
The Quarantine Stream: ‘Echo in the Canyon’ Details the Creative Explosion of Folk Rock in the 1960s
Posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2020 by Ben Pearson
(Welcome to The Quarantine Stream, a new series where the /Film team shares what they’ve been watching while social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic.)
The Movie: Echo in the Canyon
Where You Can Stream It: Netflix
The Pitch: The Byrds, The Beach Boys, The Mamas & The Papas, Buffalo Springfield, and several other bands who are associated with the “California Sound” of folk rock all lived within a few miles of each other in the 1960s, and The Wallflowers front man Jakob Dylan (Bob Dylan’s son) interviews tons of people – including many surviving members of those bands – about that explosively creative period in music history.
Why It’s Essential Viewing: I didn’t grow up listening to folk rock in any sort of concentrated way, but having just rewatched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and being immersed in Quentin Tarantino’s vision of Los Angeles in 1969, I thought it might be fun to step a bit further back in time to get a crash course in that music scene. Echo in the Canyon delivers exactly that, with the documentary doling out anecdotes not only from the artists who were influenced by the music coming out of L.A.’s Laurel Canyon in that era, but by those who actually created many of those iconic songs and albums. Read More »