Laurel Canyon: don't say it was an elite 'hippy' dream

In the mid-sixties the so-called

entered the United States

the landing of the Beatles, Stones, Who, Animals, Kinks and other English bands that had given a return to rock with American roots.

The replica of the Californian scene was vigorous and exploded in a very specific place: Laurel Canyon, an idyllic Los Angeles neighborhood, with cabins among the trees just five minutes from Hollywood, not far from the cylindrical tower of Capitol Records and from mythical concert halls such as Troucador and Whiskey a Go Go.

More information

• The soft rock that was made with hard drugs

• The "black Woodstock" finally sees the light

In those wooden houses, where it was not necessary to lock the key when leaving, the Byrds, the pioneers of all this, and the Monkeys, Turtles or Beach Boys, Joni Mitchell, The Mamas and the Papas shared rehearsals, influences, parties and drugs. , Buffalo Springfield, Love, The Doors, Carole King or Fran Zappa (the most eccentric and the only sober).

And Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, united after leaving some of the previous bands.

That generation, which drank from both the Beatles and Dylan, made way for folk rock first and psychedelia later.

It was in this neighborhood that the Byrds invited the Beatles on an acid trip that turned their career upside down;

the transatlantic connection was fruitful in both directions.

Two documentaries available on the platforms review that time in that place.

(on Amazon Prime Video), from 2018, is a project of former Capitol Records boss Andrew Slater. Neighbors like Brian Wilson, David Crosby, Roger McGuinn or Tom Petty and regulars like Eric Clapton or Ringo Starr parade. It turns out to be a succession of more or less hooligan tales. ' But, alas, some essential names are missing and the political and social context of the time is not abundant. The tour is led by Jakob Dylan, Bob's son, who also covers those hymns with today's voices (Fiona Apple, Norah Jones, Jade Castrinos), which sounds correct (with that material an album was released) but without a hint of the magic of the original themes. More valuable are other performances for the occasion,like Stills' guitar duel with Clapton or the closing of Neil Young, who does not open his mouth or look at the camera, but makes the six strings roar.

Enjoy more

, from 2020, by director Alison Ellwood (in two chapters on Movistar +). His resource is the opposite: we only see archive images of those years, and we hear the voices of the protagonists who speak from an indeterminate future. Nice tip: everyone comes out on their best days, bursting with youth and energy. The context is not lacking here: it is explained that the musicians movement began without much political charge, but became increasingly involved in the causes of that troubled era: the Vietnam War, the racial struggle, sexual freedom, feminism.

You immerse yourself in that

idealism

that disappeared after 1969 after the crimes of the Charles Manson sect, the tragic concert of the Stones in Altamont and the deaths of several stars of the club of 27. In the seventies Jackson settled there Browne or The Eagles;

it's not the same anymore.

Heroin wreaks havoc.

You have to lock the wooden houses.

The most sincere in her story is Michelle Phillips, one of the Mamas: “We were

.

But

rich

.

Do not say it was a dream.

You can follow EL PAÍS TELEVISIÓN on