SELECTED REVIEWS FOR
Laurel Canyon
The Inside Story of Rock-and-Roll's Legendary Neighborhood

Rolling Stone
"Michael Walker's book operates off the intriguing premise that there was something psycho-geographically special about [Laurel Canyon] that helped create the Byrds and Crosby, Stills and Nash. His historical framing devices add depth, whether he's writing about the liberated ladies of the canyon of the Sixties upsetting social conventions, or the fact that Ulysses S. Grant and Pope Leo XIII were both partisans of a cocaine-laced wine called Vin Mariani

Salon
Walker, who has written about pop culture for the Los Angeles Times and Rolling Stone, has created an exhaustively researched and richly anecdotal book that will fascinate both rock aficionados and cultural historians

Los Angeles Times Book Review
By the end of Walker's wistful narrative you begin to wish that the old log cabin at Laurel Canyon and Lookout Mountain would rise again, Brigadoon-like, in this dire era of American Idol and Clear Channel. But even so, the next time you pass that leafy crossroads, just fiddle with the FM dial: A quick scan of the airwaves, still redolent of jingle-jangle mornings, riders on the storm and yesterdays gone suggests that you can check out of the canyon any time you like, but you can never leave.

TimeOut New York
"Walker is a dogged fact-finder, and the details he assembles here about various members of the L.A. rock royalty constitute essential reading for music fans who've always wondered how true to life Our House was, or why Zappa abstained from drugs while making records seemingly designed to soundtrack the act of getting stoned."

Music Connection
"Journalist Michael Walker's new book is loaded with anecdotes, insights and observations rendered in crystalline prose that, in just under 250 pages, presents a history of what is perhaps Los Angeles' most renowned music neighborhood."

Harp Magazine
"Walker, who resides in the Canyon, evokes the magic of the place wonderfully, particularly the mythic birth of CSN. The inclusion of figures like Frank Zappa and the Mothers, who've often been left out of histories of the time, serves to prove that the scene was not just filled with peaceful, easy, harmony-happy country-rock bands."

Buffalo News
"...likely the definitive account of this locale and its impact on pop music and culture. Walker lives in the heart of the canyon, but doesn't allow his residency to sway his writing...That's why even if one could care less about Jackson Browne or the insufferable Eagles, 'Laurel Canyon' is a fun, dishy read."

Cameron Crowe, Oscar-winning writer and director, Almost Famous
"Laurel Canyon is hilarious and true and bittersweet. Michael Walker catches the mood in the air, and gets it right the interviews are wonderful its a beautifully-written document of that time and place when the personalities were as big as those stony dreams that fueled some of the greatest masterpieces in rock."

Stephen Gaines, author of the New York Times bestseller Philistines at the Hedgerow-"-Laurel Canyon captures all the magic and lyricism of an almost mythological geographical spot in the history of pop music. The book lovingly limns the story of a more melodious time in rock and roll where the great talents of the 60s and 70s cloistered together in a sort of enchanted valley populated by an all-star cast of characters, including Joni Mitchell, Jim Morrison, Mama Cass and Brian Wilson."