Thursday, June 4, 2009

By the Time We Got to Woodstock: The L.A. Trip

Here's the next installment in my continuing series of segues derived from my forthcoming book: By the Time We Got to Woodstock: The Great Rock Revolution of 1969, coming in September from Backbeat Books.

As described by ex-New Yorker Carole King in "No Easy Way Down," the fall of Aquarius was experienced most directly in Los Angeles. While some singers personified the innocence of the era, like Neil Young in "Sugar Mountain" or Zappa protege Sandy Hurvitz, AKA Uncle Meat in "Arch Godliness of Purpleful Magic," closer to the truth was "Sin City" by the Flying Burrito Brothers. Joni Mitchell may have had a grand time, segueing from David Crosby to Graham Nash, but most everyone else was coming under an evil spell. None was more ensnared than the Beach Boys' Dennis Wilson, who entertained "the houseguest from hell," mass-murderer to be Charles Manson, and rewrote his tune "Never Learn Not to Love" to partly offset the cost of his extended visit.
Here's a trip back to those glorious days of Scorpio descending.





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