Todd Everett contacted me with the sad news that Judy Raphael died Saturday in Rancho Mirage after a long illness.

Readers of LAUREL CANYON will recognize her name as one of the sharp and questioning voices in the book; she spoke unsentimentally about how, once the Beatles hit, the young men of L.A.’s hand-sewn folk music scene wasted no time reinventing themsevles as rock and roll stars.

This was unquestionably good for the music but had the effect of diminishing the inroads women had made during the folk boom; rock and roll was the ultimate boys club, and Judy was disappointed to discover that at the dawn of modern feminism women in the canyon and on the L.A. music scene—save precious exceptions like Joni Mitchell and Cass Elliot—were too often expected to be tie-dyed cheerleaders and unquestioning sexual helpmates.

“Suddenly, ambition was a downer,” she lamented.

Judy was a talented journalist and thinker. As Everett noted:

She was smart, sweet, and left a lot of friends, both male and female.