California Dreamin': How Lou Adler Built L.A. Rock
From an acclaimed music journalist, the gripping story of how Lou Adler made Los Angeles the musical center of the world in the ’60s and ’70s. 

From the fifties through the eighties, Joe Adler was the key architect of Los Angeles rock—from the birth of soul to surf music to rock festivals and rock films, no one else had Adler’s reach or his success. In California Dreamin’, music journalist Michaelangelo Matos introduces readers to the West Coast’s first independent rock producer. He worked with everyone from surf-music kings Jan & Dean to crooner Johnny Rivers, from hippie supergroup The Mamas & the Papas to trailblazing feminist songwriter Carole King. Far from content to stop there, he reconfigured the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, ushering in a new era of rock festivals, and co-founded the Roxy to become a crucible for the emerging punk, new wave, and heavy metal scenes that dominated the Strip. 

As the seventies rolled into the eighties, Adler brought rock films like Monterey Pop, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Up in Smoke, and Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains, to audiences worldwide.   

As unconventional a biography as Adler was in his own creative ventures, California Dreamin’ is the first book to show how Adler became the pacesetter of the rock industry along the West Coast, a master tastemaker walking the razor's edge between highbrow and lowbrow, redefining the sound of a whole generation in his wake.  
1146791069
California Dreamin': How Lou Adler Built L.A. Rock
From an acclaimed music journalist, the gripping story of how Lou Adler made Los Angeles the musical center of the world in the ’60s and ’70s. 

From the fifties through the eighties, Joe Adler was the key architect of Los Angeles rock—from the birth of soul to surf music to rock festivals and rock films, no one else had Adler’s reach or his success. In California Dreamin’, music journalist Michaelangelo Matos introduces readers to the West Coast’s first independent rock producer. He worked with everyone from surf-music kings Jan & Dean to crooner Johnny Rivers, from hippie supergroup The Mamas & the Papas to trailblazing feminist songwriter Carole King. Far from content to stop there, he reconfigured the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, ushering in a new era of rock festivals, and co-founded the Roxy to become a crucible for the emerging punk, new wave, and heavy metal scenes that dominated the Strip. 

As the seventies rolled into the eighties, Adler brought rock films like Monterey Pop, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Up in Smoke, and Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains, to audiences worldwide.   

As unconventional a biography as Adler was in his own creative ventures, California Dreamin’ is the first book to show how Adler became the pacesetter of the rock industry along the West Coast, a master tastemaker walking the razor's edge between highbrow and lowbrow, redefining the sound of a whole generation in his wake.  
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California Dreamin': How Lou Adler Built L.A. Rock

California Dreamin': How Lou Adler Built L.A. Rock

by Michaelangelo Matos
California Dreamin': How Lou Adler Built L.A. Rock

California Dreamin': How Lou Adler Built L.A. Rock

by Michaelangelo Matos

eBook

$15.99 
Available for Pre-Order. This item will be released on October 20, 2026

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Overview

From an acclaimed music journalist, the gripping story of how Lou Adler made Los Angeles the musical center of the world in the ’60s and ’70s. 

From the fifties through the eighties, Joe Adler was the key architect of Los Angeles rock—from the birth of soul to surf music to rock festivals and rock films, no one else had Adler’s reach or his success. In California Dreamin’, music journalist Michaelangelo Matos introduces readers to the West Coast’s first independent rock producer. He worked with everyone from surf-music kings Jan & Dean to crooner Johnny Rivers, from hippie supergroup The Mamas & the Papas to trailblazing feminist songwriter Carole King. Far from content to stop there, he reconfigured the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, ushering in a new era of rock festivals, and co-founded the Roxy to become a crucible for the emerging punk, new wave, and heavy metal scenes that dominated the Strip. 

As the seventies rolled into the eighties, Adler brought rock films like Monterey Pop, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Up in Smoke, and Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains, to audiences worldwide.   

As unconventional a biography as Adler was in his own creative ventures, California Dreamin’ is the first book to show how Adler became the pacesetter of the rock industry along the West Coast, a master tastemaker walking the razor's edge between highbrow and lowbrow, redefining the sound of a whole generation in his wake.  

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780306833731
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Publication date: 10/20/2026
Sold by: Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format: eBook
Pages: 320

About the Author

MICHAELANGELO MATOS is the author of Can't Slow Down, The Underground Is Massive, and Sign 'O' the Times. He contributes regularly to Mix-mag and the New Yorker and lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.
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