I’ve had my head in books about the late 60s and early 70s recently. I fully recommend Trips by Ellen Sander if you can get hold of a copy. She was there…with Joni & Graham at Lookout Mountain…in the room when Stills belittled Young…at Altamont when the bad wine and bad acid was going around and started to create the bad vibes. She floated around the Laurel and later Topanga Canyon sets and her book is real analysis from the inside. I’m With The Band by the Grandmother of all modern groupies - Pamela Des Barres - talks more about the scenes and rock stars in general, as she was over in a different part of LA with Jimmy Page and his special suitcase, but she was a big part of Gram Parsons life until his OD and was a founder member of Frank Zappa’s GTOs…
Finally I recommend Barney Hoskyn’s Hotel California. Looking down the barrel of history at a time we all now know was doomed to consume itself, Hoskyns tells the story cleanly, giving air the dreams of dreamers - of how it could have been.

Reading about all this music I needed to get in and listen to some of it. So I tracked down as much as I could. Trying to piece together the fractured stories and backgrounds of the musicians and bands I was reading about with an aural map. It led me to discover some beautiful music which I felt compelled to put together and share with my friends. So here it is…put your headphones on and sit back - imagine that wherever you are is actually a veranda in Laurel Canyon late 1975, and you are flicking around the radio until you find Miss Lorelei on WKLA…

sounds of the canyons mix