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| The Family Dog on The Great Highway, at 660 Great Highway, ca. 1969 |
The Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA
The
Family Dog was a foundation stone in the rise of San Francisco rock,
and it was in operation in various forms from Fall 1965 through the
Summer of 1970. For sound historical reasons, most of the focus on the
Family Dog has been on the original 4-person collective who organized
the first San Francisco Dance Concerts in late 1965, and on their
successor Chet Helms. Helms took over the Family Dog in early 1966, and
after a brief partnership with Bill Graham at the Fillmore, promoted
memorable concerts at the Avalon Ballroom from Spring 1966 through
December 1968. The posters, music and foggy memories of the Avalon are
what made the Family Dog a legendary 60s rock icon.
In the Summer of 1969, however, with San Francisco as one of the fulcrums of the rock music explosion, Chet Helms opened another venue. The Family Dog on The Great Highway, at 660 Great Highway, on the Western edge of San Francisco, was only open for 14 months and was not a success. Yet numerous interesting bands played there, and remarkable events took place, and they are only documented in a scattered form. This series of posts will undertake a systematic review of every musical event at the Family Dog on The Great Highway. In general, each post will represent a week of musical events at the venue, although that may vary slightly depending on the bookings.
If anyone has memories, reflections, insights, corrections or flashbacks about shows at the Family Dog on the Great Highway, please post them in the Comments.
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| 660 Great Highway in San Francisco in 1967, when it was the ModelCar Raceway, a slot car track |
The Edgewater Ballroom, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA
As early as 1913, there were rides and concessions at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, near the Richmond District. By 1926, they had been consolidated as Playland-At-The-Beach. The Ocean Beach area included attractions such as the Sutro Baths and the Cliff House. The San Francisco Zoo was just south of Playland, having opened in the 1930s. One of the attractions at Playland was a restaurant called Topsy's Roost. The restaurant had closed in 1930, and the room became the Edgewater Ballroom. The Ballroom eventually closed, and Playland went into decline when its owner died in 1958. By the 1960s, the former Edgewater was a slot car raceway. In early 1969, Chet Helms took over the lease of the old Edgewater.
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| One
of the only photos of the interior of the Family Dog on The Great
Highway (from a Stephen Gaskin "Monday Night Class" ca. October 1969) |
The Family Dog On The Great Highway
The
Great Highway was a four-lane road that ran along the Western edge of
San Francisco, right next to Ocean Beach. Downtown San Francisco faced
the Bay, but beyond Golden Gate Park was the Pacific Ocean. The aptly
named Ocean Beach is dramatic and beautiful, but it is mostly windy and
foggy. Much of the West Coast of San Francisco is not even a beach, but
rocky cliffs. There are no roads in San Francisco West of the Great
Highway, so "660 Great Highway" was ample for directions (for reference,
it is near the intersection of Balboa Street and 48th Avenue). The
tag-line "Edge Of The Western World" was not an exaggeration, at least
in American terms.
The Family Dog on The Great Highway was
smaller than the Bill Graham's old Fillmore Auditorium. It could hold up
to 1500, but the official capacity was probably closer to 1000. Unlike
the comparatively centrally located Fillmore West, the FDGH was far from
downtown, far from the Peninsula suburbs, and not particularly easy to
get to from the freeway. For East Bay or Marin residents, the Great
Highway was a formidable trip. The little ballroom was very appealing,
but if you didn't live way out in the Avenues, you had to drive. As a
result, FDGH didn't get a huge number of casual drop-ins, and that
didn't help its fortunes. Most of the locals referred to the venue as
"Playland."
Chet Helms had opened the Family Dog at 660 Great Highway to much fanfare on June 13, 1969, with a packed house seeing the Jefferson Airplane and The Charlatans. One of the goals was that the Dog would feature mostly San Francisco bands and a variety of smaller community events and groups. Since so many San Francisco bands were successful, and had record contracts, this didn't confine the venue to obscurity. A lot of great bands played the Family Dog in 1969, but the distant location and the gravitational pull of major rock events hosted elsewhere in the Bay Area kept the Family Dog isolated. We know only the most fragmentary bits about music played, events and audiences throughout the year. Despite the half-year of struggle, Helms had kept the Family Dog on The Great Highway afloat. He had entered the new year of 1970 with a new plan.
- For a complete list of Family Dog shows (including FDGH), see here
- For the previous entry (June 30-July 1, The Kinks) see here
- For a summary and the link to the most recent entries in this series, see here
July 14-15, 1970 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Terry Reid/Cat Mother and The All-Night Newsboys/Ace Of Cups (Tuesday-Wednesday)
By mid-July, the Family Dog on The Great Highway was just barely open, rented occasionally by outsiders. I have to assume that Chet Helms had not yet closed it because he was hoping to arrange new financial backing. Despite these precarious circumstances, however, there were still some interesting bookings on the Great Highway during the Summer. One of the most intriguing events was near the end: two weeknights featuring the British guitarist Terry Reid. We know nothing about the events, not even whether they were held. But all the signs point to something very interesting indeed.
Terry Reid
Singer and guitarist Terry Reid (b.1949) had been in Peter Jay and The Jaywalkers when they had opened a UK tour for the Rolling Stones in 1966. Reid soon came to the attention of producer Mickie Most, who had been hugely successful with the Animals, Hermans' Hermits, Donovan and many other hit artists. Reid's debut album, produced by Most for Epic, Bang Bang You're Terry Reid, had been released in 1968. Reid had toured the United States opening for Cream in their high-profile "Farewell Tour." Reid's band was a trio, with Reid on guitar and vocals, Pete Solley on organ and Keith Webb on drums. Reid was personally well-connected, as was Mickie Most, so Reid was scheduled to support the Rolling Stones on their 1969 tour of America.
Terry Reid's legendary status stemmed from his relationship to Most. Mickie Most's management partner was one Peter Grant, who had been the road manager for the Animals and the Yardbirds, among many others. Most had also produced the Yardbirds' album Little Games, but it had not gone well. As the Yardbirds had disintegrated, Jimmy Page was planning to form a new band with session man bassist John Paul Jones. They needed a singer and a drummer. Peter Grant recommended that Page ask Terry Reid about joining up as the lead vocalist. Since Page and Reid shared management, the idea made a lot of sense.
Around September 1968, Terry Reid and Jimmy Page had a nice lunch, where Page asked him to be lead singer in his new band. Reid had been promised a lot of money to tour the States with the Stones, however, and since Page could not guarantee that he would make up that income, Reid declined the offer. As a friendly gesture, however, Reid told Page about a Midlands band with a singer whose style was similar. They also had a good drummer. Page went to see them, and soon after hired Robert Plant and John Bonham. So Reid became a legend by turning down Led Zeppelin.
Reid went on tour the States with his trio throughout 1969. He had played the Fillmore East with BB King and Johnny Winter (January 1969), and he had played the Fillmore West with Country Joe and The Fish (December 1968) and Ten Years After (July 1969). Reid and his trio can be seen performing a song in the cheesy 1970 documentary Groupies: The Movie, probably recorded at Fillmore West in July '69. His second album also came out in 1969 (on Columbia instead of Epic). In the Fall of 1969, Terry Reid did indeed open many shows in the United States for the Rolling Stones. Of course, Led Zeppelin were already fast-rising stars by this point, but Reid was talented, versatile and handsome, and in general it looked his bet on himself would pay off.
In early 1970, however, Reid had a falling out with Mickie Most. Most wanted Reid to keep his songs under three minutes and aim them towards the singles market, whereas Reid was more interested in the extended jamming of groups like Jeff Beck and Led Zeppelin. Lawsuits followed, and Reid wasn't able to record. Reid did perform live, but details are scant. The two days at the Family Dog on The Great Highway are exotically intriguing, and we know nothing. I am going to hazard an educated guess about what went down, however, based on some triangulation. If anyone knows anything, or has some clever speculation of their own, please mention them in the Comments.
Terry Reid Live Performances July 1970
I only know of three live dates for Terry Reid in 1970.
July 3, 4 or 5, 1970 Second Atlanta International Pop Festival, Middle Georgia Raceway, Byron, GATerry Reid's performance at Isle Of Wight was released on a 2004 cd (Silver White Light on Water Records). His band was
July 14-15, 1970 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA
July 28, 1970 Third Isle Of Wight Festival, Afton Down, Isle Of Wight, UK
Terry Reid-guitar, vocals
David Lindley-slide guitar, guitar, banjo, violin
Lee Miles-bass
Mike Giles-drums
It seems reasonable to assume that Miles and Lindley, for reasons I will explain, were also at Atlanta and the Family Dog. Who the drummer might have been for those shows is not so certain.
Lee Miles had met Reid on the Rolling Stones tour, as he had been the bass player for the Ike&Tina Turner Revue. Since Ike & Tina had opened many Rolling Stones shows, it's not surprising that Reid and Miles became friends. Miles would go on to be in many of Terry Reid's future bands.
The David Lindley connection was a little more unlikely. David Lindley, a multi-instrumentalist of infinite talent, is best known as Jackson Browne's principal co-conspirator in the 1970s, but Lindley also played on records by Crosby & Nash, Linda Ronstadt, Warren Zevon and the rest of the Troubadour crowd from those days. He also has had a unique and thriving solo career.
In the late 60s, Lindley was a principal member of a band called Kaleidoscope, a band who pretty much invented "World Music" about twenty years before the world was ready for it. A brilliant, versatile band, they put out four poorly-selling but critically acclaimed albums on Epic. Save for some primitive production, the music sounds contemporary today. Kaleidoscope was revered by fellow musicians (not least Jimmy Page), but the public had simply not been ready for them. By mid-1970, Kaleidoscope had finally sputtered to a halt.
According to Peter Doggett’s excellent liner notes to the 2005 Terry Reid cd Superlungs (compiled from his first two albums), Lindley and Reid had met at the Sky River Rock Festival in Summer ‘69 (August 30-September 1). Nonetheless, the key connection between David Lindley and Terry Reid was a legendary rock and roll character named Chesley Millikin (1942-2019). Just the parts of Millikin's story that I know are filled with adventure. He was a member of the Royal Irish Jumping Team (horses) in the 1950s, apparently of Olympic quality, but he had ended up in Canada in the early 1960s. By 1966, Millikin was in the music business in Los Angeles and managing Kaleidoscope, who were on Epic. In 1967, Millikin was offered the job as executive vice-president of Epic Records in London. In London, Millikin became friendly with the Stones, and Stones' road manager Sam Cutler. Millikin's connection to the Stones was most likely how Terry Reid got on to the US Stones tour.
Millikin must have been looking after Reid on the Stones tour, as well as hanging with Sam Cutler. By 1970, Cutler (blamed for Altamont) had defected to the Grateful Dead, and Millikin wasn't far behind. So when Reid was in limbo and looking for a band, Millikin would have known that his old charges the Kaleidoscope had broken up, so was the connection between the two guitarists (the Millikin story goes on and on, but it's a rabbit hole of its own).
Denise Sullivan's liner notes to Silver Light White (from 2004) give more detail, although they elide some other points
"What was happening was, we'd not been able to make an album for two to three years," [Reid] says by way of explaining away his fairly well-documented legal hassles with his former producer, Mickie Most. The troubles besieged him before, during and after the [1970 Isle Of Wight performance].
"So what I'd done is put a band together in England with myself, [bassist] Lee Miles who was with Ike and Tina Turner, Alan White on drums and David Lindley." It was a mutual friend, the 60s character Chesley Millikin, who had suggested Reid join forces with California's kaleidoscopic multi-instrumentalist, Lindley. "David wrote me this letter, it was a page and a half of the instruments he played and I thought, imagine what the the freight'll be when he gets here," Terry laughs. "He turned up with something like 20 instruments."
As the band got the call for the Isle Of Wight Festival, drummer White was committed to studio work with John Lennon, who had refused the drummer a “day pass.” Though it was Lennon who kindly suggested Reid pull in Mike Giles from King Crimson for the day, "I'm sure it was a blur for him. It was the only gig we ever did together,' says Reid
From Sullivan’s liner notes--referring to events over 30 years in the past when they were written--we can infer that Reid had enough backing to import American musicians. (Doggett’s liner notes add some interesting details, and they don’t contradict Sullivan directly, but certain details do not match up. It too was researched 30 years after the fact). Kaleidoscope's last known shows were in April 1970, so Lindley must have come over to England in May or June. Yet Terry Reid played the Atlanta Pop Festival and the two Family Dog shows, which seems a rather slight touring schedule. I have to think there were more American shows around July. Just to confuse matters, the Terry Reid Wikipedia entry says that Tim Davis played with Reid, Lindley and Miles in America. Davis, a fine drummer, had just left the Steve Miller Band, but there is no attribution. In any case, whether Alan White was the drummer, or Tim Davis, or someone else, Reid, Lindley and Miles seem to have been the rest of the band at the edge of the Western World.
[update 2023 15 July] Ace researcher David Kramer-Smyth figured out that Terry Reid's drummer on the American tour was the great Bruce Rowland. Rowland, an original member of Spooky Tooth, was the drummer for Joe Cocker and The Grease Band at Woodstock. But he was also in Fairport Convention for years, played with Ronnie Lane and Slim Chance and a million sessions, including the Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack.
Given that the Family Dog was empty, it doesn't make too much sense that Terry Reid played a Tuesday and a Wednesday. The only thing that makes sense to me is that they were warming up for a bigger weekend gig somewhere else. Since all the participants were based in Southern California, it also doesn't make sense that they played a gig in San Francisco. It may be that Los Angeles would have been too high-profile for a warmup gig, but it begs the question of what was behind the booking. Possibly some planned tour dates were canceled.
In any case, because of the Isle Of Wight live album, we have a pretty good idea of what Reid and Lindley sounded like. It's not fully fleshed out, but its intriguing. Once the lawsuits were settled, Atlantic Records would go on to sign Reid. Ultimately, Atlantic would release the next Terry Reid album River in 1973, and Chesley Millikin remained Reid's booking agent (as part of Sam Cutler's Out-Of-Town Tours). The album included material with Lindley and Lee Miles, but Lindley had already moved on to Jackson Browne by then. Supposedly, Lindley and Jackson Browne had actually met in London in 1971, Browne recording and Lindley working with Reid at Glastonbury Fayre, and agreed to put something together in the future. If that (possibly apocryphal) story is true, its funny that two guys from Claremont (Lindley) and Orange County (Browne) started their partnership in London.
Reid would go on to have intermittent successes, but would still remain more famous for turning down Page then his own music. Whatever may have happened on these two nights at the Family Dog seems to have stayed out on the Great Highway.
Greenwich Village band Cat Mother and The All-Night Newsboys had formed in 1967. By 1969, they had been signed by Michael Jeffery, the manager of Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix had even produced the band's debut album on Polydor, The Street Giveth and The Street Taketh Away. Thanks to the Jeffery connection, Cat Mother got to open for Hendrix and a number of other high profile events. Cat Mother even had a minor hit in late '69, with medley of oldies called "Old Time Rock And Roll." In fact, the band's sound was more country-folk oriented, but they were versatile musicians.
The three founding members of Cat Mother, Roy Michaels (bass, vocals), Bob Smith (keyboards, vocals) and Michael Equine (drums), would all relocate permanently to California. At the time of this show, the band still had lead guitarist Paul Johnson and probably violinist Larry Packer. Both of them would ultimately return to New York. Michaels, Smith and Equine would move to Mendocino County and continue on as Cat Mother until 1977.
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| The Ace Of Cups debut studio album (released in 2018) |
The Ace Of Cups were another unique ensemble, and they had a following in the Bay Area, if not a huge one. The fact that there were three bands booked for this weeknight makes it even stranger--how much revenue was expected to come in? Perhaps someone was bankrolling the event, as some sort of dry run for an unfinished plan, but with an open weekend date, booking two mid-week nights seems strange.
The Ace Of Cups were an all-woman band, pretty much the only one on the Fillmore scene. They were managed by Ron Polte, who also handled Quicksilver Messenger Service. There was a lot of record company interest in the Aces, as a band of young hippie women writing their own songs and playing their own instruments. Polte had overplayed his hand, however, holding out for a best offer which never actually came. By 1970, the individual members of the band were starting to have babies and the band was playing less and less. I wrote about the entire Ace Of Cups saga at great length, but they would not release an album until 2003.
For the next post in the series (July 31-August 2 Youngbloods), see here
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