More Shelf Life
Los Angeles is for all intents and purposes the center of the rock & roll universe. And for those who know anything about the history of the city's great love affair with those who like to rock, they know that Laurel Canyon has a gravitational pull. It's a neighborhood that few aspiring artists can resist, thanks to the commune of now luminaries who gathered there to live, love, create and record amongst the eucalyptus trees during the freewheeling '60s and '70s. While the decade and famed canyon residents such as Jackson Browne, Mama Cass, David Crosby, Joni Mitchell, Jim Morrison, Neil Young and Frank Zappa receive their well-deserved due in long-time music writer Harvey Kubernik's new book Canyon of Dreams: The Magic and the Music of Laurel Canyon, the stories of the canyon's lesser known eras and artists shine just as much, if not more brightly.
A native Angeleno who grew up in the Fairfax district south of the Canyon, Kubernik tapped into his network of lifelong friends and colleagues to compile the various elements -- vintage playbills, matchbooks, ticket stubs and rare photos -- that would transform this coffee table book into a lush scrapbook of memories. Renowned rock photographer Henry Diltz provided 200 of the book's images from his many years spent living in the hills and snapping shots of the everyday antics of his fellow bohemians -- and roughly 100 of those photos have never seen the light of day before. Impressive.
The book itself unfolds as a series of vignettes that kicks off chronicling the canyon's early history as a hideaway for Hollywood's silver screen actors. John Barrymore, Ava Gardner and Greta Garbo were just a few of the big names who called the neighborhood home in the '20s and '30s, before jazz cats like Barney Kessel and Terry Morel arrived and shifted the focus to music in '40s and '50s. Each chapter is told from the perspective of a resident who experienced the canyon first-hand, delivering to the reader a genuine insider's perspective of the cultural shifts and interconnectedness of the artists who have and still to this day reside in the mystical nook of land between Sunset Boulevard and the San Fernando Valley.
In the foreword, the Doors Ray Manzarek writes, "There was always some kind of magic afoot in that Canyon. The light and the sun infused that zone with a sense of joy. There was always something spiritual about that slice through the green earth, but never more so than in the '60s." Kubernik brilliantly captures the magic in the stories that lie within Canyon, a feat that no writer before him has been able to achieve. To describe Canyon of Dreams: The Magic and the Music of Laurel Canyon as a labor of love is an understatement. It is a cultural masterpiece.
ALBUM OF THE WEEK
