Legends of the Canyon (2013)

I waited months for this to finally be release. I received today & went right in my DVD player. I found this video fresh, & loved hearing stories being told first hand, by the musicans, fans & supporting cast. These historic bands made West Coast 60's 70's rock legendary. We already know the on-going effect they have on popular music, even today.

The beauty here is Henry Diltz knew these performers before they were stars, before they lost some of their shine. He was able to share stories & pictures that only an insider's would have had access. Sit back and enjoy the stories, some we already knew & some brand new to me, a music lover of 35 years. At times Henry sounds much like a proud grandparent, speaking about his grandkids, but I'd bought into his subjects long before this DVD arrived.

I found this by accident while browsing on Amazon. I just finished watching it and thoroughly enjoyed it. A warning to potential viewers the focus is heavy on Crosby, Stills and Nash and their various incarnations/relationships. There are others mentioned and included but CSN is the focus. It is not even across the all the "legends". As I am a huge CSN/Y fan, this was fine with me but I put it as a heads up to others.

I have read and viewed a great deal about these bands but still found that this included some new materials. Some of the interviews seem quite recent.

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At first,I thought this was going to be a boring documentary,rehashing old stories based on half-truths.This is an excellent documentary on the short-lived,yet lively musical flower-power explosion of the late 1960's.As the New York folkie bands headed west-ward,they settled into the artistic enclave of Laurel Canyon.Mama Cass was said to be the den mother of the psychedalic pride.Others have said she was the Gertrude Stein of that intense Lost Generation of ecletic musical artists.Many of the stories are well known,yet this video documentary expounds upon the legendery tales.Lots of great footage from Henry Diltz's collection,seldom scene.I have always thought Henry was the paragon of pacific coast photographers ,during that '60s zeitgeist.He was in fact, a real folkie himself,who bought a camera by happenstance one day.As a painter paints on a canvas,or a weaver looms a tapestry; Henry captured amazing images of the people and their environs.The Dvd is almost two-hours,and many extra specials added.I felt the dvd ends too quickly,for such an amazing video montage tribute to those SoCal bands.One thing is made clear,by Henry Diltz,two bizarre things were happening that hazy summer of 1969.One,wide-spread use of cocaine around and secondly whatever petals left on the flower-power stalks,were gleaned and reaped by Manson and his brethern.And one thing is for certain,the music lives on.Eventhough the various forces of vain egos and dope abuse,eventually caused seperations and divisions among themselves.Their music mirrors the thoughts and feelings of that brief era of questioning social norms.

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My wife, who is younger than I am and a music fan like I am, sometimes refers to me as a hippie. She says this to exaggerate our age differences, and to point out that we are from different generations, as if we were decades apart (As a point of fact, she was born six years, nine months and seven days after me, but who's counting?). In a sense, I can understand her point, because a lot happened in those six-plus years. For example, I can remember Beatlemania, but she wasn't born until after "Help!" was released. Although I was much too young to be a hippie, I identified with the youth movement, especially the music, while her point of reference usually dates back no further than the Clash. I may have only been seven years old during the `Summer of Love', but that didn't stop me from buying love beads and bell-bottom jeans (My Dad made me return the love beads). That is why I anticipated watching "The Legends of Laurel Canyon," while she remained skeptical.

As it turns out, I am very happy to report that she enjoyed this documentary as much as I did. For me, it reaffirmed my love for what I already knew, but for her, it was revelatory. The story begins with theories regarding how the circumstances surrounding the Kennedy assassination led the youth of the time to become skeptical of the older generation, and provided the impetus for Beatlemania as a means of rejecting the status quo. By leading us through Dylan's influence on folk music, it follows Stephen Stills and a few other key players as they settle in Laurel Canyon and form bands that emulated both the Beatles and Dylan. The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield were first, and a scene developed around clubs like the Whiskey a Go-Go and the Troubadour. Along the way, we meet the Mamas and the Papas, Joni Mitchell and others, and through their collective work, we discover a generation defined by its pursuit of intelligence, self-awareness, curiosity and sensuality.

Before I go too much further, I should point out that this documentary could be subtitled "Stephen Stills and his Influence on the California Culture of the Sixties." Stills is by far the primary focus of this story, and it is his music that provides much of the soundtrack. The footage covering the birth of Crosby, Stills and Nash is revelatory and beautiful, covering details that I had not previously known. It also allows the story to move smoothly from the highs of Woodstock, to the subsequent lows of the Manson murders and the Kent Sate shootings.

Back then, there was a phrase about never trusting anyone over thirty. Now that I'm 51, I have a different perspective on that axiom. I still identify strongly with this music, as if it were frozen in amber while I continued to age. In a sense, that is true, and happily, I believe the same is now true for my wife. Maybe I've become entirely too old, but I'd prefer to think that our time has come, and this music lives on in the spirit of all the people who experienced it firsthand when it happened, as well as those who are just now discovering its essence. As I reread this paragraph, I recognize that I need to confess to something after all: OK, so I'm a hippie.

A Tom Ryan

Want Legends of the Canyon (2013) Discount?

Well made & well-intentioned documentary is about 2/3rd Crosby Stills & Nash and the rest all the other artists featured on the cover. The DVD cover art tips one off that the film is an overview of the Laurel Canyon music scene of the 1970's. The DVD's Main Menu states "Crosby, Stills & Nash IN Legends of the Canyon" and the film's Opening Credits read "Legends of the Canyon Origins of West Coast Rock". Its like the producers of this DVD cannot make up their mind what this film is really about. Film is disjointed & ends very abruptly. Very little of Joni Mitchell or Neil Young. nothing about America (although Gerry Buckley gives an opinion on other artists). What about Frank Zappa, Jackson Browne, Jimmy Webb, The Monkees, Tim Buckley, and on & on. Fans of CS&N will enjoy, other folks wishing for a better view of LC scene, stick w/Henry Diltz's companion book "Canyon Of Dreams".

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