Echo in the Canyon

Guests Expected

Director Andrew Slater and subject Jakob Dylan are expected to attend.

Description

In the summer of 1965, the most popular song in America was the debut single by The Byrds. With their mushroom haircuts, three-part harmonies, and jangly electric 12-string sound, they were to be America’s answer to The Beatles. They weren’t. Instead they invented folk rock and attracted a generation of recording artists to Los Angeles.

Echo in the Canyon is a look back at the influence and the music of those artists (The Byrds, The Mamas & the Papas, Buffalo Springfield, The Beach Boys) from Southern California’s age of innocence (1965 – 1967); the beginnings of Los Angeles’s Laurel Canyon music scene, and how the echo of these artist’s creations reverberated between each other and ultimately across to London (where it alters the course of The Beatles themselves.)

The songs from that era provide an entry point as Jakob Dylan and a new generation of artists whose own body of work reflect the echoes of that pivotal time (Beck, Fiona Apple, Norah Jones, Regina Spektor, Cat Power, and others), interpret and perform the songs paying homage to, and in many cases in front of, its authors.

Dylan journeys to those who wrote the songs and discovers why they were written and what life was like in Laurel Canyon in the years before psychedelia and the birth of the singer/songwriter era. He uncovers never before heard personal details behind the recordings and those who made them popular.

Performing and or speaking are: Tom Petty, Brian Wilson, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Stephen Stills, Roger McGuinn, Michelle Phillips, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Jackson Browne, John Sebastian, and Lou Adler.

Following the screening and Q&A, Jakob Dylan and his band will take to the Castro stage and perform a set of songs from the Laurel Canyon era.

“The reality is that no amount of words can truly give you the experience of this film. Music is the essence here, and you just can’t help but get carried away in the songs. Beyond that, the personalities involved are irresistible, helped of course by a half-century of friendships, love, backstabbing, affairs, and intrigue. Then when you layer on the modern artists and their takes, you just get something we’ve never really seen before.” – Andy Howell, Film Threat

Director Andrew Slater

Andrew Slater began his career in the music industry as a critic before turning to talent management, record producing, and serving as CEO of Capitol Records. He makes his directing debut with Echo in the Canyon. Says Slater of the film, “It’s how The Byrds were listening to The Beatles, and The Beatles were listening to The Beach Boys, and The Beach Boys were listening to The Beatles and how all that cross-pollination happened to create this music that resonates across the world and across time. Jakob [Dylan]’s on a journey, speaking to artists about recording those songs to find out why they wrote them and, in the course of it, he finds out all these personal details behind the songs.”

Trailer

Film Details