The Ten Best San-Francisco Albums of The Psychedelic Era

welcome classic rock fans to another top 10 and today we're looking at the 10 best san francisco albums from the psychedelic period of course if you're new to this channel please be sure to click like subscribe and check that bell to get notified of any future uploads and i urge you to check the links below this video for ways you can support the sterling work done here at classic album review before we get started i thought it might be interesting to arrive at some sort of definition or consensus what exactly is that san francisco sound it's hard to pin down really but there are enough commonalities for us to pluck at a few uh distinctive threads first one has to be improvisation a lot of these bands would just meander away in these um acid soaked jangle of instrumentation uh john fogarty said they'd often go in c bands and they were out of tune couldn't play and had no idea where they were going but some of the better bands would use this as an ideal canvas on which to uh present their ethos and sound to an audience another feature of course would be the cross talking guitars that was very much a feature of the sound of maybe grape for example number two is a roving bass style now i know here in dear old blighty the who we're already using the bass guitar as a lead instrument the sound and style of playing bass often contributed to that bay area sound don't believe me go and check out jack cassidy on bless its pointed little head and phil lesh was a very underrated player whose uh jazz and avant-garde influence is certainly underpinning the way he played which ultimately goes on to underpin or provide the bottom end to that dead sound and number three is the chordal progression uh p townsend said he and ray davis are responsible for introducing the suspended chord into rock and roll um how correct he is i'm not sure i'll leave that for the the beard strokers out there to mull over but nevertheless within that san francisco sound there was uh interesting exploration of chordal progressions that weren't commonly found in rock and roll and that also feeds into the regional and distinctive sound other than that one of the other contributing factors at this time has to be the proliferation of psychedelics raymond zurich said and i'm quoting that substances like lsd existed to put you in touch with spirits beyond yourself with the creator with the creative impulse of the planet uh interestingly of course lsd was made illegal in california in 1966 with the other states soon to follow sorry enough this waffle and flim flam are here you say let's get on with this list the 10 best san francisco albums from the psychedelic period number 10 is electric music for the mind and body from 1967 by country joe and the fish this band was certainly influential in terms of the san francisco sound although i think they originally hailed from berkeley california it could be argued that this album is one of the most important and influential documents of the psychedelic era employing all those psychedelic tropes we just so love from the electric fuzz of guitars and swirling organ as well as dreamy soundscaping and they're distinguishable from the jefferson airplane and the grateful dead who are still operating within the paradigms of folk and blues at this time the jefferson airplane are still very much toying with their sound and the grateful dead we're trying to work out to transpose their live act into the studio the fish in the band's name actually comes from a simile used by chairman mao this is the revolutionaries like a fish that swims in the ocean of the people but this is of course very indicative of the band's politics and speaking of politics one group or faction i should say that were quite prominent at the time of the diggers the diggers were very anti-capitalist anti-imperialist and would often hand out free food in golden gate park but they were also irked by the hippies political apathy they would often carry banners that said never mind the vietnam war the flowers are lovely country joe and the fish delivered that fully formed and uncompromising body of psychedelic music from feel-good vibes to apocalyptic swirls you know like the soaring guitar and keyboard excursions flying high section 43 bass strings and the masked marauder the more folky sensibilities of course represented in tracks like uh sad and lonely times and of course mcdonald's personal ode to grace slick entitled grace this album is so dripping with acid it virtually pulsates as you listen to it number nine is loosen up naturally from 1969 with the sons of champlin this band were very much on the radar signed by capital records who put out a double album as their debut they consisted of numerous musicians within their very short-lived tenure looking to establish that um hammond b3 and horn sound which very much set them apart from the uh guitar-based lysergic bands of the bay area comparisons have to be made with their chicago counterparts of course the chicago transit authority we also put out a double album as their debut and what a fine fine album that is both band defined by horns and that pulsating soul sound more vanilla fudge than maybe grape but i think this band had something of a snarling psychedelic twist to them interesting aside is bill chaplin would actually later go on to join chicago there's a remarkable vibe to this album and its arrangements quite sophisticated and fairly philosophical as well which i think sets them apart a little bit from their chicago contemporaries i just love bill chaplin's songwriting that blue eyed soul melded with the uh jazz fumed guitar of terry hagerty interesting bit of trivia for you bill chaplin actually joined up with maybe great guitarist jerry miller in a short-lived project called the rhythm dukes nevertheless this album loosen up naturally by sons of champlin is definitely worth checking out number eight is children of the future by the steve miller band from 1968. man i love this album it's a psychedelic blues rock out this record was recorded at olympic studios in london and at helm was the legendary producer glenn johns now glenn johns tells her an interesting story in his autobiography about how he was called to vouch for steve miller and his entourage after a hashfield fruitcake was found in their possession uh it was probably down to glen john's to make sure it disappeared abracadabra so to speak but if i had to describe their music i'd say it's like west coast rock inflected with the smudge of psychedelia that firmly rooted in 1968. nevertheless this atmos shrouded in the words of one reviewer with a with the misty pathos of the uk uh no doubt glenn john's influence there i think boss drags contributes to some of the writing on the sound but the lion's share goes to steve miller i adore side one it's a psychedelic blues free-for-all wrapped up in that uh ornate and trippy splodge of sound that uh firmly roots it to the tropes and production affectations of the time the keys and swells of the title track beautifully segues into uh pushed me through it and in my first mind and let's not forget that far out journey to the organ inflected the beauty of time is that it's snowing side two lacks that what i would call that narcotized floatiness but what it does have it is it contains songs that steve miller would continue to play in concert for a number of years after this record uh tracks like uh babies calling me home and stepping stone in my opinion children in the future is a great great debut album number seven is santana the debut album from 1969. this is one of those most remarkable of debuts and it sets the benchmark for that latin infused rock in the same way hendrick sets the benchmark for his own brand of impressionistic psychedelic blues they were part of that second wave of san francisco bands that did not sound as psychedelic as their mostly due to centennial's guitar work and the wild percussionist beautiful melting of the influences here as i've said with the uh fusion of latin american music with rock and roll blues and jazz this band was skillful interpreters of other people's songs there's no doubt about that and the san francisco rock scene at this time was very much influenced by those guitar-driven jams defined by blues rock folk and even eastern modalities all bleeding into that psychedelic splurge of sound that very much defined the area at this time but santana added something to the mix uh something quite unique mystical and involving without being about being too trippy it's a mix of latin percussions with some very driving rock grooves and wow that guitar sound it's snarling and it's fluidity very much suited the ebb flow and swing of this music it's a great record an abundance of impressions loose collective explorations all built around those infectious rifts giving this music an exotic flavor santana famously played woodstock at this time but his performance was somewhat given an edge by the fact he accepted uh i think a drink or something from the grateful dead prior to his performance which was obviously spiked santana went on to say that he found the experience quite unnerving but i think he's perhaps forgiven them since then all water on the golden gate bridge eh nevertheless it made for a powerful and creative performance timothy leary said that courage is the key to creativity maybe santana discovered something about himself in the universe that day even if not to accept anything from the grateful dead interestingly timothy died in 1996 and in 1997 his ashes were sent into outer space i mean how appropriate rendering that uh moody blues number legend of her mind rather prophetic i think number six the quicksilver messenger service debut from 1968. this album is considered tighter and more restrained than their live performances that would often meander into these stretching these standard blues numbers into these virtuosic jams they've been knocking around the bay area since about 1964. they didn't put an album out to 68. interestingly the guitarist and singer said that's gary duncan by the way said this was because we had no ambition towards making records we just wanted to have fun play music and make enough money to be able to afford to smoke dope while many would consider the album happy trails to be the span's finest record and i'd probably have difficulty arguing with that nevertheless i love this album it has a um a captivating and naive energy to it it certainly contains their strongest set of studio materials especially the accent on melodic folk rock these are tracks that the spaniard had been thrashing out for a number of years you get the wonderful dinos song on this although it has to be said that uh dino valentini himself was actually in jail uh when this song was recorded when this album was recorded in fact and let's not forget their wonderful cover of uh folk singer hamilton camp's pride of man which i'm not mistaken actually opens the opens the album light your windows is also a highlight as well as the jam uh gold and silver which is surprisingly tight with these wonderful charming guitars and um arden varying time signatures but i would definitely consider the debut by the quicksilver messenger service to be worthy of this list number five is green river by credence clearwater revival from 1969. this album is a remarkable strum of swamp country and southern rock i absolutely adore this record i adore queen's clearwater revival i was also thrilled to see john fogerty supported by the steve miller band a few years back now but that's another story for many their sound very much belies their origins in the east bay sub-region of the san francisco bay area songs about bayous in the mississippi river drawing from the iconography of the deep south in fact bay area sounds.com have gone on to say that their style simply didn't represent the san francisco sound during those years and i get their point you know i do agree with them but nevertheless i'm kind of basing this video more on the geography and the formation of these bands rather than the sound that i defined at the start of the video credence favored tightly structured numbers that immediately put them at odds with the the more spaced out and improvisational nature of the san francisco scene and they also generally steered clear of many of those psychedelic tropes and affectations that very much came to define the period this band with its chugging rhythms and fogarty's yowl has been described by one critic as the sound of a hot humid summer night amid the deep country backwards what makes this band so interesting for me is john focused his writing which often addresses some pretty dark subject matter death and sin and hopelessness all uplifted sonically by being wrapped in these uh steady rock rhythms and then poppy sounds it creates an interesting ironic conflation between the overall sound and the subject matter maybe as a dig at the naivety of the hippie movement that kind of flowers in your hair uh nonsense interesting aside of course that that record the scott mckenzie record if you go to san francisco where some flowers in your hair was actually written by uh papa john phillips of the mamas and papas to promote the monterey pop festival william schnabel in his uh excellent book on haiti ashbury says that the song could not have been written by a hippie from the haight ashbury area because it was just too sunset boulevardish i have to say that i think green river is an absolute remarkable album uh john fogerty and his autobiography has said that green river is my favorite credence album i felt like that one hit the bull's eye at the very center of my soul number four is maybe great the debut album from 1967. this band's career was beset by uh disasters anything that could have gone wrong did go wrong from uh poor handling by their record company legal problems appalling management not to mention the old uh the old chestnut of falling out between band members over creative differences and that's even before we get to this psychological deterioration of skip spence whose mental health problems were only exacerbated by copious amounts of lsd of course skip spence had just left the jefferson airplane nevertheless this album is a triumph uh as far as i'm concerned they had a very unique and specific sound built around those clear bright harmonies of the band members not to mention the uh the interwoven guitar work of jerry miller peter lewis and skip spence it was a blend of rock and roll blues and country with some folk accents as well all contributing to the experimental and lysergic energy of this band and producer david rubinson got the very best out of them as well presenting this music and all its uncluttered clarity the stereo mix of this record is really really good as well which is unusual for this time because stereo mixes tended to be an afterthought uh not a lot of time or thought was lavished on them many of them being absolutely truly dreadful wonderful tracks on this album omaha hate grandma but the standout number one this is sitting by the window i just love that song a band that famously based their name on a rather lame joke are anything but with this record with his famous flipping the bird's sleeve they seem to have everything going for them apart from good judgment and luck number three is cheap thrills by big brother in the holding company from 1968. this is one of 1968's most successful albums now janice joplin and big brother holding company had got extensive news coverage after their phenomenal performance at the monterey pop festival in 67. i thank heavens it was filmed after some initial wrangling i believe but what really makes this album stand out is that a resting cover by a counter culture artist and hero robert crum interestingly robert crum said he really didn't like that 60s psychedelic pop nevertheless his is uh something else it's one of the most uh lavish sleeves produced by columbia records even rivaling perhaps the wonderful sleeve by peter blake for the beatles for this album they wanted to engineer a specific vibe an atmosphere of a live album uh producer john simon recorded uh audience noises and uh audience responses to superimpose upon the recording i think there's only one song here that doesn't that was actually recorded live that was ball and chain which was recorded at the uh winterland ballroom listening to jenny's drop in sing i i don't think i've often heard a voice that comes over as that emotional that desperate i mean my word you can see why colombia were keen to sign them after that remarkable performance at the monterey pop and cheap thrills in my opinion is her finest finest moment her rendition of gershwin's summer time is the the best uh arguably the best reinterpretation of a standard i think up to that point other tracks on there the shimmering number turtle blues is absolutely remarkable she comes across as a kind of a melding of um bessie smear for memphis mini and that band of course big brother holding coming a perfect example of that san francisco guitar driven sound i think crum went on to say that he felt that janice had a fabulous voice but the rest of the band were absolutely terrible or worse to that effect interesting robert chris gowers uh said of this album that it's big brother's first physically respectable effort interestingly um bill crootsman of the grateful dead saw a big brother in the holding company with janice joplin perform uh at the carousel in san francisco and he described it as nothing less than incredible interestingly the carousel in san francisco was a club joint ironed or joint run by the grateful dead jefferson airplane and the quicksilver messenger service so as you can imagine that was a short adventure number two is the anthem of the sun by the grateful dead from 1968. uh the drummer bill crootsman described this album as dad's most experimental album i mean the band were very much about trying to trying to capture that live sound uh so subsequently they went on the road recorded loads and loads of live performances and kind of spliced them all together jerry garcia said this is more of a montage than an album and the tour on which this album was recorded was a a joint venture with the quicksilver messenger service certainly the tour was billed as the quick and the dead from which all this material was harvested the band had been described as uh resembling mad scientists trying to put this together the record company were very unhappy with what the band were doing in the studio often accused them or wrote them saying they were being incredibly unprofessional in fact the record company were not happy with anything they're grateful they'd put out until a working man's dead one critic has said that the the band at this point we're exploiting studio technology to demonstrate how these songs are a mirror into infinity with garcia uh suggesting that lsd was very much at the the heart of uh this sound as it was very much the heart of the band's live shows at the time he said we mixed this album for the hallucinations and it worked great you get dead standards on here like that's it for the other one which is composed of several psychedelic passages with garcia's vocals on the opening movement uh cryptical envelopment the band were creating strange hybrids of studio tracks and various live parts stitched together from different shows as i've said what's interesting is how the different cuts kind of dissolve into each other there's an apocryphal story surrounding the recording of this album bob weir suggested the producer david hassinger if they could record the sound of thick air passenger just i think put down his mug of tea and just walked out there's no doubt when you listen to this that the influence of stockhouse and other avant-garde is certainly come to the fore elderly stanley was a key figure within the dead universe at this point described by the new york times as the artisan of acid due to his not only his abilities as a brilliant sound engineer but also has a uh a creator if you like of top grade lsd whilst on the topic vellus the albert hofmann's obituary rolling stone described his creation as a teutonic shift in consciousness this sound certainly seems to be about exploring that shift between uh structure and formlessness rendering the album a genuine psychedelic experience the band's music prior to this obviously that first album i think was a disappointment to the band but prior to that they were it was music that accompanied the acid tests which garcia described as study of chaos nevertheless it impressed aussie stanley was certainly taking with his band's sound in fact i think he described garcia's playing as uh guitar playing as having a power of thought and emotion all rolled into one veritable tribal experience and from the sun very much represents the dead developing sound we get born cross side which features a sample of miles davis's sketches of spain and the auricular montage of that's it for the other one not to mention the pig pen blues of course and dark star that early dead classic was born of these sessions number one is surrealistic pillow by the jefferson airplane from 1967 when we think of jeff's an airplane our mind instantly conjures up that menacing pulse of the bolero lewis carroll metaphors and uh clever allusions to the narcotic state it's the sound and the music on this record that makes it so extraordinary if i may quote wikipedia jefferson airplane's fusion of folk rock and psychedelia was original at the time in line with the musical developments pioneered by the birds mamas and puppets bob dylan yard birds and the beatles one could say that with this album it was a melting of the idles of folk rock with the darker clouds of psychedelia will hodgkinson in his book disguise him as the first band of the counterculture i'm not sure i agree with that to be honest with you but it was a pretty seismic moment i think when uh grace slick joins this band replacing the original singer sydney anderson uh she brought something distinctive to the mix uh what one critic has described as that kind of moorish weirdness my favorite track on this album believe it or not is today i adore that song a wonderful vote for marty balon and beautiful guitar phrasing by jerry garcia when marty balon streamed wake up new york from that uh hotel rooftop in 1968 it could be seen as a clarion call for a new way of thinking uh certainly therefore this man firmly rooted in their counter-culture in fact marty balin used to throw acid tabs into the audience when they played the film or as i said previously lsd been outlawed in california from 1966 onwards and the other states just followed suit it was spearheaded by ronald reagan i believe was the governor at the time we saw the hippies as absolutely degenerates a lot of the albums put out at this summer half life half studio very much trying to capture the very soul of the city this album was very ambitious very explorative in terms of the textures that employed a kind of modal folk minstrel see as well as that electric acid beach which very much defines the sound of the bay area i mentioned miles davis sketches of spain earlier but this album was very important in terms of the composition of white rabbit uh grace slick imbibed lsd and listened to this record for hours then she walked over to an upright piano and voila a psychedelic anthem was born uh one that was no doubt uh meant to adorn a thousand vietnam movies forever afterwards along with painted black by the stones of course anyway you've been watching a video about classic album movie i hope you've enjoyed the long strange trip i'd like to thank you all for watching if you've watched to this point without switching off i want to doubly thank you for doing that now you might want to check out some of the cards that uh that i will put up here later if you enjoyed this video if you haven't already done so please do click like subscribe and check that bell other than that i will leave you with my closing salvo which is as you know hope you're staying safe and well but more importantly that you keep listening you

Channel: Classic Album Review

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Id: zybXuq2M7TQ

Length: 25min 55sec (1555 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 04 2022