WHAT GOES AROUND...

Sex, drugs, changing musical vibes, and a small carved ivory snakehead propel Greenhill’s novel about an eclectic collection of struggling musicians in California during the 1970s.

Guitarist Reed Rosen drives from Los Angeles to Arroyo, where he will meet up with his friend Beau Miller, a young songwriter and singer; they have a recording session scheduled at Sierra Sound Labs. But first, he must navigate through an anti-war/Black Panther protest and the resulting police action. When he stops at a traffic light, a young Black woman opens the door, gets in the car, and sticks what feels like a gun in his side. “Drive,” she tells him. After a few blocks, he looks down and sees that the ‘gun’ is in fact a granola bar. This is how Reed meets Angie Henderson, a music arranger who will become the most important woman in his life. She rides with him to Beau’s cottage in Arroyo, located on land owned by Beau’s record producer Sunshine (AKA Solomon “Sonny” Schine), who also happens to be a major dealer of premium marijuana. The next day, at the recording session, it is Angie who saves the day after 17 lackluster takes, exercising her arranger chops to coordinate the drums and back-up musicians with the “two-AND” beat she suggested the previous night, delivering what Sunshine hopes will be Beau’s breakthrough into the country music charts. Greenhill’s nostalgic visit to the mercurial 1970s music scene in California is replete with high- and low-cultural signifiers of the period, including the social upheavals of the anti-war, anti-racist, and feminist movements, the easy availability of pot and cocaine, and lots of sex in all varieties. (A subplot involving Angie is a take-off on the Patty Hearst/Symbionese Liberation Army saga, and the little ivory snake talisman that made its way from Japan to California in Sunshine’s pocket in the early 1960s presages the later arrival of Japanese corporate involvement in the American music industry.) Most compellingly, Greenhill brings readers into the recording studios, depicting with riveting specificity the miniscule musical adjustments that are involved in producing a final product.

A well-paced, gritty, and illuminating look back with an intriguing cast of characters.