Critic Reviews

I have a feeling Echo in the Canyon will be watched for decades into the future as the essential document of a very specific time and place that changed music forever.

It’s the kind of music doc that makes you want to download about 50 songs — although you already should have most of them on your playlist.

If you care anything about the music of groups like The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, The Mamas and the Papas, The Beach Boys, or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, the ramshackle, engagingly anecdotal Echo in the Canyon is required viewing.

Even if Echo in the Canyon feels slightly anemic at 85 minutes or so, there are worse ways to revisit this epochal artistic moment than via Andrew Slater’s affectionate, intimate documentary.

Echo in the Canyon offers a richly evocative and star-studded overview of the 1960s Laurel Canyon music scene.

Rich with revealing observations and engaging anecdotes, Slater’s documentary skirts the nostalgia trap by entertainingly connecting with an impressive lineup of contemporary singer-songwriters referencing the influential '60s pop style with their own releases.

The most ambitious thing about this laid-back documentary was creating a tribute concert and getting big names to perform in it, and that is lovely to hear and behold. The glory of Echo in the Canyon is gathering the oral histories of a generation of performers who are passing from the scene, getting their final words on how it all happened.

Echo in the Canyon appears all too content in banking on our nostalgia for the formidable roster of artists it has assembled, relying solely on our familiarity with their work to keep our attention rapt.

If you don’t expect it to be something it isn’t, it’s hard to see how partisans of pop music could fail to enjoy Echo in the Canyon. For rock ’n’ rollers of all ages, it’s mandatory viewing.

Echo In the Canyon is an affectionate look at the pop music that came out of the Laurel Canyon area of Los Angeles in the mid-‘60s, a period that the film argues quite effectively, was hugely influential.