As a native Angeleno who was born in 1960 and came of age in the 1970s, the music produced by the artists who populate this book provided the soundtrack to my youth, so it is a subject matter that is close to my heart. But what really set the hook was discovering, early on in my research, that there were a number of aspects of the Laurel Canyon scene that didn't really seem to fit in with the prevailing image of a hippie utopia that was ostensibly all about peace and love.
Having grown up right alongside this scene, I was shocked to learn that I didn't even know that it had existed at all! And after asking around, I discovered that no one else that I know in this city did either. After the passage of nearly 50 years, it seemed that this was a story that was long overdue for greater exposure.
Even more overdue, it seemed to me, was an expose of some of the hidden truths of Laurel Canyon. Though a few books exploring the scene have popped up over the last several years, all of them have a certain sameness to them, with the same stories told in much the same way. I felt it was time to tell a different version of the story -- the one that can be found hiding in the details that are usually left out or glossed over.
Laurel Canyon in the 1960s and early 1970s was a magical place where a dizzying array of musical artists congregated to create much of the music that provided the soundtrack to those turbulent times. Members of bands like the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, the Monkees, the Beach Boys, the Mamas and the Papas, the Turtles, the Eagles, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Steppenwolf, Captain Beefheart, CSN, Three Dog Night, Alice Cooper, the Doors, and Love with Arthur Lee, along with such singer/songwriters as Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, James Taylor, Carole King, Jackson Browne, Judi Sill and David Blue, lived together and jammed together in the bucolic community nestled in the Hollywood Hills.
But there was a dark side to that scene as well.
Many didn't make it out alive, and many of those deaths remain shrouded in mystery to this day. Far more integrated into the scene than most would care to admit was a guy by the name of Charles Manson, along with his murderous entourage. Also floating about the periphery were various political operatives, up-and-coming politicians, and intelligence personnel - the same sort of people who just happened to give birth to many of the rock stars populating the canyon. And all of the canyon's colorful characters - rock stars, hippies, murderers, and politicos - happily coexisted alongside a covert military installation.
Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon is the very strange, but nevertheless true story of the dark underbelly of a hippie utopia.
