Imagine living right down the street from Joni Mitchell, The Byrds and Modern Folk Quartet. Those were just a few of Michelle Phillips’ famous…
Imagine living right down the street from Joni Mitchell, The Byrds and Modern Folk Quartet.
Those were just a few of Michelle Phillips’ famous neighbors in Los Angeles’ Laurel Canyon in the late 1960s and early ’70s, where she co-founded folk group The Mamas and the Papas with then-husband John Phillips, Denny Doherty and Cass Elliot.
« Cass had an open-door policy – anybody could swing by her place any time, » Phillips says. « They’d smoke a joint, drink some wine and play their guitars. That’s how she got Crosby, Stills & Nash together: She heard them all singing (separately) and said, ‘You guys should sing together.’ And that’s how that happened. »
The musical renaissance that sprung out of this idyllic mountainside neighborhood is the subject of two-part docuseries « Laurel Canyon, » premiering on Epix Sunday (9 EDT/PDT) and concluding June 7. The documentary paints an intimate portrait of the friendships, love affairs, collaborations – and sometimes all three – that defined this place and time.
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Graham Nash, for instance, wrote the wistful « Our House » at Mitchell’s Laurel Canyon home, which the then-couple shared.
