December 1969, Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA [FDGH '69 XXVIII]

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.

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.

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."

• For a complete list of Family Dog shows (including FDGH), see here
• For the previous entry (November 19, 1969 Fillmore West Dog benefit with Steve Miller) see here
  
• For a summary and the link to the most recent entries in this series, see here

December 12-14, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Canned Heat/Rhythm Dukes/Bob McPharlin (Friday-Sunday)
After the drama of the Family Dog benefit at Fillmore West on November 19, and a full slate of nonetheless mostly minor local performers throughout the balance of the month--albeit including Jerry Garcia and the New Riders of The Purple Sage for several dates--the bookings changed for December. In line with Helms' comments in the Examiner (in a Phil Elwood article on November 19), the Dog just had two relatively prominent weekend bookings in December, with nothing in between.

The Dog missed its first weekend booking on December 5-7 more or less since it had opened in June. Whatever the specific reasons for this, it was probably a sound choice. Not only were the Grateful Dead at Fillmore West, but the Rolling Stones were going to play for free at Sears Point International Raceway in Sonoma, so that would dominate the weekend. Of course, the Stones ended up at Altamont Pass, but in any case no other weekend bookings in the Bay Area had a chance. I believe that the sound system at the Family Dog formed the core of the sound system at the Altamont concert. The Fillmore West was booked, so that sound system had to remain intact.

Canned Heat's classic Living The Blues album, which included "Going Up The Country," was released in November 1968 on Liberty Records

The Family Dog returned on the second weekend of December with Canned Heat, old friends from the Avalon days. Canned Heat, of course, were the kings of boogie music, out of Los Angeles. Formed initially in 1965 to keep jug band music alive, the band "went electric" the next year. Singer Bob Hite and guitarist/harmonicat Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson added lead guitarist Henry Vestine--replacing, incredibly enough, John Fahey--found a rhythm section and got to rockin'. Their debut on Liberty Records had been released in July '67, followed by their immortal Boogie With Canned Heat in January, 1968. Boogie had a hit single, too, with "The Road Again." Canned Heat's third album, Living The Blues, had been released in November, 1968. It included their classic single "Going Up The Country." The band's fourth album, Hallelujah, had come out in July 0f 1969.

When Canned Heat had played the Fillmore West back in August, Henry Vestine had gotten into a fight with his fellow band members and abruptly quit the band. Mike Bloomfield had filled in for the early set, but he recommended Harvey Mandel (also backstage) for the second. Mandel was another white Chicago blues guitarist, having moved to San Francisco as part of Charlie Musselwhite's band, and having signed with Mercury Records in the meantime. Mandel and the Heat hit it off, and Harvey immediately went on tour with the band. A few gigs later, and Harvey Mandel was on stage with Canned Heat at Woodstock.

Interestingly, an audience tape of Canned Heat from the Family Dog endures, from Friday, December 12. The 45-minute tape is vintage Heat, but with a little more emphasis on the blues. Mandel was an exceptional guitar player, but he had a less raw style than Henry Vestine. The sound of the band is close to the album 70 Concert: Recorded Live In Europe. The lineup had Bob Hite and Alan Wilson on vocals, Mandel on lead guitar, Wilson on guitar and harmonica, Larry "The Mole" Taylor on bass and Fito Parra on drums.

Ralph Gleason's Friday December 12 column in the Chronicle noted the Rhythm Dukes opening for Canned Heat, and that the Heat included local hero Harvey Mandel

The Rhythm Dukes were added to the bill, and a 45-minute tape of the band from December 12 also survives. The Dukes had played the Family Dog before, but as a power trio. They were still fronted by ex-Moby Grape Jerry Miller on lead guitar and vocals, and they still had John Barrett on bass and Fuzzy Oxendine on drums. They had also added Ned Torney (ex The Other Side) on electric piano and guitar, and Rick Henry on tenor sax. Both would leave the band shortly after.

Opener Bob McPharlin played solo blues guitar, as far as I know. He subsequently moved to Pennslyvania and opened a music store. He passed away around 2011.

 

December 26-28, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Lonnie Mack/Osceola/AB Skhy/Lambert & Nuttycombe (Friday-Sunday)
The only other December booking at the Family Dog was the last weekend of the year, headlined by guitar legend Lonnie Mack. In the early 60s, Mack had scored some success with guitar instrumentals, and became an inspiration and influence to many of the future guitar heroes of the 1960s. His best known song was an instrumental version of Chuck Berry's "Memphis," released in 1963 on Fraternity Records. "Memphis" reached #5 on the Billboard pop charts.

Lonnie Mack's 1963 The Wham Of That Memphis Man album (Fraternity Records, 1963)

Mack's 1963 album The Wham Of That Memphis Man was popular, but it got overwhelmed by the arrival of the Beatles and "The British Invasion." Still, guitar players heard Mack (b. Lonnie McIntosh, 1941-2016), and he influenced both the blues-rock players of the late 60s and the Southern rockers of the early 70s. By 1968, after some period of dormancy, Elektra Records signed Mack. He would release the first of three Elektra albums, Glad I'm In The Band, in 1969. Elektra, however, didn't really know what to do with him, as his albums were diverse and eclectic rather than "guitar hero" albums. Mack's reputation as a guitar gunslinger wasn't expressed on his more country-rock styled records. Live, however, as far as I know, Mack could still let it rip on his Flying V with the best of them. I don't know who might have been in Mack's touring band at this time.

AB Skhy had formed in San Francisco when a trio called The New Blues had moved from Wisconsin and teamed up with veteran organist Howard Wales. Around 1965, Wales had been in Lonnie Mack's band along with bassist Roger "Jellyroll" Troy. Wales and AB Skhy had released an album on MGM in 1969. Wales had left AB Skhy by 1970, and I don't know if Wales was still in the band when AB Skhy opened for Lonnie Mack.

Osceola was a San Francisco band of Florida transplants, led by guitarist Bill Ande.  Folk duo Craig Nuttycombe and Dennis Lambert had been in the Eastside Kids in Southern California. Their album on A&M Records had been recorded at Nuttycombe's home.

The Family Dog on The Great Highway: 1969 in Review
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 had 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 entered the new year of 1970 with a new plan. The Family Dog was a nice venue, there was a lot of interest, and Jerry Garcia liked playing there. A plan was afoot.

For the next post in the series (Jan 9-10 '70, Chambers Brothers), see here