1981-12-03 Messenger - “Topanga’s Musical Roots” by J. R. Ball

“Topanga’s Musical Roots”

 

by J. R. Ball

From Woody to Neil to Supertramp—the late 1960s to the early 1980s

 

 

One summer evening back in 1973, the late actor Will Geer pulled up in front of a large, battered white truck parked at Cheney Drive and Topanga Boulevard.
 
The truck was actually a tiny television studio, a former TV remote vehicle on loan to Bernie Evans’ Tesco TV cable company by the UCLA Film Department. The inside of the truck was very cramped and filled with antiquated TV equipment that glowed and hissed and fed an inferior black and white image into Tesco’s Channel 6 for Topanga cable subscribers brave enough to watch public access television.
 
Around dusk, the old Hollywood bard, whose craggy features won him national fame in the depiction of Grandpa Walton on CBS television, sat against the back wall of the truck while Bernie and his volunteer crew began feeding the image of Will Geer into Tesco’s pioneering cable system and the relatively small amount of homes then hooked up to Bernie’s growing network of wires.
 
Will just started talking. He talked for a long time and only about one thing: Topanga Canyon. He recalled history, talked about the plant life, told stories and recalled memories about an early Topanga schoolteacher. What Will was dong that night was presenting an oral history of Topanga Canyon to anyone who cared to listen. I should have taken notes.
 
You see, Will Geer loved Topanga, and he wanted people to know about its history. Topanga does have a colorful history, written and lived by people who have come and gone….
 
Somebody once told me that the famous California bandit, Joaquin Murietta, was no stranger to Topanga. They say he sometimes kept company with the son of a early and well known settler to the Santa Monica Mountains, Jesus Santa Maria. This could be a folk tale. I don’t care. It is a great story.
 
Throughout the years, Topanga has continually provided sanctuary to the alienated and the dissident. In the mid 1950’s, the legendary underground comic Lord Buckley lived with his wife, two kids and a big blue poodle in a $35 a month one-room shack at Buchanan’s Cabins. At night, Lord Buckley broke new comedic ground working alongside his contemporary, Lennie Bruce, in bars along Ventura Boulevard and on the Sunset Strip.

Up along the headwater of Topanga Creek, where Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum now sits, another dissident artist Woody Guthrie, once lived in yet another shack with a lean-to garage against the back wall. The shack, nowadays remodeled still stands on the Theatricum property.
 
In the 1950’s, a group of blacklisted Hollywood filmmakers sought refuge up Old Canyon to edit the blatantly Marxist film “Salt of the Earth,” a film expose of mining and smeltering operations in the American Southwest.
 
Real estate agents come and go in Topanga, but the name Bob DeWitt managed to affix itself to Topanga Canyon folklore. For a man selling real estate in the Eisenhower Years, DeWitt definitely stood out among his contemporaries. DeWitt didn’t like to wear shoes and often sold real estate barefoot. He had a fondness for goats and living the natural life. Some say Bob DeWitt was responsible for turning the Beat Generation onto Topanga. This might be an exaggeration for they probably would have shown up anyway.

 

By the mid 1960’s the whole complexion of Topanga Canyon was beginning to change. America had been swept up in the Vietnam War, and hundreds of alienated dropouts began moving into the Topanga area to escape the American nightmare. Real estate prices began rising with the demand, and the Canyon newcomers began growing their hair long and concerned themselves with things like learning to work with their hands, growing organic vegetables and smoking dope.
 
Some of the older, more conservative residents of Topanga found some of these changes too much to bare. In the Spring of 1970 a group of Topanga residents became angered at the presence of Elysium Fields, the canyon’s nudist colony. They began exerting pressure on the Topanga Chamber of Commerce for removal of what they termed “a den of iniquity.”
 
In June of 1970, the Chamber of Commerce met to discuss the matter. Two hundred residents attended the meeting. The debate grew so hot and heavy over the situation that at one point the Reverend Tom Xanthos, pastor of the Topanga Community Church and a Chamber director, rose from his seat and announced, “God has called on me to remove the degenerates from Topanga Canyon.”
 
But alas, the good reverend was unable to muster a quorum to engage in Holy War.
 
“In this case, we are a fact finding body, not a vigilante committee,” said Chamber President William Prewitt.
 
The nudist colony remained where it was—an area apparently designated as the main flight path for LAPD helicopters running aerial surveillance on Topanga Canyon.
 
There have been quite a few parties in Topanga, God knows, but in early 1968, the Buffalo Springfield held a bash that has since become legend in Topanga. The party was held at David Briggs former ranch up off Old Canyon. It was a fantastic jam that lasted for several days and culminated in Topanga’s most celebrated bust!
 
A Topanga local recalls the event:
 
“I first heard the Buffalo Springfield were going to hold a jam out at the ranch on Tuesday. I went out there and it was really great. There were only maybe a dozen people standing around smoking grass and digging these great sounds.”
 
“I didn’t get back to the ranch for two days, but when I returned the jam was still going on, but it had also gotten very insane. I mean, the thing had really snowballed…a lot of the same musicians were still there, but there were also so many people.”
 
People were wandering out on the fire trails to hear the music drift across Old Canyon. The musicians had set up outside the house, and there were all these people milling around. Young underage chickees were everywhere. “The whole thing had just gotten too loose for me.”
 
Sure enough, the jam had become so notorious that the Malibu Sheriffs finally got around to catching the session. Another old timer relates the bust:
 
“We threw all the dope out back, but there was a guy out there taking a leak and he stumbled back inside just as the cops were coming in through the front door.”
 
Busted were Buffalo Springfield members Neil Young, Richie Furay and Jim Messina, plus a visiting Eric Clapton and all those underage chickees. Shortly after the bust, The Buffalo Springfield disbanded. Neil Young bought a home in Topanga and married a willowy girl named Susan, who opened the original Canyon Kitchen in the Shopping Center. Neil Young is the son of a Canadian sports writer, and is another major creative force destined to leave his mark on the community.

 

Early in 1970, actor Dean Stockwell returned to his home in Topanga after working on a film in Peru with Dennis Hopper, “The Last Movie.” He had an idea for a film about one day in the life of Topanga. The former MGM child star sat down and wrote a treatment. He called it “After the Goldrush,” and it was to feature several canyon residents.
 
It happened that Neil Young was hanging around the Canyon waiting to go on a nation-wide tour with Crosby, Stills and Nash. One day while Young was visiting him, Stockwell showed him the film treatment. Neil read it, got all jazzed, agreed to do the sound track, charged home and wrote songs and roughed out the album three weeks before the tour.
 
As is the case in so many film projects, “After the Goldrush” never managed to make it to the silver screen, but the creative energy behind it spawned not only Young’s now classic album, but a restaurant’s name commemorating the whole affair.
 
In the late 1960’s, Johnny Descoe, a promoter of various rock bars, took over the direction of a red neck beer bar located halfway up Topanga Boulevard almost to the top of the canyon. ZAP! Topanga had it’s very own rock joint and they called it “The Corral.”
 
One of the first groups booked into the Corral was a group of boogie fanatics who had already been turning on crowds in Santa Monica and Venice. They called themselves The Canned Heat. Soon the Canned Heat moved on, the Corral burned to the ground, but the musical spirits of Topanga Canyon remained undaunted.
 
Enter architect Ralph Curren! Curren decided what this town needed was a bigger, better mousetrap. He built a larger Corral on the other side of the parking lot. There weren’t any tables or chairs and the place smelled like varnish, the night the rock group Spirit opened the new Corral. The date was May 21st, 1969. Half the long-haired population of Topanga turned out for the opening and the air was filled with expectations as this ‘“In-Canyon” band (everyone was a resident) mounted the stage.
 
“A teenage Randy California picked up his guitar and cut loose, his amps blazing like his mentor and at onetime his band partner Jimi Hendrix. Randy reached out as far as he could go and brought it home like a searing whistle. Ed Cassidy, Randy’s dad, started kicking up a fuss on drums, Jay Ferguson, John Locke, and Mark Andes joined in and the walls began to vibrate from the shock of “It’s All the Same.”
 
Long before the end of the first set, the dance floor was steaming hot and filled with frenzied dancers. Hands that seldom knew freedom fluttered madly overhead. In all, it was an excellent kick off for a brand new club. It was a first of many nights that would help to mold the long-haired community into a veritable tribe.

Because he loved Topanga and wanted to promote the new club, Taj Mahal started playing free gigs at the Corral on unannounced weeknights. along with his original band featuring Jesse Edwin Davis. Over the next decade, the Corral would feature many famous bands. Some of the illustrious groups to have played the Corral have been Neil Young, Crazy Horse, Joni Mitchell, The Eagles, Donavon, John Lee Hooker, The Burrito Brothers, Spanky and Our Gang, Black Oak Arkansas, Nils Lofgren and Grin, and Linda Rondstadt.

 
Many a VIP rocker has spent a night at the Corral just to party. I personally remember two visits by Mick Jagger and members of the Rolling Stones, and then there is that outlandish story about the night somebody stole Janis Joplin’s purse while she was playing pool. It was later returned to her with apologies by the leader of a biker club.
 
Topanga Canyon itself would also provide a home at one time or another for many a rock star. Jim Morrison lived for a time off Entrado, while Doors drummer John Densmore lived up by Topanga State Park. Elvis Pressley’s drummer Ron Tutt and Fleeetwood Mac’s drummer Mick Fleetwood also lived in the canyon for a time. In the late 1960’s, Alice Cooper lived at the top of Montau Street where he use to rehearse with his original band. An opening act at the time, Cooper was always outrageous but at the time many of the locals got him confused with Tiny Tim.
 
Topanga has also been the home for Linda Ronstadt, Hoyt Axton, Billy Preston, Lowell George, and Bernie Leadon. In the world of film, Topanga has at one time or another been the home base for Sissy Spacek, Kieth Carradine, Robin Williams, Dean Stockwell, Russ Tamblyn, Meg Foster, Barbara Hershey, Lou Gossett and a whole lot of others.
 
But that is a whole other story!