissolving into the abyss of "used to be Paradise" as of 2024.
I know, I can't believe these people used drugs! Where did they even FIND this stuff? I grew up in the 60s and 70s and have never even seen marijuana!
@@Cindybin46user-nu4hg2dx6uYour rants are not making an impact. 🙄
Unbelievable anthology of early 70s bands, their roots, inspiration, cross-overs ... oh yes, and their music. Very well done! Thank you.
When I lived in SoCal in 1970, much of the Laurel Canyon crowd were moving to Topango Canyon.
Everybody Free Love until their old lady starts flirting with one of their buddies.
It takes two, buddy.
Maybe you need better friends.
Definitely happens a lot more than realized. usually ends up wrecking the band
Well that isn't "love" it's just a temporary pleasure that all of you indulge in because yall have no control over yourselves. Sex rock and roll always been a bunch of junkie kids that's into other junkie kids and the west view on "love" has always been flawed.
A little more than flirting going on there. I don't understand anyone, male or female, taking back a cheater.
@@alukuhito John left his wife ans 3 kids for Michelle
OMG, this was one amazing video! The time frame, the music, the people. It's heart breaking that Laurel Canyon is now all mega million dollar homes. Of course, it IS in California. This was such an amazing time period of my youth, and being young, you just figure it will be like this forever. And how wrong we were. Thank you for this goose bumpy/revisit!
Thank you so much!
Absolutely mind blowing I was born in 1961 and grew up listening to some of these great artists!!!
Living on Lookout Mountain in a sweet hillside cabin built by the first LA Chapter President of the Ziegfeld Follies Girls was magical. We’d remodel a room or open a wall and inside we’d find newspapers, wallpaper, gift wrap even as insulation! So many rich stories and fascinating neighbors even in 1989 when we moved into the Canyon. I’ve been in many of the houses❤️
Thank you for this excellent documentary full of information and history. Groovy, Baby.
I've been in L.A. since mid 80s. What has really changed things is the replacement of actual artists, with people who are quasi artists, but mainly focused on being rich and famous. Art used to be the focus, with the rich and famous part just being coincidental. But as the years went by, the goal switched more and more to just the rich and famous part. People came here just for that. The financial separation between "artists" and average people, became greater and greater. Living in the Hollywood Hills started being considered a 'D Lister' thing around the 90s. The pilgrimage west began. Malibu became the ultimate destination for most people who could afford it. Places like Laurel, Venice, and Santa Fe area downtown, went from being actual artist areas... to gentrified "artist districts" that only high income people could afford. Downtown was my personal area for many years, until the gentrification started. You can talk to people who went to Al's and other downtown places back in the day. It was a true warehouse living, art culture... Replaced by expensive lofts that Paralegals rent. The best days of L.A. are gone. Glad I was here to see the last best days.
Focusing on being rich and famous instead of being really good at something has TAKEN OVER all of America now. In the 90's it was pretty much isolated to rapmusic, but now that rap/hip hop ( and it's it culture) has taken over most of pop music that state of mind has raced though the last couple of generations - everything is superficial nowadays - and social media hasn't helped at all either. Everyone's trying to keep up with the Kardashians instead of just being true to themselves.
@@richhope3043 that is so true
Fact! The wannabes replaced the true artists.
The best days of Everything are gone!😮
"Art used to be the focus.....rich and famous... coincidental"
💯
Sometimes things just come together in a time and place and it's magical. You might not realize how extraordinary it is at the time. It's just life.. Then you wake up one day and it's gone. It's over. Everyone has gone their separate ways. And if you're lucky enough to experience it more than once in your life you recognize it when it's happening. But, you know it won't last. You just enjoy it while it's happening.
That's how I feel about the past.
Yeah, magical 😂
Born in 62 I remember alot of great music in late 60s and 70s. Always loved Zappa and have seen live many of the folks in your Video. Thanks for the memories.
You’re welcome
My wife and I were born in 68 and 69. Our parents looked like these people ! The 70s were my personal favorite.
It really was a time when performers had talent and not just a savy producer.
OK boomer.
The artists understood melody, chords, rhythm , lyrics. The producers knew how to find and help artists. 20 somethings today and boomers know this.
and auto-tune
Still , none of them played on their albums.
They weren’t mentioned, but David Geffen and Lou Adler played a huge part in all of this too
If you didn't notice the Laurel Canyon recipe... at its core, it was American, British, and Canadian singer-songwriters.
sounds white supremacist
with a dash of CIA mind control operations
Tavistock as well
Yes, the brilliant talents of the gifted singer-songwriter musicians from Canada and UK go hand in hand with the American equivalents. Thank you for pointing that out.
And a dash of CIA. Stop deleting my comment
In 1967, here comes Jimi Hendrix & Joni Mitchell, each of them 8 times as talented as all the rest of them put together. Jimi died in 1970 and Joni is now 80. Makes you wonder how life actually works.
I lived through the 60's era....Laurel Canyon was beautiful during the Golden Era & growing. Then, in a few decades it would all change.
This is the reason.
The Reagan Era killed it. When the hippies became the yuppies.
Though living a little outside Laurel Canyon, Leon Russell was also very influential in that scene, a few of the same musicians mentioned in the documentary jammed/recorded at his home studio
Big fave of mine. 🥰 Magic.
Wow, The Monkees were quite influential actually.
Damn rights they were.
Just like milly vanilli
Not really. They were just rich and hanging around with famous people. Nobody said they were influence by the Monkees. The Monkees themselves were influenced by others though.
@@alukuhito It said they wrote and helped write many of the songs - you watching a different video? I mean I don't consider "The Monkees" as an influence like Bob Dylan but Tork and Nesmith esp. collaborated with a lot of the people.
@@jindalee4471 Lazy comment - they could play their instruments and collaborated with those others. Geez..I never thought I'd be having to defend the Monkees!
Pet Sounds really is a masterpiece. I've gotten some odd looks while listening to it, but i kust assume they know nothing about music.
99.9% of people on earth couldn't afford to live anywhere in Laural Canyon. Not even close! What is crazy is how fast the housing prices skyrocketed to millions.
The amount of talent and great songs that came out of this single square mile over 4 years is almost impossible to comprehend. The Byrds, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Joni Mitchell, Graham Parsons, The Mamas and the Papas. The Doors, Linda Rhonstad, The Eagles, The Byrds, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Frank Zappa. Literally incredible.
Carol is a timeless treasure.Her songs still stand the tests of time.l still love them.
She has a Facebook 💛 She is totally awesome.
Linda was gorgeous with an incredible voice
Graham Nash got fed up with the Hollies 3 minute singles. Linda Ronstadt covered "Just One Look" and "I Can't Let Go" on 2 of her albums. Nash goes on to write the deep and profound Our House with 2 cats in the yard, life used to be so hard. Really far out Graham.
Man, this video just spilled out my soul. I was born in Venice Beach in 1950 so the music and people scene was what I was raised on. Those times are gone now, but I have spent the last 50 years looking for them. I think I'm about as close as I'll ever be. Chillin in a small wooded village 30 minutes outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico surrounded by pine trees and hopeful memories. AMEN
Glad you enjoyed l!
FREAKIN' AWESOME!! I turned 20 in 1970 ... I grew up on all this music. It is as much a part of my life as breathing. THANK YOU so much for this wonderful video.
Glad you enjoyed it and thank you 🙏
I lived in the Midwest , but the music and lifestyle were like a magnet way out there in California.
I left Detroit in 69 in a 58 Ford wagon and I had a 107 bucks. It's been a hell of a ride along the way. I have to say that people were much different back then. Maybe we were just naive, but it was easy to trust one another back then . Instead of the negative , everything seemed like anything was possible, including stopping that war.
As the sixties came to a close and altimont finished the peace and love thing , everyone and everything has a harder edge. That innocent magic was gone. It was like when John Lennon died, so did an era and an idea. Stomped out like it was nothing and don't think the government wasn't happy. They hated peace, love and freedom, no matter what they pretend this country is. It may have died , but it ain't forgotten by any means . Like the Phoenix, it too shall rise again
The best music coming out in the year 1970 was Sabbath or most of their music. No peace and love there.
I lived through this time in the UK. It's so original to hear about their entwined lives, not the usual check list style of who did what when. This brings them all to life, as I remember them. It was about the people just as much as the music. It may look smooth now but it was an emotional rollercoaster, the old social rules broken. Free love was just as painful as any other kind of love can be. Great documentary ❤🙏🏻
Thank you 🙏
a good description
Thanks for this. I grew up listening to these bands. Just played Joni Mitchel's Court and Spark album today. So much good art, music and literature is born out of the dark side of humanity. I imagine that some of those folks had ptsd from their time in the canyon.
Well done documentary on a scene that cannot possibly be fully detailed as there was so much going on all the time and so many musical births occurring so frequently. What a time to be there! And the music that came from that little canyon will echo through time forever.
God, the music was so good back then. I am so thankful that I got to grow up with it all. And living in the Detroit area I also had home town Rock and Motown music along with my parent’s country and Big Band music.
The same genres I heard all my life at home, except I'm in SC. I wouldn't trade it for anything. One of my very favorite parts of my life.
Cobo Hall, Masonic Temple. Grande Ballroom… Im from Detroit as well.
CKLW, WKNR, WABX, WWWW, WLLZ@@djquinn11
Michigan Palace, East Town, Cobo Hall Bookies Lounge. Mid to late 70s😊
What about Taylor Swift?😅
It ends too sudden. There should be a Part II .Loved the story. What a place to live ; it looks/sounds like Paradise . This was the finest period in music and culture in general .
Thanks for the suggestion! It was a ton of work and that was about all I could manage to fit in this one, but I definitely have a lot of ideas too on this one. Thanks 🙏
@@freewheelingideasThere's really no part 2. You summed it up nicely. The only thing left is the shifting of the gears.....
@@freewheelingideas There is this one... th-cam.com/video/Dh4DUhhXfvM/w-d-xo.html
Wrong....the finest period in music was the mid to late 70's when punk came around. At least they sang about what life was like for the middle to lower class. There was no love and peace for people only the ones with money.. Some of the best songs came from the working class....including Sabbath who grew up in lower middle class Birmingham....no love and peace there.
@@freewheelingideasAwesome work. Very well put together and spoken clearly!
In the end, people are just people, capable of great good and great bad. But I sure enjoyed the times and still enjoy rock and roll. Thanks to those who made the music.
I feel so blessed to have been there from 1971-1979 and then again from 1984-1994. It wasn't this era, but there was a lot of cool music and artists at my time as well. I fondly recall going to the forum to see Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, and others. Then, thrifting and finding clothing for so many of the glam metal rock bands of the 80's who were just the boys of the neighborhood. Good times!
I left Queen of Angels hospital in August 1950, a 7lb. 14oz bundle of joy, to my first home, on Kirkwood Dr, just before Ridpath. The house was a wedding gift from my grandparents, who had built a house next door, and owned 2 lots.
Rode the schoolbus to Bancroft Jr. High School from 1963-1965, went to Fairfax High School until 1968. We moved from Kirkwood to Woodrow Wilson Dr. in 1967. Strangely, I never ran into any of the more famous rock stars, although I was aware of their presense. I did date a French girl, who was Frank Zappa's au pair, and my high school love was a good friend of Pam Courson, when they lived behind Bill's Canyon Country Store...
All of this as a bit of background, to establish at least some credibility, when I say that, of all the many cronicles that have been made about Laurel Canyon, yours is, by far, the best. I was really glad to see that you refrained from sensationalizing it, and just presented, unembellished, what it was actually like. I think you treated the people with respect, and as honestly as would be possible. The photos really touched me, and brought me home. I live far from there now, but whenever I am in LA, I always cruise those narrow winding roads and think of what happened there before those million-dollar homes were planted. (In 1967, ours sold for ~$30K; the new one, on Woodrow Wilson, was ~$87K, lol)
Thanks for all the effort it must have required to put this together. It made my night...
Awesome insights and thank you 🙏 what a wedding gift
Thank you for your recollections. I too lived in the Hollywood Hills, went to Hollywood High, 71 grad. We were so fortunate to be right there in the middle of all this fabulous creativity. What a melting pot of great vibes!
@lesliejackson9117 - thank you for your kind comment, if we didn't cross paths, maybe in another life. Be well...
This is awesome! Born in 62. Late in the game, but this was my childhood! This was and is my music!
I was born in 62 also and will be forever grateful to have grown up in a time the best music that ever was or will be again took place ☮️
I moved onto Laural Canyon in the spring of 93 to live with the Drummer and Singer of our band, Skank Royal. I lived there for about a year and a half. I have my own winded story and musical journey, but it includes many of the people you mentioned here. In 1998, I would get hired by Billy Asher to build the Ben Harper lap steels and worked on guitars owned by Jackson, Bonnie Raitt, and met Crosby there. Me and my girlfriend were signed and picked up by Rick James, who was close with Neil Young. I’ve had so many synchronized events that tie in with this documentary that it’s hard not see how magical love street was. The smell of eucalyptus at night had the calming affect of a purring cat laying on your chest. Thank you for this.
Your welcome 🙏
That was a great testimonial to the best of times. Thank you. 😊
In the late 60's, Laurel Canyon was a crucible of musical innovation, echoing with the strums of guitars and the harmonies of a generation poised on the brink of change. It was a time when music was more than sound-it was a movement, a revolution, a wild dance through the flames of history. I met some wonderful people around Sunset Blvd, and worked my way up Mulholland Drive.
The Beach Boys' harmonious ballads of surf and sun gave way to Buffalo Springfield's gritty anthems of protest and change, capturing the spirit of an era that was as turbulent as it was transformative. I took my cheap camera and pretended to be an official photographer, so I could get backstage at Buffalo Springfield concerts.
The air was electric, charged with ideas and melodies that would shape the course of music for decades to come. It was an unforgettable journey through the heart of rock 'n' roll, where every chord told a story and every song was a testament to the times.
weird how all these famous and musically talented people lived in the same neighborhood, must of been some kind of magic in the air there
Great quote from Joni Mitchell, an eternal legend. The picture her music painted all over my life is truelly amazing.
Joni was just another self-indulgent, amoral hippie-type...she gave away her illigitimate baby at age 19, to trade on her good looks and different voice. Most of these types back then, were ego-tripping massively!
@@curbozerboomer1773 true but that doesnt deter from her music.
@curbozerboomer1773 sorry to the kid, but otherwise I don't care. Great music. Some fun times. A LOT of fun times and good memories on my part- although I was younger than that crowd and saw it from a more innocent place.
But I'm far removed from being naive and know full well it was an ideal that was never truly realized or lived. Moments in time and people with imperfections. Without that Ego how would Joni have done any of the things she did? Good and bad. Is her child happy today? I would guess probably. She came to earth from a unique place.
The voice of the judgemental scold is replete in the old republican party- and look what has happened to their ideals and dreams.
Shattered in the horror and wasteland of the Donald movement. That's the reaping that their unforgiving judgements have earned them. Pointing fingers at the past as if the evil, jealous god from the old testament has stirred up from it's hoary grave to frighten todays children with the nightmare reality their grandparents lived and breathed- but which is now as dead and obsolete as my mom's old fashioned ring dial telephone- the stand up.kind with the separate earpiece connected by a cord. That's the value and relevance of that particular conception of a "loving" God.
Historical dustbin and good riddance. A small, hateful little deity for small, hateful little people. This music isn't for people like you, any way.
@@dionmcgee5610wow that was quite an unload. Yes ego,s can propel some to great lengths it seems, more often it just clouds ones perception. I guess thats why its so hard for inteligent people to be humble. Sad to see it burning in hatefilled hearts. But thats why its for everyone to find their own path and in the end if all they are left with is a angry heart and empty soul theres always the ego to blame.
@@curbozerboomer1773 I fully agree. I never got how she was so famous. Open tuned guitar with capo on (thus removing any need for guitar playing skills) with endless 'intellectual' rambling over the top. From this documentary I'm sensing she slept her way into that scene.
I LOVE this. ❤️❤️
However Melcher didn’t own the Tate residence, he had previously rented it with actress Candice Bergen.
Read the fabulous ‘Chaos’ book by Tom O’Neill and get the real story.
Manson knew Melcher had already moved out.
I know, we know
People with no boundaries going too far? How can this be?
The Manson thing is what happened to Laurel Canyon. New evidence shows that the thing may have been by design.
???
I would very much appreciate elaboration if U would be so kind.
I am sincere in my request. If unable I understand and respect. ✌️My friend.
💙🤠🐕🐾
@@johnbeemer5358 Check out "Chaos" by Tom O'Neil. New evidence from a ton of research. CIA set it up to ruin the hippie stuff.
I really like these rare photos of iconic legends of Rock & Roll!
Right? I've never seen any of them and had no clue they were all this chummy with one another. Kept making me think about all the great local musicians and music industry people I was privileged to hang out with just in my little neck of the woods in Harrisburg, Pa where we had more than a couple great nightclubs, bands and parties. We were all one big happy family and then this Grunge crap killed the scene in 1995. Talk about a PSYOPS. >:-(
There needs to be a TV anthology series like _American Horror Story,_ but instead of being a different horror genre each season, it's a rise-and-fall story of artist movements throughout history, so you can see how the strange serendipity of all these talented people meeting up create pop culture history. The Laurel Canyon Scene could be an entire season altogether given that it's from 1963-1969, with an epilogue for the early '70s. Maybe Richard Linklater could produce it.
Not just Laurel Canyon by any means, but in Detroit where other magical meetings of talent occurred, and then there is Vancouver, Toronto, Liverpool to say the very least in terms of period locations of collected extraordinary musical talents. But back to LC; many of the mentioned artists departed CA to never return (for varied reasons of course). And then, a California woman egregiously stole Mike Pinder from the Moody Blues! That can’t be forgiven! (smile)
@@wlodell Oh yeah, absolutely. Motown in particular would probably need a 2-hour season finale. But like, say you did one season on the Algonquin Round Table, and then in another season you have the Beat Movement. If at any point one of the Beat writers were to encounter Dorothy Parker, you'd have to have the same actor who played Parker show up reprising the role.
That way for people watching who don't know the history, they'd recognize the "character" and think "Oh, so this happens AFTER the previous season."
@@Theomite Thank you, I believe you are right.
Those movies already exist.
@@rosezingleman5007 Movies, yes. Not 13-hour stories that can go into much more forensic detail.
I’m from Manchester and was young when the scene was happening. For the first time in my life, my accent gave me access to beautiful girls! Summers of 1989-90 were magical.
Manchester is on my list to make a video about that evolving scene
Everything golden about the golden state is gone.
I was born in 58 so was 10 in 68. I got a hold of a small am fm radio and discovered wolfeman jack. That was it... all these songs I was exposed to on that tiny radio in a city close to but not in the bay area in CA. Magic..
I remember Wolfman Jack. In the Midwest we had WLS radio out of Chicago. The corruption of DJs was payola, but at least they kept some individual taste in the choice of music. Now music’s just big business and almost all radio stations play the same songs and are divided into genres. In the 60s and 70s there was a great variety to the music you’d hear on one station. Still, I was always looking for something new and different. I remember ordering records from the Intergalactic Record Company, based in Oregon I think….
Musta been some real magic in those hills! The most awesome music came out of there, and feel so privileged to have grown up during that time! ❤️🇦🇺
You haven’t read the McGowin book?
But do you realize so many of these bands smoked pot? I used to think the Monkees and the Turtles were so great, for example, and then I learned they used drugs. That is terrible.
@@Cindybin46user-nu4hg2dx6u
If you don’t like artists because they smoked pot or drank, or whatever, there would hardly be any art to enjoy. There’s a lot of musicians that I wouldn’t choose their lifestyle but the art is a separate thing. They aren’t demanding that I do the same.
You will never find people having a perfect life. I mean, do you always agree with everything that your friends do? And guess what, you don’t have to always agree with people to have friends.
Do you demand that every actor or actress has a perfect moral life before watching a film, or that every sportsman/woman, or team of sportsmen/women, have perfect lives before watching a sporting contest?
So what if someone has smoked pot? The chances are that it doesn’t even affect you. It’s hardly like they are doing it on your front lawn.
@@oleggorky906 I have ranted against pot and alcohol for over 20 years online, typing my fingers to the bone. Haven't you read a thing I've written? What do you mean, so what if someone has smoked pot? That's TERRIBLE. Especially if they did it when it was ILLEGAL. And people always tell me it doesn't affect me so I shouldn't speak up against it. That makes me angrier and even MORE determined to speak up. And have you SEEN the things the pot smokers say and do online? You would not BELIEVE what I have been through with them for the past 20 years online. Haven't you even heard of me?
@@Cindybin46user-nu4hg2dx6u Nope. This is the first time I have ever heard of you, though I do know that whatever anyone else has written that might have been abusive, I disagreed in a courteous manner. 😐
If you don’t like pot smokers, I’m not sure why you would hang around the comment sections of music concerned with hippie videos. So, generally speaking, no, I am not familiar with you though it still doesn’t change anything.
Also, your don’t have to smoke pot to be a bad person. Heck, you would be amazed at some of the nasty emails I have received in the past from apparently wholesome religious people, telling me that they hope I burn in hell, that my family get butchered etc, just for daring to disagree on something or another. Does that mean that I blame all religious people? Nope. Because I know it’s not as simple as all that and that all groups contain various and different kinds of people … including pot smokers. And no, I don’t smoke weed and haven’t for a long time. I can think of far worse groups though, but I can’t be bothered arguing and I’m certainly not interested in a slanging match with ad hominem attacks flowing back and forth.
That about covers that. Hope you enjoy your evening.
The Doors came to my high school in the late 1960s ! Jim was wearing those bird wings. Cream did, too. My brother sat on one of their speakers! Eric Clapton lived in my town later on. Roll the camera forward; my husband designed a house for Bono and Edge on the French Riviera. We went to the Filmore East every weekend back then. Miles, Tony Williams, and lots of Jazz in NYC. Jefferson Airplane was my favorite band. My progressive grandmother, a proper Russian woman, let us crash in her living room. I enjoyed this video. Thank you!! I also loved reading the comments of those who grew up in the Canyon.
Very cool and You’re welcome 🙏
@@freewheelingideas I am enjoying your channel. Where do you live bc u have a UK accent?
Money kills it. People look to buy the vibe, throw money at a thing. So they buy up the property, increase the rent, then the spirt of the place dies a death. It happens everywhere.
Wow. I was 13 in 69 and really just started loving the hippy scene but I've never heard the term "skippies". This is by far the greatest video I've heard about the 60's and 70's. Thank you! Well done!
I’d never heard that term either.
Diggers is the correct term.
@@pumpupthevolume4775 never heard of that either.
99% of the people in the world do not know,and will never know how magical a place LA is,was,and will always be.It IS a magical place,and I always and will always love it there. Great story.
I've been to Los Angeles several times and it's one of the most friendliest cities around to this day.
Los Angeles? A magical place? They have had decades of murder by the crips and the bloods. A magical place....it could be if you had money. If you were middle class or below it was hell.
Not nearly as magical as it was, rich, pompous and egotistical people ruined everything.
Postwar Los Angeles Hass to be the greatest example of human paradise. I was born in Southgate then moved to Escondido. Now I’m finishing my years in Ensenada Mexico, listening to Spotify Laurel Canyon music.🎉
@@truthseek3017 Not to mention all the homeless people using the sidewalks for tents and toilets.
Everybody was in their 20's, having fun. Then we figured out how to make a few bucks, but mainly we just got older. At the time, cheap rent and plentiful low level work was a huge bonus. Everywhere, not just SoCal. The canyon was of a time. One way or another, time moves on for us all.
its good to hear n experiences we shared back in the late 60 n 70... now tat we became {old farts| who has been there lived through those memories is really priceless... being tat Retired Navy Veteran, Turkish decent, world traveler n currently recedin S TX
this is soo good ..great reminder of the phrase NOTHING STAYS THE SAME FOREVER...and thats a shame i guess.........
I think George Harrison said it best.
ALL THINGS MUST PASS.
I was born 1965, so, i got to live threw good music and good people all around. I miss those days very much.
'65 baby here too. Everyday I wish I had been born 15-17 years earlier.
Too bad you skipped Engligh
Time passes, each era fades so bittersweetly, but every second of every day, new collaborations and enclaves are forming, and talented young people are coming together to make new things. It's a trick of the mind that we were great and important, and the current youth are goinf downhill. Every generation believes that, it's just ego and remembering our own youth very selectively. Have joy that each new generation has these movements and places, not bitterness that the clock hands move. And those of us who got to be young in historic times & places with people who "made it big," we just need to be grateful that we got to go on that ride!
True, but that 60's/70's time was a much more creative, changing, mind-opening era than pretty much any other era in the history of the species because advances in technology, mass availability of psychedelics and affluence came together then in a way that allowed there to be a cultural revolution like never before and will be very hard to happen ever again.
Great video, thanks for the walk down memory lane...loved all these groups during the 60's and 70's. Nothing like it since...nothing.
Jim Morrison's father was the admiral and commander of the aircraft carrier and flagship of the carrier group that was 'attacked' in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1965, a false flag incident that got America much more heavily involved in Vietnam than it already was. Let that one sink in. Many of these Laurel Canyon luminaries had parents who were in some prestigious positions in the military, during WW2 and well after, working in areas like psychological operations and related fields. None of these Laurel Canyon luminaries were ever drafted. Very curious. Aside from that, it was a band of very proficient studio musicians known as 'the Wrecking Crew' that performed almost all of the music you hear in American 60's/early 70's American pop music.
The draft exemptions always puzzled me too. As far as the Wrecking Crew goes, we'll never know just how many records they played on, because of NDA's. The documetary "Hired Guns" which covers 80's and 90's has an interview with a studio guy who says he played on a certain Aerosmith album, not Joe Perry. There's evidence that Nikki Sixx was replaced ON STAGE during his drug daze in the 80's. The hair and makeup hid it.
@@fazolesimilarly in the UK . with the british Invasion .. the beatles didn’t write any of their own songs.. 🙈 it’s a shocking revelation 🙏❤️☝️
Stewart Copeland’s dad founded the CIA
Lots of MK Ultra going on by the military in the Canyon and many premature deaths that were never properly investigated.
I got the idea that Laurel Canyon was a CIA project. Multiple sources.
There is a documentary called "Echoes in the Canyon" I can't recall if it is on Netflix or Prime but, it discusses life at the time in the canyon. It spoke of the store at the entrance and if you stood there long enough you would almost everyone in the music at the time stop in.
It is great.
The book “Canyon of Dreams” (I think?) is also great
Wonderful & kinda Bitter-Sweet. Such wonderful times and music. I started playing drums in 1964, But i lived in Virginia and Florida. No telling what my life would have been if I had lived in California. Thank You for this sweet and sad posting. Great Education. Best Regards.
Effn fabulous, man. I remember/forgot SO much of that awesome scene that us boomers were treated to by the Laurel Canyon community. This brings it back. Thanks. Subbed
You’re welcome and..welcome 🙏