ENCHANTED: Coming of age, a 60s and 70s rock band saga

by Larry J. Dunlap, Virtual Voice (Narrator)

It began as a simple idea, the retelling of the four of us from Indiana’s musical adventures in the wild and chaotic West Coast of the mid-1960s for friends and family. It turned into a memoir of our story as seen and experienced through my eyes, and–in the end, it became what it had always been--A LOVE STORY.

ENCHANTED, BOOK 2 OF THINGS WE LOST IN THE NIGHT CONCLUDES A FAST-MOVING, ROMANCE-FILLED SAGA based on true events of a young singer and his friends search for success in the 1960s music business of California and Las Vegas - if you liked Daisy Jones and the Six, and books from Carly Simon, Keith Richards, Patti Smith, Tommy James, and "The Wrecking Crew," you're sure to enjoy Night People.

In the final three years of Things We Lost in the Night, the band’s trajectory continues to rise as their latest record is expected to debut high on Billboard Magazine's Hot 100. In Hawaii, Larry encounters a life-threatening moment, and an indelible romantic fantasy, experiences on this beautiful and exotic island during the Vietnam War change his life in many ways. The following homecoming trip to perform in Indianapolis is far less satisfying than he’d expected, and a national tragedy affects the hit record everyone expected. But the band’s appearance successes continue to soar as they headline in a Las Vegas nightclub with famous bands like Sly and the Family Stone and discover that their band has become the model for the latest supergroup, Three Dog Night.

Though the recording success they’d hoped for hasn’t materialized yet, the Flamingo Hotel has booked them on a long-term contract to play in a dance/showroom designed and built especially for them, the Sky Room. Here they perform for the biggest stars in the world, including Tom Jones and Elvis Presley, and play with internationally famous musicians who come to sit in with them. Larry feels he’s living a romantic fairy tale with his new wife and baby son and has been given a second chance to redeem the failure of his first marriage.

When the Flamingo’s owner completes construction of the new International Hotel, the world’s largest resort casino, Elvis Presley is booked in the main showroom to begin his legendary climb to superstardom in the city that never sleeps. Stark Naked and the Car Thieves is chosen to simultaneously open the Crown Room at the top of the new hotel, in a venue similar to the Sky Room. After another record release fizzles, the band is becoming frustrated with their progress as recording artists.

Though they have been chosen by Capitol Records to record the theme song for an upcoming major movie, Larry realizes their options are limited by the band’s inability to create their own original music, their own sound. Their disappointment compounds when the movie fails to be completed. Forces are at work to implode the band as Larry is ever more determined to find new ways to develop the band’s creativity. During a scheduling mixup that results in another trip to Indianapolis, a crisis arises. His new wife and son are missing. He faces severe threats to his life and sanity as he attempts to recover his family and keep his band together.PRAISE FOR BOOK 1 NIGHT PEOPLE"....the swift intoxicating music of that era and the seismic shift of mores that burst from the free-love movement, [NIGHT PEOPLE] captures the beat of that misty time when "a growing thirst for individual freedom, a desire to escape a darkening shadow of war, and a national hangover following the public murder of a young and popular president." -- C.D. Quinn, Steph Rodriguez, Manhattan Book Review

"Larry Dunlap lived it. His memoir NIGHT PEOPLE is a frank, funny, frenzied chronicle of the 60's West Coast music scene." -- Susan Shapiro, New York Times bestselling memoirist, FIVE MEN WHO BROKE MY HEART, GOOD AS YOUR WORD, and OVEREXPOSED <

Audible Audio

Published July 11, 2025

About the author

Larry J. Dunlap is the author of the recently completed THINGS WE LOST IN THE NIGHT, A Memoir of Love and Music in the 60s with Stark Naked and the Car Thieves in two volumes: NIGHT PEOPLE: Book 1, followed by ENCHANTED: Book 2.

"Though I'd always wanted to be a creative writer from my youth, my writing career didn't begin until late in life as a pencil-for-hire, technical and training writer for Fortune 50 companies in the 1990s. In the 1970s, the years following my memoir project, I spent most of the decade working in Hollywood as a personal manager, publisher, and Sunset Boulevard recording studio owner/operator. While actually seeking a way out of the music business in the 1980s, I developed a love affair with early computer gaming that led me to co-found The Games Network, Inc., the first all-digital broadcasting cable network, followed by several years in video and film production and post-production.

My favorite project has been imagining a galactic empire as a backdrop for an online game system. In the mid-2000s, I designed what I considered to be an innovative gameplay and delivery system and gathered together a highly talented art and programming team to develop a breakthrough graphical multiplayer online strategy game called IMPERIAL WARS. Since I didn't have the resources initially to develop the game, it gave me a lot of time to work on a history of the empire and develop ideas and concepts for a trilogy based on a specific time in this history. For my latest project I have begun work on the first volume, working-name, IMPERIA, and roughing out the two following books. I've been a huge science-fiction fan since the golden age of sci-fi in the late 1950s and early 60s. It's hard not to be intimidated by the incredible authors in this genre between then and now but I'm excited by the challenge.

At various moments over the years, I have published short stories, been a rock music review columnist for a California lifestyle magazine, and authored and drawn a published music-based cartoon strip named Frets. I author fiction and creative non-fiction project from a wonderful little hideaway near the ocean in Southern California where I count my blessings and share my life with my wife Laurie and our pet Chilidog."

Find out more at http://larryjdunlap.com

Below I'd like to invite you to read the first seven chapters of the two books of Things We Lost in the Night, a fast-moving romance-filled ROMANCE-FILLED memoir of a young singer and his friends search for success in the 1960s music business of California and Las Vegas in an easy to read online format in the link below.


Here are the first seven chapters of NIGHT PEOPLE FREE at the link below:
https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin...

and here are the first seven chapters of ENCHANTED FREE at this link:
https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin...