- For four years,
American boys have been
fighting and dying in Vietnam.
For 12 months,
our negotiators have been...
["Take It Easy" playing]
♪
- ♪ Well I'm a-runnin'
down the road ♪
♪ Trying to loosen my load
♪ I got seven women
on my mind ♪
♪ Four that want to own me,
two that want to stone me ♪
♪ One said
she's a friend of mine ♪
♪ Take it easy
♪ Take it easy
♪ Don't let the sound
of your own wheels ♪
♪ Drive you crazy
♪ Lighten up
while you still can ♪
♪ Don't even try
to understand ♪
♪ Just find a place
to make your stand ♪
♪ Take it easy
♪
- ♪ Take it easy
♪ Take it easy
♪ Don't let the sound
of your own wheels ♪
♪ Drive you crazy
♪ Come on, baby
♪ Don't say maybe
♪ I got to know
if your sweet love ♪
♪ Is gonna save me
♪
- I'm Jim Ladd,
and you have the good taste,
the grace, and the luck
to be listening
to 95.5 KLOS.
Good for you, man.
I worked
at a radio station in LA.
I had hair down
to the middle of my back.
Here we are in our early 20s,
the entire social order
of the country
was in upheaval.
["The Star-Spangled Banner"
playing on electric guitar]
♪
But then something
very special happened.
- That's one small step for man,
one giant leap for mankind.
Houston...
- That day in front
of a black-and-white TV set,
it reached into me,
this young hippie radical,
just as it reached
into everybody
that was alive...
- There you go.
- Yeah.
- Beautiful.
- That's what humanity
coming together looks like.
And that's what would
start it in a smaller way.
- The great rock festival
is now history.
The last of the nearly
half million young people
have now departed.
- And while the music is over,
the aftertaste lingers on.
- Woodstock was the event
that drew
our generation together
and put a face
and numbers to it.
- ...virtually a city.
- The fact that you would pull
that many people together,
and it would be peaceful...
- ...a place of no v*olence.
- ...it made a big impression
on those in a society
that hated us.
And let's remember,
there were those that hated us.
They didn't like hippies.
- Hippie eventually was a name
that people
didn't want to be called
because it was a way
of packaging them up
and dismissing them.
But hippie was,
like, a young person,
just burgeoning or just opening,
just blossoming.
Somebody who's getting hip.
I mean, it was a way of living
your life out in the open.
Being a freak
and being unapologetic
about who you were.
It was going on in Woodstock
and immediately was echoed
in Laurel Canyon.
[piano music]
♪
- Joni Mitchell, she didn't
come out to Woodstock,
but she wrote the song about it
from what she gleaned
from other people.
And yet, to her credit,
it was the song.
- ♪ By the time
we got to Woodstock ♪
♪ We were half a million
strong ♪
♪ And everywhere
♪ There was song
♪ And celebration
♪ And I dreamed
I saw the bombers ♪
♪ Riding shotgun
in the sky ♪
♪ And they were turning
into butterflies ♪
♪ Above our nation
♪ Ooh
I was just trying to
understand myself and my world.
I used the writing process
as a method of understanding,
getting closer and closer
to the essence.
♪ Ooh
My 20s were full of intense
painful self-discovery.
Some truths that I discovered
along the way,
wherever I could take it
from my own personal travail
to the universal.
Anything good that helped me,
I would try to slot
into the song
to give it some nutrition,
so it would transcend self-pity.
♪ Ooh
- I was always very cautious
about giving Joan
enough room to write.
There was no schedule.
It was just me
trying to recognize
when Joni was going
into that void,
when I say something
and she wasn't listening.
And she wrote many,
many, many songs
while we were together.
She wrote half of "Blue,"
"Ladies of the Canyon."
It was a shitty morning.
Late winter, chilly,
rainy, miserable, foggy.
I'd taken Joni to breakfast
at Art's Deli
on Ventura Boulevard,
quite close to Laurel Canyon.
We were walking after breakfast,
and we passed an antique store,
and we're looking in the window.
Joan saw this small vase
that she wanted to buy.
It was about eight
or nine inches high.
Some hand-painted flowers
around one edge.
So she bought it.
We drive to her house,
go through the front door,
and I said, "Hey, Joan,
"why don't I light a fire
"and you put some flowers
in that vase
that you bought today?"
[chuckles]
It's that simple.
Joni went out to find
some winter flowers
to put in this vase
that she just bought.
That means
she wasn't at her piano,
but that means that I was.
- ♪ I'll light the fire
♪ You place the flowers
in the vase ♪
♪ That you bought today
- ♪ Staring at the fire
♪ For hours and hours
♪ While I listen to you
♪ Play your love songs
♪ All night long
♪ For me
- People would say when me
and Joan walked into a room,
it lit up the room.
We brought out the best
in each other.
- ♪ Come to me now
♪ To rest your head
for just... ♪
- In the Laurel Canyon scene,
we were at the very center
of this beautiful bubble
of creativity
and friendship and sunshine
and sex and dr*gs and music.
- ♪ Our house
♪ Is a very, very,
very fine house ♪
♪ With two cats in the yard
♪ Life used to be so hard
♪ Now everything is easy
♪ 'Cause of you
- Joan, I don't think
ever has really had
another relationship
like Graham.
Graham was as close as
it ever came to her
actually loving somebody
on an ongoing basis.
She probably nearly stuck
with him forever.
And I don't think
she ever even considered it
with any of the rest of us.
- It was a telegram,
and it only said,
"If you hold sand too tightly
in your hand,
it will run through
your fingers."
And that was a shame,
but that's the way things are.
[birds chirping]
- ♪ Boys and girls
♪ Have a good time together
all:
♪ Be my friend
♪ Or be my lover
♪ Girls
- That's the way
we've been doing it.
We changed it.
This time we sing--
- Yeah, but the rhythm
has changed, Cass.
- Mamas & Papas--
we were only together
for two and a half years.
Then that all changed.
- Being successful,
we've all developed
our own ways of life
here in Los Angeles,
and we don't affect one another
as creatively as we did
when we were all dependent
upon one another,
emotionally and whatnot.
- After a while,
you don't want to see
those same three people
day in and day out
all of your life.
It starts to wear on you.
We decided that
we didn't want to continue
working together.
Everybody had ambitions
to do other things.
Cass wanted to be a soloist
more than anything.
She saw herself as a hip
Barbra Streisand.
- The music that my mom
chose for herself
that she did as a solo artist,
she felt passionately about
really positive subject matter.
My mom was loving and warm
and inviting, big hugs.
She loved to be around
her friends.
She loved to have a full house,
and people would make music.
Gram called her
The Queen of the Canyon.
- In Laurel Canyon,
her house was, like,
at the center of everything.
Open 24 hours a day.
A very wide circle of friends.
But John and I
left Laurel Canyon,
moved to Bel Air.
Three Rolls-Royces
in the garage.
We were hippies,
but we were rich hippies.
There was no question
about that.
We'd been so innovative.
But we had become
the establishment.
[laughs]
[dramatic music]
♪
- I was continuing The Byrds
as a franchise.
Kind of like Coca-Cola
or something.
David Crosby showed up
at my house and said,
"You know, some of the songs
you guys are doing are okay,
but some of them aren't."
And I had to agree with him.
There was a mediocre element
in what The Byrds had become.
We'd gone out on the road
as a three-piece band.
It just wasn't good,
wasn't happening.
We were looking for somebody
to fill in for David
because there was no
rhythm player.
Chris Hillman met Gram Parsons
and invited him over
to our rehearsals.
Gram came in and played
a little country music.
I thought,
"The guy's got talent.
We can work with him."
I didn't know it,
but he was about to morph
into George Jones
in a rhinestone suit.
[country music]
♪
- I convinced The Byrds
that they should be doing
country music
instead of trying to write
their own Bob Dylan material.
Chris had been trying to say
something like that all along
but wasn't sure The Byrds
would be out of a job.
- Gram Parsons came along,
and he really understood
the real music.
All this wonderful stuff
out of California
along with the Nashville
'50s and '60s country music.
- Gram Parsons' love of
country music was infectious.
He loved it so much
that he sold us on it.
I went to Nudie's,
a rodeo tailor,
and got some cowboy clothes.
And we recorded
an entire county album,
the "Sweetheart of the Rodeo."
It was the first time
a commercially successful
rock band had done
country music.
Other people had dabbled in it.
- We all had trouble
getting anybody to believe
that you could make
good country music.
- Gram was a nice guy.
He was a lot of fun.
We'd drink beer and play pool,
and he's like a good old boy.
It was a good time.
He got to know
The Rolling Stones.
He and Keith Richards
became really tight.
And he always wanted
to hang out with Keith.
- He was around for six months.
He left The Byrds.
And I got a little antsy then.
I wanted to do something else,
as David had the year before.
So I left The Byrds,
and Gram and I started
The Flying Burrito Brothers
in 1969.
[country rock music]
♪
- ♪ You may be
♪ Sweet and nice
♪ But that you won't
keep you warm at night ♪
♪ 'Cause I'm the one
♪ Who showed you how
♪ To do the things
♪ You're doing now
♪ He may feel
♪ All your charms
- We want to do this
young, hip country band
and base it around
a Bakersfield-type sound
with a little R&B.
Now, this is where Gram
taught me a lot of music.
- ♪ At the dark end
♪ Of the street
- I thought I was pretty well up
on most of my R&B and blues,
but he started picking up
these records
and turning me on to people
I've never heard of.
- ♪ Where we don't belong
- ♪ Living in darkness
to hide our wrong ♪
♪ You and me
♪ At the dark end
♪ Of the street
♪ You and me
♪ I know that time's
gonna take its toll ♪
- This is now 1969.
I'd been in two groups
already in LA.
And The Flying Burrito Brothers
were on the same label,
so we would see each other
on the A&M studio lot,
and they invited me to join,
to play guitar.
And I happily did that
because I thought that
The Burritos could do something.
- ♪ You and me
♪ At the dark end
♪ Of the street
♪ You and me
♪
- Back then I would go on tour,
and I would leave the door open
'cause our friends would come in
and stay there.
They cleaned the house
and stocked the refrigerator.
I'd leave money in the drawer.
There was no thievery
or anything.
We came back from touring once,
and there's Bobby Beausoleil
sitting on my floor
playing a guitar.
And I'm glad to see him.
Bobby Beausoleil
was in the Grass Roots,
which was our group
just before we became Love.
He was just the sweetest kid.
We sit down and chat.
And I noticed the door
to my bedroom is closed.
So I said,
"Is there somebody in there?"
He said,
"Yeah. My girlfriend, Sadie.
She's asleep."
A few minutes later,
this thing comes out of my bedroom.
This horrible
cadaverous-looking thing
that smelled awful.
She had been in my bed.
Now I'm upset.
And I said,
"Man, who the hell is this?"
And he said, "Oh, this is Sadie.
"She's with me.
"We lived together
at the Spahn Ranch.
"These people are friends.
And they have
this utopian lifestyle."
So he starts telling me,
and he's romanticizing it,
and I said,
"Cool. That sounds good.
Maybe one day I'll come up
and visit you guys."
And he says,
"I don't think that's good.
Charlie, you know,
is kind of r*cist."
I said, "So why are you
hanging out with a bigot?"
And he says, "Well, I better go
"because Charlie
is gonna be upset
if he knows that I came by
to visit you."
Well, I said, "Dude,
if this guy is gonna be upset
"that you came by
and visited somebody
"that you've known for years,
maybe you ought to get away
from him."
He kind of laughed.
- They call themselves
The Family.
Young girls supposedly
under the spell
of a bearded Svengali.
The mystical hippie clan despise
the straight affluent society.
[rain falling]
[thunder rumbles]
[The Doors'
"Riders on the Storm"]
- Friday night in Los Angeles,
a movie actress
and four of her friends
were m*rder*d.
And the circumstances
were lurid.
- This was at the home
of movie director
Roman Polanski.
And it was his wife,
Sharon Tate,
who was one of the victims.
- Do you have any kind of an idea
who might have done it?
Do you have any kind
of APBs out?
Any suspects at all?
- No.
♪
- The first two suspects
after the murders
at the Sharon Tate house
were these two guys I knew.
In the paper, the police
were looking for them.
They went and turned
themselves in immediately
and said,
"Wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa."
It was frightening in LA then.
- A short time later,
not far away,
a middle-aged couple
was found m*rder*d
in similar circumstances.
- Leno LaBianca,
a supermarket owner,
and his wife have both been
stabbed to death.
Hoods have been placed over
the heads of both victims.
- ♪ There's a k*ller
on the road ♪
♪ His brain is squirming
like a toad ♪
♪
- We were in this
beautiful bubble,
and those murderers put a pin
right in that bubble,
and it exploded.
♪
Eight people butchered
in the night.
It was too close, too real.
- It's a quarter mile
from my house.
I went out
and bought a shotgun...
my only g*n until then.
- Prior to Manson,
in Laurel Canyon
if I saw a hitchhiker,
I would always stop and say,
"Hey, man, get in the car.
Sure, I'll take you up
the Canyon."
But then after the murders,
you had to stop and think,
"Well, wait a minute,
he looks like a cool guy,
but how do I know
"he's not gonna reach around
and slit my throat
while we're driving up
the Canyon?"
I mean, I actually have
those thoughts, you know?
- I had been to that house
several times with David Crosby,
'cause just before
Sharon Tate lived there,
Terry Melcher,
who had produced The Byrds,
lived at that house,
and everybody was familiar
with the house.
He'd have parties occasionally.
- Terry Melcher
subleased that house
to Roman and Sharon.
- So people thought the target
could be Melcher.
- I answered the front doorbell.
There were two detectives.
"Do you know anybody
who would want to k*ll you?"
And I said, "Well, no."
He said, "Well, did you ever
meet a fellow named
Charles Manson?"
I said, "Charles Manson?
"The guy who plays a guitar
and all the girls sing
in the background?"
[dark music]
♪
- Manson was one of many
disgruntled young people
who tried to get his music
recorded,
and he happened
to be a crazy guy
who took a lot of dr*gs
and had a following.
♪
- Two of the girls
who worked on that scene
who were there,
I went to high school with.
The Manson murders were close
to everybody.
- We found out later
that Bobby Beausoleil,
he had k*lled somebody.
Nobody could imagine that
he would be involved in that.
♪
- Suddenly hippies
were not harmless anymore.
Hippies became dangerous.
When Manson happened,
all of a sudden,
every hippie was looked at
as possibly psycho k*ller.
Who knows what dr*gs
have done to these kids.
[dramatic music]
♪
- ♪ Doo doo doo
doo doo doo doo ♪
- Because of Gram Parsons'
friendship with The Stones,
The Burritos were invited
to play at this huge concert--
The Stones answer to Woodstock.
All these young people
were coming
from all over the country
to go to this free thing.
- Our day started out bad.
It was cold...
way out in that
Altamont Raceway.
- We played it because Garcia
had called Crosby
and said, "You want to join
The Grateful Dead?
We're gonna do this thing
down at the Raceway here?"
We said,
"Sounds like a good idea.
We'll go."
- I was against Crosby,
Stills, Nash & Young
being on the bill.
I said,
"I don't think you should go.
If you want to go against me,
I'm not going."
The Hells Angels were gonna be
doing all the security.
And people applauded
like that was a cool thing.
The Rolling Stones had no clue.
They didn't live in California.
They were visitors.
They romanticized the Angels.
They were tattooed
and rode bikes
and were outlaws.
The Rolling Stones didn't know
what came with that reputation
and how it was built.
That was the only Crosby,
Stills, Nash & Young show
I ever missed.
- Red Cross truck.
- Excuse me.
Which way is the stage?
- I'm wading through the crowd.
Good Lord, the Hells Angels
were just crazy.
They were like Vikings,
ready to raid the monastery.
- We're partying like you.
Hey!
- CSNY's coming offstage,
and David says,
"Be careful. Pay attention.
I'm getting out of here."
I said, "Really?"
He says,
"It's not a good deal."
The Burritos, to our credit,
got up and calmed
everybody down.
It's a different kind of music.
- ♪ Well,
I pulled out of Pittsburgh ♪
♪ Rollin' down
the Eastern Seaboard ♪
♪ Got my diesel wound up
♪ And she's a-runnin'
like never before ♪
♪ There's a speed trap ahead,
all right ♪
♪ But I don't see cop
in sight ♪
♪ Six days on the road
♪ And I'm gonna make it home
tonight ♪
♪ Six days on the road
♪ And I'm gonna make it home
tonight ♪
- But I could feel it,
the tension, the darkness.
Something wasn't right.
Before that last note
on the bass stopped ringing,
I unplugged,
put that thing in the case,
and I got out of there.
[crowd chatter]
- You can call them people
flower children
and this and that.
Some of them people
was loaded on some dr*gs
that it's just too bad
we wasn't loaded on
because they come running off
the hill yelling, "Aah."
But when they jumped
on an Angel, they got hurt.
- This is Stefan Ponek,
KSAN Radio, San Francisco.
- You know what?
They got got.
- Someone was stabbed to death
in front of the stage
by a member of the Hells Angels.
Nothing is confirmed on that...
- In the end, it was
the antithesis of Woodstock.
People got run over.
Four people d*ed.
- That was the end of the '60s.
The assassinations, Vietnam,
it had finally come full circle
into this dark, dark abyss.
♪
- The President
of the United States
has just announced that
a new att*ck into Cambodia
was launched this evening
by United States Armed Force.
- Kent State University in Ohio
has had campus v*olence
for three nights.
The students were protesting
the American invasion
of Cambodia.
The National Guard
was called in.
[g*nshots]
[crowd chatter]
- The guardsmen have fired
Four students,
two of them bystanders,
are dead.
- Kent State and more
than 400 other institutions
go on strike.
The President says Americans
face a crisis
that could threatened the very
survival of the nation.
[Crosby, Stills,
Nash & Young's "Ohio"]
♪
- Neil saw the news
about the girl laying there.
Her friend bending over her.
♪
That night, he wrote the song.
The next night,
they recorded it.
- ♪ Tin soldiers,
and Nixon coming ♪
♪ We're finally on our own
♪ This summer
I hear the drumming ♪
♪ Four dead in Ohio
- I drove the record
over to B. Mitchel Reed,
the big DJ on FM radio
in Los Angeles.
And he played it that night.
♪
Neil was so moved,
he couldn't help himself.
And the rest of the guys
were right there.
- ♪ And found her dead
on the ground ♪
♪ How can you run
when you know? ♪
♪
- Our job is to take you
on little emotional voyages.
Make you boogie sometimes.
Make you sad sometimes.
Happy sometimes.
Every once in a while,
it's our job to be a witness.
If your country starts
sh**ting its own children
while they're protesting,
exercising their
constitutional right,
unarmed and on their own
college campus...
- ♪ Soldiers
are cutting us down ♪
- That would be
one of those times
when you have to be a witness.
And we were.
- There was a very large shift.
People were up in arms
about the Vietnam w*r.
They didn't like Nixon,
Kent State, k*lling our kids
because they have
the God-given right
to protest what their government
was doing in their name.
It shifted tremendously.
♪
- When I was in college,
there was no separation
between the issues of the day
and the music
that galvanized souls
and brought people
to not just march,
but to change their minds.
And singing songs
about peace and love,
it sounds corny,
but that's what needed
to happen in a w*r-torn era.
["Find the Cost of Freedom"
playing]
- The only outlets
that we had for information
were the press,
television, radio,
and concerts.
Musicians felt
that they could get the word
out of a different opinion.
♪
- ♪ Find the cost of freedom
♪ Buried in the ground
♪ Mother Earth...
- The Southern California sound
was gentle yet rocking.
- ♪ Lay your body...
- It was acoustic
yet electrified.
["Peace Frog" playing]
- And then there was The Doors.
The Doors gave us
the Southern California
sound after dark.
- ♪ Blood in the streets
in the town of New Haven ♪
♪ Blood stains the roofs
and the palm trees of Venice ♪
♪ Blood in my love
in the terrible summer ♪
♪ Bloody red sun
of fantastic LA ♪
The music can't help
but reflecting things
that are happening around you.
The mood I get for most of it
is kind of a heavy,
gloomy feeling.
♪ Blood is the rose
of mysterious union ♪
I like to do a song
or a piece of music
that's just
a pure expression of joy.
["Love Street" playing]
- "Love Street," that's one
where I had the music,
and he just came up
with those words.
- ♪ She lives
on Love Street ♪
- His girlfriend,
Pam, had just moved
into that place up above
the country store there.
- ♪ She has a house
and garden ♪
- She has a house and garden.
I would like
to see what happens.
- ♪ I would like
to see what happens ♪
- There's this store
where the creatures meet.
That is the Canyon
Country Store.
The heart of Laurel Canyon.
- ♪ I see you
live on Love Street ♪
♪ There's this store
where the creatures meet ♪
♪ I wonder
what they do in there ♪
♪ Summer Sunday
- The first time
I saw Laurel Canyon,
there was a full-scale
hippie infestation
taking place
at the Canyon Store.
It was exciting
to see that many people,
that profusion of different
styles of freakdom.
I would come into Hollywood,
and Laurel Canyon
every chance I got after that.
♪
Laurel Canyon was a place
that gave you the permission
to ask who you were, to find out
what this life held for you,
and not be scrambling
for some regimented job
in a regimented society.
- ♪ I would like to see
what happens... ♪
- That was
the creative lightning
that was going on
between people.
- Jackson and I,
we used to hang out a lot,
not doing anything special.
I always had my camera with me.
In those days,
it wasn't competitive.
It wasn't like, you know,
we got a single and you didn't.
People were really
encouraging each other.
"Go for it.
Do the best you can.
Can't wait to hear
your new song."
It was great.
- You'd go play in a bunch
of different people's houses.
David Crosby would show up.
- A kid came in.
He was way too pretty.
And I said, "Hi, kid.
What's your name?"
He said, "Jackson."
I said, "Sing me a song."
And he sang me "Adam."
And I said, "Oh, sh*t.
Here comes
the next wave."
["A Song For Adam" playing]
- ♪ Though Adam
was a friend of mine ♪
♪ I did not know him well
I was writing songs
and playing open-mic night
at the Troubadour.
That was a fun hang, too,
because you wind up
waiting around
for about four hours
with a bunch of songwriters
on the street, you know,
just like waiting
for this window to open.
I met a lot of friends there.
♪ Now the story's told
that Adam jumped ♪
♪ But I'm thinking
that he fell ♪
- Eventually they told me,
like, "Kid, you don't have to--
"don't have to sign up anymore.
If you're gonna come,
just come."
- Jackson's music
just really touched something.
It was very emotional
but in a quiet, calm way.
- There were all these greats
second-wave songwriters
all hanging out together
at the Troubadour bar.
But no one had recorded yet.
Everyone was on
an equal footing.
- I was in this duo
Longbranch Pennywhistle
with this guy name JD Souther.
We started going
to the Troubadour
all the time,
five nights a week.
Out there in the bar,
I would sit with people,
and I would ask questions.
Gene Clark would come in,
and I'd talk with him
about songwriting.
And I ask him
why'd The Byrds break up.
The next day, the guys
from Crosby, Stills & Nash.
Who writes the songs?
Where do they rehearse?
I was trying to collect as
much information as possible
that could help me
get to where I wanted to be.
We had heard about this guy
Jackson Browne.
He'd been playing
the same clubs we had,
and we struck up a friendship.
I learned so much from
Jackson about songwriting.
It was the beginning.
- I met Jackson in 1970 before
my first album came out.
I loved his music.
The thing about Jackson
is that he's been
a real established songwriter
since the time
he was about 17 or 18.
I mean,
I heard about his legend.
- Since the time we ran
into each other a year ago.
- Oh, we played before either
one of us had had an album.
He found out about me
and loved what I did,
and we've been like brother
and sister ever since.
It was a fantastic time
to be young
and free.
Able to party.
Able to sleep around
if you wanted to.
Everybody lived within
ten minutes of each other,
and everybody
was up late at night.
We all could go down
to the Troubadour
and just run into a set
of people that were there.
["These Days" playing]
- ♪ Well,
I've been out walking ♪
♪
♪ I don't do
that much talking ♪
♪ These days
♪ These days
Crosby told me about this
really hip young agent,
who, unlike most of the agents
and managers,
was one of us.
The guy that can do business
with the best of them.
He's really smart,
and he's honest.
- It was incredible
to be at the nexus
of all that was happening.
Very fertile period
of time for songwriters
and singers and musicians.
- Geffen was only 24
or something.
I was about 18.
So I sent Geffen a demo.
I didn't get a reply.
♪ And I had a lover
♪
- David calls me,
and he says, "Elliot,
"I'm gonna play you
something that's one
of the most moving things
I've ever heard."
- ♪ These days
- You could hear him sobbing
on the other end of the phone.
- ♪ Now, if I seem
to be afraid ♪
♪ To live the life
that I have made in song ♪
- Eventually got a call back
from Geffen
asking me to come in and meet.
And when I met him,
within about 20 minutes,
he said, "Okay,
I'll manage you."
"You will?"
It was like a dream.
- Elliot Roberts and I,
we were coming across a lot
of new artists
that big record companies
weren't interested in.
- We knew.
We knew songs,
and we knew artist,
but we couldn't get a deal
for Jackson.
No one wanted it,
so we decided we better start
our own company for artists
that we think are great.
Between Joni
and Crosby, Stills & Nash,
we felt we were dealing
with the cream of the crop.
Let's do it ourselves.
And we ended up forming Asylum.
["Doctor My Eyes" playing]
♪
- ♪ Doctor,
my eyes have seen the years ♪
♪ And the slow parade of fears
without crying ♪
♪ Now I want to understand
♪ I have done
all that I could ♪
♪ To see the evil
and the good ♪
♪ Without hiding
♪ You must help me
if you can ♪
♪ Doctor, my eyes...
- Jackson got a lot of airplay
because of "Doctor My Eyes,"
and his records
were hit records.
- ♪ To leave them open
for so long ♪
♪
- Geffen-Roberts Management,
they were brilliant
at selecting acts,
and they had their pick
of all these young acts
that were coming of age then.
They were really good
at promoting them
and really good
at making it all work.
But it was hard to make
a living as a musician
if you didn't have hits.
And the bands I was in
weren't paying enough
really to make it.
- Please welcome
The Flying Burrito Brothers.
[crowd cheering]
- ♪ It's a lazy day
♪
♪ I'm down
with nothing else to do ♪
♪ It's a crazy day
♪
♪ I got a thing
that I want to try with you ♪
♪
♪ Now, baby, don't go away
♪ Please don't spoil
my lazy day ♪
- I did the third album
with The Burritos,
but I was then thinking
of leaving that band.
I had to work.
- ♪ Yee-haw
- Our A&R guy
produced The Stone Poneys
with Linda Ronstadt,
and he started hiring me
to work on sessions.
I met Linda.
I later was in her band.
["Walkin' Down The Line"
playing]
- ♪ Got my traveling shoes
♪ Got on my traveling shoes
♪ I got my traveling shoes
♪ That I ain't gonna lose
♪ I believe
I got the walking blues ♪
♪ I am walking down
the line ♪
♪ Well, I'm walking
down the line ♪
♪ Well, I'm walking
down the line ♪
♪ My feet will be flying to
tell about my troubled mind ♪
♪
- Linda, you really--you play
country music with a difference.
That's--that's wild.
- Thank you.
- How did you get
into country music originally?
- Well, I'm a country girl
originally.
- I would not have guessed that.
- I grew up in Tucson, Arizona.
- I see.
I wonder if you'd introduce
the guys in the back...
- I loved the Southwest.
I thought it was the greatest.
But I knew that I couldn't work in Tucson
like I could work
in Los Angeles.
I was into folk music
in those days.
The Ash Grove and The Troubadour
being the two main places.
To me, that was like
artistic Shangri-La.
Laurel Canyon...
I lived up there for a while.
We lived up Kirkwood.
A lot of people lived together
in the same house.
It was just the people
you knew from the Troubadour--
gigging musicians
trying to pay the rent.
We would play music,
and you'd take a guitar,
put on a harmony.
It was just going on,
and it was just a part
of what you did.
Nobody was famous then.
We're just people
that hung out there.
[birds chirping]
- It had this air about it
that it was exclusive
but not exclusive to wealth.
It was exclusive to spirit.
And you'd think,
"God, if I could only live
in Laurel Canyon.
It'd be so great to live
in Laurel Canyon."
Then you find out, "Oh, I can." [chuckles]
["New Hard Times" playing]
- ♪ There's too much time
to sun yourself ♪
- First time I saw Linda
is when she played
the Troubadour
with The Stone Poneys.
- ♪ You wonder
about your old friends ♪
♪ You think
how hard you try ♪
♪ You hunger for...
- It was like
you were seeing a goddess.
The voice was so beautiful.
- ♪ And the new hard times
♪ Are here
- We dated for two weeks,
and then she said "Steve,
do you often date women and
not try to sleep with them?"
[laughs]
[applause]
- After Linda
was in The Stone Poneys,
Steve Martin would open
for Linda at the Troubadour.
- Ready to roll?
My name is Steve Martin.
I'll be out here
in just a moment,
and we're gonna start.
We're starting
in just a few moments,
just waiting for the dr*gs
to take effect,
and then we'll get going.
Okay.
- He was a huge hit.
- You know, when I...
[laughter]
Is this on?
Is this mic on?
- We watched every set he did.
We were just huge fans.
He did
some very crazy stuff there.
- It's a perfect instrument
for a comedian
'cause it's real dumb.
When you're playing
the banjo, everything is okay.
It's like, "Hey, Steve,
your house is burning down."
[upbeat banjo music playing
Well, sing along.
[laughter]
- We loved having him
as an opener
'cause he could k*ll
the audience
but without getting in the way
of your music thing.
- ♪ I fall
♪ To pieces
♪ Each time I see you again
- Linda was a singer,
technically,
a song stylist, emotionally.
- ♪ To pieces...
- A storyteller with her voice.
One of the most iconic voices
of our generation.
- Frank Sinatra
never wrote any songs.
Elvis Presley
never wrote any songs.
Neither did Linda Ronstadt,
but she had the knack
for picking out instinctively
what songs were gonna be
good for her.
- ♪ But I tried,
and I tried, but I... ♪
- It was all about what
she could do with the song.
Every songwriter
wanted to get something to her
and were very lucky
when she did,
because she brought so much
to the party.
She took over those songs.
- ♪ You walk on by
♪ And I fall to pieces
♪
[applause]
- Linda just walked past me
in the Troubadour one night,
and I said,
"Hi. I'm John David.
I think
you should cook me dinner."
And she said "Okay,"
gave me her phone number,
and I called her.
- We lived together
about a year and a half.
We used to have a really
good time singing together.
We used to have
a really good time
listening to music together.
I'd hear him writing something
down the hall,
and I'd go down
and listen, and I'd say,
"I really like that.
Teach it to me."
- I had a little piano room
in the back of the house.
I kept getting halfway
through "Faithless Love."
She came padding down
the hall and said,
"I think it's really beautiful
and I'd love to record it."
- ♪ Faithless love
- When Linda said
she wants to record something,
it's very encouraging.
- ♪ Raindrops falling
♪ On a broken rose
It was like having a tailor-made
songwriter, you know?
♪
We'd go
through some horrible row,
and he'd write a song about
it, and I'd sing it.
It was great.
♪ And the night blows in
♪ Like the cold dark wind
♪ Faithless love
♪ Like a river flow
- Longbranch Pennywhistle here.
I suppose you're wondering
what that name meant.
- The first
Longbranch Pennywhistle album
didn't exactly
set the world on fire.
They wouldn't make
a second record
with our material.
The point is we're songwriters.
We're trying
to learn to write songs.
So we just said
we're not gonna record.
And we sat around,
played a few gigs,
and just waited to see
what would happen.
- JD and I, we got up there,
and we did our little
Longbranch Pennywhistle/
Everly Brothers thing.
- Jackson Browne took me over
to David Geffen's house one day.
I played him a couple songs.
- I told JD and Glenn
that they needed to split up,
that Longbranch Pennywhistle
wasn't gonna work.
And I told Glenn
that he wasn't good enough
to be a solo artist.
He needed
to put together a band.
- I thought Glenn
was so good, you know?
I mean, I just thought
he was great.
And I told him
that he was a hotshot.
I said, "You're gonna do
something someday,
"but in the meantime
you're starving to death.
"Why don't you come
and play music with me?
We'll have a great time."
And then, of course,
I was walking
through the Troubadour
during the Hootenanny,
and this band Shiloh got up
and did my exact version
of "Silver Threads
and Golden Needles,"
note for note off the record,
and I just went, "What?"
I heard the drummer, and
I thought he was really good.
- I was lucky enough
to be in the right place
at the right time.
Linda and her manager,
John Boylan,
they thought it might be cool
to have a singing drummer.
But I had to audition.
And I auditioned at a house
in Laurel Canyon,
just off Kirkwood.
And he said, "Look,
do you want to go on the road
with Linda Ronstadt
for 200 bucks a week?
And I said, "Sure."
And that was that.
- ♪ I got a feeling
called the blues, oh, Lord ♪
♪ Since my baby say good-bye
♪ And I don't know
what I'd do ♪
♪ All I do is sit and cry
- Even though they were
a backup band for Linda,
everyone knew that Don and
Glenn were writing great songs.
That second wave--
people who came here
to be successful--
started to move up.
[cheers and applause]
By this time
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
was the biggest American band.
They were at their height.
- We got so big so fast.
There were thoughts of people
wanting to be Elvis
or something.
♪
- We were all dealing
with the first mad rush
of real big-time success.
It made for some
interesting perspectives,
let's put it that way.
- We scripted our shows
that we would do solo sets.
I did two, David would do two,
Stephen would do two,
and Neil would do two.
One night, Dylan came to see us.
["Black Queen" playing]
- ♪ Black queen
- This time,
because Dylan was there,
Stephen did five songs.
And that pissed me off
righteously,
'cause I knew
why he was doing it,
but we could have
all have done that.
We all had more than five
songs to be able to play.
We all wanted to impress Dylan.
But he did it.
- ♪ Oh
♪ Black queen
- In the intermission, we were
so infuriated with each other
that as I'm talking to him
and telling him exactly
what I think about him,
he's holding a Budweiser,
and he's slowly gripping it
and crushing the can.
It was frothing
all over the cup,
all down his hand
with this maniacal energy.
And we went out
and played the greatest set
we ever played.
It's hard to get mad at someone
who's just played one of
the best songs you've heard.
It's always been the music
that kept us together.
♪
- Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
rehearsed at Steven's house
in Laurel Canyon a whole lot.
And they were outside
talking one day,
and I kind of walked out
there, thinking, "Oh,
they're all in one group,
I'll get a group sh*t."
So I walked up
to take this picture.
[camera shutter clicks]
Well, I didn't realize
that their little meeting
was to have
a little bumper dust,
what they call Peruvian
marching powder,
which had reared its ugly head
in our beautiful God's
herb community.
- We smoked a lot of pot
because we liked getting high.
It made us feel creative.
But cocaine would keep
that feeling for hours
instead of just fleetingly.
- Everybody was doing it.
People were wearing little
gold spoons around their necks.
I mean, they weren't
ashamed of the fact
they were doing dr*gs.
- Cocaine,
methamphetamine, speed,
all the fake-energy stuff.
You think it's gonna
help you ride into night
or stay with an idea,
and maybe for a while it does.
The physical consequences
of doing those dr*gs
eventually just compounds,
and you don't know it
because you're high.
- Drug use is like
a windy little road,
quite pretty at the onset.
Trees and flowers
and birds singing.
And you can't see
where the road goes
over the cliff.
The only thing is...
it does.
The first people
who gave me cocaine said,
"It's not addictive.
Don't worry."
It was a pretty disorganized
time in our lives.
Success had already had
some adverse effects on us.
We were all
feeling very separate.
- After a while, it became edgy,
colder, less truthful.
- You know,
we can't it blended that way.
And not only that,
but we can't--
- That's a jack.
- We can't rehearse it
so that it all
makes sense together.
- I can't do it, man.
- I'm not gonna cop out
an inch to fear.
And you've walked out
two f*cking days in a row,
you f*cking hypocrite.
You piss me off.
- Crosby, Stills,
Nash & Young soon ended.
Success breeds change
for everybody, for anybody.
["Love Me Like A Man" playing]
- ♪ I need someone to love me
♪ I want someone
to understand ♪
I was on the road
nine or ten months.
I couldn't wait
to get back to California.
♪ Won't have to put himself
above me ♪
♪ When he loves me
♪ Like a man
♪
I sailed into Laurel Canyon,
rented a place,
and I was gonna make my third
album with Little Feat.
And that's pretty much
who I hung out with.
- When I finally moved up
into the Canyon,
I was already a member
of Little Feat.
That was the '70s.
People like Bonnie Raitt
were living there.
More and more people
had discovered Laurel Canyon,
which is kind of funny
because Laurel Canyon
way back when was home
to Tom Mix,
and Houdini
had a house up there.
[whimsical music]
[water splashes]
♪
And then Zappa and all
the different variations
of The Mothers.
♪
Lowell George was a member
of The Mothers
until he started Little Feat.
The one thing Lowell told me
when I joined the band,
he says, "Rule number one,
there is no rules."
[rock music]
- Oh, give me a break, Lowell.
Lowell George plays in a band
called Little Feat,
and he sings-- he's the singer
and guitar player
and the writer.
And for those of you
who can't see, he's cute, too.
♪
Coming out to LA and starting
out in the early '70s,
it really was
a cross-"pollinization."
It was the greatest gift
to that era.
♪ When you get home, baby
♪ Write me
a few of your lines ♪
Country music, blues,
R&B, all intermingled,
and it became
just part and parcel
of the music that we loved.
We didn't have
to put it in a box.
♪ Write me a few
of your lines ♪
♪
♪ That'll be consolation
♪ Lord Honey,
oh, my worried mind ♪
♪
Little Feat was like me--
more roots-oriented.
The kind of music
that they did was R&B-ish,
blues rock.
We straddled genres.
- One, two, testing, one.
♪ Say hello
♪ Yeah, yeah
Okay.
["Long Distance Love" playing]
♪
- Little Feat, they were
extraordinary musicians.
Incorporated rhythm and blues
and Delta blues,
boogie-woogie
into rock and roll.
Some of it was radio friendly,
and some of it wasn't.
- ♪ Hello,
give me missing persons ♪
♪ They said,
"What is it that you need?" ♪
♪ I said, "Whoa
♪ I need her so"
♪ They said, "You got
to stop your pleading" ♪
- How do you identify yourselves
in terms
of the American musical scene?
- It's hard to say.
You know, we all write songs
in the group,
and every song takes
a different direction.
So it's really hard
to pigeonhole
the kind of music we play.
♪ Long distance love
[humming]
♪
- We were pushing boundaries,
but from the press standpoint,
it was difficult
for them to explain
just who the hell we were.
♪
- We played how we felt,
you know.
If they come up
with a certain lyric
and everybody contributed
their part to it,
then the music
just came out like that.
It's sophisti-funk.
That was my name for it.
- ♪ Long distance love
♪
- Why didn't
Little Feat catch fire?
They are some of the best
musicians on the planet.
- I really can't get up
in the morning
and think about the goals
of being successful,
'cause what is success?
I mean,
it certainly isn't money.
Doing something
that you really like doing
as a profession is
really success to me.
I guess I'm doing it.
So I feel good about that.
- This was a time
when music and art
was everything.
You lived for it.
It was your life.
And the prosperity
that it brought came second.
It was more important
to make good music
than it was to make it
as a celebrity.
- You know,
it's hard to draw a line
between aspiring to success
and aspiring to artistry.
For example, Glenn Frey,
who achieved artistry--
I remember sitting with him.
and he said,
"Oh, I want to be
a rock-and-roll star so bad."
- Glenn had always
had a plan for a band.
His gig with Linda
was only temporary
as far as he was concerned.
He had this very detailed plan
about the band
he wanted to start
and what kind
of music we would do.
He recruited me, and, you know,
I became partners
in that endeavor.
And after we got done
with Linda's tour,
we went back
to Los Angeles and started
the recruitment process
for the Eagles.
- Glenn and Don both wrote
at that time.
So they started talking
about putting a band together,
and we told them they should
get Randy Meisner to play bass
and Bernie Leadon,
guitar player,
and they thought
that was a good idea.
- I had a bluegrass background.
I had a folk background,
pop music background,
rock and roll, top 40,
but I had never
put it all together
in one thing
until I enjoyed the Eagles.
- It was like people in love.
It was the greatest thing
to see that band
when they first formed.
- We were very into
the country-rock sound,
groups like Poco and the
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band,
Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds.
- We were doing the same kind
of cross-pollination
that those other bands
had been doing
but with tougher rock.
["Witchy Woman" playing]
One of the first songs
we wrote was "Witchy Woman".
I wrote the music,
and Don wrote the lyrics.
- ♪ Raven hair
♪ And ruby lips
♪ Sparks fly
from her fingertips ♪
- Our Texas artist friend
Boyd Elder
had a big art gallery opening
in Venice.
All of his friends came.
Most of the people lived
in Laurel Canyon.
Everybody was there--
Joni and Cass
and most of the Turtles,
Jackson Browne and David Geffen.
The Eagles,
they only had a few songs,
so they kept singing
"Witchy Woman" over and over,
and everybody was dancing.
- We weren't really fit
for public presentation
at that point.
[chuckles]
But we were just happy
to be hanging out
with that crowd.
It was a great scene
because all the people trying
to write songs
and trying to make records
were very supportive
of one another.
Jackson Browne was
a mentor to all of us
because
he had broken through first.
And we all aspired
to be what he was,
to write like that
and have that kind of insight.
- ♪ Well, I'm a-running down
the road ♪
♪ Trying to loosen my load
♪ Got a world of trouble
on my mind ♪
♪ Looking for a lover
who won't blow my cover ♪
♪ She's so hard to find
♪ Take it easy
♪ Take it easy
- Jackson had started
"Take It Easy"
and then abandoned it.
But he had played it
for Glenn at some point.
When we were about
to record our first album,
Glenn went to Jackson and said,
"I'd like to try to finish it."
Jackson said,
"Sure, have at it."
- ♪ Well, I'm a-standing on
a corner in Winslow, Arizona ♪
♪ Such a fine sight to see
♪ It's a girl, my Lord,
in a flatbed Ford ♪
♪ Slowin' down to take
a look at me ♪
♪ Well, come on, baby
- ♪ Baby
- ♪ Don't say "maybe"
- ♪ Maybe
- ♪ I got to know
if your sweet love ♪
♪ Is gonna save me
♪ Well, come on, baby
- ♪ Baby
- ♪ Don't say "maybe"
- ♪ Maybe
- ♪ I got to know
if your sweet love ♪
♪ Is gonna save me
- ♪ Is gonna save me
- ♪ Yeah
- ♪ Hoo, hoo, hoo,
hoo, hoo, hoo ♪
♪ Hoo, hoo, hoo,
hoo, hoo, hoo, ♪
- Geffen pushed
"Take It Easy" pretty hard
because Asylum Records
was his new label.
Got in the top 20.
We had a lot of exposure
with our first album--
three hit singles.
♪
- Oh, I think they were
very ambitious,
particularly Glenn.
Glenn wanted to have a hit band.
- I wanted limousines
and adoring fans and girls.
There's no university
that could've ever prepared me
for any of the things
I needed to learn.
- Hi.
- Hey.
- Hi.
- How are you doing?
- Hi.
- Hi, Jim.
- Oh, not again.
- Hey, we get...
Oh, Jim.
- We got to go now.
- When we first started
The Doors,
each person
was equally important.
As it progressed, Jim became
the center of attention.
Morrison, Morrison, Morrison.
- Wait a while.
Don't get out yet.
- We won't hurt him.
[indistinct chatter]
- So he was the one
who had to live with it.
It was extremely difficult
for him.
That's why he really started
to drink as much as he did.
- Come on, girl.
- What are you doing? Hey.
[rock music playing,
crowd cheering]
- Morrison always
had a wild streak,
always a little crazy.
A few too many drinks,
and he was right over the edge.
- ♪ Get together
[Jim shouts]
- He touched
the authorities in a way
that I've never seen
anyone touch the authorities.
- ♪ Some outlaws lived
by the side of a lake ♪
♪ The minister's daughter's
in love with the snake ♪
♪ Who lives in a well
by the side of the road ♪
♪ Wake up, girl
- It's a little nerve-racking
sometimes,
but I thought he'd be
one of those drunks
who lives to be 85 years old.
♪
- We had an incident,
perhaps was a turning point
in The Doors' career.
- I ain't talking
about no revolution.
I'm talking
about having a good time.
I'm talking about love.
- It was a horrible show,
I have to say it.
Jim was so drunk.
He couldn't sing right.
[indistinct chatter]
You're all a bunch of slaves.
- And Jim said,
"What do you want from me?"
- People telling you
what you're gonna do?
- "How about if I show you
my cock?"
- He probably
would've pulled it out
had Ray not told
our equipment guy, Vince,
"Don't let him do it.
Don't let him do it."
[dramatic music]
- We have taken out
two warrants for Jim Morrison
for indecent exposure,
for the use of obscene languages
during his performance.
- Jim, do you have
anything to say?
- I'm admitting the charge
of the public profanity,
but I'm denying
the exposure charge.
I told the audience,
"I realize
that you're not really here
"to listen to some
fairly good musicians.
"You know, you're here
for something else,
and why not admit it?"
- "Is a trial date set?"
"Hey, man.
You're putting me on a bummer.
Let's get on to another
subject, all right?"
It's a rainy day in LA,
talking about
this horrible nonsense.
[thunder rumbling]
- We were supposed to go
on the rest of the tour.
We hear, "Oh, sh*t.
The tour's canceled."
["Crawling King Snake" playing]
- What do you plan
to do in the future
as far as the band goes
and everything else?
- Well, we have
another album to do,
and we'll start cutting
in a couple weeks.
- ♪ Well, I'm the Crawlin'
King Snake ♪
♪ And I rule my den
♪
♪ Well, I'm the Crawlin'
King Snake ♪
♪ And I rule my den
♪
♪ Come on,
give me what I want ♪
♪ Ain't gonna crawl no more
♪
- We were finishing up
the album "L.A. Woman".
He said,
"I'm going to Paris."
I said,
"Whoa. What a good idea, man.
"Get away from all of this
rock-and-roll thing
and become a poet again."
[somber music]
- The death of another rock
musician was disclosed today,
Jim Morrison,
lead singer of The Doors.
His manager said Morrison d*ed
six days ago in Paris
either of a heart att*ck
or pneumonia,
but the death was kept secret
to avoid a sensation.
He was buried in Paris
in the same cemetery
where Balzac and other
French immortals lie.
- I got a phone call
from our manager
telling me Jim Morrison is dead.
Last thing I was going
to believe
is Jim Morrison's dead in Paris.
He went there to clean up,
to dry out.
He d*ed 27 and a half,
July 3, 1971,
outlaw, renegade,
wild Dionysian poet.
And I miss him.
[soft music]
♪
- Most people who make it
in the music industry
are not prepared.
Success can be
just as scary as failure,
if not scarier.
And some people don't actually
live through it.
♪ Desperado
♪
♪ Why don't you
come to your senses? ♪
♪ You been out ridin' fences
♪ For so long now
I moved to Laurel Canyon
in early 1973
into a little house
that was on stilts.
When the wind would blow,
the house would sway.
Made me nervous.
[laughs]
It was formally occupied
by Roger McGuinn,
the co-founder of The Byrds,
so I took that as a good omen.
And I somehow got an old
upright piano in there.
I don't know where it came from.
That was the year
that Glenn and I
really started
writing songs together.
He came to that house.
I showed him the little pieces
that I had of "Desperado."
- We started writing
"Desperado,"
and we started
writing "Tequila Sunrise."
And the more we started
thinking about it,
the more this seemed like,
"Well, maybe this is kind
of a country-rock opera.
"Write it all about
the Old West.
"Why guys became outlaws,
"the romance of it,
the tragedy of it, the fame."
- I, like most of the guys
of my generation,
felt like The Eagles
had written Desperado for us.
Rock musicians
and guitar players
were like gunslingers
in the Old West.
- In our youthful exuberance
and cockiness,
we tried to make
that analogy, yeah.
We didn't exactly rob banks,
but we did have
a similar lifestyle in that
we would go from city to city,
and we had a life on the road.
There was drinking,
and there was gambling.
There were women.
So we liked to think
of ourselves as being outside
the norms of society.
And we were in a sense.
♪
- The "Desperado" album
is one of the finest pieces
of music ever written,
but the album wasn't making it.
- We made a concept album,
which didn't make
the record company happy at all.
The song "Desperado"
was not a hit for us
until Linda Ronstadt
recorded it.
She gave it wings.
- We'd like to introduce someone
who was very instrumental
in putting our band,
The Eagles, together.
Would you welcome
Linda Ronstadt?
[cheers and applause]
♪
- ♪ Desperado
♪ Why don't you come
to your senses? ♪
♪ You been out
ridin' fences ♪
♪ For so long now
♪ Oh, you're a hard one
♪ But I know
that you got your reasons ♪
♪ These things
that are pleasin' you ♪
♪ Can hurt you somehow
♪
- ♪ Don't your feet get cold
in the wintertime? ♪
♪ The sky won't snow,
and the sun won't shine ♪
- There's no question
she resurrected that song
and helped keep The Eagles
away from the sophomore slump.
♪
- ♪ You're losin' all
your highs and lows ♪
- The Eagles,
they kept their circle.
That's what I always liked
about them most,
the loyalty to each other
in those early
Laurel Canyon years.
- ♪ Desperado
- The best band
in the United States of America,
The Eagles.
["Already Gone" playing]
♪
- ♪ Well,
I heard some people talkin' ♪
♪ Just the other day
♪ And they said you were gonna
put me on a shelf ♪
- The Eagles were not pioneers.
The Eagles were settlers.
But I do believe
that we did a pretty good job
of cultivating the land
that we settled.
We put ourselves into it
and made it uniquely our own.
♪
- ♪ 'Cause I'm already gone
- The whole California
country-rock thing exploded
with Crosby, Stills & Nash,
Poco,
Linda, Jackson,
and the Burrito Brothers,
but The Eagles
kicked that to the next level.
It was the dominant
musical form of the '70s
in this country.
- ♪ Whoo-hoo-hoo
♪ Whoo-hoo-hoo
[crowd cheering]
- I don't think
any of us had any idea
how big the tsunami
of sales that was coming,
was gonna be.
["Take It To The Limit" playing]
- When we got to The Eagles
and the later generations
of great bands,
the entire business changed.
- ♪ All alone at the end
of the evening ♪
- Things got so big so fast
that places like the Troubadour
became too small.
- What changed was the people
went to coliseums to play.
We didn't see each other
as much.
As soon as we went into arenas,
we didn't go and see each other.
- ♪ And I never knew
♪
♪ You know I've always
been a dreamer ♪
- You feed the machine
that is the record business,
and the monster wants more.
Every artist has a peak,
a creative peak, a sales peak,
and then comes the pressure
of trying to repeat that.
You get caught up in this
swirling vortex of success
and money and fame and pressure.
♪
- As people became very,
very successful,
the camaraderie changed.
People started guarding
their songs.
You didn't want to give up
one of your melodies
to somebody else.
Over time, people started
moving out of Laurel Canyon,
getting a better place
in a better neighborhood.
- ♪ You got to take it
♪ To the limit one more time
Thank you.
[crowd cheering]
- The business
started burning people out,
and you were overworked
on the road so much
and played more than
you should play.
- You managed
to keep pretty busy.
I know, 'cause we've been
trying for two years
to get you on the show.
- [laughs]
- I wanted to ask you,
when you do have any time
in that busy schedule of yours,
how do you like
to spend it best?
- Besides playing with my child,
which is obvious, I think,
for any mother, you know,
especially a mother who works.
You know, when you have
to spend a little time away,
you really relish
that time at home.
My mom was a very loving person,
but she also traveled a lot.
- Cass, now that you're such
a giant star in the firmament,
is this your life?
Is it ever going to change?
- Well, I wouldn't like
to have to work
as much as I'm working now.
Nobody wants to work that hard.
I'd like to go back to school...
- She closed a two-week
sold-out engagement
at the London Palladium.
She had stayed up for 40 hours.
She went to sleep and had
a heart att*ck in her sleep.
- "Mama" Cass Elliot,
a pop star who won fame
with the group called
The Mamas and Papas,
d*ed today in London.
She was 33.
Ms. Elliot was in England
for concert
and nightclub appearances.
- It was a big shock.
That, to me, was a big shock.
She was a Los Angeleno.
She was one of us,
you know, one of ours.
It had a big impact.
It just wasn't the same anymore.
[somber music]
- Out of that loss,
for me, personally,
came a blessing.
My wife, Leah, and I raised Owen
after Cass passed away.
But the loss of Cass
was traumatic,
not only for us.
It was a huge loss
for the music community
and the brother and sisterhood
that had developed
in Laurel Canyon.
- Mama Cass,
she put a lot
of social things into motion
and changed people's lives.
♪
She was sent by the angels.
A teacher to all of us.
As we all are to each other.
♪
When I first picked up a camera,
it was as a folk musician,
quietly taking pictures,
documenting, to learn.
[projector clicks]
Not consciously.
But when I saw that first
picture on the wall,
glowing in color
like it was alive,
that's when I became
a photographer.
[dramatic music]
♪
There's a reason that these
people became so well-known.
They had amazing talent
for life, really...
for singing, writing songs,
thinking poetically.
What is it really about?
Why are we here?
What is this
wonderful experience?
What's the best way to live it?
And that's Laurel Canyon.
♪
- If you believe in God,
it's like God said,
"Okay, kids, I'm gonna show you
"what the Garden of Eden
was like.
And you get to live
and play and love."
We embraced it all,
and it was wonderful.
- Laurel Canyon's become
a name for a thing,
and it's really just a myth.
[chuckles]
Places become focal points
for breaking out of convention.
What was happening
in Laurel Canyon
was the universe cracking open
and revealing secrets.
It was just about a time,
the creative awakening.
♪
- There are periods in history
when there are peaks.
And nobody really knows why--
Paris in the '30s,
the Renaissance in Italy,
Los Angeles in around '65, '75.
Very hard to define it.
But the proof's in the pudding.
The music's there.
["Turn! Turn! Turn!" playing]
♪
- ♪ To everything,
turn, turn, turn ♪
♪ There is a season,
turn, turn, turn ♪
♪ And a time
to every purpose ♪
♪ Under Heaven
♪ A time to be born,
a time to die ♪
♪ A time to plant,
a time to reap ♪
♪ A time to k*ll,
a time to heal ♪
♪ A time to laugh
♪ A time to weep
♪ To everything,
turn, turn, turn ♪
♪ There is a season,
turn, turn, turn ♪
♪ And a time
to every purpose ♪
♪ Under Heaven
♪ A time to build up,
a time to break down ♪
♪ A time to dance,
a time to mourn ♪
♪ A time to cast away stones
♪ A time to gather
♪ Stones together
♪
Laurel Canyon (2020) Part 2
Moderator: Maskath3