Fret not.
Escape to a time pre Covid 19 is at hand.
ECHO IN THE CANYON documents the mid-60s phenom that grew out of Los Angeles’ Laurel Canyon as folk went electric and gave birth to the California sound, creating a global echo and resonance.
Director, Andrew Slater follows musicians Jakob Dylan, Beck, Cat Power, Regina Spektor, and Jade Castrinos on a magical history tour of the music that runs through the canyons of our collective consciousnesses, the stuff that gives credence to the cliché, soundtrack to our lives.
Using a range of archival footage and current interviews with the world’s top artists including Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Graham Nash, Stephen Stills and Michelle Phillips, director Andrew Slater and Jakob Dylan chronicle the era and music that shaped the second half of the 20th Century.
Tom Petty, to whom the film is dedicated, kicks off the film with a funny rant about Rickenback guitars, and he pops up intermittently to give his opinion and recollections.
One of the fascinating narrative threads of the film is the sampling of the 1969 Jacques Demy film, Model Shop, starring Gary Lockwood and Anouk Aimee, which was shot in Laurel Canyon. It’s a tantalising choice, eccentric, enigmatic and esoteric.
But the main focus of ECHO IN THE CANYON is the music, the explosion of music and lyrics and arrangements and engineering that came with resounding momentum of the canyon – The Byrds, the Mamas & The Papas, Buffalo Springfield, The Beach Boys – to name but a few.
Of course, influences were coming from far and wide, traditional American folk and from across the pond. The Beatles were a big influence and in turn were influenced. Rubber Soul influenced Pet Sounds which influenced Sgt Peppers. A merry musical go round, indeed.
Anecdotes, antics and acoustics, ECHO IN THE CANYON is an unmissable film for any music fan, a nostalgia zone fondling experience of a place and a time that produced a confluence of talent that resulted in timeless tunes that stand up in their original forms and in the covers presented in the film.
