{"id":8073,"date":"2019-07-16T06:11:59","date_gmt":"2019-07-16T10:11:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8073"},"modified":"2019-08-01T07:16:34","modified_gmt":"2019-08-01T11:16:34","slug":"echo-in-the-canyon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8073","title":{"rendered":"Echo in the Canyon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In the brief musical moment of 1964-1967, Laurel Canyon in the Hollywood Hills was the place to be. It was home to an astonishing number of California-based rockers, the vanguard of rock music\u2019s California sound. And it was the pilgrimage destination of choice for British bands like, oh, The Beatles. Across an ocean and a continent, the two nation\u2019s young musicians inspired each other. Meaningful lyrics, tight harmony, the 12-string . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrew Slater\u2019s documentary about this era is a mishmash of different\nparts (trailer<\/a>). Yet\nit manages to provide enough music and tickle enough memories to create a\npleasing whole. It has  a modern-day concert\nrecreating some of the music and coffee-table discussions about the concert;\nhistoric documentary footage of performances, television appearances, and\nin-studio recording sessions; current-day interviews with a good number of aging\nprincipals; and unexplained snippets of a 1969 French movie set in Laurel\nCanyon, Model Shop<\/em>, mysteriously\nappear. As to the last, give Slater credit for an inventive, if baffling, bit\nof cinematic free association.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Handsome, low-key Jakob Dylan is the film\u2019s interviewer and concert\nperformer (along with Cat Power, Fiona Apple, and Beck). What\u2019s so refreshing\nabout Dylan is that when he asks one of the aging rock stars a question, he shuts\nup and listens to the answer. His singing voice isn\u2019t great, but it\u2019s plenty\ngood enough, and with the concert\u2019s songs featuring younger performers and today\u2019s\nmusical styles, it brings the music to a new generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The best parts of the film are the interviews and 1960s\n(mostly black and white) video clips of the original folk-rock stars in action\u2014jamming\nat home, in the studio, on stage, and on television. The Byrds, the Mamas and\nthe Papas, Buffalo Springfield, the Beach Boys. OMG, the hair, the clothes, the\npolyester. But The Sounds are what blow you away again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wonderful interviews about the experience of living in and\nvisiting Laurel Canyon with many stars, including: Stephen Stills, Graham Nash,\nMichelle Philips, Roger McGuinn, Brian Wilson, Tom Petty (in his last film\ninterview, pictured with Dylan, above), Eric Clapton, and Ringo Starr. David\nCrosby explained that people are wrong when they say creative difference caused\nhim to be booted from the Byrds. \u201cI was kicked out because I was an a——\u201d\n(an insight borne out by the preview for a new documentary about Crosby, shown\nprior to Echo<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This joins the group of excellent rockumentaries like The Wrecking Crew<\/a><\/em>, Twenty\nFeet from Stardom<\/a>,<\/em> and Standing in the Shadows of Motown<\/a>.\n<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rotten\nTomatoes<\/a> critics\u2019 ratings: 93%; audiences, 91%. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the brief musical moment of 1964-1967, Laurel Canyon in the Hollywood Hills was the place to be. It was home to an astonishing number of California-based rockers, the vanguard of rock music\u2019s California sound. And it was the pilgrimage … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Echo in the Canyon - a unique moment in rock 'n' roll history, when everything came together to create the California Sound.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1288,58,266,57,207,513,104],"tags":[390,1604,1603],"class_list":["post-8073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-documentaries","category-history","category-movies","category-music","category-poetry","category-the-morgue","tag-california","tag-echo-in-the-canyon","tag-jakob-dylan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Echo-in-the-Canyon-2.jpg?fit=480%2C270&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-26d","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8073"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8075,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8073\/revisions\/8075"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}