Author of Best-Selling 'LAUREL CANYON' to Appear at Mods & Rockers Film Festival - Saturday Aug. 5
www.laurelcanyonthebook.com
www.modsandrockers.com
Los Angeles-based journalist Michael Walker, author of LAUREL CANYON: THE INSIDE STORY OF ROCK AND ROLL's LEGENDARY NEIGHBORHOOD (Faber and Faber/FSG), will make a special appearance Saturday Aug. 5 at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood in conjunction with the 2006 Mods & Rockers Film Festival, running now through August 31. It is a free-admission event open to all the public.
Walker will give a one-hour talk adapted from his new best-selling book about the remarkable music scene that blossomed in the 60s and 70s in Laurel Canyon, the rustic neighborhood just above the Sunset Strip where Crosby, Stills and Nash first sang together and the cream of L.A.'s rock royalty lived and played in the 60s and 70s.
Residents of Laurel Canyon included Joni Mitchell, Graham Nash, Frank Zappa, John Mayall, Jackson Browne, Carole King, Jim Morrison, the Mamas and the Papas, the Byrds and many other influential musicians of the era.
With so many of the baby-boom's leading musical lights living there, says Walker, "it was inevitable that some masterpieces of '60s and '70s rock and pop music would be created in Laurel Canyon." Crosby Stills and Nash's classic "Our House" was inspired by Graham Nash's love affair with Joni Mitchell at her Laurel Canyon cottage "with two cats in the yard."
LAUREL CANYON has spent two months on the Los Angeles Times Book Review bestseller list and was featured in Rolling Stone and Salon. The book has helped fuel a multi-generational rediscovery of the music and culture of the 1960s and 1970s, as evidenced by this summer's sellout tours by the Rolling Stones, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Bob Dylan, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
Walker will speak from 6 to 7 p.m. at the Egyptian's Steven Spielberg Theatre. A reception and booksigning will follow; copies of LAUREL CANYON will be available for purchase.
The Mods & Rockers Film Festival has been presented every year since 1999 by The American Cinematheque. This year's edition running 6 weeks (July 13-August 31) is the largest ever rock 'n' roll film festival held in the US. It is co-produced and hosted by its co-founder -- humorist, producer & Sirius Satellite Radio host Martin Lewis.
