Waiting for the Sun: A Rock & Roll History of Los Angeles

by Barney Hoskyns, Hal Leonard Corporation

A classic, finally back in print! British rock historian Barney Hoskyns (Hotel California, Across the Great Divide: The Band in America) examines the long and twisted rock 'n' roll history of Los Angeles in its glamorous and debauched glory. The Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield, the Doors, Little Feat, the Eagles, Steely Dan, Linda Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell, and others (from Charlie Parker right up to Black Flag, the Minutemen, Jane's Addiction, Ice Cube, and Guns N' Roses) populate the pages of this comprehensive and extensively illustrated book.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History, Pop Culture, Rock N Roll, Biography, Research

454 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1996

Reviews

[Jason Koivu · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the L.A. music scene through-the-ages as seen through the eyes of a Brit. And why not? After all, so much of it depended upon the English.

Along with the Beatles, the Stones and the rest of the "British Invasion" of the 1960s came a presence - an almost invisible, yet vocal entity in its own way - the record producer. Sound engineers, moguls, and other music movers and techies from the UK descended upon the city of angels, not only producing their own people, but influencing no-name bands eager for a piece of the pie. So, British rock and rollers were front and center as well as behind the scenes and rather quickly much of the sound of American music came to depend on whatever was the flavor overseas.

Yet, Waiting for the Sun begins a little further back, as it should. For without American jazz, blues, rockabilly and eventually the earlier stages of rock and roll, there would be no British Invasion. Hoskyns dives deeply into America jazz, specifically the soft and smooth west coast sound prevalent in 1950s L.A. I found this section very interesting, but I was impatient to get on to the late 60s and the Sunset Strip. I had just finished up a three year L.A. "tour of the duty" (as might be said by folks that don't think much of the place). I wanted to learn more and see if I recognized any of the landmarks I'd seen, aka the clubs like the Whiskey-a-go-go and Troubadour, which I'd frequented.

Indeed, the '60s was the section that shines in this book. Hoskyns holds back little when describing the sex, drugs and rock'n'roll that gave L.A. an infamous name for itself. The Doors especially receive their due. Even the title and subtitle refer to them, as well they should. The Doors bled all over L.A. and received likewise and willing sacrifice. For the briefest of moments, they were gods.

But like Hoskyns, I won't belabor that topic. He moves on to the soft, folk/country rock sound that somehow shuffled its way on to center-stage. One wonders how such wimpy stuff could take over from the muscly jock on the block. But I suppose it's not too hard when the opposition keels over: Jimi Hendrix - d. 1970; Janis Joplin - d. 1970; Jim Morrison - d. 1971; The Beatles - d. 1970….

With an aw-shucks grin and bolts of plaid, the likes of James Taylor, America, Bread warmed the airwaves with a heavy blanket of dull. The L.A. scene slept for a bit, woken by the occasional visit from Led Zeppelin, before having its eardrums plucked out and beaten upon by punk. You can tell this is not Hoskyns' area of expertise, because a sorrowfully slim section of Waiting for the Sun gives scant detail on the underground craze of So Cal hardcore. The book hurriedly moves on to rap/hip hop and then calls it a day, a generally satisfying day.

[Dan Pasquini · Rating 3 out of 5]

A deeply cynical history of the LA scene, from the '40s through hip hop, but focused on the '60s and '70s.

Cynical because Hoskyns is dogged in pushing his tired, contrarian take: underneath all the fake-plastic-sunshine-and-palm-trees LA is a ruthless, corrupted, dog-eat-dog wasteland. (Ooh, LA is phony! Where have we heard that before?) To him, success is suspect. With the exceptions of Sam Cooke, Brian Wilson and Steely Dan, only the outcasts deserve praise. Only those who never hit it big, because they were too out-there, too unwilling to 'play the game' (never, of course, because they were simply not good enough). And so we have a story of the '60s whose heroes are Kim Fowley and Van Dyke Parks. Marginal figures whose contributions to the dominant sounds of American rock and pop music are vastly outstripped by their cult status and self hype.

Hoskyns' determination to fit the facts around his hypothesis leads to bizarre assertions like this: "Not even the Woodstock Festival, staged in upstate New York a week after the killings, could restore the good vibes of hippie America pre-Manson." What evidence does he give to back up such a bold, revisionist statement? None. Because none exists. In actual fact, there's plenty of video evidence to suggest that the hippies had a damn good time at Woodstock. (See WOODSTOCK, film.) As Michael Walker laid it out in his history of Laurel Canyon nobody knew for two months after the murders that Manson had perpetrated them -- and the '60s only 'ended' when the hippies were horrified to learned that it was one of their own who'd committed the crime.

Then there's the hilariously erroneous read of David Crosby's "Wooden Ships;" the oft-repeated but baseless claim that Neil Young's "Stupid Girl" was a swipe at Joni Mitchell; and a recurring sub-theme that the pop scene of the Beach Boys was a intentionally created as an 'Aryan' statement of white paradise. These glaring missteps call into question the other facts and assertions with which this book is filled.

But full it is. Hoskyns gives us a prodigious connecting of the dots of various artists, labels, sounds and peripheral players. Because he assumes a great deal of familiarity with these references, it's not ideal for beginners.

[Mark Desrosiers · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Sound of Los Angeles" -- now what does that mean to you? Or anyone? NWA? Black Flag? Tha Alkaholiks? Firefall? Lots of folks will zoom in on the sixties, Beach Boys and Byrds and Doors, and yes this history devotes considerable attention to that very fertile and strange, even demonic era. But Hoskyns really does try to encompass the whole of L.A. music history, from early jazz beginnings all the way up to 1992 (this was published in 1996, but his narrative stops in that grunge-besotted year). Thus, you do get a thin seam of sociology -- particularly the oddly persistent phenomenon of East coast (primarily Jewish) carpetbaggers setting up in town in order to make lots of money from the music scene. Other phenomena -- such as surf culture and nose candy and weepy confessional songwriters -- also get proper attention, but on the whole, this book would be 800 pages thicker if he inserted everything about everything he clearly wanted to put in here, from evil (Manson) to creepy (Eugene Landy) to crazy (Phil Spector). This means that the many awesome interviews he conducted during research are often sadly truncated into soundbites throughout.

I should mention, too, that he really gives heavy metal short shrift -- sure, he mentions Van Halen, Mötley Crüe and G'n'R, but it's like he dismisses the scene as so many pathetic cockroaches feeding on the the greatness of "quality" music. The Red Hot Chili Peppers (zzzzzzzzzzzz) get many more paragraphs than Van Halen. Even worse, after dismissing Guns 'n' Roses as "merely a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox: the 1969 Stones via Aerosmith via Hanoi Rocks", he says this of slick charlatan Perry Farrell (who is from NYC, by the way): "This dionysiac guru was a true mongrel, a creature who stood outside even the prevailing norms of rock rebellion." So, yeah, Hoskyns kinda loses himself in ridiculous cock-smoking toward the end -- but on the whole, this is an engaging and insightful history of a wide variety of music scenes in a very strange city.

[Murray · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book both for nostalgic and 'educational' reasons. Hoskyns' book is filled with lots of interesting anecdotes as well as tons of facts. He doesn't spend much time really analyzing what made these musicians great -- or not so great -- but focuses more on their lifestyles, glories, fails, and in some cases their tragic demises.

It was fun to read the book with Spotify nearby so that I could listen to the music of some of the more obscure artists. I would recommend doing the same if you can. For the more prominent artists, like Jackson Browne, The Eagles, The Beach Boys, Ronstadt, The Byrds and CSN, there's always the old turntable or CD player.

If you're looking to read strictly about rock and rollers, beware. The book starts in the 1940s when jazz and eventually jump blues were the music of the time and place. Hoskyns doesn't spend a lot of time on these musicians, but does examine enough of their contributions to establish a baseline for Southern California music that came thereafter. He also looks closely at the behind the scenes producers, executives and studio musicians who made things happen. His portrayal of Phil Spector alone will send shivers down your spine -- and this was written years before he went from dangerous schizophrenic to murderer.

I would have liked to have read a more updated version of this book (it was written in the mid-90s), but, honestly, there isn't nearly as much to report since then that would be of high interest.

[Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of fun for rock and roll fans. Hoskyns’ research yielded some great stories. There is a lot of detail, minutiae even, on the personalities involved, their personal lives, the creative process, business dealings, and how famous and not-so-famous bands came about and worked together. In the chapters on the sub-genres I was less interested in, I did some skimming, but most of it was really entertaining. Got some real insight into just how crazy Phil Spector was even way back (and we know how that turned out), how one of the seemingly squeaky clean Beach Boys hung with the Manson crowd, how the Mamas and Papas were living the high life --in so many ways-- in Laurel Canyon. And much, much more, through punk and hip-hop, with an epilogue essay on Beck. If you’ve ever wanted to know how records like “Don’t Eat Stuff Off the Sidewalk” came to be recorded, this is the place. (Not a well-known piece of music, but always good advice.)

If I had one complaint, it was that one of my favorite bands, Lone Justice, got only one mention on one page. OK, so they only made two albums, but they were so remarkable, especially notable for their stunningly talented front woman, the incomparable Maria McKee. One of the most amazing performers I have ever seen, she also gets only one mention, and there’s nothing at all about her subsequent solo career. I’ll stifle my outrage and still give the book 4 stars.

[Steve Duffy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terrific overview of the Los Angeles music scene - or, I should say, the Los Angeles music scenes, since Hoskyns takes us from the zoot-suiters of the 1940s to the gangstas of fifty years later, covering everything in between in a series of carefully considered thematic overviews. Maybe the best test of books such as this is whether they send you off to your record collection, digging out old favourites, reassessing old familiars, exploring overlooked gems. By this yardstick WAITING FOR THE SUN succeeds handsomely.

[Paul Mackie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Los Angeles tried to get its footing as a rock-music scene in the early 1960s

https://popculturelunchbox.substack.c...

The birth of the Los Angeles music business essentially started way back in the early 1940s when Capitol Records was started. Not many would have bet on the little label—created above a record store—to compete with the Big 3 of Columbia, RCA-Victor, and Decca, but it quickly became a player with the signings of T-Bone Walker and Nat King Cole and by the 1950s was “resurrecting the washed-up career of Frank Sinatra.”

I’m reading about these heady early days of L.A. music in Waiting for the Sun: A Rock ‘n’ Roll History of Los Angeles, published in 2009 by Barney Hoskyns (pictured). With the value of the label in 1954 shooting up to $8.5 million (or about $100 million in today’s dollars), it was able to purchase the iconic “Stack O’ Records” building. By the end of the 50s, record labels were dotted all the way down Sunset Avenue, where meat-company employee Sonny Bono would regularly drop his recordings off in hopes of landing a deal.

Herb Alpert and Lou Adler (as well as the “chinless, asthmatic” Phil Spector) were a couple of the independent record producers scooping kids off the street before the big labels and Capitol could get to them. They grabbed Jan and Dean literally off the beach, where they were playing volleyball, and quickly cut some records and made them stars. Frank Zappa turned in some early recordings but labels said the guitars were too distorted to release. But that didn’t stop the course of rock ‘n’ roll, because Spector set up shop in a seedy studio in Santa Monica and perfected his “Wall of Sound” production style, with Bono as his sometimes assistant who had “his nose up Phil’s ass a mile.”

But Spector or Jan and Dean weren’t really enough to make the record honchos back in New York take California’s music scene seriously. It took the entrance of Brian Wilson and his surf pop to get them to finally take notice. Surfing had existed since the beginning of the century, but fiberglass-encased boards were a new thing at the start of the 60s and there were now about 30,000 surfers at Southern California beaches on weekends. It wasn’t long before Gore Vidal’s novel Myra Breckinridge was becoming true: “In a single generation, stern New England Protestants, grim Iowans, and keen New York Jews have become entirely Tahitianized by that dead ocean with its sweet miasmic climate in which thoughts become dreams.” Much like Hollywood had done through movies, surf music was now helping rock ‘n’ roll and L.A. define and redefine itself for a new generation.

One of the many great ironies of Wilson becoming the chosen one to land L.A. rock on the map was that he was an “all-American misfit” and he and his brothers were “pure white trash, West Coast hillbillies.” Brian couldn’t relate to girls and didn’t like the ocean. Years later, he appeared on Saturday Night Live in a sketch with John Belushi arresting him for never having surfed and “it was excruciating to watch the nervous, overweight genius being forced into the Pacific … The fact remains that The Beach Boys were as much an illusion as anything churned out by Hollywood.”

Hoskyns’ book is filled with outrageous language like this. His writing would be unbearable if it weren’t so entertaining and also if he didn’t make similarly large claims from the other side of the see-saw such as Wilson’s melodic genius being “almost unparalleled in the history of rock” or that The Beach Boys “were the first garage band.” Part of the good fortune of the Beach Boys was that Nik Venet—a 21-year-old producer at Capitol in a city of producers who were routinely much older—got ahold of them and helped catapult them to stardom, and L.A. music was really on the map.

Brian holed up in the studio for “work, work, work” while all the other Beach Boys “made hay in the California sun, exploiting the teen-girl mania that greeted them everywhere they went, Dennis Wilson picking fights with boyfriends of fans, David Marks caught VD, and even dumpy little Carl Wilson lost his virginity.” Soon The Beatles’ arrival would harken the beginning of the end for the surf-pop craze, although the spirit lives on, with pop-culture artifacts such as Tom Wolfe’s 1968 collection The Pump House Gang, Baywatch, and Beverly Hills, 90210. Of course, everything in rock music is borrowed, and all of L.A.’s surf music and culture owes a great debt to Hawaii, a fact most people from Southern California are quick to sweep under the rug.

Meanwhile, the white kids’ “endless summer” of 1959 to 1965 “was experienced by Blacks as a winter of discontent.” Thirty percent of the Watts neighborhood was unemployed. And “once rock ‘n’ roll had been co-opted by white teenagers, the music industry forgot about Black performers.” There were some records made by Black people in L.A. during this period (although amazingly not many) and Sam Cooke was building his own little empire of labels from 1960 on. But when he was shot down in 1964 in what looked like a sex-hookup setup at a fleabag motel on South Figueroa Street, “with him died most of the hopes for Black music in L.A.”

[Julee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great account of the history of music in La La Land by an almost always topnotch music writer, the West Coast editor of Mojo magazine.

[Trace Reddell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyable, info-dense, opinionated, and vibrant book. I hadn't expected so much to be about the record labels, industry moguls, producers, and promoters, which worked well to show that music is about much more than just the musicians. Of course some artists and bands get more pages than others, and the choice about who to write about is clearly the author's own, as it should be (I laugh seeing people writing reviews and mostly complaining about who was written about other than someone they thought deserved more pages). I appreciate all of the literary (fiction and non-fiction) references, film references, and historical/cultural asides that detail the setting for us as a kind of psychogeography. Things do speed up and get a little thinner as we get out of the '80s, but I'm thankful to see the Paisley Underground bands get decent coverage. The more recent post-script about Beck, reprinted from a MOJO article, was a great wrap-up for the whole book.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Barney Hoskyns takes us on a tour of the Los Angeles music scene from the 1950s through the mid-1990s, in all its debauched glory, and it's not entirely pretty. He has uncovered quite a few juicy anecdotes about the great and not-so-great artists and hangers-on who populated the era. He specializes in entertaining and pithy take-downs of the likes of David Crosby, David Geffen and the whole Laurel Canyon crew of the '70s. But he can be contradictory: Why is it laudatory for Steely Dan to be slick, but not for the Eagles to be slick? Anyway, this is an enjoyable, even addictive book, although one gets the impression Hoskyns carries his themes too far, went a decade to long, and wasn't really sure how to end it.

[Tony Gualtieri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hoskins story is too big for his book, each chapter could be its own volume. Thus we get a laundry list of various bands and performers, but the story seems spotty. There are at least three other narratives concurrent with the one he chooses to tell.

Like most writers not from the area, he has a tendency to blur over the culture of Southern California with adjectives like "plastic," "phony," and by comparisons to Disneyland. There's a lot of sermonizing about race and class, but he never suggests that boundaries between the races can be easily crossed, even as he gives numerous examples of such crossings. I was disappointed that the Bus Boys go unmentioned and Fishbone is barely noticed.

[Bertis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent history of LA music. As a couple of reviewers have noted, Hoskyns would have done better to focus on a shorter time period. Strangely, it is much better when he’s writing about jazz and R&B; he’s had to do his homework there and it shows. His views become lazier as he moves into the late 60s-70s where the tired old cynical rock-hack tropes come out.

However, I’m always happy to come out of these books with a decent listening list which is thoughtfully provided.

[Steve Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Informative, fast-paced compendium of LA music history. I especially found Hoskyns's succinct editorial comments to be priceless--even the ones I didn't necessarily agree with. This left me wanting to read Hotel California, which I'll likely do this summer.

[Charles McEnerney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hear a playlist of the tunes mentioned in the appendix here: https://tidal.com/playlist/e83bac6a-4...

[Douglas Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love books like this that make me want to go and listen to the music :-)

[Donald · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well written book on the LA music scene

[Gary Myers · Rating 3 out of 5]

A VERY large book and, tho well written, it covers things about which I've ready read much over the yrs (as I lived through some of them), so I wound up skimming it all.

[Glen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read several books by Hoskyns, and this one is the best researched of the bunch. I learned a lot about obscure LA bands and music figures, and a lot about the music scene of the 40s and 50s. MY own interest in LA music stems from the fact that I grew up in extreme Northern California, where there is a kind of love/hate relationship (mostly the latter) of all things SoCal in general, and all things LA in particular. However, whenever I visited the LA basin I could not deny the excitement and the appeal, and I have had a long and deep love affair with much of the music from the 70s singer-songwriter salad days, in particular Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon, Joni Mitchell, and the always interesting later solo work of David Lindley. I also happened to see Penelope Spheeris' pre-Wayne's World documentary The Decline of Western Civilization during my one semester at Washington State University, and I quickly fled the wheat fields of the Palouse for the sunny beaches of Orange County and UC-Irvine, albeit for a short season, but it gave me a further taste of the SoCal allure and the sounds current at the time: Oingo Boingo, Rank and File, 20/20, Black Flag, Fear, and many other bands both excellent, terrible, and everything in between. They're all here, and though Hoskyns' apocalyptic conclusion reads a little comically now some 16 years after the book's publication, it's well-written and an excellent reference text, and it's hard for me not to love a book that opens with the (to me) immortal lines of Zevon's classic "Desperadoes Under the Eaves": "And if California slides into the ocean/Like the mystics and statistics say it will/I predict this motel will be standing/Until I've paid my bill."

[Wayne Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a former SoCal resident and music/music history fan, I found this book fascinating. You'll learn of the important distinctions between NorCal and SoCal music scenes, as Hoskyns delves deeply into the movements and contributions of notable artists, engineers, record companies...how they all came together over many decades to give us the stuff we love: From the early East-Coast transplant jass masters to the happen-stance formation of notable group like The Doors, all sub-genres are addressed. A thoroughly researched historical document, as well as a can't-put-it-down book. Read this one for me, OK?

[Mrs. Palmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

In terms of information, this book was a goldmine. It was pretty much everything you ever wanted to know about the music industry in LA starting after WWII.
It is dated, though, as it only goes up to 1996, and some of the language is woefully out of date and it could get very tedious at times reading about groups and albums that I'd never heard of-it seemed like a laundry list of sorts. But, I learned a LOT and now I am inspired to look up some of these more obscure bands. I wish Hoskyns would write an update and include the past 20 years.

[Kirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd forgotten until recently what a fun book this cultural history of the LA music scene is. The scope is impressive: from the late 40s of King and Sinatra to the early 60s of B. Wilson, the late of everybody in the world, and on to the Runaways, hair bands, and assorted other scenesters. I didn't always agree with his estimation of the music itself, but then this isn't a review book. It's a worthy model of how to structure an broad view of a place.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant and thorough history of Sin City as seen through its music and musicians.

From early rock'n'roll through The Beach Boys, Beefheart, Zappa, Laurel Canyon, Guns'n'Roses and Jane's Addiction to gangsta rap.

Could have spent more time on the quickly dismissed G'n'R years, especially when so much of the book was devoted to the 1970s.

But it's a small gripe. A great book.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book radically shifted my perceptions of this adopted city of Los Angeles for the better. It also got me listening (and re-listening) to a lot of amazing music that I had not appreciated to the extent that I did after reading it. Thank you, Barney!

[Damon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing!! After I read this I bought about 10 CDs of Los Angeles Bands because this book really makes you understand all the great music that came out of LA. The title is misleading because people might think its a Doors book, but it's not.

[Graham Catt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A detailed history of rock music in LA, from the black musicians of the pre-rock era, to Spector, the Beach Boys, the Doors, 70s arena rock and beyond. Filled with great stories, unique characters and fascinating miscellanea.

Highly recommended.

[Rebecca Noran]

started (on the bus), but took a break. Also purchased at the EMP Pop Music Conference in Seattle -- 2003?

[Randall Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, if a bit brief, book outlining all the music to come from LA.

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exhaustive, detailed. Long on names and short on substantive analysis or much real discussion of the music. But I'm a sucker for this kind of thing. Not for the faint of heart.

[Nina · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating look at music from the perspective of a city rather than an artist or genre. Very well-researched.

[PennsyLady (Bev) · Rating 4 out of 5]

softcover
420 pg

3.5 ★

the evolution of L.A.'s popular music scene from the 1940s through the 1990s
read as a spring challenge entry