Hollywood Eden

Joel Selvin HOUSE OF ANANSI PRESS. £20

Panoramic overview of the early ’60s LA music industry.

Beginning with a small group of Hollywood people in the late ’50s, including Jan Berry, Dean Torrance, Kathy Korner

– the original Gidget – Nancy Sinatra and Sandy Nelson, Joel Selvin opens out a panoramic overview of the Los Angeles music industry in the early- to mid-’60s. Also involved are players such as Herb Alpert, Lou Adler, Kim Fowley and Brian Wilson, in what began as a small, ad hoc and cut-throat arena but soon became an internationally recognised powerhouse. Well plotted and crisply edited, Hollywood Eden tells what could be a familiar story with a sharp eye for a telling anecdote. Such as when Terry Melcher, in contravention of union rules, barricades himself in Columbia Studios to boost the sound on The Byrds’ Mr Tambourine Man – but that’s just one of dozens. Hollywood Eden ends in 1966, with Jan Berry’s near fatal car crash, Phil Spector’s increasing madness, and the smash success of Good Vibrations, confirming Los Angeles as the pop capital of the world.