Bob Yodels Up the Canyon – Some Backstory …and A Sense of the People and Atmosphere of Laurel Canyon Back in the Day

The more I try to express my thoughts and feelings on the documentary, “Echo in the Canyon”, the more frustrated I get trying to put my finger on what, exactly. those thoughts and feelings are. After every viewing of the well-meant, but ultimately lacking mash-note to the tiny L.A. Basin enclave which had had a disproportionate impact on popular music, songwriters, and artists around the world, I became further and further upset with its lack of connective tissue to its subject, and started to feel uncomfortable just looking for something positive to say.

Zappa’s old house – At the corner of Laurel Canyon and Lookout Mountain

Eventually, the only example I can give as to what happened to my interest in learning what new and revelatory information would be revealed about this iconic time and place, (interest which was powerful enough to get me to watch it in the first place), was realized when that interest waned sufficiently for me to wish I had never heard of the damn thing. …it was like watching a group of first graders talking to astronauts about landing on the moon by asking them what kind of cereal they had in the morning, and then trying to land on the moon themselves.

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One of the many things that prevented my enjoyment of this obvious labour of love, was the lack of context. The complete non-existence of the weight and reasons for this ‘Field of Dreams’ where these people lived, and the reasons they were drawn to a particular place at the same time. A few years is all it was, yet here we are discussing it 50 years later …recipients of the same mystifying fixation with the Beatles that causes otherwise sane human beings to stay locked in an era of music at the expense of experiencing anything since that is of equal, musical importance, but lacks the haircut, cuban heels, and societal impact of those 4 mop tops from Liddypool. Had people been so obsessed with the biggest, most important musician and music from 50 years prior to the Beatles impact in 1963, they would have still been extolling the virtues and musical superiority of the GREATEST artist ever in 1913, The March King, John Philip Sousa.

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Laurel Canyon

“Laurel Canyon found itself a nexus of counterculture activity and attitudes in the mid-late 1960s and early 1970s, becoming famous as home to many of L.A.’s rock musicians, such as Frank Zappa; Jim Morrison of The Doors; Carole King; The Byrds; Buffalo Springfield; Canned Heat; John Mayall; members of the band The Eagles; the band Love; Neil Young; Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys and Micky Dolenz & Peter Tork of The Monkees. Tork’s home was considered one of Laurel Canyon’s biggest party houses with all-night, drug-fueled sleepovers, well attended by the hippest musicians and movie stars of the era. John Phillips of the Mamas & the Papas took inspiration from their home in Laurel Canyon for the song “Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon)”, released in 1967. The following year, blues artist John Mayall recorded and released the album Blues from Laurel Canyon based on his experiences during a vacation that he spent in the Canyon.

Perhaps most famously, the area and its denizens served as inspiration for Joni Mitchell‘s third album, Ladies of the Canyon, released in 1970. The house she lived in was immortalized in the Crosby, Stills, and Nash song, “Our House” (1970), written by her then-lover Graham Nash. The group are reputed to have first sung together in Mitchell’s living room

Legendary rock photographer Henry Diltz was also a resident and used the scenic Canyon backdrop for many of his historic photos of rock musicians casually socializing. Several of his photos became iconic representations of the 1960s and 1970s’ West Coast music scene; others became famous album sleeve covers, such as CSN’s debut album, Crosby, Stills & Nash (photographed in nearby West Hollywood)”. – Wikipedia

The complete history of the Canyon the above excerpt was taken from can be found here.

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The Denizens

One person who was responsible for many of the artists moving to Laurel Canyon was a music industry gadabout, producer, artist, visionary who was a gentleman named Barry Friedman. Barry, in typical Barry fashion, decided his name was not his name and re-christened himself Frazier Mohawk. Of his many (and I mean many) accomplishments and the moments in musical history he contributed to, the biggest he should be remembered for was the hand he had in creating one the most important bands to ever be assembled not only in L.A., but in music’s world wide pantheon of influential and iconic artists.

That little, or next to nothing mentioned in this column, especially the following story, is included in ‘Echo in the Canyon’, is unfortunate, but perhaps just due to a lack of personal knowledge of the place and time that was its subject. The participants may have been toddlers or not yet born when the events and music featured in the documentary took place. One has to wonder what was edited out of the interviews with Crosby, Jackson, and Nash, at the very least.

Buffalo Springfield

At the time, Mohawk was living down the street from Dickie Davis who handled the lighting at The Troubadour and was sharing a garden apartment with a young folk singer by the name of Stephen Stills.

Frazier – “I guess it was getting a little crowded at Dickie’s so Stephen ended up at my place which was right in the middle of Hollywood on Fountain Ave. Stephen and I started talking about putting a band together. I told him to wish up a band and we started contacting the people and bringing them into town. Richie Furay came out and Stephen kept talking about this guy Neil Young he had met up in Canada. We had originally flown Kenny Koblun down from Canada but he freaked out and flew back.”

The rest is a piece of history some of you may already be aware of.

From an interview with Frazier in England’s UNCUT Magazine.

Here’s the whole story and a great deal of insight into Neil Young,

American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Stephen Stills

“Buffalo Springfield was Stephen’s group, so I got to hear about Neil through him. The whole thrust of the group was “Look Stephen, if you want to put a band together I’ll help you do it.” That’s really what it was. He wanted to put together the people he knew and had worked with in various places. It was unfortunate that he had all these great performers who all could work as a single act and were talented, but as it turned out I think we found out that he didn’t play well with others. He preferred to play with himself.

They were never going to last long on Atlantic. If they’d signed with Elektra it would have been a different story, I think. Elektra was more nurturing and [label boss] Jac Holzman had a great understanding of music and musicians. His approach was damn near religious.

So I first met Neil when Stephen met him in LA, driving his hearse. He was just right across from the liquor store, in the parking lot near Schwab’s [Drug Store], right where Laurel Canyon comes down and meets Sunset Boulevard. I just thought he seemed like a nice enough fella, very skinny. Stephen thought a lot of him. He’d worked all these folk clubs and that’s where he’d first run into Neil. He knew a good songwriter when he saw one.

Ken Koblun was in the first version of the Springfield, but he ran away. He left a note on his pillow saying “Sorry, I can’t do it,” and went home. But having lived in Canada myself now for thirty years, I knew exactly where he was coming from. I would have fled too. LA was crazy, while Canada had a degree of sanity about it. It was much more grounded.

The Springfield lived and rehearsed in my house. It was a wonderful house. It had 25-ft. ceilings and was basically one huge room, built by a heroin addict musician whose name I can’t remember. She was arrested and dragged out of the house, after which it came up for rent. It was originally built by Thelma White, who sang with her All-Girl Orchestra in the ‘40s. It had beautiful stained-glass windows and a huge cement bathtub in the middle of the room, with the story of Don Quixote in tiles around it. It was all staged in front of a huge fireplace that took up the whole wall. It was an amazing place, with crystal windows that would create rainbows across the whole room in the mornings. It really was spectacular. I had my bedroom, which was a loft that sort of overlooked the rest of the place, and there was another bedroom in the back. I remember Ken [Koblun] was back in there for a minute. I’m not sure where everybody else was, they must have been there just in sleeping bags.

As far as the eventual name for the group, Buffalo Springfield, we pulled up in front of the house one day when they were repaving Fountain. There was a steam roller there and on the back it said Buffalo Springfield. I said, ‘Hey, that’s the name!’ I pried the sign off, took it into the house and nailed it on the wall. Buffalo Springfield, one of the most influential groups of the 60s, was born.

We eventually found a motel and put everybody up in this motel on Sunset. The motel had a little theatre, with maybe 25 or 30 seats and a little stage, and that’s where Buffalo Springfield rehearsed. It was a wonderful place. I’d watch them work up those early songs, when the whole process seemed to be sans effort. Everything seemed to just fall into place. “Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing” was a pretty good song. There was an honesty to Neil’s poetry, in that it wasn’t written for effect. It was very direct and made sense. There were so few groups around that it was just assumed that everyone was going to be successful and drive Porsches.

When they began playing live, The Springfield were very good. I never liked the Whisky A Go-Go much, the floors were always sticky. But the Springfield always got big crowds there. And they started getting groupies there. In fact I think Dewey [Martin] got the most, he seemed to be a pro at it. Because he’d been on the road a lot, he understood the process, whereas Neil and the other lads were still figuring out who to say ‘No’ to.

I tried to promote them as having their own personalities. And I also sensed that this was not for ever. So it was important for each of them to be able to have their own successful solo careers when they came out of it. Buffalo Springfield was basically a vehicle for each of them to go onto something else. Neil had his long hair so it was a matter of exaggerating the sense of style that each one of them had. That idea really came from The Byrds, in that David [Crosby] had his cape and they all had their own thing. I would make suggestions as to what kind of things Buffalo Springfield would wear, but it was all very organic. It just kind of developed. Everybody sort of fermented together at the same time and that’s why the blend worked. My choice for drummer was actually Billy Mundi, who was far superior, but Stephen didn’t think he looked right. He had to have a certain look. Did I see Neil as a loner? Oh yeah.

Neil once said I should have stayed with the Buffalo Springfield longer. And I thought that too, but I gave them up at gunpoint so I didn’t have a choice. I was in New York putting on a little Eastern tour with the Springfield, and we were out there with The Byrds. I’d be talking to promoters as we were going about. One day [Atlantic producer/manager] Charlie Greene (pictured here with Brian Stone) showed up and asked me out to dinner. So he picked me up in his limo, which I was pretty sure belonged to Ahmet [Ertegun, Atlantic boss] because it wasn’t a rental and he was the only guy I knew in New York with a limo. We drove around and around and Charlie would be talking, saying how he thought he could do a better job with the band. He had a silver revolver that he’d taken out of his waistband and had put in his pocket. The whole time he was talking, he had his hand on it. Eventually I said: “Hey Charlie, how about dinner now?” And he pulled over to a hotdog stand, reached through the window and bought me a hotdog. Then he said “Look, I’ll give you $1,000 for the band”, to which I said no. I think I said I’d think about it, but all I wanted to do was get out of there. So through a series of things, Charlie had written out an ‘agreement’ on a paper napkin. And I hadn’t signed it. As I was finally getting out of the car, and that was the only way I could get out, he stuck $1,000 in my pocket. I said “No no, I really don’t want this.” Charlie said “No, you keep it.” And that was the last I saw of The Buffalo Springfield. Charlie more or less said that if I came back around, I’d be dealt with. It was scary as hell. I never told the band what happened. And to this day, Neil and the others don’t know it happened. It was that whole Sonny Bono group of people at Atlantic. Ahmet was a very aggressive and forceful businessman and he got what he wanted. Yes, he had great ears and did wonderful things with music, but I certainly wasn’t happy.

I was the one who introduced Neil to Jack Nitzsche. He lived way up on top of a hill in the Hollywood hills. I did actually record Buffalo Springfield once at Capitol Studios. The guy who had the tapes was Peter Asher, who set it all up through Apple Corps. I would love to hear those recordings now, they were great. We only did four or five songs, but I can’t remember what was on there. I just know it was all good. Only Peter Asher would know if they’re still around. The band were real easy to produce. None of us really knew anything so we were all learning together.

I remember the time after Neil had had his first epileptic seizure. It was at the World’s Fair at Hollywood Palladium, I think, and he was in this garden apartment being nursed back to health by a herd of lovely ladies. I thought Ah, now I get it. [Producer] Paul Rothchild once told me that you can always tell how successful a group or artist is going to be by the quality of their groupies. If there are smart women around them, it’s a good sign. And Neil had smart women.

Neil’s in a class by himself. And there’s a lot to be said for longevity. Jackson Browne is another guy who’s stuck to his musical guns and has kept his purity and honesty. There are only a few of them around. Neil is one, but Stephen isn’t one. Stephen’s a real good player and musician, but I don’t get the feeling he’s terribly religious when it comes to his music. He always wanted to be very rich.

As for what happened next, I have to say I was surprised that no one got killed in CSNY. When you look at all those personalities together, there was a lot of tension going on. But maybe that’s what made it work.” …And as it started to work, the move to Laurel Canyon was in full swing.

From Marty Melhuish’s Frazier Mohawk bio: “By the mid-60s, having moved up into Laurel Canyon, Mohawk went to work running the production and publishing companies owned by Randy Sparks, who handled the groups The New Christy Minstrels and The Back Porch Majority. One day Mohawk read in Variety that there was a casting call for four guys to play a rock group in a TV series. One of the artists signed to Sparks’ company was Michael Nesmith and he was one of four musicians who Mohawk bundled off to the audition. History shows that Nesmith ended up with one of the spots open for the TV show soon to be called The Monkees.

Mike Nesmith actually became the catalyst for Mohawk’s move into record production. Nesmith had written a song titled Mary Mary which Mohawk had taken over to Elektra Records. At the time, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band was recording their sophomore album East West (Elektra 1965) and Mohawk (under his given name Barry Friedman) ended up producing the tracks Mary Mary and Two Trains A Running on that record. He subsequently left Randy Sparks’ company and became  an independent producer. “I produced these very strange blues records because, honestly, I didn’t know what blues was. I didn’t in fact know that Butterfield was a blues band. I thought they were just a bunch of psychedelic people with a drummer with silver pointy shoes. So I brought in these kind of Yma Sumac singers and did these very strange things and they ended up having this crossover record [Mary Mary].” Another of the groups he produced during this period was Kaleidoscope (Epic 1968) which featured guitarist David Lindley.

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Mohawk had become friends with Paul Rothschild who had become executive producer at Elektra. That same label, to which he had originally tried to sign Buffalo Springfield, eventually hired him as in-house producer on the west coast. With Rothschild, Mohawk put together the group Rhinoceros which included Jon Finley, Mike Fonfara and Peter Hodgson of the Canadian group Jon-Lee and the Checkmates, Billy Mundi (Frank Zappa), Danny Weis (Iron Butterfly), Doug Hastings (Buffalo Springfield) and Alan Gerber. The concept of a “Super Group” was to put together people who had come from other established groups but were all lead performers in their own right. In the subsequent advertising campaign for the group’s debut album for Elektra, Mohawk arguably coined this phrase Super Group for the first time. Satin Doll/Monkey Man

It was this period of Frazier’s life where we crossed paths. When Roxy (pictured here with Jac Holzman-rear, centre, John Haeny-with husky, and John Frankenheimer – manager-far right) (the precursor to The Wackers) were brought to Elektra by the marvelous Patty Faralla, I was introduced into this wonderful maelstrom of intelligence mixed with mayhem, lunacy, and dumb-luck. In retrospect, I’m surprised so many survived the insatiable quest for the edge that drove everyone to heights (and depths) that would scare even the bravest of laymen. I had met Patty when I was in The Family Tree and we both were with RCA Records. It was Patty who had introduced me to Harry Nilsson and so many other Hollywood folks who would go on to become well known or worse, wildly successful. When The Tree was dropped by RCA, Patty had already moved on to Elektra and called me and asked if I would come back down to L.A with my new band and do a demo for her to play for Jac Holzman. Of course I would. We drove down and recorded two new songs, Changed My Mind and Bird. Imagine my absolute surprise and delight when the engineer/producer turned out to be John Haeny (another great story I’ll tell one day) whom I had met at a Beau Brummel session in San Francisco years earlier, produced by Sylvester Stewart (Sly Stone) at Coast Recorders, and who had also engineered the Autumn Records demos with Sly which I wrote and sang with the band US. John produced and engineered the demos at Elektra and within hours we had a deal with Jac Holzman’s amazing label. I met Frazier for the first time during that trip, but had seen him and heard about him previously. The man had a perpetual gleam in his eye and a killer mustache. He and Haeny also had the best pot and coke I think I ever did…it’s so hard to remember, so…yeah…probably the best.

There were so many great people connected to Elektra at that time. David Anderle, Patty, Suzanne Helms, John, so many others whose names slip my mind, not to mentioned the East coast guys and women we would meet later.

While Frazier was there an amazing idea and experiment was put forth by him. From Jac’s incredible book about his life in the music industry, Follow the Music, comes the following. I hope he forgives me. I couldn’t reach him in time to get anything new. If you like books about the music biz, this is easily the best of the lot in capturing the ‘60s and ‘70s and beyond. Written as mostly conversations between the principals gleaned from hours and hours of interviews, it puts you in the room like no other book I’ve read about the era. A few years ago when I told Jac I was disappointed neither Roxy nor The Wackers were even mentioned in the book, he said, “Well, you were never much of a problem.” Well I never!

I lived just one street over in Laurel Canyon when this was all happening. Most of the rock illuminati lived on Ridpath which was just up the hill and ran parallel to Lookout Moutain Rd. which is the street I lived off of on Horseshoe Canyon Blvd. We could hear Paul Rothchild’s stereo clear as a bell some days, remember the Stones incident with relish, ditto the Barry McGuire silliness.

From Follow the Music, by Jac Holzman and Gavan Daws.

The whole book can be read here, but do yourselves a favour and buy a copy.

JACKSON BROWNE: So there were interesting houses we could walk to. Or we would catch a ride to Peter Tork’s house on Willow Glen. Peter had been a dishwasher at the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach and now he was a TV star, a Monkee. My friend Ned Doheny and I would say, “Let’s go up to Peter’s house, see what’s going on.” Sometimes you would walk in and there would be twelve girls in the pool, naked. And they were beautiful women, people of substance, not bimbos—not that we would have minded if they were bimbos. One time Jimi Hendrix was up there jamming with Buddy Miles in the pool house, and Peter’s girlfriend was playing the drums, naked. She was gorgeous like a Varga girl is gorgeous, this physically flawless creature. She looked like the drawings of Indian maidens that they airbrush on motorcycle tanks. I don’t think she was as good a drummer as she was an object of desire, but she was something.

Barry Friedman was on Ridpath too, about a block from Billy James, two blocks from Paul Rothchild.

JUDY JAMES: Once, Barry phoned everyone and got us all to drop the needle on the new Stones album at exactly the same moment, so that the canyon would echo with music.

BARRY FRIEDMAN: One night it was full moon, we’re all sitting around in various states of decomposure, and a voice is heard echoing over the canyon, “This is God speaking. I have a message for you.” And He gave His message. Well, thousands of people throughout the canyon were somewhat freaked by this experience and talked about it for days. It turned out it was Barry McGuire, the ‘Eve Of Destruction’ guy, who had set up this huge sound system, I think at the Mamas and Papas’ house up at the top of Lookout, and blasted this diatribe to the stoned minions below.

JUDY JAMES: I had an impression of Barry as a true hippie. In the way that Cass Elliott was a true hippie. They believed in what was going on. They believed in what Timothy Leary was finding out, and didn’t yet know the danger of it, that it was only true for five minutes and then you could be lost to the acid experience. Barry was at the center of a lot of stuff, drugs, recording, money spent on a loose, deliberate creation of that which the press was codifying as the Sixties, creating permission with money to go into the deeper darker side of the drug music culture. Bigger parties, more drugs, more permissions given, more permissions taken.

JOHN HAENY: Barry was in his late twenties. Most of the rest of us were younger, me for one, twenty-three. Some were much younger—Jackson Browne and Ned Doheny were still in their teens. Barry was sort of the leader of the pack.

MARTY RICHMOND: Undisputed leader of the band.

JOHN HAENY: There were social experiments at his house, where he pushed all the beds together in the living room, and all the people who were living at his house were going to start sleeping together.

JACKSON BROWNE: Orgies. Lots of bodies. The mechanics of that kind of arrangement are always problematic.

BARRY FRIEDMAN: One time Nico came in with a gun and grabbed some woman that one of the boys was in bed with by the hair and drug her out and made her run down the road, and we finally got the gun away from Nico and said, “Nico, why did you do that?” And she said, “Oh, some men like that.” The Marble Index

JACKSON BROWNE: You’d meet all sorts of great people at Barry’s house. That’s where I met Warren Zevon. I met David Crosby there. He and Stephen Stills and Graham Nash would come over and play their demo. I played Barry some of my songs.

JUDY JAMES: This really was a moment when musicians had an enormous determination to communicate what they were feeling, whether in music or in lyrics. You could hear that at the hootenannies at the Troubadour, in living rooms all over town. On Ridpath, too. People were forming various groups and allegiances and alliances, and they all wanted to make a record.

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Some correspondence from a few friends….

Here’s a bit more history from those who were there. Sent to me in response to the 2 part series I did on Frazier when he passed away. I am surprised that none of these people were contacted by the writers and producers of ‘Echo in the Canyon’. These are the stories from the canyon I recall. These are the moments that made the location and the era a fond and treasured memory.

A Personal Note from Rolf Kempf 

I suppose the most pivotal story is how I wound up at Frazier’s house. He was Barry Freidman then, producing projects for Elektra in LA, and just taking care of the house for Paul Rothchild, who, besides producing the Doors ongoing, was also initiating projects like Ars Nova and Clear Light, but alternating between New York and LA. My band had broken up after a fisticuff between the drummer and the producer-to-be, and in the process of looking for a new producer, the guys found Barry. I was still just the fledgling lead guitar player, even though we had recorded one of my songs before leaving Toronto. As it turned out, Barry wanted only me anyway, and when I went to him for help after losing the apartment and any visible means of support, he moved me into his TV room, sleeping on a foamy, and scrounging food out of the fridge. Night after night, different people would hang around getting high, like Danny Cootchmar (Kootch), Jackson Browne, David Crosby, Neil Young, playing new songs and generally enjoying the company of their peers. This was in Laurel Canyon, where at the time, most counter-culture stars had a house, and various groups of them would move around visiting, tasting the newest weed and hash. No coke at the time, thank God. There was always the latest mixes people like John Haney would drop off, and a constant stream of new Motown, as well as Big Pink. Alan Gerber had just arrived as Paul’s new songwriter, slated to lead a new supergroup, made up of Danny Weiss from Inagaddadavida fame, Billy Cobham from the Mothers of Invention, and eventually Michael Fonfara, Peter Hodgson, and John Finley from Jon-Lee and the Checkmates from Toronto. Alan and I hit it off, and after my guitar was stolen, lent me his Epiphone 6-string, which I used one day, sitting around the swimming pool, to write a kind of rock-opera opener called “Hello, Hurray”. Barry invited Judy Collins over, since she was looking for material for a new folk-rock album, and that was the song she liked. The rest is history, as they say.

Fast forward to 2005 as I’m motoring from the West Coast down Highway 400, and I call Frazier to ask for a place to stay. He puts me up in a trailer first, finds me a gig, then lets me set up camp in the drum booth of his studio for 6 weeks while I go on playing that gig as well as a few others in Toronto. In the meantime, Rhinoceros, the band Alan Gerber started, but now with John Finley as the lead singer, is rehearsing in the studio for comeback shows that summer. It was a bit of a deja vu for us all. I should stop there, although there is much more. The original version of Hello Hooray

~~~Rolf~~~

Billy James….

Bob — thanks for your thoughts, for your music, for your reminiscences that take me back to those times and places — in a way, the Grand Woozle’s taking of Barry has brought us back together — even if only through a bunch of zeros and ones…Billy James

Mark James….

This from Billy James’ eldest son, Mark:

I remember one sunny Laurel Canyon afternoon in the summer of ’67 at Paul Rothchild’s and Barry Friedman’s shared house on Ridpath Drive, a few doors up from mine.

As was the custom of the time, we smoked Afghani hash ( this kept rather prominently in a Planter’s Peanuts can on the fireplace mantle for all to partake ) and a song blasted out from the ceiling mounted JBL monitors from this newer “FM” format our local ( kppc?? FM? ) radio station. Upon hearing this record, Frazier ( although, possibly still “Barry” ) began a tirade marked by an unimaginable vehemence, all directed at this record being played by the local DJ.

As he was truly aghast, and would not let this go unchallenged, Frazier demanded I call up the station, and ask the DJ what exactly he was smoking that might induce him to play this particular record, and that it was unlistenable and how he needed his ( the DJ’s ) ears examined etc. The DJ, rightly suspecting someone put me up to the call (I was Ten years old, give or take ) demanded that I put my “father” on the phone, and as Frazier and this DJ began to argue the relative merits of this record over another, I slinked away to rifle the Planter’s can or hunt for errant playboy bunnies ( remember, it was Frazier and Paul’s house ).

Upon my return, the phone was handed back to me, and the DJ told me in no uncertain terms, to tell my “father” ( Barry, nee Frazier ) to  ( direct quote ) “lay off the sauce”. Paul thought it was hysterically funny, and I felt I was “inside” and very in on the joke. These guys made the records this other guy just played.

The record was Pink Floyd’s debut’s release. Still not a fan.

Then there were the demo’s we cut for Elektra… never mind…

RIP Frazier Mohawk

Mark James

Chris Darrow….

I was in the Kaleioscope recording Side Trips when I met Barry and got back in touch with him a number of years ago after he moved to Canada. It is sad when any special friend passes on. You did a wonderful job of capturing his spirit, which was his greatest contribution. Chris Darrow

Jerry Hopkins….

Just a footnote to the Springfield story. I was working for Rolling Stone and had known Barry from his circus days, when I booked him onto “The Steve Allen Show” as a fire-eater. Well, on this day I joined him at what I thought was Doug Weston’s house on Fountain Avenue (the one with the bathtub in the living room). Anyway, Barry was there with Steve Stills and on the phone. They were trying to find Neil (or maybe Bruce Palmer) in Canada, calling all over the place. Barry had just left Randy Sparks and was using Randy’s credit card to pay for the calls. So, Randy, if you’re reading this, take a bow. And, yes, the steamroller was parked outside. Barry/Frazier was rock and roll’s Forest Gump. He was always in the right place at the right time and none of us forgot the experience. —Jerry Hopkins

Some excerpts have appeared in previous columns in DBAWIS

Next Friday – The review of Echo In The Canyon. …and some thoughts on the tribute concert at the centre of this documentary.

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Segarini’s regular columns are best read at Ben Franks, Tiny Naylor’s, The Hamburger Hamlet, Dukes, Canter’s, Pink’s, and Pioneer Take Out’s Sunset Blvd parking lot in 1967

Bob “The Iceman” Segarini was in the bands The Family Tree, Roxy, The Wackers, The Dudes, and The Segarini Band and nominated for a Juno for production in 1978. He also hosted “Late Great Movies” on CITY TV, was a producer of Much Music, and an on-air personality on CHUM FM, Q107, SIRIUS Sat/Rad’s Iceberg 95, (now 85), and now publishes, edits, and writes for DBAWIS, continues to write music, make music, and record.