The Photography

California Dreaming

Narrated by the stars he photographed, Diltz's limited edition book presents a wealth of previously unseen images alongside his most famous album cover shots.

'Morrison said, "There it is. Stop there. We're going inside and we're going to shoot the Hard Rock Cafe and we're going to have a couple of beers."' - Ray Manzarek

'It didn't matter if you had a great place to live or not because often there was a tree outside and a window to look at the sky. And that was enough.' - Jackson Browne

'I played a little too busy for Linda Ronstadt - she'd probably laugh about it. I played a busy bass and she didn't like it very much. She'd look over like "Grrrr".' - Randy Meisner

'We had the times; we had the friendship; we had the songs; we had the energy.' - Graham Nash

'There was a rock opera idea floating around for the Desperado album. We sort of saw ourselves as living outside the law, just like the guys we were writing about.' - Glenn Frey

'I called Neil and spoke to his Mum and she said, "Oh Neil's broken up his band and apparently he wants to be the Bob Dylan of Canada. If you hear from him, tell him to call home."' - Stephen Stills

'I first came to LA with David Crosby. He had a cassette of Magical Mystery Tour and we drove down sunset and up into the hills listening to it. For me, Laurel Canyon was like the elixir of life.' - Joni Mitchell

The Author

California Dreaming

The California Dreaming story begins in 1966 as Henry Diltz discovers the wonders of the photographic image and begins a life-long love affair with his camera.

As a folk musician living in Laurel Canyon and a friend to the musician elite, Henry was party to the burgeoning LA music scene and was able to capture the magic of a brief and bright moment in the history of rock music.

'Henry Diltz always seemed to be in the right place at the right time.' - Robby Kreiger

He had unprecedented access to every one of his subjects, and his photographs, which include seminal album covers such as The Doors' Morrison Hotel and Crosby, Stills and Nash's eponymous debut, have come to define the era.

The Limited Edition

California Dreaming

'A book readers will get lost in... it is teeming with life.' - Goldmine

Less Than 100 Copies Left

Limited to an edition of only 2,000 signed and numbered books, each book in the Collector Edition features 96,000 words from 48 contributors as well as two forewords by Graham Nash and Kevin Miller. Over 500 photographs are printed into the edition using fine screen lithography alongside facsimile excerpts from Henry Diltz's journals.


Printed on luxurious, heavyweight art papers the book bound in rich brown goatskin leather with real denim hand-binding, finished with gold blocking and page edging.

'Jaw-droppingly good.' - Record Collector

Finally the edition is housed in a unique tie-dye slipcase, reproduced from a vintage Californian sample made by John Sebastian. Each copy includes a limited pressing of Highway 70, (an archival-grade gold CD of songs by southern Californian artists, recorded by Henry Diltz's band The Modern Folk Quartet) then individually hand-numbered, and hand-signed by Henry Diltz