Laurel Canyon

Michael Walker

                       

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. Thirty years later, the music made in Laurel Canyon continues to pour from radios, iPods, and concert stages around the world. In Laurel Canyon, journalist Michael Walker tells the inside story of this unprecedented gathering of some of the baby boom’s leading musical lights–including Joni Mitchell; Jim Morrison; Crosby, Stills & Nash; and Frank Zappa-who turned Los Angeles into the music capital of the world and forever changed the way popular music is recorded, marketed, and consumed.