A few months back I was browsing the shelves in a local thrift shop and pulled out a book entitled ‘Laurel Canyon’ by Michael Walker. In truth the title didn’t mean much to me, but I was intrigued by the explanatory subtitle “The inside story of rock and roll’s legendary neighbourhood”. And I was hooked by the first sentence of chapter 1. “In the autumn of 1964 a nineteen-year-old bluegrass adept and virtuoso mandolin player named Chris Hillman stood at the corner of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Kirkwood Drive contemplating a FOR RENT sign on a telegraph pole across from the Canyon Country Store.”
The narrative takes us straight into the formation of the Byrds and onwards through the development of folk rock, country rock and other musical forms, but the central theme of the book is the location itself, Laurel Canyon in the Hollywood Hills of southern California. The area had a special vibe of its own which attracted such musical stars as Joni Mitchell, Crosby, Stills and Nash, the Mamas and the Papas, Carole King, and the Eagles. These and a whole slew of other influential singers, musicians and bands are featured in the book.
For someone whose primary interest is in bluegrass music ‘Laurel Canyon’ might be described as subsidiary reading, but another book, which someone kindly gave me as a Christmas present, was right on target. This was ‘Bluegrass Generation’ by Neil V. Rosenberg. Neil is the pre-eminent scholar of bluegrass music, with such major publications to his name as the definitive ‘Bluegrass: A History’ and ‘The Music of Bill Monroe’ (the latter co-authored with Charles K. Wolfe). But in his latest book he has stepped out on to the stage of the Brown County Jamboree at Bean Blossom, Indiana, where for several years in the early 1960s he listened to, played banjo with, and worked for Bill Monroe.
Trained as a conscientious academic who was studying folklore at Oberlin and Bloomington Colleges in Indiana, Neil Rosenberg kept full records of his musical interests and activities during the period. He has been able to use these for reference, as well as a large collection of reel-to-reel tapes of live appearances by many of the performers at Bean Blossom and elsewhere.
‘Bluegrass Generation’ is a memoir written in the first person rather than an academic treatise. Neil springs to life in these pages as a young man in his early twenties, already an accomplished musician, good enough to be asked by Bill Monroe to help him out on stage, first as a member of the house band and later with the Blue Grass Boys themselves. He clearly learned quickly from Monroe and the other musicians, even holding his own in banjo duets with Bill Keith who joined the Blue Grass Boys during this time.
Concurrently Neil was also playing a greater and greater part in the running of the Brown County Jamboree for Monroe, including a couple of months managing the Jamboree in the summer of 1963. This coincided with a significant period in the development of Bill Monroe’s musical career, with Ralph Rinzler taking over as his manager and the birth of bluegrass festivals. Neil Rosenberg was there, in the middle of it all. He was literally in the right place at the right time, and has now given us his personal account and assessment of what was going on. His book is close to the heart of bluegrass music, and is fascinating reading for anyone with the slightest interest in where our music has come from. You will not be disappointed!
John Baldry
February 2019
