An Uneven Trip

Category: Review

Book: Hotel California, by Barney Hoskyns

Published 2006

One of the problems with Barney Hoskyn's 2006 look at the Southern California rock scene is the title is longer than the book. The official title is Hotel California: The True-Life Adventures of Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, Mitchell, Taylor, Browne, Ronstadt, Geffen, the Eagles, and Their Many Friends. The book is only 336 pages long.

Being a fan of most of the artists mentioned in the title, I could not wait to read this book (even though I had to because of problems getting a copy). The title is rather misleading in some respects. Most of the artists mentioned enjoyed the bulk of their popularity in the 1970s; however, the main focus of the book is the 1960s, before most of the artists had record deals or even arrived in Los Angeles. (In 1965, when the book begins, future Eagles Don Henley and Glenn Frey were still in their respective home states of Texas and Michigan, preparing for college.) Furthermore, the title Hotel California is generally associated with the Eagles (it is, after all, the title of their multi-platinum album from 1976) than Crosby, Stills and Nash or Joni Mitchell. In short, if you're looking for a work on the Eagles, go to Marc Eliot's To the Limit: The Untold Story of the Eagles, not here.

The book is good as far as it goes, but the problem is it fails to go very far. It appears that the publishers told Hoskyns he only had 336 pages to work with, 280 of which were spent on chronicling the 60s, so the 70s were rushed through at almost breakneck speed. Most unforgivable is the fact that Mama Cass Eliot's death was mentioned parenthetically after she is a major subject in most of the first portion of the book. Fleetwood Mac has bigger coverage in two-paragraph rock encyclopedias than they received here (although, in fairness, they did begin as a British blues band, not a southern California "mellow rock" one).

Maybe Hoskyns' eyes were too big for his pen and the work should have been presented in multiple volumes. However, in spite of the gripes, I do recommend the book to fans of the Byrds, the Mamas and the Papas, Jackson Browne, and even J.D. Souther (who gets more print here than he has in 30 years elsewhere). Do not, however, expect it to be comprehensive.