Here are 100 books that Laurel Canyon fans have personally recommended if you like
Laurel Canyon.
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I’ve been fascinated by musicians almost my entire life, but I always wanted more than the slick on-screen video, profile on the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, or interview. I wanted to know the whys and hows: why they wrote a certain way, what made them want to be a musician first, and where the inspiration and determination came from. What are they like when they’re hanging out at home, not in the spotlight? This research led me to the music and musicians of Laurel Canyon in particular and how one small area of Los Angeles has managed to create music still influential today.
If there will be any discussion on what it’s like to hang out with rock stars of the 60s and 70s, Pamela Des Barre is in it. She was smack-dab in the middle of the scene, helping to create the scene in the first place, and this book tells all the stories of how she got to meet, become friends, and hang out with the greats–from Led Zeppelin to burgeoning Don Johnson and beyond.
She was in the rooms where the greats not only performed but also offered a fascinating look into the time period and what it was like to be in the infamous clubs on the Sunset Strip and in the houses of Laurel Canyon where they played. I loved her simple honesty about what happened, her not hiding anything from the reader and the sheer joy she has in sharing her adventures.
Pamela Des Barres was a regular on the Sunset Strip, where she knocked on rock stars' backstage doors and immersed herself in the drugs, danger, and ecstasy of the freewheeling 1960s. Over the next 10 years she had affairs with Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, Keith Moon and Jim Morrison, among others. As a member of the GTO's, a girl group masterminded by Frank Zappa, she was in the thick of the most revolutionary renaissance in the history of modern popular music. Warm, witty, and sexy, this kiss-and-tell-all stands out as the perfect chronicle of one of rock 'n' roll's most…
I’ve been fascinated by musicians almost my entire life, but I always wanted more than the slick on-screen video, profile on the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, or interview. I wanted to know the whys and hows: why they wrote a certain way, what made them want to be a musician first, and where the inspiration and determination came from. What are they like when they’re hanging out at home, not in the spotlight? This research led me to the music and musicians of Laurel Canyon in particular and how one small area of Los Angeles has managed to create music still influential today.
This woman is a Hollywood icon, and her stories put you smack-dab in the center of every party, every hangout, and every living room, being seen and making the scene. She places you in the center of her head as she tells you her life story and who the players are.
We are center stage, hanging out at the Troubadour bar, a trendy lunch place, and she sets her lap on fire by mistake… all with wit and amazing insight into the time and iconic places surrounding her. I loved seeing these places through her experience and felt like I was in her world.
Previously uncollected nonfiction pieces by Hollywood's ultimate It Girl about everything from fashion to tango to Jim Morrison and Nicholas Cage.
With Eve’s Hollywood Eve Babitz lit up the scene in 1974. The books that followed, among them Slow Days, Fast Company and Sex and Rage, have seduced generations of readers with their unfailing wit and impossible glamour. What is less well known is that Babitz was a working journalist for the better part of three decades, writing for the likes of Rolling Stone, Vogue, and Esquire, as well as for off-the-beaten-path periodicals like Wet: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing…
I’ve been fascinated by musicians almost my entire life, but I always wanted more than the slick on-screen video, profile on the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, or interview. I wanted to know the whys and hows: why they wrote a certain way, what made them want to be a musician first, and where the inspiration and determination came from. What are they like when they’re hanging out at home, not in the spotlight? This research led me to the music and musicians of Laurel Canyon in particular and how one small area of Los Angeles has managed to create music still influential today.
I love this book because it honestly sets the scene of the early 1970s rock world with such heart and passion for the music, the musicians of the time, and the challenges they faced in the industry and even from their peers.
I wanted to shake the main character sometimes, but the world she builds is so realistic and engaging that I felt like I was in it with her. When I found out that it was loosely based on an actual romance of a popular 70s singer/songwriter couple, I was even more intrigued. It paints a vivid picture of love, friendship, and relationships, centered around the 70s rock music and lifestyle I love.
'Emma Brodie perfectly channels the languorous romance of the time . . . I got chills' Kevin Kwan, No.1 bestselling author of Crazy Rich Asians
Behind every greatest hit, is an even greater love story.
The summer of 1969
From the moment Jane Quinn steps barefoot onto the main stage at Island Folk festival, her golden hair glinting, her voice soaring into the summer dusk, a star is born - and so is a passionate love story.
Jane's band hits the road with none other than Jesse Reid, the musician whose bright…
I’ve been fascinated by musicians almost my entire life, but I always wanted more than the slick on-screen video, profile on the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, or interview. I wanted to know the whys and hows: why they wrote a certain way, what made them want to be a musician first, and where the inspiration and determination came from. What are they like when they’re hanging out at home, not in the spotlight? This research led me to the music and musicians of Laurel Canyon in particular and how one small area of Los Angeles has managed to create music still influential today.
I love the insights into the behind-the-scenes rock and roll world Shellist shares with her readers. She’s in the room with the bands of the 70s and early 80s, watching how the music is made and telling the story of what it’s like to be the girlfriend of these men–the cheating, the lying, the dysfunction, the drugs, the pull between the persona and the actual person.
That’s what drew me to this in the first place. It’s not necessarily the story the rock star wants us to read, but it’s the truth that no one wants to write about to keep the ‘sex, drugs, and rock and roll’ lore alive. I loved how she told her story, keeping in all the painful details but doing so with kindness and love. She gave us a glimpse into their world, seeing the whole person and the pressures behind the scenes.
Rebellious, headstrong, independent - and on her own at age 15 - Lorelei dreamed of being a model, and made that happen through serendipity; a chance meeting with a '70s SoCal Rock Star opened the A-list Hollywood doors to a wondrous world, as well as a full-blown romance. Pounding the pavement in L.A. and New York taught her the hard knocks of being a working class model. Sheer will and determination jetted her off to Europe, where she became a top runway and magazine model, and where she met the doomed love of her life, fiancé Steve Clark of Def…
I started singing and playing guitar in garage bands in high school, about the same time that I began thinking of myself as a serious writer, so for me the two endeavors have always gone hand in hand. Over the decades, I’ve continued to write creatively—while teaching thousands of students along the way—and also to play in a number of bands that have specialized in everything from country-folk to raucous punk. Like many writer-musicians, I love reading good stories about the challenges and joys of people joining together, and falling apart, as they attempt to transcend ordinary life through the power of music.
The book begins with short chapters on a couple of blues players—Harmonica Frank and the mysterious Robert Johnson, who allegedly sold his soul to the devil so he could play guitar—before moving to extended chapters on Elvis, and others.
Marcus’s project is to cross-reference American history with American music and to try and make sense of them both. It sounds like something an academic would get up to, and plenty of research went into the making of Mystery Train (at 224 pages, the Notes and Discographies section of the 2015 edition is considerably longer than the original book).
However, Marcus is one of the great rock writers, and he’s as keen on crafting unforgettable sentences as he is in explaining the meaning of rock and roll.
The perfect gift for music fans and anyone who loves artists like Elvis Presley, Randy Newman, Sly Stone, Robert Johnson, and Harmonica Frank.
In 1975, Greil Marcus’s Mystery Train changed the way readers thought about rock ’n’ roll and continues to be sought out today by music fans and anyone interested in pop culture. Looking at recordings by six key artists—Robert Johnson, Harmonica Frank, Randy Newman, the Band, Sly Stone, and Elvis Presley—Marcus offers a complex and unprecedented analysis of the relationship between rock ‘n’ roll and American culture. In this latest edition, Marcus provides an extensively updated and rewritten…
Maureen Callahan is a New York Times bestselling author, award-winning investigative journalist, columnist, and commentator. She has covered everything from pop culture to politics. Her writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, New York, Spin, and the New York Post, where she is Critic-at-Large. She lives in New York. For Shepherd, Callahan has selected her favorite books about American pop culture, which is currently dominated by her favorite subgenre, true crime.
Speaking of Elvis, this biography, the second of two parts, is among the greatest of the late 20th century. We begin with Elvis entering the U.S. Army in 1958 and follow this increasingly lost soul through the years, his fame metastasizing into something unrivaled, incredible, enviable and wholly malignant. Guralnick captures the singular loneliness Elvis came to suffer, the slow suicide that was his Las Vegas residency, the exploitations of his manager, Col. Tom Parker, and a death so humiliating it finally made Elvis what he had longed to be for decades: Profoundly, squalidly human. None other than Bob Dylan called this Presley biography the one that “cancels out all others.”
Last Train to Memphis, the first part of Guralnick's two-volume life of Elvis Presley, received unprecedented accolades. This concluding volume recounts the second half of Elvis's life in rich and previously unimagined detail, and confirms Guralnick's status as one of the great biographers of our time. Beginning with Presley's army service in Germany in 1958 and ending with his death in Memphis in 1977, Careless Love chronicles the unraveling of the dream that once shone so brightly, homing in on the complex playing-out of Elvis's relationship with his Machiavellian manager, Colonel Tom Parker. It's a breathtaking drama that places the…
Sadly, I was born without an ounce of musical talent. After realizing I was never going to effortlessly play the guitar or sing in tune, I focused a lot of my energies on listening to music. I came of age in the 80s and the rise of MTV brought loads of fantastic music to explore: punk, new-wave, post-punk, pop. My love for music grew and expanded as I grew up in the 90s. It was those I reached back to musical memories in creating my books, 80s Redux and Lived Through That. I also host a popular podcast called Lived Through That that combines my love of music and storytelling.
Before taking a darker turn in the second half, this book almost reads like a Steven Spielberg movie: wise grandmother advises her young grandson to stick his hands in cow patties out in the field to rid himself of warts. After this hilarious beginning, the book goes into detail on Zabrecky’s rise through the Los Angeles music scene of the early 90s, finding some success with his band Possum Dixon, the inevitable lure of drugs, and a surprising third act. This book reads almost like fiction and you’ll likely read it in a sitting or two, it’s well-paced and well-written.
Strange Cures is a turbulent, against-all odds memoir of self-discovery, success, failure, and reinvention, told by one of LA's most interesting natives. With an unflinching gaze, musician/magician/actor Zabrecky recounts his bizarre coming-of-age tale and his quest to find a place in the arts--and the world.
The author reveals a young life filled with both physical miracles and subversive role models, including an uncle who impersonated an FBI agent and, in a drunken delusion, shot and nearly killed him. He takes readers on a roller coaster ride through the nascent days of Silver Lake's music and art community, as seen through…
I’ve been playing and singing music since I was six, and my childhood dream was to become an orchestral cello player. Over the years, I learned a number of other instruments and studied music around the globe, yet I was always intrigued, even intimidated, by those who were able to compose. This list of books helps readers like me really get inside the heads of some of the greatest composers (and performers) of popular music in the 20th and 21st centuries. While many of my questions were answered, there remains a sense of mystery and wonder that even the artists themselves can’t always explain.
I’ve never read an autobiography by anyone as humble, funny, reflective, poetic, and oftentimes downright scary as the bass player Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers.
I’ve always been in love with his sound and sense of timing, a groove master who has few equals. With this book, I discovered the love, boredom, synchronicities, intelligence, and madness that made up his life, and because of it, I admire Flea and the band like almost no other.
With "virtuosic vulnerability" (The Atlantic), the iconic bassist and Red Hot Chili peppers co-founder pens a New York Times bestselling love letter to his wild Los Angeles youth in his raw and riveting coming-of-age memoir, now in paperback.
In Acid for the Children, Flea takes readers on a deeply personal and revealing tour of his formative years, spanning from Australia to the New York City suburbs to, finally, Los Angeles. Through hilarious anecdotes, poetical meditations, and occasional flights of fantasy, Flea deftly chronicles the experiences that forged him as an artist, a musician, and a young man. His dreamy, jazz-inflected…
As a life coach and author of two dozen self-help books, I’ve spent the past twenty years helping people to be more creative. I love reading about the early lives of artists because it is an engaging way to learn about the creative process. Even rock stars have doubts, insecurities, regrets, and setbacks. Yet, fueled by their passions, they persist. They overcome their obstacles and pursue unique paths to success. These books are inspirational and informative for anyone with a creative dream.
In the space of one year (1970), the Beatles broke up, James Taylor became an overnight star, and Simon and Garfunkle reached the height of their popularity, Crosby Stills Nash & Young formed a wildly successful group and then disbanded. Their stories intertwine in unexpected ways, embroidered with interactions of dozens of other rock icons who would shape the music of the seventies.
Set against a backdrop of world-changing historical and political events, Fire and Rain tells the extraordinary story of one pivotal year in the lives and music of four legendary artists, and reveals how these artists and their songs both shaped and reflected their times. Drawing on interviews, rare recordings, and newly discovered documents, acclaimed journalist David Browne allows us to see,and to hear,the elusive moment when the '60s became the '70s in a completely fresh way" (Mark Harris, author of Pictures at a Revolution ).
I started singing and playing guitar in garage bands in high school, about the same time that I began thinking of myself as a serious writer, so for me the two endeavors have always gone hand in hand. Over the decades, I’ve continued to write creatively—while teaching thousands of students along the way—and also to play in a number of bands that have specialized in everything from country-folk to raucous punk. Like many writer-musicians, I love reading good stories about the challenges and joys of people joining together, and falling apart, as they attempt to transcend ordinary life through the power of music.
Taylor Jenkins Reid is not the first or only person to adapt the nonfiction oral history format into a work of fiction, but she does it with the most panache.
Loosely based on the mid-seventies romance between Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham, Daisy Jones & the Six offers a nonstop procession of drama and conflict, but there’s a tender heart beating at its center and a heartbreaking reveal at the end.
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