Plot summary

In the summer of 1965 the most popular song in America was the debut single by The Byrds. With their mushroom haircuts, 3-part harmonies, and jangly electric 12-string sound, they were to be America's answer to The Beatles. They weren't. Instead, they invented folk rock and attracted a generation of recording artists to Los Angeles.Echo In The Canyon is a look back at the influence and the music of those artists (The Byrds, The Mamas & the Papas, Buffalo Springfield, The Beach Boys) from Southern California's age of innocence (1965 - 1967); the beginnings of Los Angeles' Laurel Canyon music scene, and how the echo of these artist's creations reverberated between each other and ultimately across to London (where it alters the course of The Beatles themselves.)The songs from that era provide an entry point as Jakob Dylan and a new generation of artists whose own body of work reflect the echoes of that pivotal time (Beck, Fiona Apple, Norah Jones, Regina Spektor, Cat Power and others), interpret and perform the songs paying homage to, and in many cases in front of, its authors.Dylan journeys to those who wrote the songs and discovers why they were written and what life was like in Los Angeles' Laurel Canyon in the years before psychedelia and the birth of the singer/songwriter era. He uncovers never before heard personal details behind the recordings and those who made them popular.Performing and or speaking are Tom Petty, Brian Wilson, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Stephen Stills, Roger McGuinn, Michelle Phillips, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Jackson Browne, John Sebastian, and Lou Adler.