L' écho de Laurel Canyon

If I hadn't read so many rave reviews I might not have been disappointed. But I did, and I was. The only person who shoud be unabashedly in love with this movie is John Hall.

Put it this way. If you're the sort of person who believes older is always better and the sequel never equals the original, Echo In The Canyon will not change your mind.

The celebrity cast speaks for itself. There is the heartbreaking charm of Tom Petty and suprising late in life wisdom from David Crosby. But the film seems to be about a group of young performers trying to capture what it was like, based in part on the movie Model Shop. Seriously. It could be worse; someday people will study City Of Industry or Miracle Mile as realistic documents of what L.A. was like.

There are brief snippets of vintage performances and some are thrilling. Like Buffalo Springfield doing a seque from For What It's Worth to Mr. Soul. But the movie works it's way toward a tribute concert and unfortunately, none of the rehearsals or performances can match, let alone improve on, the originals. And that makes the whole thing kind of melancholy.

Wow... this film is a must-see for musicologists familiar with the Laurel Canyon scene of the '60s. Terrific interviews w/key players during that time. But... I think a bit less Jakob Dylan and newbies would have done. I suppose his being Exec Producer on the film necessitated his being in too many scenes, annoyingly nodding knowingly at comments.... that is, one supposes, the curse of being the offspring of the Great One. I am also wondering why Mama Cass barely got mentioned and Joni Mitchell was completely omitted. Was it due to disparaging remarks Joni made about pere Dylan a few years ago? Would that this film had been an eight-part comprehensive series on Netflix.

Unless you really want to see Jakob Dylan's monotonous voice singing all the classic 60's songs, then you're better off fast forwarding every time he's on screen and just watching the archival stuff. Better yet, find someone else to make this movie about the scene and not have a lame concert of knock offs. It has some merit though, it'll make you go back and re-listen to all that great music by the original artists!

Sorry but it seems like there wasn't enough good footage available so they decided to give Jakob Dylan the starring role, even though he wasn't born until 1969. This was a very disappointing movie, as I thought it would have way more story telling about what Laurel Canyon must have been like in the 60's. There was some of that, but generally speaking, I feel like I was sold a bill of goods here...

I saw the film this past Saturday night and thought it was outstanding. It put many songs from the 60s into their proper context in terms of development, highlighting the cross-collaborative efforts between bands that were in the canyon scene during that time, as well as further afield, primarily in the UK, to which I wasn't fully aware of the extent.

The film also shows the impact and influence that this particular music scene has had on contemporary musical artists, illustrated by renditions of many of the songs from that window in time by a particular stable of modern-day musicians at a show at Downtown LA's Orpheum Theatre in October of 2015. While I enjoyed seeing the highlights of that show in the film, it felt like they focused on that concert a little too much during the film's 90-minute runtime. There's also the not so subtle implication that these artists are the direct descendants of that culture and should be revered accordingly. While I like many of the artists depicted on-screen, the impact of the music made in, or inspired by, the late-1960s Laurel Canyon scene goes far beyond the indie/alt rock/pop genres. It would have been nice to have seen that acknowledged. That's my only real complaint with the film, and a relatively minor one at that.

All-in-all, I'm pleased that the filmmakers made the efforts that they did, interviewing many of the artists from that era that are still alive today, and visiting several of the recording studios that will likely be consumed in full by L.A.'s cutthroat real estate market in favor of redevelopment. When those days inevitably arrive, I'm hoping that some rich music lover(s) will have the foresight to purchase and digitally preserve them, even if they have to be relocated, or ultimately replicated, to another location...perhaps in the form of a "Music Studio Museum" in the Capitol Records Building, or in/with some other venue/institution of a similar stature, such as the Grammy Museum.

I enjoyed the film immensely and highly recommend it.