California Dreaming: The LA Pop Music Scene and the 60s

There are so many books that go over the same ground of the 60s in LA, Laurel Canyon, the wrecking crew, Neil meets Stephen in Hearst on Sunset, and so forth - and given the comprehensive, annotated, fact-checked work by biographers and historians like Johnny Rogan (whose Byrds, vols. 1 and 2 are exhaustively detailed beyond any journalistic or scholarly requirements) so I approached this new work by William Hickey with caution. Hickey has a different take on the era and the music. He identifies key songs - often ideosyncratic choices from obscure groups and albums (groups like the Millennium, Fraternity of Man, and lesser known works by Love, Zappa, Dr. John, Nilson, Byrds), oddball hits (Pleasant Valley Sunday, Windy, Drag City, Creque Alley), and pivotal pieces that often get lost in the shuffle (Willin', Siren's Song, Ladies of the Canyon, Dolphin's Song) . What's different here is that each essay includes the usual public domain info (e.g., who dislikes whom, who was inebriated and replaced by the Wrecking Crew, who threatened whom with guns and lawsuits) - but also includes detailed review of the session players/union lists, which yields some new information on who actually played on these. He also digs up some new unpublished information about song content (about the three women portrayed in Ladies of the Canyon, and where their lives led now), some interesting portraits of key creative and influential artists who were lost from history (the brilliant songwriter Ruthann Friedman - surprising how much of this seemed to pivot around Hollywood High School - and producers and musicians Curt Boettcher, Gary Usher). As someone who grew up in LA in the period, hung out and heard a lot of this music, knew and heard about friends of friends, etc., these stories were, for once, done accurately and respectfully, some concern for both fidelity to the truth while acknowledging which artists and sources might have been less than reliable. Also - far better than the usual tabloid drug and groupies stuff - Hickey also directly acknowledges who and which of these artists were unreconstructed chauvinists, misogynists and crims - offers synoptic critical views on the sexism and racism of the period - and doesn't either disguise or obsessively dwell upon the matter. But then there's the icing on the cake: Hickey's analysis and discussion of lyrics is sharp and incisive, not unnecessarily literary (no more English profs on Dylan please), and his explication of song structure is accurate, astute and quite accessible to the non-musician reader. His analysis, for instance, of the bass doo-wop vocal melody (by, variously Mike Love, Bruce Johnston and Jan Berry) and it's relationship to Brian Wilson's comping left hand keyboard playing is insightful. His breakdown of Wilson's unusual use of tag line/hook openings (Hey Little Cobra, Shut Down), followed by unusual verse/chorus structures. His description of Jimmy Webb and Wilson's usual chord and song structures, and his breakdown of Dr. John's weird and brilliant approach to composition are great. Throughout he highlights individual moments of brilliant musicianship that are largely unheralded or have gone unnoticed (Ry Cooder's slide lead on the demo of Willin', Peter Tork's piano break on Pleasant Valley Sunday, Snoopy Philster's harpsichord and Jai Canterelli's flute on 'She Comes in Colors', Larry Ramos' doubled vocal and guitar on 'Windy'), and the work of some of the session players who weren't acknowledged parts of the vaunted Wrecking Crew but turn up everywhere: Jim Gordon, Larry Taylor, Jim Fielder, and the whole Mothers ensemble. As a musician, I actually will go back and rethink some of these approaches to songwriting and production now, and I'm going back to listen to some obscure cuts that I missed having. As a reader and fan - thanks to Hickey for his life's work - it is well written, accessible, never boring and truly idiosyncratic. My only lament, as a regular at a lot of these clubs from 1966-1970 - that he didn't include the David Lindley/Chris Darrow Kalidoscope mob, who with the various incarnations of the Dirt Band were easily as influential as Love, Stone Ponies and Buckley in early LA folk rock. The book concludes with a reprise of bioblurbs and, sadly and predictably, the majority of these artists died way before their time. Thank you for this extraordinary work - these self described 'essays' stand with some of the very best rock journalism from 60s and 70s era Rolling Stone, Cream and others. Hickey never takes his eye of the main game: the songs.

This is a low budget self published book that should have had an editor. It is a series of 3 - 4 page "chapters" with no coherence. It is not an overview of the LA pop music scene of the 60s, as described, but a narrow look at a handful of bands, probably the author's favorite bands. Many important bands of the time are ignored. There is scant mention of the live LA music scene and no information on the record companies and radio stations that were crucial to molding the music scene. There are many blank pages but zero photographs. A much better book about the subject is Riot on Sunset Strip by Domenic Priore.

I'm a big Beach Boys fan, and have been so since 1964 -- yeah, I'm OLD. But some of the groups author Andrew Hickey chooses to write about are barely blips on the overall 60's California landscape's radar screen. I have an extensive BB library, so am not missing much by having him only moderately cover them. And he DID treat them with admiration and respect.I think, for me, a better book was "Everybody HAD An Ocean" by William McKeen. Less of a trivia-pursuit, "bet you've never heard of THIS rare group" approach. McKeen's viewpoint is "Hey, there were ALL these great groups in one place at this point in time, and there was a LOT of 'cross-pollination' that went on that you might not know about."

Really good read. There are similar books on this subject, but I was pleasantly surprised at the somewhat deeper cuts the author uses to showcase this very special place and time of pop music creation. Through each of the song chapters, we are introduced to the artists (and others) who wrote, played, sang and produced the tracks, and the mini-stories of how the tracks came to fruition. Many of these are not huge hits, and although all of the recording artists are well known, I thought the lesser known song stories around them were interesting and illustrative. Lots of stories of style and song plagiarism, that almost couldn't be helped because of how the artists wrote and worked with one another, especially in the early days. The common threads through these tunes (beyond the Wrecking Crew, who are huge facilitators and common to the majority of the recordings), are expertly revealed and provide clarity around the unity of the times and place. Nice job, Mr. Hickey.

The writer focuses quite a bit on sessions details and provides a lot of information on who played in the sessions, who quit the bands and why, and who replaced the players, including fill-ins. Included in all of that he chooses to reflect on the details of how certain songs were written and the strife between individuals that led to breakups. As a result, the writer's style tends to drone on in several places, making the book a difficult read, at times.I love history and have read a number of books covering the music scene around the world, but this was too detailed to keep me wanting to read more. For instance, he goes into detail about the chords used and the singing style on select songs, particularly by the Beach Boys. Some of it was interesting and sometimes he went on about it ad nauseam. So, unless that appeals to you, you will end up skipping through parts trying to find a storyline that keeps your interest. Basically, buyer beware. If you're hoping for a nice light read, this is not the book for you.

Fun session facts about the young and sort of innocent days. Being from the colony I was never among the Brit crit crew so the vast significance of Van Vliet and Zappa and the Turtles is lost on me but it's still a fun read. Author is clearly no fan of the Doors who were big sellers. He is quite the Monkees fan and the Monkees were bigger sellers. Funniest of a number of funny judgments is some Monkees album being as consistent as "Revolver" or "Pet Sounds." Of course there are Van Dyke Parks and Randy Newman but usually I'd expect to run into Lee Hazlewood and he is missing. There is a fine exposition on Arthur Lee if anybody remembers him.

The author defines his project slightly oddly. Although the book is called "California Dreaming", it only covers the scene in LA. He also uses a somewhat quirky version of "Pop". Somehow it includes Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, Love and Lowell George, but not, say, the Doors. I suppose the latter qualify for a subsequent book on "Rock", while the the other four are unclassifiable, so might as well go down as Pop.The book ends sharp on 31 December 1969, which means that CSN&Y, Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, etc. do feature, but only in truncated form. The hard cut-off at the decade's end severely limits the book's usefulness.What is does cover in detail are the surfin' and drivin' songs of the Beach Boys and others, plus the rather strange, to British ears, phenomenon of harmonised voice groups like the Association and Sagittarius. Also well covered are the multi-talented performers who were looking for careers in strictly Pop, among who are Van Dyke Parks, Randy Newman, Harry Nilsson and Glen Campbell.Being a history of Pop, the focus is on singles and not albums, and the book is divided into four page segments, each devoted to one single A-side. Singles bands like the Beach boys, the Monkees and the Mamas & Papas are therefore well covered. But this too is a limiting factor on the book.The book ends with an Appendix that gives a full list of the contributors to each recording, but, irritatingly, doesn't give the dates of the recordings.The book can be read from cover to cover, as I did, or used as a reference for each particular song. Reading it from end to end brings out certain themes. Firstly the degree of cross-fertilisation between the performers is very noticeable. Many performers worked on other performers' songs and even, in one case, deliberately impersonated another performer. It is surprising just how many of the people mentioned passed through Frank Zappa's studio or the multiple manifestations of the Mothers of Invention.The other theme brought out is just how dependent everyone was on the so called Wrecking Crew of sessions musicians. It was not just the Monkees who resorted to them, but the Beach Boys, the Byrds and many others. The author seems to bend over backwards not to name the individual members of wrecking Crew in the main text, although it is possible to find their names in the detailed appendix of contributors.Overall the focus is on the songs and the writers and performers of these songs. The author makes no attempt at social history, either of the performers themselves and their relationship to the music biz or of the consumers of this music in LA, in California, in the rest of the USA and ultimately across the world.Within its own deliberately set limitations, this is an very good book. It is packed with facts and, with Andrew Hickey, you feel in safe hands, in that these facts have all been properly cross-checked. But the cut-off just when things were getting interesting, the focus on A-side singles, the exclusion of anything deemed "Rock" and the avoidance of wider social issues mean that this is probably only one of the books you need to read on the subject, but it is an excellent place to start.

I love this book and would recommend it heartily to any fan of classic 60”s US pop and rock music. It is written with wit and care by someone who obviously knows their music and has been meticulously researched.I particularly love the way the story is drawn together in the “Rock Family Tree” style with surprising links and continuity between sometimes disparate threads of music.Well written, entertaining and extremely informative - this book is an absolute bargain!

Great fun reading about forgotten songs and listening to them at the same time on your music provider. Very informative too

Great look at the music hotbed of the 60s and 70s.

Fascinating trip through the Sixties L.A. music scene. A surprising amount of crossover between groups. The Monkees and the Mothers? Who knew?