Laurel Canyon (2020) s01e01 Episode Script

1
[birds chirping]
["Happy Together" playing]
♪
- Imagine me and you
I do, I think
about you day and night ♪
It's only right to think
about the girl you love ♪
And hold her tight,
so happy together ♪
If I should call you up,
invest a dime ♪
And you say
you belong to me ♪
And ease my mind
Imagine how the world
could be ♪
So very fine,
so happy together ♪
- Ba-ba-ba-ba ba-ba-ba-ba
ba-ba-ba ♪
Ba-ba-ba-ba
Ba-ba-ba-ba ba-ba-ba-ba
ba-ba-ba ♪
Ba-ba-ba-ba
- Me and you
and you and me ♪
No matter
how they toss the dice ♪
It had to be
the only one for me is you ♪
And you for me,
so happy together ♪
So happy together
And how is the weather
So happy together
We're happy together
So happy together
Happy together
So happy together
So happy together
- I made a list of everyone
I could think of
that I photographed
in Laurel Canyon.
[acoustic music]
♪
A lot of people.
[laughs]
I first came to LA in '63
with a four-part folk group.
We came over
to seek our fortunes,
and played at the Troubadour
the second night
we were in town.
["How The West Was Won" playing]
- I'll bid goodbye
To the whip and the line
- Yeah
- And drive no more
in the wintertime ♪
- Got a manager
and a record company
and all that very quickly.
Within a week,
I went up to somebody's party
at the Laurel Canyon.
You could see
it was a very cool place.
The main boulevard
is Laurel Canyon Boulevard,
and it goes from Hollywood,
straight up
into the Hollywood Hills,
crests over the top
at Mulholland,
and goes down into what
they call the Valley.
Off of that main road
that curves around a bit,
there are little arteries
that go off like Kirkwood
and Lookout Mountain Avenue.
Then you go up those avenues,
and there's little capillaries
that go off,
Weepah Way and Rosilla Place,
and that's where I first moved
to Laurel Canyon.
I had a little one-room studio.
Coyotes at night.
Very quiet except for owl.
[hoots]
[owl hoots]
Sometimes in the afternoon,
you hear a, like,
uh, a solo guitar,
kind of echoing
from somewhere in the hillside,
drifting through the Canyon.
[birds chirping]
["Mr. Tambourine" playing]
- Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man
Play a song for me
- I moved to Laurel Canyon
right after the success
of "Mr. Tambourine Man."
- There ain't no place
I'm goin' to ♪
- I'm up by the market,
and I run into this fella.
He was a dentist, a young guy.
And he says, "Are you looking
for a place to live?"
And I said, "Yeah."
I go up there,
and this house was at the end
of a dirt road
at the top of Kirkwood.
And it overlooked
the entire city.
So you can imagine at night
what that looked like,
beautiful.
Rented it,
and start furnishing it.
Now I had a house.
At same time, David Crosby
moved over to Willow Glen.
Roger lived across the Canyon.
- It was serene,
it was beautiful.
Winding, hilly, it was like
living in the country,
but you're in a big city.
- The only person who moved
there before we did
might have been Zappa.
It wasn't a scene yet.
It was just a better place
to live,
above the smog.
It was so magical.
Literally, within four,
five minutes,
you could be down on the
Sunset Strip into Hollywood.
["You Showed Me" playing]
♪
- You showed me how to do
Exactly what to do
how I fell in love with you ♪
Oh, oh, oh, it's true,
Oh, oh, I love you ♪
- Rock harmonies
were going folk, you see,
and we were doing rock
and roll inspired folk music.
- You showed me how to say
exactly what to say ♪
- We did songs that were
entirely different
from anything anybody
had tried before.
- Oh, oh, oh, it's true
- We wanted to stretch.
We wanted to push back
the barriers.
We wanted to be the innovators.
- The Byrds--they were
a major influence
on everybody
in Hollywood, really.
Even though we had been
together for quite some time,
we were initially trying
to be a clone of The Byrds.
- I knew I could do the things
that I saw The Byrds doing.
Packin' the house every night,
all these people jumping up
and carrying on.
So then I jumped on the wagon.
I said, "I'm gonna do
this thing until I'm capable
of doing my thing."
["The Devil Went Down
to Georgia" playing]
- I went to Georgia
I went to Florida,
I went to Missi ♪
Tripped in Missippi,
but now you ♪
- There was four of them,
and I made the fifth
when I joined the group,
and I said,
"I hear you're looking
for a rhythm guitarist.
I'd give my right arm
to be in your group."
Arthur said,
"No, you're gonna need it."
[laughs]
- Bryn McLean lived
right down the street from me.
We lived there
because mostly other musicians
and artists lived there,
and also because it was cheap.
We used to call it Oz.
The people that came
to the clubs
would just follow us
into our houses,
and we'd continue playing
all night.
- Once you got above 20
or 30 of us living up there,
it was a kind of a community.
We would go around
and visit each other
quite a bit.
- David Crosby
was quite near us,
and gave us
some pretty good advice.
"Johnny,
there's already one Byrds,
so if you guys wanna make it,
you're gonna have to come up
with your own sound."
In elementary school,
one of the kids had a guitar,
and he allowed me to hold it.
I started strumming it,
and the vibration
just kind of tickled my soul.
That was a love affair
that's lasted to this day.
I started playing the guitar,
and I heard Arthur sing.
He was also a poet,
and so, we played together,
and we had
so many different names
before we became Love.
We just loved music.
We would pick up
little snippets of songs
from here, or styles from there.
Little Richard also
was in the area,
and he would give me advice
and hints and stuff like that.
In 1964, I went to England
with Little Richard.
["Lucille" playing]
- Lucille
Why won't you do
your sisters will? ♪
- We met these four guys
there, and they used to follow
Richard around,
fawning and deferential,
sycophants,
as far as I could see.
Later on in Los Angeles,
I was invited to see
The Beatles.
I didn't believe it.
These little guys that ran
around, chasing Richard,
are the biggest thing
in the world.
- The Beatles.
Wow.
It was a huge experience
of life.
We wanted every day to be
a huge experience of life.
So, when the Beatles
played Ed Sullivan,
all the folk groups
went electric.
We traded our stand up bass
into an electric bass.
We electrified
our acoustic guitars.
I electrified my banjo,
and we got a drummer.
- [indistinct]
why I waited around ♪
I wasn't running around
[indistinct] put me down ♪
- That's the kind of music
we wanna make.
What are we singing
about the Ox Driver for?
[laughs] We could be--
we could be making joyful music.
We were booked
into the Troubadour,
doing our sound check,
and we plugged in
our electric instruments,
and Doug Weston
came running down
from the upstairs.
"No, no, what are you doing?
"I don't have electric music
in this club.
You know, this is a folk club."
- The Troubadour,
just a few blocks
from Hollywood Boulevard,
is known as an avant-garde café.
Sundays and Mondays
are Hoot nights, Hootenanny,
that is,
and the entertainment features
half a dozen or more performers,
who specialize in folk music.
- The folk community back then
were snobbish
about electric music.
They considered
it bubblegum, kid stuff.
I was opening up for Hoyt Axton,
playing folk songs
with a Beatle beat,
and the only person
who liked it was Gene Clark.
He came backstage
after my set, and said,
"Hey, I get what you're doing.
"I like The Beatles,
I like folk music.
Let's write some songs,
and see what happens."
[acoustic music]
- That's when I met Roger
and Gene.
They were singing songs,
and I started singing
harmony to them.
They liked that.
- You showed me how to do
exactly what you do ♪
How I fell in love with you
Oh, oh, oh, it's true ♪
- David knew this guy
who had a recording studio
we could use, Jim Dickson,
and he became our manager,
and we got Michael Clarke
and Chris Hillman
to join the group.
- There wasn't a lot
in common with each of us,
but we had all come out
of folk music.
We were not a garage rock
and roll band.
We didn't have a blueprint.
We didn't know
what we were doing.
The Byrds needed something
to get us in the door.
- Randomly,
Jim Dickson heard a couple
of record producers
mainly talking about Bob Dylan.
"Wow, it's a shame, Bob
can't use that great new song
you just wrote,
because Ramblin' Jack Elliott,
he was singing out
of tune on it."
["Mr. Tambourine Man" playing]
- Hey, Mr. Tambourine man,
play a song for me ♪
- Bob--he never overdubbed,
he just turned on the machine,
and whatever happened happened.
So, he decided not to use it,
wouldn't go back and fix it.
Dixon got a copy of this demo,
and it was flawed,
it couldn't be released.
- Initially,
"Mr. Tambourine Man,"
we didn't like it.
And then he sat us down,
said, "What you guys need
to do is put some substance
"and depth into your songs.
"You wanna make a record
that you're gonna like
in 40 years."
["Mr. Tambourine Man" playing]
♪
- Hey! Mr. Tambourine man
Play a song for me
I'm not sleepy
and there ain't no place ♪
I'm going to
- I remember Bob came
to Ciro's, and said,
"Wow, man,
you can dance to it."
He got on stage with us.
- He loved what we did
with "Tambourine Man."
We took it,
and we changed the groove.
- The next day,
everybody in this town
was talking about,
"Hey, have you seen this band,
The Byrds, man?
I heard Dylan showed up there
the other night."
- People start coming in.
Word of mouth,
word of mouth, word of mouth.
All of a sudden,
people are lining up
after about the second,
third week we were there.
- It was
every young band's dream
to catch fire,
to become the subject
of conversation.
It was completely exciting,
and I was a kid,
and kids live on excitement.
["Mr. Tambourine Man playing]
- In the jingle jangle
morning ♪
I'll come following you
- When I heard that music,
here's this electric version
of this song,
it really inspired me
to go to California
to start a band.
[rock music]
♪
- This is the Buffalo
Springfield.
Brennan Stone say
they'll be giant stars.
It's up to you
to make them such.
- My name is Neil Young.
- Hi, Neil.
How do you do?
- I'm lead guitar player.
How do you do?
- All right.
- Uh, this is Richie Furay.
- Hello, Richie.
Nice to see you.
- Good ol' Richie
from Yellow Springs, Ohio.
- Up in the back?
- Big Dewey Martin.
- Hello, Dewey.
- Bruce Palmer
from Toronto, Canada.
Steve Stills from New Orleans.
- Hello, Steve.
Nice to see you.
How does three Canadians
and a couple of other fellas
all fall in together?
How did that happen?
- I'd--
- They were--
- We knew each other
from New York,
from folk music.
We decided we were gonna
go out to California,
Stephen and I first,
and then Neil Young--
he came down
to Los Angeles later on,
but he couldn't find us.
And so, he was actually leaving,
going west on Sunset Boulevard.
Stephen and I were going east.
- And I saw him in a band
going the other way on Sunset,
and he stopped, and we stopped,
and we all stopped,
and then we started.
- About three
or four days after that,
we found a drummer.
It just all happened very fast.
- It's a question
of, okay, fellas.
Let's get real.
Let's do it right, professional,
and without losing
the magic of the music.
- I ran
into the Buffalo Springfield
before they had any work in LA.
They had just gotten together,
and I got them a job
at the Whisky.
I'm a 23-year-old kid,
and I said,
"Will you hire these guys,
and they're a great band.
Trust me."
["Mr. Soul" playing]
♪
- Oh, hello, Mr. Soul
I dropped by
to pick up a reason ♪
For the thought
that I caught that my head ♪
Is the event of the season
Why in crowds
just a trace of my face ♪
Could seem so pleasing
I'll cop out to the change
But a stranger
is putting the tease on ♪
- We were playing
in the Whisky a Go Go.
We ended up being
on a double bill
with The Doors and with Love.
- I was down on a frown
when the messenger ♪
Brought me a letter
- Brought me a letter
- At the time, it seemed
like such a big place.
- I was raised
by the praise of a fan ♪
Who said I upset her
- Who said I upset her
- The Beach Boys were happening,
The Turtles were happening.
When they recorded
"Happy Together" was the time
I lived with Mark Volman
up on Lookout Mountain.
- She said, "You're strange,
but don't change." ♪
- You didn't move there
because you were wealthy.
You moved there
because it was right
in the middle of town,
but was really cheap to live.
Richie stayed there
about a year,
then moved down the street.
- Laurel Canyon
was a place people
were attracted to.
It was like a magnet.
Neil Young,
when he lived up Kirkwood,
we were creative people.
We were young.
We were ambitious.
We loved the music.
- Okay. We're rolling.
Take four.
- We weren't required
to make one song
sound like another song.
We did have our freedom.
There was folk music.
There was country music.
Our style of rockabilly music.
Stephen will do a Spanish song,
a bluegrass type song.
The spectrum that we covered
was incredible.
["Broken Arrow" playing]
- Come to see her
in the river ♪
She'll be there
to wave to you ♪
In the hope
that you'll forgive her ♪
- We were just three
individual songwriters,
Neil Young,
Stephen Stills, and myself,
writing from different
perspectives,
bringing that together,
and that's what collectively
made us Buffalo Springfield.
- Find out that now
was the answer to answers ♪
That you gave later
She did the things
that we both did before ♪
Now and who forgave her?
- I had
a really good relationship
with the Buffalo Springfield.
I always had fun with them.
They were the house band
for a while at the Whisky.
Packed every night.
I genuinely love the music.
I got here in '66,
just past the folky scene.
At first,
I was considered a groupie,
for sure.
Then I got jobs
at the Troubadour
and at the Whisky
doing the lights.
I had to interact
with the musicians in terms of,
you know, setting the lights,
the sound, and the shows,
so I wasn't as much
of a groupie anymore, you know.
Uh, I had a legitimate job.
I just carried my camera
everywhere I went,
enjoyed taking the pictures.
I wanted to document
what I was seeing,
not having any idea
that this would be
interesting to somebody else.
- She did the things
that we both did before now ♪
And who forgave her?
- This is The Doors.
Jim was a great guy.
I really liked him.
He really had charisma
on the stage.
["When The Music's Over"
playing]
- Cancel my subscription
to the Resurrection ♪
Send my credentials
to the House of Detention ♪
I got some friends inside
- The Doors were the house band
at the Whisky a Go Go.
We were the opening act.
God, it was amazing.
Then we played with Love,
Buffalo Springfield,
The Turtles.
- All of a sudden,
you had groups like The Doors
that really brought
a whole different mood
to everything.
[rock music]
♪
- There were no rules anymore.
It was a good time
to be starting a band.
- At the time,
The Doors were looked at
by some people
as a gloom and doom band.
["Light My Fire" playing]
- Come on, baby,
light my fire ♪
- When in fact,
The Doors were about joy,
light, Light My Fire,
burning up in existence.
-Fire. Yeah
- I think we're the band
you love to hate,
universally despised.
We're on a monstrous ego trip.
They hate us
because we're so good.
- You want people to like you?
- Well, I'd like them to listen.
I'd like them to, uh,
give the music a chance.
- Try to set the night
on fire ♪
- I mean, we knew
our stuff was good.
As good as anybody's,
but that doesn't always
translate into getting big.
Who was gonna sign us?
- The whole transition
from folk music
to singer-songwriters
was working itself out,
and there were not
that many artists
I wanted to record.
I was looking
for a new direction,
and I came out here.
I would get a free magazine,
and I'd go through all
the ads, and I came
to one that said Love.
["Hey Joe" playing]
- Hey, Joe
Where you going with all
that money in your hand now ♪
- I was gripped by the music.
- Well, I said, hey, Joe,
where are you goin' ♪
- I went backstage
and made them an offer,
said, "We've never done
rock and roll.
You strike me as a good
place to start."
- She's been runnin' around
with some other man now ♪
Well, I said,
I'm goin' after my woman ♪
- We had been offered
a contract by Capitol
and Columbia,
and a couple of other labels,
but they wouldn't allow us
to own the publishing.
Little Richard had told me
that's where most
of the money comes from,
owning the copyrights
and the publishing
for your songs,
because if someone else
records them, you get paid,
or if they're used
in a commercial, you get paid.
Elektra allowed us
to own the publishing.
That's why we signed up with a
relatively unknown folk label.
- If you can come up with
a distinctive sound in music,
your chances of getting
a hit are a lot better.
This certainly has what's
called a distinctive sound,
the sound
of "My Little Red Book."
Again, here's Love.
["My Little Red Book" playing]
- I just got out
my little red book ♪
The minute that you
said goodbye ♪
I thumbed right through
my little red book ♪
I wasn't gonna sit and cry
- " My Little Red Book"
was a national hit.
What Arthur and the guys
did with that adaptation
was genius.
We all felt that it was only
a matter of time
until Love conquered America.
- And as I held them
All I did
was to talk about you ♪
Hear your name
and I'd start to cry ♪
There's just no
getting over you ♪
- We had an issue playing
other places
that heard us professionally.
We couldn't play
in the South and all,
because when they found out
the racial makeup of the group,
they would cancel bookings,
or sometimes we wouldn't even
get them at all.
So we were not happy
with Elektra Records
because of the first album.
We thought it was done cheaply,
and MCA came to us
and offered us
a really tremendous deal.
But we knew Elektra
wasn't gonna let us go.
We were their ticket
into the game.
We were the first,
and at that point,
the only rock group they had.
Our songs were moving up
the charts,
and they were doing well
with us.
We knew that was a non-starter,
so Arthur and I came up
with the brilliant idea.
If we hooked them up
with The Doors,
they would let us go.
Because The Doors had a good
following at the Whisky,
and the young girls
just love Jim.
But it was problematic,
because Jim would get drunk.
Playing on stage was kind of
a problem with the venues,
and members of his group,
but we asked Jack to come down.
["Lucille" playing]
- Lucille
Won't you do
your sister's will ♪
- Jim, true to form, was drunk,
and stumbling around the stage.
- I didn't get it.
I was tired.
It was 2:00 in the morning.
- Jack said, "Hell, no."
- You ran off and married
But I love you still
- Months go by,
and we asked them,
"Why don't you come
one more time and see
The Doors?"
Jack said, "I'm not going,"
but we talked him into it.
["Break On Through" playing]
♪
- You know the day destroys
the night ♪
Night divides the day
Tried to run
Tried to hide
Break on through
to the other side ♪
Break on through
to the other side ♪
Break on through
to the other side yeah ♪
- Jim was on his best behavior.
Sober and in his element.
- I found an island
in your arms ♪
Country in your eyes
Arms that chained us
Eyes that lied
Break on through
to the other side ♪
Break on through
to the other side ♪
Break on through, oh
Oh, yeah
- They sounded so much better.
And Jack saw what we saw.
- It was so magical.
Morrison was like a comet
streaking across the sky.
He was incandescent and burning.
-Deep and wide
- I thought they were gonna
be the most significant
artist we have had
up until that time.
- Break on through
Break on through
Break on through
Break on through
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
- That same night,
they signed The Doors.
We thought, "Great.
Now it's cool.
They gonna let us go."
And they said, "Hell, no.
You guys aren't going."
- All of a sudden, man,
they're pushing The Doors
like crazy, you know.
- All of the resources
that had been allocated to us
were moved to The Doors.
Publicity and radio,
shots in magazines,
and "The Ed Sullivan Show."
- Break on through
to the other side ♪
Break on through
to the other side ♪
- We basically shot
ourselves in the ass,
by doing that.
We were put on the back burner.
- Jack had this idea to do
a billboard
for The Doors' first album.
Nobody had ever had one
before for a record.
They let us climb up
on top of it.
And it was pretty cool.
- I had realized
my Southern California dream
at that point.
We could pay the rent.
- John and I got a place up
on Lookout,
nice view of the whole Canyon.
And Jim got a place right
next to us.
- That was, for Jim,
the perfect setting
to do his music.
He was, at heart, a poet,
but he set his poetry to music.
- One night up in Laurel Canyon,
Jim was in one of his moods
where he was just
down in the doldrums.
- I said, "Hey, let's go up
"to the top of Laurel Canyon
and watch the sun come up.
Maybe that'll give you
a different mood."
And it worked.
He realized that people
are strange.
- When you're strange
Faces come out of the rain
When you're strange
No one remembers your name
When you're strange
- Jim always says, write
about something universal,
that 40 years from now
might still mean something.
- People are strange
when you're a stranger ♪
Faces look ugly
when you're alone ♪
- The Doors had just broken
before we left Phoenix.
Jim Morrison was the most
outrageous character
at the time,
but he was still a hero.
Rock needs a villain.
[rock music]
♪
- Alice Cooper, we saw horror
and comedy in rock
all in bed together.
We were theatrical.
I played the character
Alice Cooper.
This villain born.
We had become
the biggest band in Phoenix,
quit college, and moved
to Los Angeles,
not realizing
that every single best band
in every single city
was there in LA.
It was pretty competitive.
We had been turned down
by every label.
They wanted
the next Buffalo Springfield.
They didn't wanna
any freaks like us.
The whole band was like
a walking nightmare.
There's real blood on the stage.
["Nobody Likes Me" playing]
- Nobody likes me
It's all my fault
- This one night,
the music we played
was just white noise.
- The audience
could not take it.
Within four minutes,
we had cleared the place.
Only one person left
standing there,
and it was Frank Zappa.
Frank looked at us.
He said, "What was that?"
- People had
a very violent response to it.
Invariably, when they
would play,
people would leave the room,
and I knew they had something.
- But Frank Zappa was just
starting his record label,
Bizarre Records.
And he wanted some new look,
some new sound.
So, Frank says, "Okay.
"Why don't you guys come over
to my house at 7:00,
and I'll listen to you?"
We were so anxious
because everybody wanted to
meet Frank Zappa.
In the music business,
there was nobody more revered.
Zappa was the maestro.
So we go to Frank's house
in Laurel Canyon,
the log cabin, at 7:00
in the morning.
We just set up down
in the basement,
and started playing.
Our hair was down to our waist.
We were in chrome pants.
Frank comes down the stairs,
he's got his robe on
and a coffee.
He goes, "What are you doing?"
I said, "Well, you said 7:00."
And he said, "I meant 7:00
at night.
Go ahead.
Go ahead."
- Very rarely worry
utmost constantly ♪
Could you be receptive
- Frank listened, and he goes,
"The song doesn't go anywhere.
It just stops."
And I went, "Well,
is that good or bad?"
And he goes, "Oh, no, no.
I'm gonna sign you
because I don't get it."
- The record company
that I had was called Bizarre.
So, I figured, well, here we go.
- Frank produced
the first album for us.
When I finally could afford
to buy a house,
I bought a house right above
Frank's log cabin.
It was a very odd place to be
because it was right next door
to Micky Dolenz
from the Monkees.
And the club house
was Frank's house.
You might see two or three
of The Mothers of Invention,
Frank's band,
the most underground group,
sitting there talking
to Davy Jones and Micky Dolenz
from The Monkees.
And I was Alice Cooper.
- Alice Cooper, that was
a different kind of music.
But nonetheless,
he lived in Laurel Canyon.
It wasn't all peace
and love hippies up there.
- Everybody was a fraternity.
You're The Mothers,
we're The Monkees, so what?
["The Monkees" playing]
♪
- Hey, hey,
we're The Monkees ♪
You never know
where we'll be found ♪
- And now, a remembrance.
Peter Tork, best known
as the keyboardist
and bassist for the 1960s hit
band The Monkees, has died.
- Yeah. You know what?
I should put a picture
of Peter Tork up
on my Facebook
on The Monkees set,
okay? Bye.
In the '60s, we wanted
to learn, just awaken,
just kind of awaken
your imagination
and your thought.
We all started reading
the Indian gurus,
the book called
"Autobiography of a Yogi,"
and that really opened up
my life, reading that book.
We're all here to learn.
We're all students,
but you should think of yourself
as the only student,
and everybody else
is your teacher.
When you die, you don't die.
You just leave your body.
And it's just like walking
into another room.
I bought a stack of them,
never given one
to Peter Tork
on The Monkees set.
I did a group shot
of The Monkees sitting
on a couch,
and he was reading
the Yogananda book.
I felt so good about that.
And today, he walked
into the other room.
He left the mortal coil.
He left.
He left us.
In about '65, when they were
auditioning for players
of The Monkees, every musician
went down there.
And Stephen Stills
almost was one of The Monkees.
He went to audition,
and they said,
"Well, your tooth
doesn't really work."
He had a snaggletooth.
He said, "Well, let me
send my roommate in
to see you guys."
[guitar music plays]
- And that was Peter Tork.
[rapid strumming]
-Why do you wanna be a Monkee?
- Well, it's my natural
inheritance.
- [laughs]
- Hey, hey,
we're The Monkees ♪
And people say
we monkey around ♪
- The Monkees, as a whole thing,
was thought of as a package
for actors who played characters
with their own names.
- We're just trying
to be friendly ♪
- The music was not terribly
representative of the '60s.
It certainly didn't break
any new ground.
It was just good bubble gum
pop music.
- And we've got something
to say ♪
Hey, hey,
we're The Monkees ♪
You never know
where we'll be found ♪
So you'd better get ready
We may be coming
to your town ♪
- Now, for the people who
haven't caught your TV show,
what kind of things
happen on it?
- In a nutshell,
it's a cross between
the Marx Brothers
and The Beatles.
- Uh-hmm.
- And it's like a situation
about four guys
in a rock and roll band
that just get themselves
in all kinds of mix-ups.
["Last Train to Clarksville"
playing]
- Take the last train
to Clarksville ♪
And I'll meet you
at the station ♪
You can be there by 4:30
- I knew The Monkees
from Laurel Canyon.
I was coming down to the set
a lot to take pictures.
It was such a silly show,
but it was fun.
It was supposed to be
a rip-off of The Beatles.
Four young guys, musicians,
living together.
- "The Monkees" was about
an imaginary group
who wanted to be The Beatles,
and never made it.
It spoke to all those kids
trying,
practicing, and playing
in their garages,
in their living rooms,
in their basements.
It was in the air.
- And I don't know
if I'm ever coming home ♪
- The record companies,
television, film companies,
and they saw this new
generation coming along.
There was a huge
publicity push for us
and the Lauren Canyon scene,
shall we say.
- And a bit of conversation
Oh, no, no, no
Oh, no, no, no
- The place I moved into
looked like you're in the middle
of the Rocky Mountains.
It was an old cabin
a Disney animator had built,
and it looked like
a Swiss chalet,
massive pine trees,
rock gardens.
It did turn out
to be a gathering place.
We'd began to throw
these soirees
along with
a ping pong tournament.
- Up the street
were The Turtles,
and Zappa was
a little further down.
People were just everywhere,
literally wandering
around the little streets,
not even knocking on your door,
just walking in, "How you doing?
What do you got to eat?"
"Stephen, oh,
good to see you."
It was a very small community
of musicians
and long-haired weirdoes.
- It was a friendly Canyon.
People were very open.
I lived on Lookout Mountain,
and then I moved
to Tork's house.
Peter was like my best friend.
I was always taking
pictures of Peter.
I took more pictures of him
than anybody else.
So good.
A mensch, as they say.
- He was a really lovely guy,
and I enjoyed being around him.
Except Peter was a nudist.
I had just got a really cool
love seat, and I come home,
and there is butt-naked Peter,
sitting on my love seat.
I wasn't pleased with that.
- That's me playing the banjo.
And I'm gonna do some more
of that.
I hope you're ready.
- Peter--he had this great
house on the other side
of Laurel Canyon,
on the Valley side.
Swimming pool,
and a dressing room,
great view.
Harrison Ford built
his music room,
and there were a lot of people,
just came to hang out,
smoke pot.
The Beatles,
Buffalo Springfield.
You know, it was fun,
and no responsibilities.
They were all playing
at the local clubs.
And when I think about it now,
we were so, you know,
in our little bubble.
We were so apolitical.
The group of people
that hung out in these clubs
loved the music and everything,
but there was far more
going on in the world,
and it took a while for us
to evolve, you know,
and get to that place
where we cared.
[crowd chatter]
- The commercial merchants
on Sunset Boulevard,
they had decided that
the element of young people
that was on the street
every night
was not conducive
to commercial enterprise.
- But just because we're not
going along with society,
like everybody else goes--
they want everybody
to do the same thing.
All they want you to do
is they want you to grow up,
get an education,
raise children, and die.
- I got it.
- There's been a lot of talk
about the riots
that have been going on
in the Sunset Strip.
- They haven't really been
riots.
And in actuality, since I--
since I was there,
they'd been demonstrations.
- Well, it's mostly kids
from the ages of 15 to 20.
There's a 10:00 curfew
imposed on these young people.
Under 18, it's a California law
that you're not able
to go into a teenage night club.
- There was a club
called Pandora's Box,
where Crescent Height,
Sunset Boulevard,
and Laurel Canyon
all came together.
The kids gathered there,
and Stephen was just observing
what was going on one night,
coming home from the Whisky.
- What happened was just
a bunch of kids got together
on a street corner, and said,
"We aren't moving."
Then about three busloads
of the Los Angeles Police
showed up.
[indistinct chatter]
[screaming]
- And they say, "Jesus, America
is in great danger
of turning politically
to the right."
It's the fascist stories.
- Move out.
- I get home, and I'd run,
and I'd pick up
my acoustic guitar,
and all of a sudden,
it turned into a song.
- It's time we stop,
hey, what's that sound ♪
Everybody look
what's going down ♪
- A lot of people
wanna apply the song
to the Vietnam War.
That's what makes
the song so special,
how the audience interpret
it for themselves.
- What a field-day
for the heat ♪
- That war was an undercurrent
of our lives.
We were right at the age
where we would be
first in line to be shipped
over there,
so we were all concerned
that they were gonna take us
out of Oz, and send us
into some godforsaken jungle.
- It's time we stop,
hey, what's that sound ♪
Everybody look
what's going down ♪
- People started, like,
tuning into the news
and realizing
that Sunset Boulevard
was not the end-all
and be all of the world.
There were things
going on out there.
- You see the flames coming
out of the buildings
directly across the street.
- What leads a person
to do this,
bring about a situation
that might explode?
Maybe we have something
to do with it.
- You step out of line,
the man come ♪
And take you away
- People started to come out
of their own egos.
The songs changed
and became much more relevant.
- Hey, what's that sound
Everybody look
what's going down ♪
It's time to stop now
What's that sound?
- Protests,
integration--
it was like the collision
of these meteors
all over the United States.
There was a freedom
that exploded the music,
the fashion.
The '60s were a change
in almost every facet
of our lives.
[dramatic music]
- We had sort of a communal
type existence.
We wanted a name
that would indicate
that there were both men
and women in the group,
because it was the first group
that actually was
sexually integrated.
- When we had formed
The Mamas & The Papas,
I was with John Phillips.
We'd been married
for about a year.
- John has written
an epic tone poem
of historical nature,
describing our very
get together,
and so we like
to sing it for you now.
Cue the tape.
["Creeque Alley" playing]
♪
- John and Mitchy
were getting kind of itchy ♪
Just to leave
the folk music behind ♪
Zal and Denny,
working for a penny ♪
Trying to get a fish
on the line ♪
In a coffee house
Sebastian sat ♪
And after every number
they'd pass the hat ♪
McGuinn and McGuire just
a-getting higher in LA ♪
You know where that's at
And no one's getting fat
Except Mama Cass
- "And no one's getting fat
except Mama Cass."
John came up with the lyric,
and I said,
"Yeah, but what are
really gonna say there?"
He says, "That's the lyric."
And she laughs so hard.
She said, "I love that."
- I think that we were offensive
to the point
of being inoffensive.
There were things
about the group physically
that startled people.
The fact that these four people
would come together
and look like that,
and make that kind of music
live in concert.
- And no one's getting fat
Except Mama Cass
- The Mamas & The Papas sound
was a combination of the blues,
rock and roll, jazz, folk.
It was the first time
that those influences
had been brought together
in pop music.
- Like a California dreaming
is becoming a reality ♪
Becoming a reality
- At that point, Laurel Canyon
was very well-developed.
There was a charm to it,
very green, cute little houses.
Most musicians really
were coming from New York.
When we all heard
The Byrds had a hit,
everything kind of shifted
from New York to California
in the music business.
You'd have a friend who'd say,
"If you're looking
for a place, you ought to try
some place up
in Laurel Canyon."
That's how people
ended up there.
John and I lived on
Lookout Mountain with Denny.
I was pretty insulated
with my relationship with John.
- Michelle and I had an affair.
That was just a pure
and simple mistake.
- When this surfaced,
it was very hard
for John to accept
that his wife
and his best friend
had had an affair.
But to Cass,
it was the greatest betrayal
of all,
because she was very much
in love with Denny,
and she had always hoped
that someday,
she and Denny
would actually be together.
It was very, very difficult
to overcome.
But we decided the group
was gonna continue.
So, John moved out with Denny,
and I stayed at the house
on Lookout Mountain.
Now, while they were
living together,
they were living
the fantasy life
of two rock and rollers.
["I Saw Her Again" playing]
- I saw her again
last night ♪
And you know
that I shouldn't ♪
- There were girls everywhere.
I used to live down
the street from them.
So when he and Michelle
were split,
you know, they weren't together,
John used to come and just talk.
He needed to talk,
and I was, like, there.
I don't know,
you know what happens.
Who can explain attraction?
- I started seeing Gene Clark
from The Byrds
clandestinely.
He lived down the street
from me.
I knew that if John found out
that I was seeing Gene,
he would be furious,
in spite of his own girlfriend.
So we kept it quiet.
When we were gonna play
Melodyland, Gene asked me
if he could have a couple
of tickets to the concert,
and I said, "Absolutely."
I called the office.
I didn't realize they were
gonna put him
in the front row.
- Got a feeling
that I'm wasting ♪
Time on you, babe
Got a feeling that
You're been untrue
- When Cass saw Gene,
she knew that there could be
a murder on stage any minute.
And then, John realized
what was going on.
- The joke's on you
Baby, it's true
The joke's on you
- At the end of the concert,
John took his mic, and yelled,
"Get the fuck over here."
I ran up the stage,
out the backdoor,
and into my car.
But John was hot on my heels,
and he grabbed me,
and he said, "You are fired,
you are fired."
And I said, "Well, I don't think
"you really have the legal right
to do that, John."
He said, "You wait and see."
- It's one thing
for a guy to sleep around,
that's macho, you know,
A guy is really, you know.
But for a woman,
it was still--you know,
'60s were too close to the '50s.
You don't just lose
that overnight.
There was a difference
between men and women.
I mean, women were subordinate
to men.
I'm sorry,
but that's the way it was.
- There was no free love,
as far as I was concerned,
but there was nothing
that I could do about it.
I was thrown out of the group.
- It took a lot of pleading
and groveling to get back in.
It was hard to beg,
but I knew that it meant
going back with John.
- Hey, Michelle,
take this until Dionne Warwick
comes on, will you?
- [indistinct]
- [indistinct]
- They got offices
on Sunset Boulevard,
Monterey Pop offices,
to make phone calls
and set up this pop festival.
Oh, nothing's happened.
Let's press on.
- Well, this is John Phillips
of The Mamas and Papas.
- All the leaves are brown
- All the leaves are brown
- And the sky is gray
- And the sky is gray
- I've been for a walk
- I've been for a walk
- On a winter's day
- On a winter's day
- I'd be safe and warm
- I'd be safe and warm
- If I was in LA
- If I was in LA
- California dreamin'
- California dreamin'
- On such a winter's day
- On such a winter's day
- "California Dreamin'"
was written in New York
in the early '60s,
years before we actually
recorded it.
- I was begging John
to go up to California,
and he said, "We can't.
"That's not
where the business is.
The business is in New York."
But one night, John woke me up
in the middle of the night,
"Wake up, I'm writing a song.
Listen to this."
- I'd be safe and warm
If I was in LA
California dreamin'
On such a winter's day
- I said,
"It's beautiful, John."
He says, "Help me write it."
I said, "Tomorrow."
He said, "No,
help me write it now."
- Well, I got down
on my knees ♪
- I got down on my knees
- And I pretend to pray
- I pretend to pray
- You know the preacher
liked the cold ♪
- Preacher liked the cold
- He knows I'm gonna stay
- He knows I'm gonna stay
- California dreamin'
- California dreamin'
all:
On such a winter's day
♪
- The Monterey Pop Festival,
we didn't know
that it would be a historical
landmark in music.
It was the height
of the Anti-Vietnam movement
of flower power, make love,
not war.
Most people were out
of this conventional
state of mind.
It was a very diverse group
of artists
that would never
ordinarily perform
on the same bill together.
- It was the first time
that it happened.
A whole gang of us played
at the same place like that.
Very exciting.
It was the first time
that I'd seen The Who live,
and that was a bit of a shock.
- The Who,
the Jefferson Airplane,
Otis Redding, Ravi Shankar
was there,
Buffalo Springfield.
- I'm--I'm here
to fulfill a function
this particular time around,
one which I revel in
and glory in,
that I'm introducing
the next group
who are my favorites
because of
long-standing friendships
with individuals,
as well as, uh--
I like the music.
[laughs]
I'd like you to welcome
my favorite group,
The Buffalo Springfield.
[applause]
["For What It's Worth" playing]
- Just before the festival,
The Springfield
was reaching its demise.
- There's battle lines
being drawn ♪
Nobody's right
if everybody's wrong ♪
- Oh, yeah
- Young people speaking
- Neil made it a point
to be in the band,
out of the band, in the band,
out of the band,
and so we kept going back
and forth.
- We got to stop, children
What's that sound?
Everybody look,
what's going down? ♪
- We were at Monterey.
We were down a man
and we got David Crosby
to come and sit in with us,
and everybody got
really uptight.
- There's David up there
with The Buffalo Springfield.
- Well, that wispy, you
could hear the vibrations
going through
the entire open hall.
- It--it put a lot
of people uptight.
- It sure did.
- But he didn't put me uptight.
- No.
- He didn't put Stephen Stills
uptight.
- No.
- 'Cause we were two musicians
and we wanted to make music.
And to heck with the rules, man.
- Stop, children,
what's that sound? ♪
- He was okay up there with him.
It didn't bother me
that much at the time.
I had a feeling David
was getting restless
and he felt that it was time
to do something else.
And he was sort
of looking around
for something else to do.
- Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life
It will creep
It starts
when you're always afraid ♪
Step out of the line
- I wasn't really
highly regarded
in The Byrds as a writer.
You know, that was one
of the bones of contention.
- David Crosby
was very talented,
but he also had an ego
the size of the moon.
He became very difficult
to work with.
- I was very competitive
with Roger,
who was always central
in The Byrds, and rightly so.
- Well, the Byrds were like
a pirate ship as opposed
to a close-knit group
of brothers.
The differences were
in who got their songs
on the record.
Terry Melcher was our producer.
He was my friend.
He would get my songs on there.
And he didn't like David Crosby,
and David Crosby
didn't like Terry Melcher,
so David wasn't getting
his songs on there.
And that was a problem.
They were good songs,
but it was politics.
- I wanted more of everything.
I wanted more attention.
My position in that band
was wingman.
That was part
of the grid and the gears
that eventually made
that one come unglued.
So, they let me go.
I've never been good with roles.
But life has changed.
Everything changes all the time.
[guitar music]
- Okay.
So
who you are, what your name is?
What you really do?
- Who I am?
Let's see.
[laughs]
That's a hard departure point.
What'll be
the synopsis, I don't know.
- Your name.
- Oh, just identification?
I'm Joni Mitchell.
["Ladies Of The Canyon" playing]
♪
- Trina wears
her wampum beads ♪
She fills her drawing book
with line ♪
- I remember,
so when I first got here
driving around up in the canyons
with a good stereo.
There were no sidewalks.
There were no regimented lines.
The ruralness of it,
the friendliness of it
No one locked their doors.
Trimmed
with antique luxury ♪
She is a lady
of the canyon ♪
Do, do, do, do, do, do, do,
do, do ♪
La, la, la, la, la, la, la,
la, la, la, la ♪
- Having lived in New York
and then come here,
having trees in the yard,
having ducks
in my neighbor's yard
floating around on the pond,
the ducks on the Ladies
of the Canyon album
were actually on the pond
that I could see
from my dining room window.
- Joni's house on
Lookout Mountain Avenue was--
was one of those little typical
Laurel Canyon bungalows.
Wood shingles and a wood roof.
Big windows all over.
Big, beautiful,
natural wood grand piano
in the living room,
her paintings,
her drawings,
and little crystals
hanging in front of the window,
very conducive for the kind
of music that she wrote.
The record company
needed publicity pictures,
so I went up there
with my partner, Gary Burden.
But as we approached the house,
she was leaning on the window
waiting for us.
And luckily, Gary got into
a whole conversation with her,
which allowed me to change
from wide angle to telephoto
and just kept clicking away
as long as she was talking.
[gentle music]
- Joni Mitchell,
very young lady,
Saskatchewan-born.
You're just starting out,
sort of, aren't you?
- I consider
that I've only started
within the last year
because I've only felt
that I've begun to have
my own--my own way to go,
my own songs,
and my own guitar style,
and--and I'm starting to get
my own vocal styling now.
- Joni had 20
of the best songs
I'd ever heard.
And I said, "I would do anything
to work with you.
What do I have to do?"
Joan did everything herself.
She booked her tour,
she was her own agent.
She traveled all alone.
And she said,
"I'm leaving
for Detroit tomorrow.
"If you come with me,
spend your own money.
I could use the company."
And so we went
on the road together
for about three
and a half, four weeks.
When we came back,
Joni became my first client.
♪
- All the New York companies
passed, Sony and RCA and MGM.
They didn't really
want any folk artist.
Vanguard had Joan Baez
and Elektra had Judy Collins,
so it was very hard
for Joni to get a deal.
- My music--it's on a guitar.
I look like a folk singer,
and folk music
was already dead.
I had come in so late
in the movement.
And everybody assumed
I was a folk singer.
But in fact, I was really
a classical musician
in a certain way.
- My goal was to go out
to California.
And I played her demos
for Warner Bros.
["Song To A Seagull" playing]
- Fly silly seabirds
No dreams can possess you
- That was my first deal
I had ever made.
I hired David Crosby
to produce Joni's album
for her first album.
He had just been kicked out
of The Byrds
four or five months earlier.
He had met Joni in Florida.
- Have names
they must call me ♪
- I walked in the door.
She was singing
"Michael From Mountains"
or "Both Sides Now,"
and just stunned me.
I was in love with her
for a year.
- We were both just so excited
to bring her out to California.
- The seagulls fly
out of reach ♪
- It was just a plethora
of great bands
coming out of LA at that time.
The Doors and The Turtles
and Mamas and Papas.
["Twelve Thirty" playing]
- Young girls are coming
To the canyon
And in the mornings
I can see them walking
- California--my work is there.
I record there and I do
a lot of television there.
But all work and no play
makes Cass a dull girl.
- And I can't keep
myself ♪
- I looked at 78 houses
before I bought my house.
My house looks like it was
just snatched
out of Connecticut
and sat right there
in the middle of California.
A lot of roses and a lot
of grounds around it.
- Very often, Mama Cass--
she would be on a TV show
with The Mamas and Papas.
And she would meet young groups
from England
over for the first time.
And that was the case
with Cream,
and she met Eric Clapton.
He didn't know anybody.
He'd never been
to the US before.
She said,
"Well, come up to my house.
"I'll bring some friends over.
We'll have a little barbecue
in the backyard."
She invited Micky Dolenz.
He came over with
a sixteen-millimeter camera
and David Crosby.
Crosby brought his new protégé,
his new find, this young girl
who sang her own songs.
And she came over and sat
on the grass with her guitar.
[guitar playing]
Eric Clapton was sitting there,
staring at her
because she tuned to a chord.
It's a kind of a folk tuning.
You tune to a chord
and then you don't do
the normal fingering.
He had never seen this before.
He sat there just amazed.
- Fly silly seabird
No dreams can possess you
No voices can blame you
For sun on your wings
- I produced her first album.
- My gentle relations
- I didn't really know
what I was doing.
I just knew that I wanted
to get her on tape
without a lot of other crud
being put on top of it.
- Freedom of all
flying things ♪
- I think perhaps
without David's protection,
they might have set some kind
of producer on me
who would try to make an apple
out of an orange.
His instincts were, "I wanna
pretend to produce you
and I'm not
gonna do anything."
He basically was going
to protect it
because he liked
it the way it was.
- I came to the city
And lived like old Crusoe
On an island of noise
- When I climbed up
my first palm tree
at Los Angeles
International Airport,
I--I never wanted to go back
to England after that.
["Carrie Anne" playing]
- Hey, Carrie Anne
What's your game now?
Can anybody play?
- I had come to Los Angeles
with my band
from the north of England.
I'd already been in
The Hollies for seven years.
They had struck a formula
for success,
and were content to drive
that formula into the ground.
They didn't wanna follow my urge
to keep getting better
and moving forward.
- When the lesson's over,
you'll be with me ♪
- I began to realize that
I was in the wrong place.
- Hey, Carrie Anne
- The Hollies
were being thrown a party
by a record company.
This kid comes up to us
and he goes,
"What are you guys
doing after this?
"I have these friends
that are making a record
"down the street.
They're called
The Mamas and the Papas."
I said, "Let's go."
We went down
to this recording studio.
John and Michelle
and Denny were recording,
but Cass was standing outside.
And Cass said to me,
"What are you doing tomorrow?"
She picked me up at noon
in her convertible Porsche.
She drove me
10 minutes to Laurel Canyon,
very close to Hollywood,
drove up to this place
with another convertible
Porsche in that driveway.
We walked up the stairs.
There was the guy playing
an acoustic guitar on the couch.
And he's got a shoebox,
the lid is full of grass,
and he's separating
the grass from the stems
and rolling perfect joints
while still talking to me,
never losing eye contact.
I'm going,
"Wow. This is insane."
That's how I first met Crosby.
And my life
has never been the same.
- I had the best pot in town.
I'd give people a joint
and they get stomped,
completely stoned out
of their gourds.
And I said, "Hey, Johnny.
Why don't you sing a song?"
They'd listen to her sing,
and then their brains
would run out their nose
on the floor in a puddle,
and that'd be that.
- Drugs in the '60s--
they did some good and they
did some harm, obviously.
I took two tabs of acid one time
and saw electricity.
Not only that,
I saw theoretical physics
with my own eyes.
I saw the luminous fibers
that chain everything together.
Everything, from rocks to trees,
we were all suspended
in this plasma.
These are nature's
telephone wires.
Man doesn't make anything
that he doesn't imitate
from nature.
The insights that came
from that one trip
changed my psychology
so radically
that I had to withdraw
and think about it.
A writer can move time around.
You can take incidents
that happened
over a span of 15 years
and make them all occur
in the same moment.
Maybe the truth doesn't rhyme.
- It was really
a spiritual practice.
We smoked grass to understand,
to learn.
As Ray Manzarek
once famously said,
"These weren't drugs.
These were sacraments."
- My experiments with dope
opened my eyes
to the fact that there was
much more to music
than creating
a three-minute pop hit,
which The Hollies
were really in that.
- Music--it's an expression
of the younger generation.
We can go in front
of a television camera,
we can go on the air,
we can stop world wars
before they ever started.
Love rules the world.
- The Hollies
were doing a show in Ottawa.
We were in one of those places
where you get
a cheap glass of wine,
and my tour manager
is talking in my ear.
And I'm saying,
"Please. Please."
And he's going on me.
And I said, "Please.
"I'm trying to catch the eye
of this fucking beautiful
woman in the corner."
He said, "Well,
if you'd fucking listen to me,
"I'm trying to tell you
that's Joni Mitchell.
And she wants to see you."
So, I go over to Joni,
she has this pale,
blue silk dress on,
and a music box
with a broken note on her lap.
And it would go [makes sound]
And--and we laughed about that.
You know, that's how I met Joni.
It's a simple stuff.
But I was in love
from the moment
that I ever spent
any time with her.
I went back to undo my life
in England after that.
- By this time,
I had moved to Laurel Canyon.
My house was two houses down
from Joni's house.
Everyone was just
living there, doing demos,
forming bands,
forming relationships.
I wanted to start
my own company,
so I opened my own office,
Lookout Management.
We were in the recording studio,
Sunset Sound.
Someone came in and said,
"Hey, Joan,
The Buffalo Springfield
are in Room B.
You should come by
and say hello."
Joni had been
an old friend of Neil's.
They had gone
the Toronto Folk Circuit.
So after our session, we went by
where The Springfield
were recording.
That night,
we went to Ben Frank's,
a diner that was open late
where all the musicians
usually would come
after they played
around midnight.
The Springfield
had just fired their manager,
and you could see that Neil
wanted to leave the band.
- Neil, The Buffalo Springfield
lasted two and a half years
and produced
some of the more interesting
sounds on the scene.
Why is it in existence
no longer?
- Well, we didn't achieve
anywhere near the success
that we expected or wished to.
It's hard enough
to live with yourself
when you've considered
what you've done a failure.
Living with four other guys
is even harder, you know.
Just couldn't do it.
And I--I quit.
- We couldn't quite clear
that final hump.
We get the big gigs
and get paid all that money,
press agents,
management, whatever.
And I think we were
on the verge of it
when Neil took off
to do his solo album
and David Crosby and I,
both having seen demise
of our respective bands,
we were hanging out together
for a period of months
trying to figure out
what we're gonna do next.
- I had come to Los Angeles
to spend some time with Joni.
There's other voices
in the house.
It was David and Stephen.
After dinner,
we smoked a big joint.
The Springfield had broken up.
David had been thrown out
of The Byrds.
They were trying to get
an Everly Brothers
duo thing together,
and David said to Stephen,
"Sing that song."
["You Don't Have To Cry"
playing]
- In the mornin'
When you rise
Do you think of me
And how you left
me cryin'? ♪
- I said, "Holy shit.
Do me a favor.
Sing it one more time."
- I said cry, my baby
You don't have to cry
- He got to the end of it
and I said,
"I may sound crazy,
but sing it one more time."
both: In the long run
It will make you cry
Make you crazy and old
Before your time
And the difference
Between me and you
I won't argue right
or wrong ♪
But I have time to cry,
my baby ♪
- The third time,
he put the harmony on.
- It was an astounding thing.
- We stopped singing and said,
"What the fuck just happened?"
- Stephen and I
didn't really know
what we wanted to do
until we heard Graham.
Then we knew exactly
what we wanted to do,
and we did it.
["Helplessly Hoping" playing]
all: Helplessly hoping
Her harlequin
Hovers nearby
Awaiting a word
- We would go down
to a friend's house and say,
"Listen to this,"
and we would blow their minds.
all: Of gentle true spirit
He runs
Wishing he could fly high
- We'd heard a lot
of Peter, Paul, and Mary
and that three-part,
but we tried to make our voices
into one voice.
David's accent,
and Stephen's accent,
and my accent,
all coming together
with this one sound.
That's what was different.
all: He waits
by the window ♪
And wonders
At the empty place inside
- When a chemistry happens
between people, musically,
it's magic.
You can't predict it,
but something happens,
something new.
all: Or even
Hello?
- We had almost finished
the record,
but we didn't have
an album cover.
Henry, he would hang
out a lot in the studio
while we were making
that first record.
- Took them in a car and drove
around West Hollywood.
We'd just see whatever came up.
Wherever we were,
we'd turn that into a picture.
I would just shoot
everything that happened.
And then we found
this little house.
The house was empty.
It was kind of boarded up.
- It was obviously dilapidated.
It looked as if nobody
had lived there
for a few years.
It was funky.
But it suited the music
that we wanted to present.
Laid back, denim,
hippy, long hair, dope,
that kind of a feeling.
The next morning,
Henry comes down to the studio
with the proofs and we go,
"Shit.
That's the one right there."
And we're in the wrong order.
- Nash, Stills, and Crosby,
well, flip it over,
but then Stephen would be
playing the guitar backwards.
That would be a controversy.
So, I remember saying,
"Well, let's just go back.
"Jump on the couch
in the right order.
it'll take five minutes."
So we went back in the car,
got there,
and the house was gone.
- It was bulldozed
into the back of the garden.
It was just a pile of shit.
And so we had to use
the cover in the wrong order.
- Watching those guys discover
their blend was exciting.
It was boys in love.
And I introduced them to Elliot,
so we became a stable.
- I was managing Joni,
and Crosby, Stills, and Nash.
I liked working with artists,
and their songs,
and developing them,
and their show.
That first album is very unique.
- That first
Crosby, Stills, & Nash record
was showing Stephen Stills
to be the genius that he is.
He played
almost every instrument
on that first record.
He played lead guitar,
he played rhythm guitar,
he played bass, he played piano,
he played B3,
he played percussion.
One night, we tried
to cook "Long Time Gone"
and we weren't getting it.
He says, "You know what?
Go home. Go."
And when we came back
the next day,
he had created the track
to "Long Time Gone."
["Long Time Gone" playing]
- It's been a long
Time comin'
- We realized
when the record was number one
that we would have to go out
and play live.
Stephen realized
that David and I
didn't play guitar well enough
to play lead with him.
He schemed with Elliot
and got Neil involved.
- And I said,
"Wait a second here.
"We just created
this beautiful harmony sound.
You wanna add another voice?"
I knew
that he was a great writer.
I knew
that he was a fine singer,
but I said, "Why the fuck
should we invite you
into this band, Neil?"
He goes,
"You ever heard me and Stephen
played guitar together?"
"Yeah."
He said, "That's why."
[rock music]
♪
- Neil joined for the tour.
We did Chicago Auditorium.
Two nights before Woodstock.
♪
- The Woodstock
It's funny.
That whole thing started
with one of those phone calls
in my kitchen in Laurel Canyon.
"Henry, you should be
out here in New York.
We're gonna have
a huge music concert."
So I got out there
and spent two weeks
photographing the building
of the whole stage,
and the grounds,
and the concert itself
for three days.
- Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
We went there on a helicopter.
We were nearly about to go on.
Neil said,
"I do not wanna be filmed.
"Period.
I'm here for a concert.
"I'm gonna play my ass off
for the people
that are here."
So he was never filmed.
- Ladies and gentleman,
please welcome with us,
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
- I remember being terrified.
[laughs]
But nobody had seen us
try to get up
and sing harmony together,
so they all came.
["Suite: Judy Blue Eyes"
playing]
all: It's getting
to the point ♪
Where I'm no fun anymore
- I am sorry
- Everybody we thought
was cool in the world
was standing
in a huge semicircle behind us.
- Dead Airplane Band,
Hendricks, Who--
they were all
standing there on stage.
If it was gonna collapse,
that's when
it would've collapsed.
all: Do-do-do-do-do,
do, do, do-do-do-do ♪
Do-do-do-do-do,
do, do, do-do ♪
Do-do-do-do-do,
do, do, do-do-do-do ♪
Do-do-do-do-do,
do, do, do-do ♪
[singing in Spanish]
all: Do-do-do-do-do,
do, do, do-do ♪
[singing in Spanish]
all: Do-do-do-do-do,
do, do, do-do-do-do ♪
[singing in Spanish]
all: Do-do-do-do-do,
do, do, do-do-do-do ♪
Do-do-do-do-do,
do, do, do-do-do-do ♪
- Everybody is really excited.
You know, you're looking going,
"Wow, we've never seen this
many people at a show before."
- When it happened
for the first time,
it was something special,
because there you were,
and then we're just realizing,
"Hey, we have a generation.
"We are somebody.
All of these people
are with us."
- Standing
on the stage looking out,
a sea of faces going off
all the way back to the horizon.
All the way to the left
and all the way to the right,
is solid people,
filling an entire valley,
saying, "Wow."
That was the feeling
of Woodstock.
- So the music is part of that.
The music is not
a commodity or a content.
The music is the life.
You're singing your songs
and the people are listening.
It's going
back and forth right now.
That's what was so beautiful.
- There was a feeling going on
with everybody at that point.
We felt very encouraged
by seeing each other.
Everybody was thrilled
that there were so many of us.
We thought, "Hey,
we're gonna change
everything."
Didn't work out that way.
["So You Want to Be
a Rock 'n' Roll Star" playing]
♪
- So you want to be
a rock and roll star? ♪
Then listen now
to what I say ♪
Just get
an electric guitar ♪
Then take some time
and learn how to play ♪
And with your hair
swung right ♪
And your pants too tight
It's gonna be all right
Then it's time
to go downtown ♪
Where the agent man
won't let you down ♪
Sell your soul
to the company ♪
Who are waiting there
to sell plastic ware ♪
And in a week or two
if you make the charts ♪
The girls
will tear you apart ♪
♪
The price you paid
for your riches and fame ♪
Was it all a strange game?
You're a little insane
The money, the fame,
and the public acclaim ♪
Don't forget who you are
You're
a rock and roll star ♪
La, la, la, la, la, la, la
La, la, la, la, la, la, la
[crowd cheering]
♪