Popular reviews

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  Review by Jason the Feature Creature ★★ 6

  Jakob Dylan tricks you into watching a super self-indulgent documentary about him liking music. There’s about 30 minutes of interviews that relate to how this doc has been advertised and the rest is Jakob covering songs of the time in an incredibly bland fashion. It’s worth it for the interviews though, there are some great gems of anecdotes in there. I’d just fast forward through all the Jakob Dylan.

  “You’re playing it in the wrong key.” - Brian Wilson to Jakob Dylan

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  Review by Greg Smith ★★½ 2

  I Am Norah Jones’ Lack Of Chemistry With Jakob Dylan

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  Review by Swartacus ★½ 8

  Hey music fans ...have 82 minutes to lament a bygone era in pop music?

  Let me save you the trouble. 

  For some inexplicable reason, musty 90s church fart Jakob Dylan and his one headlight are unearthed in order to turn some of the most prolific and poignant music of the 20th century into mumbled incoherent elevator music.

  David Crosby is exhaustingly interviewed in HD while sporting what looks like a half dozen fresh bruises...presumably from being beaten unmerciful by Graham Nash between takes or thrown down a flight of stairs by Neil Young.

  Eric Clapton appears briefly to feed upon the blood of Fiona Apple in order to save his father’s eyes...who have been permanently blinded by Beck’s paisley shirts.  Michelle Phillips stops by to reminisce about having sex with a guy who’s been dead for 12 years...and it surprisingly isn’t Stephen Stills.

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  Review by michaelbigg5 ★★

  "If I interview a bunch of famous musicians (who will only talk to me because they respect my dad), then will you listen to me sing?"

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  Review by StormofCuteness ★★½ 2

  Well, this is a tough one. I absolutely love the musicians from the 60s who all lived in Laurel Canyon (including many not even mentioned like Joni Mitchell), and it was a serious treat to hear their stories about the time, influences, and happenstances that created many of my favorite songs.

  But, unfortunately, this felt like a vanity project/PR stunt by Capital Records to increase sales for Jakob Dylan. Which was annoying, in part, because he's just not that interesting and nowhere near as good an artist as those he's interviewing. Nor is he as good as the other contemporary artists brought together for the show/album (Beck, Regina Spektor, Cat Power, Norah Jones). So, quite the mixed bag. Oddly, this all was somehow inspired by a Jacques Demy film (Model Shop) which I'd never even heard about so it got added to my neverending watchlist. 😂

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  Review by Lizzy ★★½ 2

  i can respect the history behind it, and some of this music was actually very good, but (correct me if this already exists) when are we gonna get a documentary about the impactful *women* behind rock and folk music from the Joan Jett’s and Patti Smith’s to today’s Phoebe Bridgers’ and Soccer Mommy’s? it’s a topic that isn’t covered in a way like this and it would make for much more interesting documentary film-making.

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  Review by David Weigel ★★½ 2

  A middlebrow entry in a congenitally middlebrow genre: The boomer nostalgia documentary, which posits that music used to be better and the incredibly famous people behind that music can never be uninteresting.

  The second part of that theory isn't wrong. The interviews with Roger McGuinn, Brian Wilson, David Crosby, and Tom Petty are compelling, and sometimes fresh. Making Jakob Dylan the star of this effort really does help with those sequences; he fades handsomely into the background, letting the anecdotes expand to fill space, which is refreshing. Dylan's participation also gives us one of the funniest moments I've seen in a music doc.

  DAVID CROSBY: Well, we were really inspired by Dylan.

  JAKOB DYLAN: You have to be more specific.…

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  Review by Pierre Lachaine ★★½ 6

  Jakob Dylan est d’une suffisance à faire grincer des dents, en plus d’être un chanteur et musicien assez ordinaire et peu inspiré, pour rester poli, mais le sujet est passionnant, il y a Tom Petty qui parle de la Rickenbacker douze cordes de Roger McGuinn (quel son!), David Crosby qui a la mémoire embrouillée, Brian Wilson qui vient faire son tour et, surtout, la sublime Fiona Apple qui chante In My Room des Beach Boys. Juste pour ça, ça vaut la peine. Sinon, l’absence de Joni Mitchell, qui n’est même jamais évoquée, grande figure de Laurel Canyon s’il en est (le sujet du film!! Auquel elle a consacré un album!!), est impardonnable.

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  Review by James Betsalel ★★½

  When the doc focuses on the 60's legends intercutting footage of their greatest hits it is an enlightening helping of nostalgic goodness. However thats only half. The other half is Jakob Dylan and a collection of some of his modern folk singer friends recording uninspired covers of these songs at Sunset Sound Studio then playing them in a concert. This I personally couldn't care less about and almost cheapens the doc to a glorified commercial for some cover album no one asked for. Not that I have anything against him and I'm a fan of many of his contemporary guests that show up but I just wanted the old guys and gals. Maybe others will feel differently and love all…

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  Review by Andy Summers 🤠 ★★★ 2

  Echo in the Canyon is one of those documentaries that focused on one of my favourite time periods for music, and featured some of the best singer-songwriters and musicians the era had to offer. Unfortunately this doc doesn't focus on the artists as such, and although there are interviews with several big names that shaped that community in Laurel Canyon back in the 1960's, the need for Jakob Dylan to take centre stage took the shine off of this for me. Seeing Tom Petty again was a shock too, a nostalgic shock, but a pleasant one, and hearing him reminisce about the first time he heard Pet Sounds reminded me of the first time I heard Full Moon Fever. Petty…

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  Review by emilyrugburn ★★★ 4

  Man, what a surprising let down. Of the three big California rock docs I needed to watch over the holiday, I expected this to be my fave and it was by far my least fave. There’s just waaaaaaaaay too much time devoted to the modern day recreations of the songs, in live performance and in the studio. And Jakob Dylan, tho he wrote like four great songs and continues to be an ageless babe, is just the blandest possible guide through a documentary exploration, and in spite of music being his main gig he’s an even blander frontman for this music in all the endless performance sequences. It’s truly laughable how much he fails to carry the songs from the…

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  Review by Conchobarre ★★★½ 4

  A very specific documentary about some of the bands that created in Laurel Canyon, LA between 1964 and 1967-ish. They are: The Byrds, Cream, Buffalo Springfield, the Beach Boys, the Mamas and the Pappas, with scant mentions of others, such as Frank Zappa reciting poetry in the street and the Beatles popping over for a visit sometimes (Mickey Dolenz put your clothes on, George and Ringo are pulling up in the driveway!)

  The director/producer is Andrew Slater who was CEO of Capitol records and before that produced and managed a long string of successful music acts. Jakob Dylan is the interviewer and co-producer who is terribly awkward. You can see the interviewees looking over at people off camera as they…