DeShannon Canyon
I was reminded of the fabulous singer Jackie DeShannon in researching the release of the full Dylan/Band Basement Tapes a while back. Jackie was apparently one of the first to record several of the tunes the Big Pink boys had fun with down in the basement, "The Weight" in particular, and I was intrigued enough to do some research on her musical oeuvre. She has a remarkable recording record, including Buddy Holly-style rockabilly, early '60's girl-group, and so much more. Jackie wrote an amazing number of tunes herself in addition to her cover work, in a way charting a path for a new genre of singer/songwriters to follow, including Carole King (Tapestry), James Taylor, Jackson Browne, and Mary Chapin Carpenter, as just a few examples. Amazing to think how little she is known given her quite remarkable genre-and-gender-busting music-writing-producing, and -covering history which also including dating Elvis, opening for the Beatles on their first US tour, and writing one of the tunes for the first Byrd's album. Huzzah indeed!
Jackie worked and interacted with an amazing cast of characters during the vibrant '60's and '70's and beyond and played a ground-breaking role as a woman singer and writer. Though her recordings and collaborations covered a very broad spectrum of the music scene, for whatever reason her biggest hits were perhaps What the World Needs Now Is Love (Bacharach/David, probably my original touch-point) and Put a Little Love in Your Heart (self-penned). But the list of tunes she has authored or co-authored is truly remarkable.
I also learned that she recorded an album in 1968 entitled Laurel Canyon that was well-received and was likely a significant factor in promoting that venue to the point that it evolved into a primary fascinating petri dish for the folk- and country-rock genres in the late '60's and '70's, eventually alas causing the locale to become something of a tourist mecca.
Having stumbled over that locale quite frequently in my mystery and detective/noir reading for years, in addition to the musical connection, I finally decided some focused non-fiction research and reading on the Canyon was in order. Map work clarified just where this mythical canyon is. While I was born in the LA area (in Compton, actually, a working-class mixed-race neighborhood from what I understand back then, home these days to not a few gangs and several mega-million-dollar sports stars!), I don't feel any real LA kinship as I was one-year-old when we moved to Seattle.
In short, I recently read Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon (McGowan), Hotel California ( Hoskyns), and Laurel Canyon: The Inside Story of Rock-and-Roll's Legendary Neighborhood (Walker).
This has been quite revelatory, especially as Ms. Gumbo and I and our daughter and granddaughter actually had occasion to visit Los Angeles, on the occasion of attending a Thanksgiving wedding that involved both Whittier and wedding site in Laguna Beach. We did not get into Hollywood, never mind Laurel Canyon; merely traversing the metropolitan area a couple times was enough to snuff our road-warrior inclination.
Our visit to the general vicinity last Fall and my prior and subsequent perusing of area maps also had something to do with it, as did repeated invocation of that locale in mysteries, old-noir and new that are a significant component of my reading.
I have never actually visited the Hollywood/Canyon area, unless it was as a babe-in-arms, and knowing my parents, I seriously doubt that ever happened.
There are some pretty amazing backstories to that canyon and vicinity though, admittedly many of them not entirely upbeat or flattering to the hungry performers and sycophants involved.
This was a natal scene for the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Mamas and the Papas, CSN, multiple Zappa incarnations, CSNY, and the Eagles, and many other acts. Among the many big surprises for me were the intense love affair between Graham Nash and Joni Mitchell, the inspiration for the tune "Our House," the remarkable multitude of other promiscuous couplings and recouplings, the seminal role of Mama Cass in matchmaking both musical and sexual, the presence of Frank Zappa, a musical genius with strongly anti-hippy-freewill proclivities, and the at least at-times amazing sense of hippy community to the place. Lots of darkness too, of course, including both the Manson atrocities and the "four on the floor" killings.
Jackie worked and interacted with an amazing cast of characters during the vibrant '60's and '70's and beyond and played a ground-breaking role as a woman singer and writer. Though her recordings and collaborations covered a very broad spectrum of the music scene, for whatever reason her biggest hits were perhaps What the World Needs Now Is Love (Bacharach/David, probably my original touch-point) and Put a Little Love in Your Heart (self-penned). But the list of tunes she has authored or co-authored is truly remarkable.
I also learned that she recorded an album in 1968 entitled Laurel Canyon that was well-received and was likely a significant factor in promoting that venue to the point that it evolved into a primary fascinating petri dish for the folk- and country-rock genres in the late '60's and '70's, eventually alas causing the locale to become something of a tourist mecca.
Having stumbled over that locale quite frequently in my mystery and detective/noir reading for years, in addition to the musical connection, I finally decided some focused non-fiction research and reading on the Canyon was in order. Map work clarified just where this mythical canyon is. While I was born in the LA area (in Compton, actually, a working-class mixed-race neighborhood from what I understand back then, home these days to not a few gangs and several mega-million-dollar sports stars!), I don't feel any real LA kinship as I was one-year-old when we moved to Seattle.
In short, I recently read Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon (McGowan), Hotel California ( Hoskyns), and Laurel Canyon: The Inside Story of Rock-and-Roll's Legendary Neighborhood (Walker).
This has been quite revelatory, especially as Ms. Gumbo and I and our daughter and granddaughter actually had occasion to visit Los Angeles, on the occasion of attending a Thanksgiving wedding that involved both Whittier and wedding site in Laguna Beach. We did not get into Hollywood, never mind Laurel Canyon; merely traversing the metropolitan area a couple times was enough to snuff our road-warrior inclination.
Our visit to the general vicinity last Fall and my prior and subsequent perusing of area maps also had something to do with it, as did repeated invocation of that locale in mysteries, old-noir and new that are a significant component of my reading.
I have never actually visited the Hollywood/Canyon area, unless it was as a babe-in-arms, and knowing my parents, I seriously doubt that ever happened.
There are some pretty amazing backstories to that canyon and vicinity though, admittedly many of them not entirely upbeat or flattering to the hungry performers and sycophants involved.
This was a natal scene for the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Mamas and the Papas, CSN, multiple Zappa incarnations, CSNY, and the Eagles, and many other acts. Among the many big surprises for me were the intense love affair between Graham Nash and Joni Mitchell, the inspiration for the tune "Our House," the remarkable multitude of other promiscuous couplings and recouplings, the seminal role of Mama Cass in matchmaking both musical and sexual, the presence of Frank Zappa, a musical genius with strongly anti-hippy-freewill proclivities, and the at least at-times amazing sense of hippy community to the place. Lots of darkness too, of course, including both the Manson atrocities and the "four on the floor" killings.
posted by Sir Gumbo at 10:03 PM
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