Eric Clapton, David Crosby and Joni Mitchell Hanging Out at Mama Cass’s House in Laurel Canyon in the Summer of 1968

Laurel Canyon is a mountainous neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills region of the Santa Monica Mountains, within the Hollywood Hills West district of Los Angeles, California. The main thoroughfare of Laurel Canyon Boulevard connects the neighborhood with the more urbanized parts of Los Angeles to the north and south, between Ventura Boulevard and Hollywood Boulevard.

Laurel Canyon became a nexus of counterculture activity and attitudes in the mid-late 1960s and early 1970s, becoming famous as home to many of L.A.’s rock musicians, such as Cass Elliot of the Mamas & the Papas; Joni Mitchell; Frank Zappa; Jim Morrison of The Doors; Carole King; The Byrds; Gram Parsons; Buffalo Springfield; Canned Heat; John Mayall; members of the band The Eagles; the band Love; Neil Young; Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys as well as James Taylor, Jackson Browne, JD Souther, Judee Sill, Linda Ronstadt and Stone Poneys, Ned Doheny, Bonnie Raitt, Harry Nilsson; and Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork of The Monkees. Cass Elliot’s home was considered one of Laurel Canyon’s party houses with all-night, drug-fueled sleepovers, attended by musicians and movie stars of the era.

John Phillips, also of the Mamas & the Papas, took inspiration from his home in Laurel Canyon for the song “Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon)”, released in 1967. The following year, blues artist John Mayall recorded and released the album Blues from Laurel Canyon, based on his experiences during a vacation that he spent there.

The area and its denizens served as inspiration for Joni Mitchell’s third album Ladies of the Canyon, released in 1970. Her house was immortalized in the Crosby, Stills, and Nash song “Our House” (1970), written by her lover Graham Nash. The group is reputed to have met and first sung together in Mitchell’s living room.

“It was so magical. Literally within 4 or 5 minutes you could be down on the Sunset Strip into Hollywood. Once you got above 30 of us living up there, it was a kind of a community.” – David Crosby

“I remember when I first got here driving around up in the Canyon with a good stereo. There were no sidewalks. There were no regimented lines. …No one locked their doors.” – Joni Mitchell

Eric Clapton met Joni Mitchell, David Crosby and Mickey Dolenz at Mama Cass’s house in the summer of 1968. Clapton was in town with Cream and met Mama Cass at a TV show where she invited him to her house so he could meet some of the Laurel Canyon locals. Photographs of the artists hanging out together on that day were taken by rock photographer Henry Diltz, who was also a resident and used the scenic Canyon backdrop for many of his historic photos of rock musicians.

“That was the day ‘Mama’ Cass had her backyard picnic for Eric Clapton, because he didn’t know anybody [in Laurel Canyon],” Diltz recalled. “I met Eric that day, and Joni Mitchell that day. Mama invited David Crosby up, thinking that he and Eric were both musicians and they’d relate to one another. She was playing the earth mother again. We used to call Mama Cass the Gertrude Stein of Laurel Canyon because she would get people together – she introduced Graham Nash to David Crosby and Stphen Stills. Crosby brought this young girl he’d just discovered – Joni Mitchell. She sat on the grass playing her guitar and Clapton sat there mesmerized with her playing. Joni Mitchell played differently, she tuned her guitar to a chord, and Eric Clapton had never seen that before.”