Echo in the Canyon, rockumentary

Fantastic show, other than there were way to many covers by who’s kid, I don’t remember. I just know I FF through those parts.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed it (especially the first half), although I've felt it get's a little "thick and vague" amidst folks' recollections as it progresses toward the end. To be sure, it's loaded with cool stories, gobs of nostalgia, and Jakob does well through it all. Having Beck and Regina Spektor onboard was an equally interesting addition.

One personally neato thing, my retired structural engineer father did a lot of earthquake safety work for celebs in the Hollywood Hills after the 1994 Northridge earthquake (including one of Brad Pitt's former craftsmans and Cassandra Peterson's phenomenal Artemisia as well.... yet another Brad Pitt connection), but was actually called to work on Jackson Browne's stone cottage in the Laurel Canyon after the Whittier Narrows quake, a charming home (to my memory having been built by his father) and seen at the beginning of the film.



Something faint in my memory tells me it was actually in the hills above Highland Park, but I may be thinking of someone else's place...My dad showed me a lot of his famous client's places while on the job in the 1980s, and when I was visiting home in the 1990s. (Danny Elfman) orchestrator Edgardo Simone's amazing turn-of-the-century Mediterranean estate on Chevy Chase in Glendale was an absolutely fave of mine to tour up close...

 

From a friend who was Jackson's sound engineer for many years, I'm pretty sure Jackson has always been in the Hollywood Hills and now, I think, the Santa Monica Mountains. The hills above Highland Park is called Mt Washington, where I've lived for 32 years, & it's really not a place I see as having celebrity appeal, although there are some seriously nice houses here.

Some very nice places up in those canyons around Chevy Chase for sure. I grew up near there in the 50s & 60s and it's kind of an off-the-radar area, like parts of Pasadena, where major wealth has quietly made some spectacular neighborhoods.

 

I enjoyed it, but how do you make a movie about the Laurel Canyon music scene with nothing more than a passing reference to Joni Mitchell ?!

I dunno, maybe they contacted her and she declined to be part of it, but few artists were more "Laurel Canyon" than Joni - think Ladies of the Canyon and Hissing of Summer Lawns in particular.

Otherwise, pretty enjoyable flick.

 

I enjoyed that doc a lot. But I have enjoyed everything about the Canyon over the years. I find more detail in books written about the time and place if you have further interest. It was definitely the center of the songwriting universe at the time. "Reckless Daughter" about Joni Mitchell has some good stuff in it.

 

Totally agree. maybe the problem is once you go down the Joni wormhole, your film gets a couple of hours longer! But if you are a Joni fan read the book I mentioned in the above post. It's probably the best "about and artist" book I've read.