Barney Hoskyns - Hotel California - Singer-songwriters and Cocaine Cowboys in the L.A. Canyons 1967–1976

Fourth Estate

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain in 2005 by Fourth Estate

Copyright © Barney Hoskyns 2005

PS Section copyright © Travis Elborough 2006, except ‘The

Genius of Judee Sill’ by Barney Hoskyns © Barney Hoskyns 2006

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Barney Hoskyns asserts the moral right to be

identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007177059

Ebook Edition © MAY 2013 ISBN: 9780007389216

Version: 2017-01-13

From the reviews of Hotel California :

‘A terrific account of the interface between idealism and squalor, art and commerce’

Guardian Guide

‘Takes you right into the backyards of Laurel Canyon…A masterful history’

Observer Music Monthly

‘A comprehensive account of the Golden State’s denim-clad, narcissistic heyday’

Mojo

‘Barney Hoskyns brings a genuine love as well as an outsider’s keen eye to the rise and fall of the California scene in the ’60s and ’70s. It’s a riveting story, sensitively told’

ANTHONY DECURTIS, Contributing Editor, Rolling Stone

‘If you are looking for the ingredients required of a good rock ’n’ roll story, Hotel California has got the lot…a murky tale in which a sprawling cast of A-list celebrities nurture their collective inner child with a steady diet of promiscuous sex, hard drugs and soft tunes spiced with appropriately confessional lyrics…an ambitious and authoritative account

which makes overdue sense of a spectacularly decadent period of pop history’

DAVID SINCLAIR, Guardian

‘The scene is small, intimate and hopeful, and Hoskyns writes about it with a similar delicacy and verve’

The Times

‘Fantastic’

PHIL JUPITUS

‘Brilliant’

LAUREN LAVERNE

For Natalie

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Introduction

1 Expecting to Fly:Byrdsong and the California Dream

I: Impossible Dreamers

II: Claims to Fame

III: So You Want to Be a Rock ’n’ Roll Star

2 Back to the Garden:Getting It Together in the Country

I: Little Village

II: Back Porch Majority

III: Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon

IV: Human Highway

3 Out of the City:New Kids in Town

I: A New Home in the Sun

II: Outside of a Small Circle of Friends

III: Both Sides, Then

IV: The Elf on Roller Skates

4 Horses, Kids, Forgotten Women:Are You Ready for Country Rock?

I: Hand Sown…Home Grown

II: Wheatstraw Sweet

III: Rural Free Delivery

IV: Big Tit Sue and Bigger Tit Sue

5 Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere:Escape from Sin City

I: Home Is What Makes You Happy

II: Ain’t No One for to Give You No Name

III: Free My Gypsy Soul

IV: The Straight Guy

V: Sympathy for the Devil

6 Let It Be Written, Let It Be Sung:A Case of Me

I: Music from Big Ego

II: Old Ladies of the Canyon

III: Me, Myself and I

IV: All We Are Saying Is Give Smack a Chance

V: You Probably Think This Song Is About You

7 Sittin’ In:With a Little Help from Our Friends

I: Degrees of Separation

II: Play It as It Lays

III: ‘WHO IS DAVID GEFFEN AND WHY IS HE SAYING THOSE TERRIBLE THINGS ABOUT ME?’

IV: Don’t Even Try to Understand

V: Exile on Sunset Boulevard

8 Paradise and Lunch:The Machinery vs. the Popular Song

I: Fool’s Gold

II: Song Power

III: On the Rox

IV: Postcards from Hollywood

9 I Hate Them Worse than Lepers:After the Thrill Is Gone

I: Show Biz Kids

II: Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow

III: The Smoker You Drink, the Player You Get

IV: Paradise in Trouble

10 Go Your Own Way:Los Angeles in the Long Run

I: You’ll Never Eat Pussy in This Town Again

II: Bombs Away, Dream Babies

III: End of the Innocents

Coda Like a Setting Sun

Appendix Mellow Gold: The Tape from California

Notes

Further Reading

References

Index

P.S.

Kicking Against the Pricks

Life at a glance

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About the Author

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About the Publisher

On a baking day in August 1971, five naked young men sit in a sauna in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles. Four are musicians, three on the cusp of unimaginable success. Two are out-of-towners, come to sunny Southern California to find fame, glory, girls. All are lean, rangy, good-looking –‘like Jesus Christ after a month in Palm Springs’, in the words of their friend Eve Babitz.

The fifth naked man in the sauna is the one who owns it: a short, skinny agent who’s moved to LA from New York and established himself as a talent-broker of fearsome repute. Among his clients are Joni Mitchell and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. As the sweat pours off their suntanned limbs, David Geffen tells the four musicians – Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Jackson Browne and Ned Doheny – about his plans for his record label. ‘I want to keep Asylum very small,’ he avers. ‘I’ll never have more artists than I can fit in this sauna.’

Twenty years later, Geffen will sell his second label – one he modestly names after himself – for a cool $550 million. At the same time the first Greatest Hits album by the Eagles – the group formed by Glenn Frey and Don Henley – will officially be pronounced the biggest-selling album of all time. ‘David took the crème de la crème from that scene,’ says Eve Babitz, ‘and signed them on the basis of their cuteness.’ Not bad work for an afternoon’s Nordic ogling.