Original subtitles

- For four years,

American boys have been fighting and dying in Vietnam.

For 12 months, our negotiators have been...

["Take It Easy" playing]

♪

- ♪ Well I'm a-runnin' down the road ♪

♪ Trying to loosen my load

♪ I got seven women on my mind ♪

♪ Four that want to own me, two that want to stone me ♪

♪ One said she's a friend of mine ♪

♪ Take it easy

♪ Take it easy

♪ Don't let the sound of your own wheels ♪

♪ Drive you crazy

♪ Lighten up while you still can ♪

♪ Don't even try to understand ♪

♪ Just find a place to make your stand ♪

♪ Take it easy

♪

- ♪ Take it easy

♪ Take it easy

♪ Don't let the sound of your own wheels ♪

♪ Drive you crazy

♪ Come on, baby

♪ Don't say maybe

♪ I got to know if your sweet love ♪

♪ Is gonna save me

♪

- I'm Jim Ladd, and you have the good taste,

the grace, and the luck

to be listening to 95.5 KLOS.

Good for you, man.

I worked at a radio station in LA.

I had hair down to the middle of my back.

Here we are in our early 20s,

the entire social order of the country

was in upheaval.

["The Star-Spangled Banner" playing on electric guitar]

♪

But then something very special happened.

- That's one small step for man,

one giant leap for mankind.

Houston...

- That day in front of a black-and-white TV set,

it reached into me,

this young hippie radical,

just as it reached into everybody

that was alive...

- There you go. - Yeah.

- Beautiful.

- That's what humanity coming together looks like.

And that's what would start it in a smaller way.

- The great rock festival is now history.

The last of the nearly half million young people

have now departed.

- And while the music is over, the aftertaste lingers on.

- Woodstock was the event

that drew our generation together

and put a face and numbers to it.

- ...virtually a city.

- The fact that you would pull that many people together,

and it would be peaceful...

- ...a place of no violence.

- ...it made a big impression

on those in a society that hated us.

And let's remember, there were those that hated us.

They didn't like hippies.

- Hippie eventually was a name

that people didn't want to be called

because it was a way of packaging them up

and dismissing them.

But hippie was, like, a young person,

just burgeoning or just opening,

just blossoming.

Somebody who's getting hip.

I mean, it was a way of living your life out in the open.

Being a freak and being unapologetic

about who you were.

It was going on in Woodstock

and immediately was echoed in Laurel Canyon.

[piano music]

♪

- Joni Mitchell, she didn't come out to Woodstock,

but she wrote the song about it

from what she gleaned from other people.

And yet, to her credit,

it was the song.

- ♪ By the time we got to Woodstock ♪

♪ We were half a million strong ♪

♪ And everywhere

♪ There was song

♪ And celebration

♪ And I dreamed I saw the bombers ♪

♪ Riding shotgun in the sky ♪

♪ And they were turning into butterflies ♪

♪ Above our nation

♪ Ooh

I was just trying to understand myself and my world.

I used the writing process

as a method of understanding,

getting closer and closer to the essence.

♪ Ooh

My 20s were full of intense painful self-discovery.

Some truths that I discovered along the way,

wherever I could take it from my own personal travail

to the universal.

Anything good that helped me,

I would try to slot into the song

to give it some nutrition,

so it would transcend self-pity.

♪ Ooh

- I was always very cautious

about giving Joan enough room to write.

There was no schedule.

It was just me trying to recognize

when Joni was going into that void,

when I say something and she wasn't listening.

And she wrote many, many, many songs

while we were together.

She wrote half of "Blue," "Ladies of the Canyon."

It was a shitty morning.

Late winter, chilly,

rainy, miserable, foggy.

I'd taken Joni to breakfast

at Art's Deli on Ventura Boulevard,

quite close to Laurel Canyon.

We were walking after breakfast,

and we passed an antique store,

and we're looking in the window.

Joan saw this small vase that she wanted to buy.

It was about eight or nine inches high.

Some hand-painted flowers around one edge.

So she bought it.

We drive to her house, go through the front door,

and I said, "Hey, Joan,

"why don't I light a fire

"and you put some flowers in that vase

that you bought today?"

[chuckles] It's that simple.

Joni went out to find some winter flowers

to put in this vase that she just bought.

That means she wasn't at her piano,

but that means that I was.

- ♪ I'll light the fire

♪ You place the flowers in the vase ♪

♪ That you bought today

- ♪ Staring at the fire

♪ For hours and hours

♪ While I listen to you

♪ Play your love songs

♪ All night long

♪ For me

- People would say when me and Joan walked into a room,

it lit up the room.

We brought out the best in each other.

- ♪ Come to me now

♪ To rest your head for just... ♪

- In the Laurel Canyon scene,

we were at the very center

of this beautiful bubble of creativity

and friendship and sunshine

and sex and drugs and music.

- ♪ Our house

♪ Is a very, very, very fine house ♪

♪ With two cats in the yard

♪ Life used to be so hard

♪ Now everything is easy

♪ 'Cause of you

- Joan, I don't think ever has really had

another relationship like Graham.

Graham was as close as it ever came to her

actually loving somebody on an ongoing basis.

She probably nearly stuck with him forever.

And I don't think she ever even considered it

with any of the rest of us.

- It was a telegram, and it only said,

"If you hold sand too tightly in your hand,

it will run through your fingers."

And that was a shame,

but that's the way things are.

[birds chirping]

- ♪ Boys and girls

♪ Have a good time together

all: ♪ Be my friend

♪ Or be my lover

♪ Girls

- That's the way we've been doing it.

We changed it. This time we sing--

- Yeah, but the rhythm has changed, Cass.

- Mamas & Papas--

we were only together for two and a half years.

Then that all changed.

- Being successful, we've all developed

our own ways of life here in Los Angeles,

and we don't affect one another

as creatively as we did

when we were all dependent upon one another,

emotionally and whatnot.

- After a while, you don't want to see

those same three people

day in and day out all of your life.

It starts to wear on you.

We decided that

we didn't want to continue working together.

Everybody had ambitions to do other things.

Cass wanted to be a soloist more than anything.

She saw herself as a hip Barbra Streisand.

- The music that my mom chose for herself

that she did as a solo artist,

she felt passionately about

really positive subject matter.

My mom was loving and warm

and inviting, big hugs.

She loved to be around her friends.

She loved to have a full house,

and people would make music.

Gram called her The Queen of the Canyon.

- In Laurel Canyon, her house was, like,

at the center of everything.

Open 24 hours a day.

A very wide circle of friends.

But John and I left Laurel Canyon,

moved to Bel Air.

Three Rolls-Royces in the garage.

We were hippies, but we were rich hippies.

There was no question about that.

We'd been so innovative.

But we had become the establishment.

[laughs]

[dramatic music]

♪

- I was continuing The Byrds as a franchise.

Kind of like Coca-Cola or something.

David Crosby showed up at my house and said,

"You know, some of the songs you guys are doing are okay,

but some of them aren't."

And I had to agree with him.

There was a mediocre element in what The Byrds had become.

We'd gone out on the road as a three-piece band.

It just wasn't good, wasn't happening.

We were looking for somebody to fill in for David

because there was no rhythm player.

Chris Hillman met Gram Parsons

and invited him over to our rehearsals.

Gram came in and played a little country music.

I thought, "The guy's got talent.

We can work with him."

I didn't know it, but he was about to morph

into George Jones in a rhinestone suit.

[country music]

♪

- I convinced The Byrds

that they should be doing country music

instead of trying to write their own Bob Dylan material.

Chris had been trying to say something like that all along

but wasn't sure The Byrds would be out of a job.

- Gram Parsons came along,

and he really understood the real music.

All this wonderful stuff out of California

along with the Nashville '50s and '60s country music.

- Gram Parsons' love of country music was infectious.

He loved it so much that he sold us on it.

I went to Nudie's, a rodeo tailor,

and got some cowboy clothes.

And we recorded an entire county album,

the "Sweetheart of the Rodeo."

It was the first time a commercially successful

rock band had done country music.

Other people had dabbled in it.

- We all had trouble getting anybody to believe

that you could make good country music.

- Gram was a nice guy. He was a lot of fun.

We'd drink beer and play pool, and he's like a good old boy.

It was a good time.

He got to know The Rolling Stones.

He and Keith Richards became really tight.

And he always wanted to hang out with Keith.

- He was around for six months.

He left The Byrds. And I got a little antsy then.

I wanted to do something else, as David had the year before.

So I left The Byrds, and Gram and I started

The Flying Burrito Brothers in 1969.

[country rock music]

♪

- ♪ You may be

♪ Sweet and nice

♪ But that you won't keep you warm at night ♪

♪ 'Cause I'm the one

♪ Who showed you how

♪ To do the things

♪ You're doing now

♪ He may feel

♪ All your charms

- We want to do this young, hip country band

and base it around a Bakersfield-type sound

with a little R&B.

Now, this is where Gram taught me a lot of music.

- ♪ At the dark end

♪ Of the street

- I thought I was pretty well up

on most of my R&B and blues,

but he started picking up these records

and turning me on to people I've never heard of.

- ♪ Where we don't belong

- ♪ Living in darkness to hide our wrong ♪

♪ You and me

♪ At the dark end

♪ Of the street

♪ You and me

♪ I know that time's gonna take its toll ♪

- This is now 1969.

I'd been in two groups already in LA.

And The Flying Burrito Brothers were on the same label,

so we would see each other on the A&M studio lot,

and they invited me to join, to play guitar.

And I happily did that because I thought that

The Burritos could do something.

- ♪ You and me

♪ At the dark end

♪ Of the street

♪ You and me

♪

- Back then I would go on tour,

and I would leave the door open

'cause our friends would come in

and stay there.

They cleaned the house and stocked the refrigerator.

I'd leave money in the drawer.

There was no thievery or anything.

We came back from touring once,

and there's Bobby Beausoleil

sitting on my floor playing a guitar.

And I'm glad to see him.

Bobby Beausoleil was in the Grass Roots,

which was our group just before we became Love.

He was just the sweetest kid.

We sit down and chat.

And I noticed the door to my bedroom is closed.

So I said, "Is there somebody in there?"

He said, "Yeah. My girlfriend, Sadie.

She's asleep."

A few minutes later, this thing comes out of my bedroom.

This horrible cadaverous-looking thing

that smelled awful.

She had been in my bed.

Now I'm upset.

And I said, "Man, who the hell is this?"

And he said, "Oh, this is Sadie.

"She's with me.

"We lived together at the Spahn Ranch.

"These people are friends.

And they have this utopian lifestyle."

So he starts telling me, and he's romanticizing it,

and I said, "Cool. That sounds good.

Maybe one day I'll come up and visit you guys."

And he says, "I don't think that's good.

Charlie, you know, is kind of racist."

I said, "So why are you hanging out with a bigot?"

And he says, "Well, I better go

"because Charlie is gonna be upset

if he knows that I came by to visit you."

Well, I said, "Dude, if this guy is gonna be upset

"that you came by and visited somebody

"that you've known for years,

maybe you ought to get away from him."

He kind of laughed.

- They call themselves The Family.

Young girls supposedly under the spell

of a bearded Svengali.

The mystical hippie clan despise

the straight affluent society.

[rain falling]

[thunder rumbles]

[The Doors' "Riders on the Storm"]

- Friday night in Los Angeles, a movie actress

and four of her friends were murdered.

And the circumstances were lurid.

- This was at the home of movie director

Roman Polanski.

And it was his wife, Sharon Tate,

who was one of the victims.

- Do you have any kind of an idea

who might have done it?

Do you have any kind of APBs out?

Any suspects at all? - No.

♪

- The first two suspects

after the murders at the Sharon Tate house

were these two guys I knew.

In the paper, the police were looking for them.

They went and turned themselves in immediately

and said, "Wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa."

It was frightening in LA then.

- A short time later, not far away,

a middle-aged couple was found murdered

in similar circumstances.

- Leno LaBianca, a supermarket owner,

and his wife have both been stabbed to death.

Hoods have been placed over the heads of both victims.

- ♪ There's a killer on the road ♪

♪ His brain is squirming like a toad ♪

♪

- We were in this beautiful bubble,

and those murderers put a pin

right in that bubble, and it exploded.

♪

Eight people butchered in the night.

It was too close, too real.

- It's a quarter mile from my house.

I went out and bought a shotgun...

my only gun until then.

- Prior to Manson,

in Laurel Canyon if I saw a hitchhiker,

I would always stop and say, "Hey, man, get in the car.

Sure, I'll take you up the Canyon."

But then after the murders,

you had to stop and think, "Well, wait a minute,

he looks like a cool guy, but how do I know

"he's not gonna reach around and slit my throat

while we're driving up the Canyon? "

I mean, I actually have those thoughts, you know?

- I had been to that house

several times with David Crosby,

'cause just before Sharon Tate lived there,

Terry Melcher, who had produced The Byrds,

lived at that house,

and everybody was familiar with the house.

He'd have parties occasionally.

- Terry Melcher subleased that house

to Roman and Sharon.

- So people thought the target could be Melcher.

- I answered the front doorbell.

There were two detectives.

"Do you know anybody who would want to kill you?"

And I said, "Well, no."

He said, "Well, did you ever

meet a fellow named Charles Manson?"

I said, "Charles Manson?

"The guy who plays a guitar

and all the girls sing in the background?"

[dark music]

♪

- Manson was one of many disgruntled young people

who tried to get his music recorded,

and he happened to be a crazy guy

who took a lot of drugs and had a following.

♪

- Two of the girls who worked on that scene

who were there, I went to high school with.

The Manson murders were close to everybody.

- We found out later that Bobby Beausoleil,

he had killed somebody.

Nobody could imagine that he would be involved in that.

♪

- Suddenly hippies were not harmless anymore.

Hippies became dangerous.

When Manson happened,

all of a sudden, every hippie was looked at

as possibly psycho killer.

Who knows what drugs have done to these kids.

[dramatic music]

♪

- ♪ Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo ♪

- Because of Gram Parsons' friendship with The Stones,

The Burritos were invited to play at this huge concert--

The Stones answer to Woodstock.

All these young people were coming

from all over the country to go to this free thing.

- Our day started out bad.

It was cold...

way out in that Altamont Raceway.

- We played it because Garcia had called Crosby

and said, "You want to join The Grateful Dead?

We're gonna do this thing down at the Raceway here?"

We said, "Sounds like a good idea.

We'll go."

- I was against Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

being on the bill.

I said, "I don't think you should go.

If you want to go against me, I'm not going."

The Hells Angels were gonna be doing all the security.

And people applauded like that was a cool thing.

The Rolling Stones had no clue.

They didn't live in California.

They were visitors.

They romanticized the Angels.

They were tattooed and rode bikes

and were outlaws.

The Rolling Stones didn't know what came with that reputation

and how it was built.

That was the only Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young show

I ever missed.

- Red Cross truck.

- Excuse me. Which way is the stage?

- I'm wading through the crowd.

Good Lord, the Hells Angels were just crazy.

They were like Vikings, ready to raid the monastery.

- We're partying like you.

Hey!

- CSNY's coming offstage,

and David says, "Be careful. Pay attention.

I'm getting out of here." I said, "Really?"

He says, "It's not a good deal."

The Burritos, to our credit,

got up and calmed everybody down.

It's a different kind of music.

- ♪ Well, I pulled out of Pittsburgh ♪

♪ Rollin' down the Eastern Seaboard ♪

♪ Got my diesel wound up

♪ And she's a-runnin' like never before ♪

♪ There's a speed trap ahead, all right ♪

♪ But I don't see cop in sight ♪

♪ Six days on the road

♪ And I'm gonna make it home tonight ♪

♪ Six days on the road

♪ And I'm gonna make it home tonight ♪

- But I could feel it, the tension, the darkness.

Something wasn't right.

Before that last note on the bass stopped ringing,

I unplugged, put that thing in the case,

and I got out of there.

[crowd chatter]

- You can call them people flower children

and this and that.

Some of them people was loaded on some drugs

that it's just too bad we wasn't loaded on

because they come running off the hill yelling, "Aah."

But when they jumped on an Angel, they got hurt.

- This is Stefan Ponek, KSAN Radio, San Francisco.

- You know what? They got got.

- Someone was stabbed to death in front of the stage

by a member of the Hells Angels.

Nothing is confirmed on that...

- In the end, it was the antithesis of Woodstock.

People got run over.

Four people died.

- That was the end of the '60s.

The assassinations, Vietnam,

it had finally come full circle into this dark, dark abyss.

♪

- The President of the United States

has just announced that a new attack into Cambodia

was launched this evening

by United States Armed Force.

- Kent State University in Ohio

has had campus violence for three nights.

The students were protesting

the American invasion of Cambodia.

The National Guard was called in.

[gunshots]

[crowd chatter]

- The guardsmen have fired 61 shots.

Four students,

two of them bystanders, are dead.

- Kent State and more than 400 other institutions

go on strike.

The President says Americans face a crisis

that could threatened the very survival of the nation.

[Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's "Ohio"]

♪

- Neil saw the news about the girl laying there.

Her friend bending over her.

♪

That night, he wrote the song.

The next night, they recorded it.

- ♪ Tin soldiers, and Nixon coming ♪

♪ We're finally on our own

♪ This summer I hear the drumming ♪

♪ Four dead in Ohio

- I drove the record over to B. Mitchel Reed,

the big DJ on FM radio in Los Angeles.

And he played it that night.

♪

Neil was so moved, he couldn't help himself.

And the rest of the guys were right there.

- ♪ And found her dead on the ground ♪

♪ How can you run when you know? ♪

♪

- Our job is to take you on little emotional voyages.

Make you boogie sometimes.

Make you sad sometimes.

Happy sometimes.

Every once in a while, it's our job to be a witness.

If your country starts shooting its own children

while they're protesting,

exercising their constitutional right,

unarmed and on their own college campus...

- ♪ Soldiers are cutting us down ♪

- That would be one of those times

when you have to be a witness.

And we were.

- There was a very large shift.

People were up in arms about the Vietnam War.

They didn't like Nixon, Kent State, killing our kids

because they have the God-given right

to protest what their government

was doing in their name.

It shifted tremendously.

♪

- When I was in college, there was no separation

between the issues of the day and the music

that galvanized souls and brought people

to not just march, but to change their minds.

And singing songs about peace and love,

it sounds corny, but that's what needed

to happen in a war-torn era.

["Find the Cost of Freedom" playing]

- The only outlets that we had for information

were the press, television, radio,

and concerts.

Musicians felt that they could get the word

out of a different opinion.

♪

- ♪ Find the cost of freedom

♪ Buried in the ground

♪ Mother Earth...

- The Southern California sound

was gentle yet rocking.

- ♪ Lay your body...

- It was acoustic yet electrified.

["Peace Frog" playing]

- And then there was The Doors.

The Doors gave us

the Southern California sound after dark.

- ♪ Blood in the streets in the town of New Haven ♪

♪ Blood stains the roofs and the palm trees of Venice ♪

♪ Blood in my love in the terrible summer ♪

♪ Bloody red sun of fantastic LA ♪

The music can't help but reflecting things

that are happening around you.

The mood I get for most of it

is kind of a heavy, gloomy feeling.

♪ Blood is the rose of mysterious union ♪

I like to do a song or a piece of music

that's just a pure expression of joy.

["Love Street" playing]

- "Love Street," that's one where I had the music,

and he just came up with those words.

- ♪ She lives on Love Street ♪

- His girlfriend, Pam, had just moved

into that place up above the country store there.

- ♪ She has a house and garden ♪

- She has a house and garden.

I would like to see what happens.

- ♪ I would like to see what happens ♪

- There's this store where the creatures meet.

That is the Canyon Country Store.

The heart of Laurel Canyon.

- ♪ I see you live on Love Street ♪

♪ There's this store where the creatures meet ♪

♪ I wonder what they do in there ♪

♪ Summer Sunday

- The first time I saw Laurel Canyon,

there was a full-scale hippie infestation

taking place at the Canyon Store.

It was exciting to see that many people,

that profusion of different styles of freakdom.

I would come into Hollywood, and Laurel Canyon

every chance I got after that.

♪

Laurel Canyon was a place that gave you the permission

to ask who you were, to find out

what this life held for you, and not be scrambling

for some regimented job in a regimented society.

- ♪ I would like to see what happens... ♪

- That was the creative lightning

that was going on between people.

- Jackson and I, we used to hang out a lot,

not doing anything special.

I always had my camera with me.

In those days, it wasn't competitive.

It wasn't like, you know, we got a single and you didn't.

People were really encouraging each other.

"Go for it. Do the best you can.

Can't wait to hear your new song."

It was great.

- You'd go play in a bunch of different people's houses.

David Crosby would show up.

- A kid came in. He was way too pretty.

And I said, "Hi, kid. What's your name? "

He said, "Jackson." I said, "Sing me a song."

And he sang me "Adam."

And I said, "Oh, shit.

Here comes the next wave."

["A Song For Adam" playing]

- ♪ Though Adam was a friend of mine ♪

♪ I did not know him well

I was writing songs and playing open-mic night

at the Troubadour.

That was a fun hang, too, because you wind up

waiting around for about four hours

with a bunch of songwriters on the street, you know,

just like waiting for this window to open.

I met a lot of friends there.

♪ Now the story's told that Adam jumped ♪

♪ But I'm thinking that he fell ♪

- Eventually they told me, like, "Kid, you don't have to--

"don't have to sign up anymore.

If you're gonna come, just come."

- Jackson's music just really touched something.

It was very emotional

but in a quiet, calm way.

- There were all these greats second-wave songwriters

all hanging out together at the Troubadour bar.

But no one had recorded yet.

Everyone was on an equal footing.

- I was in this duo Longbranch Pennywhistle

with this guy name JD Souther.

We started going to the Troubadour

all the time, five nights a week.

Out there in the bar, I would sit with people,

and I would ask questions.

Gene Clark would come in,

and I'd talk with him about songwriting.

And I ask him why'd The Byrds break up.

The next day, the guys from Crosby, Stills & Nash.

Who writes the songs?

Where do they rehearse?

I was trying to collect as much information as possible

that could help me get to where I wanted to be.

We had heard about this guy Jackson Browne.

He'd been playing the same clubs we had,

and we struck up a friendship.

I learned so much from Jackson about songwriting.

It was the beginning.

- I met Jackson in 1970 before my first album came out.

I loved his music.

The thing about Jackson is that he's been

a real established songwriter

since the time he was about 17 or 18.

I mean, I heard about his legend.

- Since the time we ran into each other a year ago.

- Oh, we played before either one of us had had an album.

He found out about me and loved what I did,

and we've been like brother and sister ever since.

It was a fantastic time to be young

and free.

Able to party.

Able to sleep around if you wanted to.

Everybody lived within ten minutes of each other,

and everybody was up late at night.

We all could go down to the Troubadour

and just run into a set of people that were there.

["These Days" playing]

- ♪ Well, I've been out walking ♪

♪

♪ I don't do that much talking ♪

♪ These days

♪ These days

Crosby told me about this really hip young agent,

who, unlike most of the agents and managers,

was one of us.

The guy that can do business with the best of them.

He's really smart, and he's honest.

- It was incredible to be at the nexus

of all that was happening.

Very fertile period of time for songwriters

and singers and musicians.

- Geffen was only 24 or something.

I was about 18.

So I sent Geffen a demo.

I didn't get a reply.

♪ And I had a lover

♪

- David calls me, and he says, "Elliot,

"I'm gonna play you something that's one

of the most moving things I've ever heard."

- ♪ These days

- You could hear him sobbing on the other end of the phone.

- ♪ Now, if I seem to be afraid ♪

♪ To live the life that I have made in song ♪

- Eventually got a call back from Geffen

asking me to come in and meet.

And when I met him, within about 20 minutes,

he said, "Okay, I'll manage you."

"You will?"

It was like a dream.

- Elliot Roberts and I, we were coming across a lot

of new artists that big record companies

weren't interested in.

- We knew.

We knew songs, and we knew artist,

but we couldn't get a deal for Jackson.

No one wanted it, so we decided we better start

our own company for artists that we think are great.

Between Joni and Crosby, Stills & Nash,

we felt we were dealing with the cream of the crop.

Let's do it ourselves.

And we ended up forming Asylum.

["Doctor My Eyes" playing]

♪

- ♪ Doctor, my eyes have seen the years ♪

♪ And the slow parade of fears without crying ♪

♪ Now I want to understand

♪ I have done all that I could ♪

♪ To see the evil and the good ♪

♪ Without hiding

♪ You must help me if you can ♪

♪ Doctor, my eyes...

- Jackson got a lot of airplay

because of "Doctor My Eyes,"

and his records were hit records.

- ♪ To leave them open for so long ♪

♪

- Geffen-Roberts Management,

they were brilliant at selecting acts,

and they had their pick of all these young acts

that were coming of age then.

They were really good at promoting them

and really good at making it all work.

But it was hard to make a living as a musician

if you didn't have hits.

And the bands I was in weren't paying enough

really to make it.

- Please welcome The Flying Burrito Brothers.

[crowd cheering]

- ♪ It's a lazy day

♪

♪ I'm down with nothing else to do ♪

♪ It's a crazy day

♪

♪ I got a thing that I want to try with you ♪

♪

♪ Now, baby, don't go away

♪ Please don't spoil my lazy day ♪

- I did the third album with The Burritos,

but I was then thinking of leaving that band.

I had to work.

- ♪ Yee-haw

- Our A&R guy produced The Stone Poneys

with Linda Ronstadt, and he started hiring me

to work on sessions.

I met Linda.

I later was in her band.

["Walkin' Down The Line" playing]

- ♪ Got my traveling shoes

♪ Got on my traveling shoes

♪ I got my traveling shoes

♪ That I ain't gonna lose

♪ I believe I got the walking blues ♪

♪ I am walking down the line ♪

♪ Well, I'm walking down the line ♪

♪ Well, I'm walking down the line ♪

♪ My feet will be flying to tell about my troubled mind ♪

♪

- Linda, you really--you play country music with a difference.

That's--that's wild. - Thank you.

- How did you get into country music originally?

- Well, I'm a country girl originally.

- I would not have guessed that.

- I grew up in Tucson, Arizona.

- I see. I wonder if you'd introduce

the guys in the back...

- I loved the Southwest.

I thought it was the greatest.

But I knew that I couldn't work in Tucson

like I could work in Los Angeles.

I was into folk music in those days.

The Ash Grove and The Troubadour

being the two main places.

To me, that was like artistic Shangri-La.

Laurel Canyon...

I lived up there for a while. We lived up Kirkwood.

A lot of people lived together in the same house.

It was just the people you knew from the Troubadour--

gigging musicians trying to pay the rent.

We would play music, and you'd take a guitar,

put on a harmony.

It was just going on,

and it was just a part of what you did.

Nobody was famous then.

We're just people that hung out there.

[birds chirping]

- It had this air about it that it was exclusive

but not exclusive to wealth.

It was exclusive to spirit.

And you'd think,

"God, if I could only live in Laurel Canyon.

It'd be so great to live in Laurel Canyon."

Then you find out, "Oh, I can." [chuckles]

["New Hard Times" playing]

- ♪ There's too much time to sun yourself ♪

- First time I saw Linda is when she played

the Troubadour with The Stone Poneys.

- ♪ You wonder about your old friends ♪

♪ You think how hard you try ♪

♪ You hunger for...

- It was like you were seeing a goddess.

The voice was so beautiful.

- ♪ And the new hard times

♪ Are here

- We dated for two weeks, and then she said "Steve,

do you often date women and not try to sleep with them?"

[laughs]

[applause]

- After Linda was in The Stone Poneys,

Steve Martin would open for Linda at the Troubadour.

- Ready to roll? My name is Steve Martin.

I'll be out here in just a moment,

and we're gonna start.

We're starting in just a few moments,

just waiting for the drugs to take effect,

and then we'll get going. Okay.

- He was a huge hit.

- You know, when I... [laughter]

Is this on? Is this mic on?

- We watched every set he did.

We were just huge fans.

He did some very crazy stuff there.

- It's a perfect instrument for a comedian

'cause it's real dumb.

When you're playing the banjo, everything is okay.

It's like, "Hey, Steve, your house is burning down."

[upbeat banjo music playing

Well, sing along.

[laughter]

- We loved having him as an opener

'cause he could kill the audience

but without getting in the way of your music thing.

- ♪ I fall

♪ To pieces

♪ Each time I see you again

- Linda was a singer, technically,

a song stylist, emotionally.

- ♪ To pieces...

- A storyteller with her voice.

One of the most iconic voices of our generation.

- Frank Sinatra never wrote any songs.

Elvis Presley never wrote any songs.

Neither did Linda Ronstadt,

but she had the knack

for picking out instinctively

what songs were gonna be good for her.

- ♪ But I tried, and I tried, but I... ♪

- It was all about what she could do with the song.

Every songwriter wanted to get something to her

and were very lucky when she did,

because she brought so much to the party.

She took over those songs.

- ♪ You walk on by

♪ And I fall to pieces

♪

[applause]

- Linda just walked past me in the Troubadour one night,

and I said, "Hi. I'm John David.

I think you should cook me dinner."

And she said "Okay," gave me her phone number,

and I called her.

- We lived together about a year and a half.

We used to have a really good time singing together.

We used to have a really good time

listening to music together.

I'd hear him writing something down the hall,

and I'd go down and listen, and I'd say,

"I really like that. Teach it to me."

- I had a little piano room in the back of the house.

I kept getting halfway through "Faithless Love."

She came padding down the hall and said,

"I think it's really beautiful and I'd love to record it."

- ♪ Faithless love

- When Linda said she wants to record something,

it's very encouraging.

- ♪ Raindrops falling

♪ On a broken rose

It was like having a tailor-made songwriter, you know?

♪

We'd go through some horrible row,

and he'd write a song about it, and I'd sing it.

It was great.

♪ And the night blows in

♪ Like the cold dark wind

♪ Faithless love

♪ Like a river flow

- Longbranch Pennywhistle here.

I suppose you're wondering what that name meant.

- The first Longbranch Pennywhistle album

didn't exactly set the world on fire.

They wouldn't make a second record

with our material.

The point is we're songwriters.

We're trying to learn to write songs.

So we just said we're not gonna record.

And we sat around, played a few gigs,

and just waited to see what would happen.

- JD and I, we got up there,

and we did our little Longbranch Pennywhistle/

Everly Brothers thing.

- Jackson Browne took me over

to David Geffen's house one day.

I played him a couple songs.

- I told JD and Glenn that they needed to split up,

that Longbranch Pennywhistle wasn't gonna work.

And I told Glenn that he wasn't good enough

to be a solo artist.

He needed to put together a band.

- I thought Glenn was so good, you know?

I mean, I just thought he was great.

And I told him that he was a hotshot.

I said, "You're gonna do something someday,

"but in the meantime you're starving to death.

"Why don't you come and play music with me?

We'll have a great time."

And then, of course,

I was walking through the Troubadour

during the Hootenanny, and this band Shiloh got up

and did my exact version

of "Silver Threads and Golden Needles,"

note for note off the record,

and I just went, "What?"

I heard the drummer, and I thought he was really good.

- I was lucky enough to be in the right place

at the right time.

Linda and her manager, John Boylan,

they thought it might be cool to have a singing drummer.

But I had to audition.

And I auditioned at a house in Laurel Canyon,

just off Kirkwood.

And he said, "Look, do you want to go on the road

with Linda Ronstadt for 200 bucks a week?

And I said, "Sure." And that was that.

- ♪ I got a feeling called the blues, oh, Lord ♪

♪ Since my baby say good-bye

♪ And I don't know what I'd do ♪

♪ All I do is sit and cry

- Even though they were a backup band for Linda,

everyone knew that Don and Glenn were writing great songs.

That second wave-- people who came here

to be successful--

started to move up.

[cheers and applause]

By this time Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

was the biggest American band.

They were at their height.

- We got so big so fast.

There were thoughts of people wanting to be Elvis

or something.

♪

- We were all dealing with the first mad rush

of real big-time success.

It made for some interesting perspectives,

let's put it that way.

- We scripted our shows that we would do solo sets.

I did two, David would do two, Stephen would do two,

and Neil would do two.

One night, Dylan came to see us.

["Black Queen" playing]

- ♪ Black queen

- This time, because Dylan was there,

Stephen did five songs.

And that pissed me off righteously,

'cause I knew why he was doing it,

but we could have all have done that.

We all had more than five songs to be able to play.

We all wanted to impress Dylan.

But he did it.

- ♪ Oh

♪ Black queen

- In the intermission, we were so infuriated with each other

that as I'm talking to him and telling him exactly

what I think about him, he's holding a Budweiser,

and he's slowly gripping it and crushing the can.

It was frothing all over the cup,

all down his hand with this maniacal energy.

And we went out

and played the greatest set we ever played.

It's hard to get mad at someone

who's just played one of the best songs you've heard.

It's always been the music that kept us together.

♪

- Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young rehearsed at Steven's house

in Laurel Canyon a whole lot.

And they were outside talking one day,

and I kind of walked out there, thinking, "Oh,

they're all in one group, I'll get a group shot."

So I walked up to take this picture.

[camera shutter clicks]

Well, I didn't realize that their little meeting

was to have a little bumper dust,

what they call Peruvian marching powder,

which had reared its ugly head

in our beautiful God's herb community.

- We smoked a lot of pot because we liked getting high.

It made us feel creative.

But cocaine would keep that feeling for hours

instead of just fleetingly.

- Everybody was doing it.

People were wearing little gold spoons around their necks.

I mean, they weren't ashamed of the fact

they were doing drugs.

- Cocaine, methamphetamine, speed,

all the fake-energy stuff.

You think it's gonna help you ride into night

or stay with an idea, and maybe for a while it does.

The physical consequences of doing those drugs

eventually just compounds, and you don't know it

because you're high.

- Drug use is like a windy little road,

quite pretty at the onset.

Trees and flowers and birds singing.

And you can't see where the road goes

over the cliff.

The only thing is... it does.

The first people who gave me cocaine said,

"It's not addictive. Don't worry."

It was a pretty disorganized time in our lives.

Success had already had some adverse effects on us.

We were all feeling very separate.

- After a while, it became edgy,

colder, less truthful.

- You know, we can't it blended that way.

And not only that, but we can't--

- That's a jack. - We can't rehearse it

so that it all makes sense together.

- I can't do it, man.

- I'm not gonna cop out an inch to fear.

And you've walked out two fucking days in a row,

you fucking hypocrite.

You piss me off.

- Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young soon ended.

Success breeds change

for everybody, for anybody.

["Love Me Like A Man" playing]

- ♪ I need someone to love me

♪ I want someone to understand ♪

I was on the road nine or ten months.

I couldn't wait to get back to California.

♪ Won't have to put himself above me ♪

♪ When he loves me

♪ Like a man

♪

I sailed into Laurel Canyon, rented a place,

and I was gonna make my third album with Little Feat.

And that's pretty much who I hung out with.

- When I finally moved up into the Canyon,

I was already a member of Little Feat.

That was the '70s.

People like Bonnie Raitt were living there.

More and more people had discovered Laurel Canyon,

which is kind of funny because Laurel Canyon

way back when was home to Tom Mix,

and Houdini had a house up there.

[whimsical music]

[water splashes]

♪

And then Zappa and all the different variations

of The Mothers.

♪

Lowell George was a member of The Mothers

until he started Little Feat.

The one thing Lowell told me when I joined the band,

he says, "Rule number one, there is no rules."

[rock music]

- Oh, give me a break, Lowell.

Lowell George plays in a band called Little Feat,

and he sings-- he's the singer

and guitar player and the writer.

And for those of you who can't see, he's cute, too.

♪

Coming out to LA and starting out in the early '70s,

it really was a cross-"pollinization."

It was the greatest gift to that era.

♪ When you get home, baby

♪ Write me a few of your lines ♪

Country music, blues, R&B, all intermingled,

and it became just part and parcel

of the music that we loved.

We didn't have to put it in a box.

♪ Write me a few of your lines ♪

♪

♪ That'll be consolation

♪ Lord Honey, oh, my worried mind ♪

♪

Little Feat was like me-- more roots-oriented.

The kind of music that they did was R&B-ish,

blues rock.

We straddled genres.

- One, two, testing, one.

♪ Say hello

♪ Yeah, yeah

Okay.

["Long Distance Love" playing]

♪

- Little Feat, they were extraordinary musicians.

Incorporated rhythm and blues and Delta blues,

boogie-woogie into rock and roll.

Some of it was radio friendly, and some of it wasn't.

- ♪ Hello, give me missing persons ♪

♪ They said, "What is it that you need?" ♪

♪ I said, "Whoa

♪ I need her so"

♪ They said, "You got to stop your pleading" ♪

- How do you identify yourselves

in terms of the American musical scene?

- It's hard to say.

You know, we all write songs in the group,

and every song takes a different direction.

So it's really hard to pigeonhole

the kind of music we play.

♪ Long distance love

[humming]

♪

- We were pushing boundaries, but from the press standpoint,

it was difficult for them to explain

just who the hell we were.

♪

- We played how we felt, you know.

If they come up with a certain lyric

and everybody contributed their part to it,

then the music just came out like that.

It's sophisti-funk.

That was my name for it.

- ♪ Long distance love

♪

- Why didn't Little Feat catch fire?

They are some of the best musicians on the planet.

- I really can't get up in the morning

and think about the goals of being successful,

'cause what is success?

I mean, it certainly isn't money.

Doing something that you really like doing

as a profession is really success to me.

I guess I'm doing it.

So I feel good about that.

- This was a time when music and art

was everything.

You lived for it. It was your life.

And the prosperity that it brought came second.

It was more important to make good music

than it was to make it

as a celebrity.

- You know, it's hard to draw a line

between aspiring to success and aspiring to artistry.

For example, Glenn Frey, who achieved artistry--

I remember sitting with him. and he said,

"Oh, I want to be a rock-and-roll star so bad."

- Glenn had always had a plan for a band.

His gig with Linda was only temporary

as far as he was concerned.

He had this very detailed plan

about the band he wanted to start

and what kind of music we would do.

He recruited me, and, you know,

I became partners in that endeavor.

And after we got done with Linda's tour,

we went back to Los Angeles and started

the recruitment process for the Eagles.

- Glenn and Don both wrote at that time.

So they started talking about putting a band together,

and we told them they should get Randy Meisner to play bass

and Bernie Leadon, guitar player,

and they thought that was a good idea.

- I had a bluegrass background.

I had a folk background,

pop music background, rock and roll, top 40,

but I had never put it all together

in one thing until I enjoyed the Eagles.

- It was like people in love.

It was the greatest thing to see that band

when they first formed.

- We were very into the country-rock sound,

groups like Poco and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band,

Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds.

- We were doing the same kind of cross-pollination

that those other bands had been doing

but with tougher rock.

["Witchy Woman" playing]

One of the first songs we wrote was "Witchy Woman".

I wrote the music, and Don wrote the lyrics.

- ♪ Raven hair

♪ And ruby lips

♪ Sparks fly from her fingertips ♪

- Our Texas artist friend Boyd Elder

had a big art gallery opening in Venice.

All of his friends came.

Most of the people lived in Laurel Canyon.

Everybody was there--

Joni and Cass and most of the Turtles,

Jackson Browne and David Geffen.

The Eagles, they only had a few songs,

so they kept singing "Witchy Woman" over and over,

and everybody was dancing.

- We weren't really fit for public presentation

at that point. [chuckles]

But we were just happy to be hanging out

with that crowd.

It was a great scene because all the people trying

to write songs and trying to make records

were very supportive of one another.

Jackson Browne was a mentor to all of us

because he had broken through first.

And we all aspired to be what he was,

to write like that and have that kind of insight.

- ♪ Well, I'm a-running down the road ♪

♪ Trying to loosen my load

♪ Got a world of trouble on my mind ♪

♪ Looking for a lover who won't blow my cover ♪

♪ She's so hard to find

♪ Take it easy

♪ Take it easy

- Jackson had started "Take It Easy"

and then abandoned it.

But he had played it for Glenn at some point.

When we were about to record our first album,

Glenn went to Jackson and said, "I'd like to try to finish it."

Jackson said, "Sure, have at it."

- ♪ Well, I'm a-standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona ♪

♪ Such a fine sight to see

♪ It's a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford ♪

♪ Slowin' down to take a look at me ♪

♪ Well, come on, baby - ♪ Baby

- ♪ Don't say "maybe" - ♪ Maybe

- ♪ I got to know if your sweet love ♪

♪ Is gonna save me

♪ Well, come on, baby - ♪ Baby

- ♪ Don't say "maybe" - ♪ Maybe

- ♪ I got to know if your sweet love ♪

♪ Is gonna save me - ♪ Is gonna save me

- ♪ Yeah

- ♪ Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo ♪

♪ Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, ♪

- Geffen pushed "Take It Easy" pretty hard

because Asylum Records was his new label.

Got in the top 20.

We had a lot of exposure with our first album--

three hit singles.

♪

- Oh, I think they were very ambitious,

particularly Glenn.

Glenn wanted to have a hit band.

- I wanted limousines

and adoring fans and girls.

There's no university that could've ever prepared me

for any of the things I needed to learn.

- Hi. - Hey.

- Hi. - How are you doing?

- Hi. - Hi, Jim.

- Oh, not again. - Hey, we get...

Oh, Jim. - We got to go now.

- When we first started The Doors,

each person was equally important.

As it progressed, Jim became the center of attention.

Morrison, Morrison, Morrison.

- Wait a while. Don't get out yet.

- We won't hurt him. [indistinct chatter]

- So he was the one who had to live with it.

It was extremely difficult for him.

That's why he really started to drink as much as he did.

- Come on, girl. - What are you doing? Hey.

[rock music playing, crowd cheering]

- Morrison always had a wild streak,

always a little crazy.

A few too many drinks, and he was right over the edge.

- ♪ Get together

[Jim shouts]

- He touched the authorities in a way

that I've never seen anyone touch the authorities.

- ♪ Some outlaws lived by the side of a lake ♪

♪ The minister's daughter's in love with the snake ♪

♪ Who lives in a well by the side of the road ♪

♪ Wake up, girl

- It's a little nerve-racking sometimes,

but I thought he'd be one of those drunks

who lives to be 85 years old.

♪

- We had an incident, perhaps was a turning point

in The Doors' career.

- I ain't talking about no revolution.

I'm talking about having a good time.

I'm talking about love.

- It was a horrible show, I have to say it.

Jim was so drunk. He couldn't sing right.

[indistinct chatter]

You're all a bunch of slaves.

- And Jim said, "What do you want from me?"

- People telling you what you're gonna do?

- "How about if I show you my cock?"

- He probably would've pulled it out

had Ray not told our equipment guy, Vince,

"Don't let him do it. Don't let him do it."

[dramatic music]

- We have taken out two warrants for Jim Morrison

for indecent exposure,

for the use of obscene languages

during his performance.

- Jim, do you have anything to say?

- I'm admitting the charge of the public profanity,

but I'm denying the exposure charge.

I told the audience,

"I realize that you're not really here

"to listen to some fairly good musicians.

"You know, you're here for something else,

and why not admit it?"

- "Is a trial date set?"

"Hey, man. You're putting me on a bummer.

Let's get on to another subject, all right?"

It's a rainy day in LA,

talking about this horrible nonsense.

[thunder rumbling]

- We were supposed to go on the rest of the tour.

We hear, "Oh, shit. The tour's canceled."

["Crawling King Snake" playing]

- What do you plan to do in the future

as far as the band goes and everything else?

- Well, we have another album to do,

and we'll start cutting in a couple weeks.

- ♪ Well, I'm the Crawlin' King Snake ♪

♪ And I rule my den

♪

♪ Well, I'm the Crawlin' King Snake ♪

♪ And I rule my den

♪

♪ Come on, give me what I want ♪

♪ Ain't gonna crawl no more

♪

- We were finishing up the album "L.A. Woman".

He said, "I'm going to Paris."

I said, "Whoa. What a good idea, man.

"Get away from all of this rock-and-roll thing

and become a poet again."

[somber music]

- The death of another rock musician was disclosed today,

Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors.

His manager said Morrison died six days ago in Paris

either of a heart attack or pneumonia,

but the death was kept secret to avoid a sensation.

He was buried in Paris in the same cemetery

where Balzac and other French immortals lie.

- I got a phone call from our manager

telling me Jim Morrison is dead.

Last thing I was going to believe

is Jim Morrison's dead in Paris.

He went there to clean up, to dry out.

He died 27 and a half, July 3, 1971,

outlaw, renegade, wild Dionysian poet.

And I miss him.

[soft music]

♪

- Most people who make it in the music industry

are not prepared.

Success can be just as scary as failure,

if not scarier.

And some people don't actually live through it.

♪ Desperado

♪

♪ Why don't you come to your senses? ♪

♪ You been out ridin' fences

♪ For so long now

I moved to Laurel Canyon in early 1973

into a little house that was on stilts.

When the wind would blow, the house would sway.

Made me nervous. [laughs]

It was formally occupied by Roger McGuinn,

the co-founder of The Byrds, so I took that as a good omen.

And I somehow got an old upright piano in there.

I don't know where it came from.

That was the year that Glenn and I

really started writing songs together.

He came to that house.

I showed him the little pieces that I had of "Desperado."

- We started writing "Desperado,"

and we started writing "Tequila Sunrise."

And the more we started thinking about it,

the more this seemed like,

"Well, maybe this is kind of a country-rock opera.

"Write it all about the Old West.

"Why guys became outlaws,

"the romance of it,

the tragedy of it, the fame."

- I, like most of the guys of my generation,

felt like The Eagles had written Desperado for us.

Rock musicians and guitar players

were like gunslingers in the Old West.

- In our youthful exuberance and cockiness,

we tried to make that analogy, yeah.

We didn't exactly rob banks,

but we did have a similar lifestyle in that

we would go from city to city, and we had a life on the road.

There was drinking, and there was gambling.

There were women.

So we liked to think of ourselves as being outside

the norms of society.

And we were in a sense.

♪

- The "Desperado" album is one of the finest pieces

of music ever written,

but the album wasn't making it.

- We made a concept album, which didn't make

the record company happy at all.

The song "Desperado" was not a hit for us

until Linda Ronstadt recorded it.

She gave it wings.

- We'd like to introduce someone

who was very instrumental in putting our band,

The Eagles, together.

Would you welcome Linda Ronstadt?

[cheers and applause]

♪

- ♪ Desperado

♪ Why don't you come to your senses? ♪

♪ You been out ridin' fences ♪

♪ For so long now

♪ Oh, you're a hard one

♪ But I know that you got your reasons ♪

♪ These things that are pleasin' you ♪

♪ Can hurt you somehow

♪

- ♪ Don't your feet get cold in the wintertime? ♪

♪ The sky won't snow, and the sun won't shine ♪

- There's no question she resurrected that song

and helped keep The Eagles away from the sophomore slump.

♪

- ♪ You're losin' all your highs and lows ♪

- The Eagles, they kept their circle.

That's what I always liked about them most,

the loyalty to each other

in those early Laurel Canyon years.

- ♪ Desperado

- The best band in the United States of America,

The Eagles.

["Already Gone" playing]

♪

- ♪ Well, I heard some people talkin' ♪

♪ Just the other day

♪ And they said you were gonna put me on a shelf ♪

- The Eagles were not pioneers.

The Eagles were settlers.

But I do believe that we did a pretty good job

of cultivating the land that we settled.

We put ourselves into it and made it uniquely our own.

♪

- ♪ 'Cause I'm already gone

- The whole California country-rock thing exploded

with Crosby, Stills & Nash, Poco,

Linda, Jackson, and the Burrito Brothers,

but The Eagles kicked that to the next level.

It was the dominant musical form of the '70s

in this country.

- ♪ Whoo-hoo-hoo

♪ Whoo-hoo-hoo

[crowd cheering]

- I don't think any of us had any idea

how big the tsunami of sales that was coming,

was gonna be.

["Take It To The Limit" playing]

- When we got to The Eagles and the later generations

of great bands, the entire business changed.

- ♪ All alone at the end of the evening ♪

- Things got so big so fast

that places like the Troubadour became too small.

- What changed was the people went to coliseums to play.

We didn't see each other as much.

As soon as we went into arenas,

we didn't go and see each other.

- ♪ And I never knew

♪

♪ You know I've always been a dreamer ♪

- You feed the machine that is the record business,

and the monster wants more.

Every artist has a peak, a creative peak, a sales peak,

and then comes the pressure of trying to repeat that.

You get caught up in this swirling vortex of success

and money and fame and pressure.

♪

- As people became very, very successful,

the camaraderie changed.

People started guarding their songs.

You didn't want to give up one of your melodies

to somebody else.

Over time, people started moving out of Laurel Canyon,

getting a better place in a better neighborhood.

- ♪ You got to take it

♪ To the limit one more time

Thank you. [crowd cheering]

- The business started burning people out,

and you were overworked on the road so much

and played more than you should play.

- You managed to keep pretty busy.

I know, 'cause we've been trying for two years

to get you on the show. - [laughs]

- I wanted to ask you, when you do have any time

in that busy schedule of yours,

how do you like to spend it best?

- Besides playing with my child, which is obvious, I think,

for any mother, you know, especially a mother who works.

You know, when you have to spend a little time away,

you really relish that time at home.

My mom was a very loving person,

but she also traveled a lot.

- Cass, now that you're such a giant star in the firmament,

is this your life?

Is it ever going to change?

- Well, I wouldn't like to have to work

as much as I'm working now.

Nobody wants to work that hard.

I'd like to go back to school...

- She closed a two-week sold-out engagement

at the London Palladium.

She had stayed up for 40 hours.

She went to sleep and had a heart attack in her sleep.

- "Mama" Cass Elliot,

a pop star who won fame with the group called

The Mamas and Papas, died today in London.

She was 33.

Ms. Elliot was in England

for concert and nightclub appearances.

- It was a big shock. That, to me, was a big shock.

She was a Los Angeleno.

She was one of us, you know, one of ours.

It had a big impact.

It just wasn't the same anymore.

[somber music]

- Out of that loss, for me, personally,

came a blessing.

My wife, Leah, and I raised Owen

after Cass passed away.

But the loss of Cass was traumatic,

not only for us.

It was a huge loss for the music community

and the brother and sisterhood

that had developed in Laurel Canyon.

- Mama Cass,

she put a lot of social things into motion

and changed people's lives.

♪

She was sent by the angels.

A teacher to all of us.

As we all are to each other.

♪

When I first picked up a camera,

it was as a folk musician,

quietly taking pictures, documenting, to learn.

[projector clicks]

Not consciously.

But when I saw that first picture on the wall,

glowing in color like it was alive,

that's when I became a photographer.

[dramatic music]

♪

There's a reason that these people became so well-known.

They had amazing talent for life, really...

for singing, writing songs,

thinking poetically.

What is it really about?

Why are we here?

What is this wonderful experience?

What's the best way to live it?

And that's Laurel Canyon.

♪

- If you believe in God,

it's like God said,

"Okay, kids, I'm gonna show you

"what the Garden of Eden was like.

And you get to live and play and love."

We embraced it all,

and it was wonderful.

- Laurel Canyon's become a name for a thing,

and it's really just a myth.

[chuckles] Places become focal points

for breaking out of convention.

What was happening in Laurel Canyon

was the universe cracking open and revealing secrets.

It was just about a time, the creative awakening.

♪

- There are periods in history when there are peaks.

And nobody really knows why--

Paris in the '30s,

the Renaissance in Italy,

Los Angeles in around '65, '75.

Very hard to define it.

But the proof's in the pudding.

The music's there.

["Turn! Turn! Turn!" playing]

♪

- ♪ To everything, turn, turn, turn ♪

♪ There is a season, turn, turn, turn ♪

♪ And a time to every purpose ♪

♪ Under Heaven

♪ A time to be born, a time to die ♪

♪ A time to plant, a time to reap ♪

♪ A time to kill, a time to heal ♪

♪ A time to laugh

♪ A time to weep

♪ To everything, turn, turn, turn ♪

♪ There is a season, turn, turn, turn ♪

♪ And a time to every purpose ♪

♪ Under Heaven

♪ A time to build up, a time to break down ♪

♪ A time to dance, a time to mourn ♪

♪ A time to cast away stones

♪ A time to gather

♪ Stones together

♪