Meanwhile, somewhere on the other side of the world, in the city of Los Angeles in these first months of 1965, a new “scene” was just beginning to take shape. In a geographically and socially isolated community known as Laurel Canyon, musicians, singers and songwriters suddenly begin to gather, as if summoned there by some invisible Pied Piper. In a few months, the hippie/flower child movement would be born, along with a new style of music that would provide the soundtrack to the turbulent second half of the 1960s. A supernatural number of rock music superstars would emerge from Laurel Canyon beginning in the mid-1960s and through the entire decade of the 1970s...American writer David McGowan's study "Laurel Canyon" is dedicated to the hippie music of the 1960s. And not everything in this story is as we used to imagine...* * *Laurel Canyon in the 1960s and early 1970s was a magical place where a dizzying number of musicians gathered to create much new music. Members of bands such as The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, The Monkees, Beach Boys, The Mamas and The Papas, The Turtles, The Eagles, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention, Steppenwolf, Captain Beefheart, CSN, Three Dog Night, Alice Cooper, The Doors and Love with Arthur Lee, along with such singers/songwriters as Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, James Taylor, Carole King, Jackson Browne, Judy Sill and David Blue lived in Laurel Canyon and made music in their bucolic community located in the Hollywood Hills. But there was also a dark side to this entire idyll. Many of the inhabitants of Laurel Canyon lost their lives, and many of these deaths remain shrouded in mystery to this day. Much more integrated into this milieu than most would care to admit was also a guy named Charles Manson, along with his monstrous entourage. On the periphery of this musical party were various political figures, former and future, intelligence officers - that is, the same type of people who could easily contribute to the birth of many new rock stars inhabiting the canyon. And yet all these colorful inhabitants of Laurel Canyon - rock stars, hippies, murderers, intelligence officers and politicians - happily coexisted next to a secret military base. David McGowan's book is a very strange, but nevertheless true story about the dark underbelly of a hippie utopia. David McGowan was born and raised in Torrance, California, just twenty miles south of Laurel Canyon. He graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles with a degree in psychology and, starting in 1990, launched his own small business in the greater Los Angeles area. He is currently single but is the proud father of three daughters. He is also a lifelong music fan and still often keeps his radio tuned to classic rock stations. However, at home in Los Angeles, he can be reached at [email protected]