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When needle drop musicals are proving to be depressingly marketable, as demonstrated by the financial success of the critically panned Oscar-winner “Bohemian Rhapsody,” it appears that all a film needs to do in order to achieve success is coast on the strength of previously released hit songs. Look no further than the soulless remake of “Aladdin” for conclusive proof of this trend. After all, the new documentary “Echo in the Canyon” appears to be content with relying solely on our nostalgia for the impressive roster of artists that it has assembled, relying solely on our familiarity with their work to keep our attention rapt. But upon closer inspection, this appears to be a mistake. Indeed, it’s difficult to tell whether audiences who are unfamiliar with the Laurel Canyon music scene in the mid-’60s will find this film to be anything more than a bunch of joking and back-slapping. As a child of the 1990s who grew up listening to oldies radio shows like Dick Biondi and Nick at Nite, I am far more familiar with the icons of oldies radio networks—Ringo Starr, Brian Wilson, Crosby, Stills & Nash, among others—who serve as interview subjects in this film than I am with the younger artists led by Jakob Dylan who are attempting to pay tribute to them. In fact, because I couldn’t tell The Wallflowers from any other flower on the wall, I assumed Dylan was in charge of direction, until I realized during the end credits that the film was actually directed by Andrew Slater, the same man who was introduced early on as a former executive vice president of Capitol Records.
Unfortunately, this document’s ability to provide context is lacking. It essentially assumes that if the names on its poster mean nothing to you, you wouldn’t bother to watch it in the first place anyway. Nonetheless, there’s a good chance that the uninitiated will recognize some of their favorite music echoed, in some form or another, through these timeless tunes. Slater claims that The Byrds’ 1965 debut album marked the first time that “a song of poetic depth and grace had become a hit,” effectively giving birth to the Laurel Canyon scene. Slater is introducing a 2015 concert honoring the work of various southern California legends. During the period from 1965 to 1967, the particular era celebrated here by Slater and covered by Dylan & Co. took place, when groups of artists were free to be influenced by one another while pushing the boundaries of song length and complexity in the same creative environment. The title “Echo in the Canyon” is a perfect representation of the ways in which the inspiration shared by these bands continues to reverberate throughout the art form, the industry, and cultures that are not limited to America. I frequently find it illuminating to examine an artwork through the prism of another, noting what distinguishes each artist through the juxtaposition of elements that are similar to the one under consideration. For me, watching a documentary like this is like eating candy for my analytical hemisphere. It explains in detail how The Beatles led to The Byrds, and how The Beach Boys’ landmark album, “Pet Sounds,” was the inspiration for “Sgt. Pepper.”
“Turn! Turn! Turn!” by Pete Seeger is the first and most instantly recognizable chords we hear in the film, which is fitting because it was the song that unmistakably opened the pilot episode of Neal Marlens and Carol Black’s “The Wonder Years,” a ’60s-set series fueled by the sort of youthful memories that continue to haunt and shape us throughout the subsequent decades. Slater’s film reminds us of the reasons why we listen to songs like these over and over again throughout our lives. The music they create transports us back to unforgettable moments we have witnessed, either through our own eyes or those of a fictional character onscreen. The song “Dedicated to the One I Love,” by The Mamas & The Papas, never fails to conjure up images of Samantha Morton, wandering alone through the shadows of a crowded club in the masterful finale of Lynne Ramsay’s “Morvern Callar.” This film not only provides us with a glorious televised close-up of Michelle Phillips singing the opening lyrics of this song, but it also provides us with a personal understanding of the circumstances that led to its creation, thanks to the work of director Slater. She talks about how her own affair with fellow bandmate Denny Doherty inspired her husband John to write the song “Go Where You Want To Go,” which is unambiguously titled “Go Where You Want To Go,” in an interview with Dylan. Phillips also talks about how her own affair with fellow bandmate Denny Doherty inspired her husband John to pen the song “Go Where You Want To Go.” This results in perhaps the most moving vocal performance of the tribute concert, as Jade channeled Phillips’ defiance in refusing to accept any limitations on her sexual identity. Although no mention is made of the allegedly long-secret incestuous relationship that John allegedly had with his daughter, the fact that it existed only serves to highlight the hypocrisy of his righteousness.
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In this episode, the Beatles’ legendary status as the greatest band of all time is further established, as their appearance on “Ed Sullivan” in 1964 served as the mighty oak from which all the groups in Laurel Canyon sprang like branches. Roger McGuinn was taken aback by the fact that The Beatles’ chord changes in “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” were derived from folk music, and he decided to publicly perform his own single-guitar rendition of the song (evocative of the simplest and best cover in Julie Taymor’s “Across the Universe”), which was roundly rejected by audiences in Los Angeles. In the end, it was McGuinn and his fellow Byrds’ approach that led to them being referred to as “America’s response to The Beatles”—shoes they were doomed never to fill—while also inspiring various musicians, including Dylan’s immortal father, to take a fresh look at their own work. To the late Tom Petty, to whom the film is dedicated, he applauds his colleagues who were able to walk the line between “cross-pollination” and “outright theft,” such as when The Beatles modeled their song, “If I Needed Someone,” after Seeger’s “The Bells of Rhymney,” or when Eric Clapton’s “Let It Rain” resembles the original version of Buffalo Springfield’s “Questions,” before the latter was altered in response Even after Dylan promises that he will remove his admission that he may have “copped” the Springfield song without realizing it, the musician insists on keeping the revelation in because it is so significant to his career.
Echo In The Canyon Quiz
Aside from their refusal to overstay their welcome by “turning on the smoke machine and playing the old hits,” as David Crosby put it, The Beatles possessed a number of other characteristics that made them stand out. The band disbanded shortly after the decade’s end, at a time when many of the groups with which they had formed friendships had made the decision to disband, allowing their members to pursue their individual interests. It’s one of the more perplexing aspects of Slater’s documentary that he includes footage from Jacques Demy’s “Model Shop,” the film that Dylan and his tribute crew identified as the cultural artifact that inspired their concert, noting that the film “looked like the era sounded.” Perhaps if Slater and co-writer Eric Barrett (producer of “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka”) had provided us with a better understanding of the film’s subject matter, its footage would have struck us as more poignantly poignant. Instead, we are treated to shots of Gary Lockwood, who has been cast as a marketable alternative to Harrison Ford (ah, how times have changed), gazing wistfully at the Los Angeles skyline while pursuing Anouk Aimée, before eventually breaking up with her and moving on. An even stranger aspect of “Model Shop” is the fact that the only music featured in the film is by Spirit, a band that is not featured in Slater’s film. The film “Coming Home,” in which a married woman reluctantly agrees to sleep with an injured veteran, and Springfield’s “Expecting to Fly,” in which the music of the era lends an ethereal glow to every frame, are two of the best examples of how great the 1960s were for music. As a result of this song, which was released at the tail end of 1967 and intended by Neil Young as a warning to his bandmates of his impending departure, Dylan believes that Laurel Canyon’s golden period came to an end, causing its musicians to find themselves on their own, much like the three central protagonists in Ashby’s film’s concluding sequence.
Also, you will find out which character are you in this Echo In The Canyon quiz.
The most important lesson to take away from “Echo in the Canyon” is that the ingenious fusion of two elements that were previously considered disparate, such as folk and rock or Bach chordal movements and “California Girls,” can result in a revolutionary shift in cultural consciousness. Regina Spektor’s provocative argument that the songs released during this period, both in terms of structure and word usage, are more related to dreams than those released prior to this period, suggesting that American musicians were getting in touch with their unconscious mind, which foreshadowed the psychedelic fervor of Woodstock in 1969, would have been explored further in the film. Additionally, this is the year that Dylan was born, the film “Model Shop” was released, and the film “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” is set, underscoring the loss of innocence that came with the Manson family’s murders in 1969. The loss of innocence results in the loss of freedom as well, and it was the liberation of artistic consciousness that occurred during this period that resulted in so many hit songs being guided solely by their intuition. Buffalo Springfield’s resistance to performing “faster” in the recording studio is certainly shared by David Lynch, who shot down any onset request to move “Twin Peaks: The Return” at a quicker pace. As a dream that we enter in order to make sense of our waking life, what is art if not that? Who would want to rush something like that?
For more personality quizzes check this: The Beach Bum Quiz.
