March 27-29, 1970 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Youngbloods/Jeffrey Cain/Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen [FDGH '70 XII]

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."

The Family Dog In 1969
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 (March 20-22, 1970 Big Brother) see here
  
• For a summary and the link to the most recent entries in this series, see here

 

March 27-29, 1970 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Youngbloods/Jeffrey Cain/Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen (Friday-Sunday)
The Youngbloods had played the Family Dog soon after it opened (July 11-13 '69). The Youngbloods had formed on the East Coast in 1967, and RCA had released their debut album mid-year. In September 1967, the band had moved out to San Francisco, recognizing a better place for their music. By 1969, the Youngbloods had released their third album for RCA, Elephant Mountain, and had become well-entrenched in Marin and the Bay Area Fillmore scene.

Unexpectedly, a song from the Youngbloods' 1967 debut was used in 1969 as background music for a Public Service Announcement for the National Conference of Christians and Jews. "Get Together" had been a modest hit in 1967, but when it was re-released in Summer '69, it went all the way to #5 on Billboard. The Youngbloods, hitherto a fine band with only modest success, were suddenly a high-profile rock group. They had the sense to get a new contract while they were hot. By 1970, the Youngbloods had signed to Warner Brothers, who gave them their own Imprint, Raccoon Records.

The Youngbloods were a trio. Lead singer Jesse Colin Young played bass or guitar, Banana (Lowell Levenger) played piano, banjo, steel guitar and anything else, anchored by Joe Bauer on drums. Sometimes they were joined by a harmonica player (Richard "Earthquake" Anderson, who may have also been their road manager). At this time, the Youngbloods were recording shows that would make up much of their next album. Rock Festival, released on Raccoon in July 1970, was a mixture of live and studio recordings (including at least one track from the Family Dog, recorded on March 29, although I don't know which one), it would be produced by Bob Matthews and Betty Cantor, who had also produced Live/Dead and Workingman's Dead. Owsley was apparently mixing the sound, so his old partners Bob and Betty were recording sound produced by Owsley, a Hall Of Fame taping lineup.

Singer/Songwriter Jeffrey Cain had been signed to the Youngbloods' Raccoon label. The Raccoon imprint allowed the band to sign anyone they wanted, while Warner Brothers would manufacture and distribute the record. The profits and losses were assigned to the Youngbloods (the Airplane had a similar deal with RCA, where their Imprint was called Grunt Records), but the band had artistic control. Cain's album For You would be released in mid-1970, and members of the Youngbloods backed him on the album. 

Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen had relocated to Berkeley from Ann Arbor, MI in the Summer of 1969. They had played some early gigs at the Family Dog, and were soon booked with some regularity. Only a few weekends after they had arrived in town, Cody and the Airmen were booked to open for the Grateful Dead on the weekend of August 28-30, 1969. They must have hit it off, since they would open for the Dead and the New Riders many times over the next several years. George (Commander) Frayne ended up playing piano on the NRPS album, and eventually became Jerry Garcia's neighbor in Stinson Beach. In 1973, when the Riders split off from Grateful Dead management, they shared management with Cody (manager Joe Kerr had been a college classmate of Frayne), accounting for the close working relationship between the bands. 

Some of the earliest Lost Planet Airmen performances were recorded by Grateful Dead soundman Owsley Stanley, and released in 2020 on the Owsley Stanley's Found In The Ozone double-cd. The first cd consisted of the Airmen's set on Saturday, March 28. Also included were additional tracks from Friday (March 27) and Sunday (March 29), as well as some tracks from when the Airmen had opened for the Dead at the Family Dog in February.

Legend has it that the unassuming Emeryville house on the left was Lost Planet Airmen HQ back in the early 1970s

Owsley Stanley had been the Dead's soundman since July 1968, but he was no longer able to travel with the Grateful Dead after they had been busted in New Orleans in February 1970. Owsley had a prior arrest and a pending case, and the bust affected his bail conditions. No longer able to travel with the Dead, Owsley became the soundman at the Family Dog on The Great Highway, at least some of the time. Youngbloods producer Bob Matthews had been Owsley's friend and apprentice when both had worked for the Grateful Dead, around 1968--Matthews had even lived in Owsley's house on Ascot Drive in Oakland. Now Matthews was recording the Youngbloods for Warner Brothers. Presumably, Owsley recorded the Cody shows where he was mixing the sound, and moved aside for the Youngbloods. My understanding is that Owsley mixed the sound for the Youngbloods while Bob and Betty were recording at the Family Dog. It makes the (unknown) track on Rock Festival a rare contemporary instance of music mixed live by Owsley but not recorded by him.

In March 1970, Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen were

Billy C Farlow-vocals, harmonica
Bill Kirchen-lead guitar, vocals
West Virginia Creeper (Steve Davis)-pedal steel guitar
Andy Stein-fiddle, tenor sax
Commander Cody (George Frayne)-piano, vocals
Buffalo Bruce Barlow-bass
Lance Dickerson-drums

Guitarist John Tichy had been in the band in the Summer, but he had returned to Ann Arbor to finish his PhD in Physics at the University of Michigan.

Appendix: Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, Saturday March 28, 1970, Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA Setlist
Cajun Fiddle      Written-By – B. Owens*, D. Rich*
Good Rockin’ Tonight      Written-By – R. Brown*
Jambalaya (On The Bayou)    Written-By – H. Williams*
My Girl Josephine    Written-By – A. Domino*, D. Bartholomew*
What’s The Matter Now?    Written-By – B. Farlow*
Bon Ton Roulet    Written-By – C. Garlow*
Matchbox    Written-By – C. Perkins*
Long Black Limousine    Written-By – B. George*, V. Stovall*
Only Daddy That’ll Walk The Line    Written-By – I.J. Bryant*
Truck Drivin’ Man    Written-By – T. Fell*
Back To Tennessee    Written-By – B. Farlow*, G. Frayne*
Sleepwalk    Written-By – J. Farina*, S. Farina*
Midnight Shift    Written-By – E. Lee*, J. Ainsworth*
Blue Suede Shoes    Written-By – C. Perkins*
Lost in the Ozone    Written-By – B. Farlow*

Additional Songs
Sunday, March 29, 1970    
Sugar Bee    Written-By – C. Crochet*
Mama Tried    Written-By – M. Haggard*
Boppin’ The Blues    Written-By – C. Perkins*, H. Griffin*
Hot Rod Lincoln    Written-By – C. Ryan*, W.S. Stevenson
Riot In Cell Block #9    Written-By – Leiber & Stoller
Rip It Up    Written-By – J. Marascalco*, R. Blackwell*

Friday, March 27, 1970
Flip, Flop, And Fly    Written-By – J. Vernon Turner, Jr.*, C. Calhoun*
Seeds & Stems (Again)    Written-By – B. Farlow*, G. Frayne*
I Took Three Bennies (And My Semi-Truck Won’t Start) Written-By – W. Kirchen*, B. Farlow* 

For the next post in the series (April 3-5, 1970 Eric Burdon), see here

March 20-22, 1970 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Big Brother and The Holding Company/Kaleidoscope/Devil's Kitchen [FDGH '70 XI]

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."

The Family Dog In 1969
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 (March 18, 1970 Hot Tuna/New Riders benefit) see here
  
• For a summary and the link to the most recent entries in this series, see here
  

The San Francisco Good Times ad (March 19) for the March 20-22 weekend at the Family Dog is somewhat cryptical, a sign that they were appealing to a narrow audience

March 20-22, 1970 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Big Brother and The Holding Company/Kaleidoscope/Devil's Kitchen (Friday-Sunday)
No band was more synonymous with Chet Helms and the Family Dog than Big Brother and The Holding Company. Back in the Fall of '65, Helms would host jam sessions in the basement of a big boarding house at 1090 Page Street. Some bands formed out of the jams, and a list of potential names was made up. Chet took two of the most promising--"Big Brother" and "The Holding Company"--and combined them for the group he would manage. A few months later, Helms would recruit fellow Texan Janis Joplin to be the lead singer, and the band rocketed to stardom.

Helms and Big Brother had parted ways--amicably--in the Fall of 1966, but Big Brother had continued to play the Avalon Ballroom right up until the end. Indeed, Big Brother had played the last Family Dog show at the Avalon on December 1, 1968. After that, Janis had left the group, bound for stardom, and Big Brother disintegrated. Guitarist Sam Andrew had gone on tour with Janis, fellow guitarist James Gurley had gone to the desert, and Peter Albin (bass) and Dave Getz (drums) had gone on a Spring tour with Country Joe and The Fish.

By Fall 1969, however, Big Brother's members were ready to reconstruct the band. The original quartet played the Family Dog benefit at the Fillmore West on November 19, 1969, and then a few more low-key gigs. In February of 1970, they had headlined a weekend at the Family Dog on The Great Highway. By this time, guitarist David Schallock had been added to the group. The band had three guitarists, and--rather confusingly--Gurley had temporarily switched to bass, with Peter Albin moving to guitar. Producer Nick Gravenites sometimes sang with the band, too.

We have no information about either the February or March Big Brother shows. Were they well attended? What songs did they play? Big Brother and The Holding Company had started recording in Hollywood and San Francisco with Nick Gravenites, and Columbia would release the underrated Be A Brother around July of 1970. It's reasonable to assume that they may have done some of that material, but all that is just a guess.

Kaleidoscope were from Los Angeles, and they were decades ahead of their time. They pretty much invented World Music, and pretty much no one was ready for it. In February, 1970 the band had released their fourth album on Epic, Bernice. On the album, the band's front line was guitarist/multi-instrumentalist David Lindley, multi-instrumentalist Solomon Feldthouse and organist/multi-instrumentalist Chester Crill, with too much instrument-switching to describe here. Paul Lagos was the drummer and Stuart Brotman played bass. Anyone who ever got to see the band live was lucky.

Kaleidoscope had been regulars at the Avalon, but were largely only popular with musicians (most famously Jimmy Page). Rock music fans were simply not yet ready for what Kaleidoscope could do. In 1969, Kaleidoscope had already played the Family Dog on two separate weekends (June 27-29 and October 3-5), and they returned for a final go-round. By the time of these shows, Kaleidoscope was falling apart and there had been several personnel changes. 

Solomon Feldthouse had left during the recording of Bernice, replaced by singer Jeff Kaplan (it's not clear how much Kaplan actually sang on the album). Right before the Family Dog shows, Chester Crill left the band, too (according to Crill, both were fired by David Lindley). Shortly afterwards, David Lindley left as well. It's not even certain if Lindley played the Family Dog shows. Lindley (the de facto leader by this time) told the remaining members that they were free to use the name, so there were a few Kaleidoscope dates after this, but they too had ground to a halt by April. The lineup for the Family Dog shows was probably

David Lindley-guitar, various instruments
Paul Lagos-drums
Ron Johnson-bass
Jeff Kaplan-vocals, piano
Richard Aplan -reeds, flute

As the decades have passed, the music world has caught up with Kaleidoscope, and save for the primitive recording techniques, their music sounds contemporary now. The band has had a few casual reunions over the years. 

Devil's Kitchen was a bluesy four-piece band from Carbondale, IL, that had relocated to San Francisco in late Summer 1969. For much of the Fall of 69, they had been kind of a "house band" at the Family Dog on The Great Highway. The group ultimately had little to show for it, however, and three of the four members returned to Illinois. Guitarist Robbie Stokes did stick around and remained part of the Bay Area music scene for the next dozen years.

Wolfgang's Vault has a tape of Devil's Kitchen from Saturday night (March 21, 1970) as well as Sunday night (March 22), and they were an enjoyable band. This seems to have been one of their last shows in the Bay Area, as far as I can tell. It is a peculiar curiosity that two tapes of the opening act have survived, in Bill Graham's archive of all places, with no trace of the headliner's tapes from those nights. Now, it's possible that some tapes were lost in the 1985 BGP fire, but it's strange that the Devil's Kitchen tapes even ended up in Wolfgang's Vault at all. Still, it's a minor but typical tale of the Family Dog on The Great Highway, as the oddest fragments of history survive, and we are left to try and piece together the whole from the potsherds.

For a link to the next post in the series (March 27-29, 1970-Youngbloods) see here

March 18, 1970 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Rolling Thunder/Hot Tuna/New Riders of The Purple Sage [FDGH 70 X]

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."

The Family Dog In 1969
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 (March 13-15, 1970 Country Joe and The Fish) see here
  
• For a summary and the link to the most recent entries in this series, see here

March 18, 1970 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Rolling Thunder/Hot Tuna/New Riders of The Purple Sage Benefit for The Sons of Thunder (Wednesday)
Almost nothing is known about this Wednesday night benefit at the Family Dog on The Great Highway, save that it happened. Initially, it was only known because there were a few listings in the Barb (above) and also in the Examiner. Since February, the Family Dog had stopped holding weeknight "community" events. There had to be some heft here for this night to be an exception.

"Rolling Thunder" was a man named John Pope. Apparently he was a "Medicine Man" of some kind, associated with Native Americans, although I know nothing about that sort of thing. Pope turns up in various chronicles of hip San Francisco, and --among other things--may have been the inspiration for the title of Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart's initial 1972 solo album on Warner Brothers. I know even less about The Suns Of Thunder Commune in Elko, NV. Suffice to say, Elko, NV probably isn't that Native American/Hippie Friendly today, and was probably less so in 1970. Whatever went down was surely Not Good. The fact that the spinoffs of the two most iconic San Francisco bands were on the bill suggests that Pope had good connections to leverage, good enough to ensure that the Family Dog on The Great Highway held a benefit on a Wednesday.

At this distant remove, we take for granted that Jerry Garcia played a variety of random dates with the New Riders of The Purple Sage, for convenience or fun, with little concern for the so-called "expectations" that normally accrued to legendary sixties rock guitarists. The same generally applies to Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady and Hot Tuna. Jorma and Jack, while playing around steadily since January 1969, had only recently publicly adopted the name of "Hot Tuna." So the dual booking of the Riders and Tuna may seem like a convergence of relaxed musician pals who enjoyed filling in their weeknights with gigs whenever they could. And it was, but there must have been more to it.

 

A ticket for the Grateful Dead at the Pirate's World Amusement Park in Dania, FL. The shows were booked for March 22 (Sunday) and 23 (Monday), but changed to March 23 and 24 (Tuesday)

Grateful Dead Status: March 1970
There are a number of very curious things about this New Riders booking, however, so curious that I had assumed some years ago that the New Riders had not played. In order of importance, the curiosities of this performance are:

• The Grateful Dead were on tour. They had played Tuesday, March 17 in Buffalo, with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. They were booked for the weekend of March 20-21 at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, in suburban New York Metro. To play the show, Garcia, Mickey Hart and possibly others would have had to fly home to San Francisco on Wednesday, play the show, and return to New York by Friday.
• The New Riders of The Purple Sage did not have a bass player, and were effectively inactive. Nominally, Phil Lesh was the Riders' bass player, but confirmations of any Lesh performances with the New Riders are all but impossible to come by. The New Riders had booked a few gigs earlier in March, and canceled them. Bob Matthews was a full-time engineer, as far as I can tell, and Dave Torbert was still in Hawaii.
• Given the barriers to performing, and given the dead-broke band would seemingly make no money, who was John Pope, and who were the Sons Of Thunder commune that they had earned this effort? I have no information in that area, and won't speculate, but it adds to the air of peculiarity about this event.

Why Would The Grateful Dead Return To San Francisco For Just Three Days?
The Grateful Dead had no money in Spring 1970, and they had just fired manager Lenny Hart. By March, they must have figured out that Hart had been ripping them off in a big way, and that they had even less money than they thought. Since the band was playing Buffalo Tuesday night and Port Chester on Friday, wouldn't it have been simpler just to go straight over to the Capitol (just 378 miles away)? 

Since the Dead would have flown out to Buffalo, however, they wouldn't have had a van. Thus they probably would have had to fly to New York Metro to get to Port Chester, then get hotels for Wednesday and Thursday night. It may not have been much more expensive to fly back to San Francisco, not pay hotel bills, and fly back to New York. Possibly a crew member or two rented a truck in Buffalo and drove the equipment to Port Chester.

More importantly, the Dead, and particularly Jerry Garcia, would have had business back in San Francisco. The bulk of the recording for Workingman's Dead had been done from March 10-16, 1970. Garcia in particular would still have been needed for overdubs, harmonies, and general oversight. Lesh and Hart also seem likely candidates for such duties, which was convenient if they were flying back from the gig anyway. So Garcia may have known that he was going to be in town on March 18, the day after Buffalo, and it wasn't a disruption at all. Perhaps some crew, and perhaps Kreutzmann, Weir and/or Pigpen stayed in New York state, although they would have had to find a way to get to Port Chester.

Who Played Bass With The New Riders?
I never tire of the topic of who played bass for the New Riders (lengthy posts, with detailed comment threads are here [check the Comments] and here, for example). Let me briefly summarize the isssues:

The initial bass player for the New Riders was Bob Matthews. Over the decades, John Dawson, David Nelson and Jerry Garcia repeated the story over and over that the Riders were invented because the Dead could just bring Nelson and Dawson, with Garcia, Lesh and Hart filling out the band, and go on tour cheaply as the Dead's opening act. This never happened. The only time the New Riders opened for the Dead out of town during this period (Seattle and Oregon, August 1969), Bob Matthews played bass. The story has been repeated so often that even the principals thought it was true.

According to Matthews, his last show with the New Riders was in September, 1969, but that is simply not true, either. The excellent Dawn Of The New Riders Of The Purple Sage box has a set from October, 1969 with Matthews on bass. The only confirmed instance of Phil Lesh playing bass for the Riders was on a 4-track demo done at Pacific High Recorders in November 1969 (released by Relix Records on the 1986 album Before Time Began), with Bob Matthews as the engineer. There are no other known tapes, eyewitness accounts or photos of Phil Lesh playing live with the New Riders in 1969 (or any other time). If you have one, please put it in the Comments.

By January of 1970, it was clear that Matthews duties as an engineer were taking precedence over bass playing. It's also known that at least on occasion Robert Hunter rehearsed with the Riders on bass. But Hunter complained that they never asked him to play a gig, and the early 1970 period when Phil Lesh "should" have been the bass player featured no Riders' shows. There was a January 19, 1970 benefit in Berkeley, although we haven't confirmed that the band played, some canceled shows in March, and the March 18 benefit.

The history of Dave Torbert's arrival is another complex story, but the short version is that the April 17-19 Family Dog shows were the debut of Torbert. The math does not fit his arrival in March, nor could he have rehearsed, since the Dead were recording Workingman's Dead in February and March and touring constantly. So all the evidence pointed out to either the New Riders canceling out of the Family Dog show, or Phil Lesh making his last appearance as a New Rider. It had always seemed unlikely that the New Riders played this event.

 

Susanna Millman's photo of the Grateful Dead Vault, ca 2004 (from the Tapers Compendium)

Guess what? Owsley taped it. Owsley was no longer able to travel around with the Grateful Dead, thanks to the New Orleans bust, but he was the soundman for the Family Dog on The Great Highway on occasion. We know he taped it, because a Susanna Millman photo of the Grateful Dead Vault (from the old Tapers Compendium), when Owsley's material was still there, is plain enough to read the box labels, and the distinctive writing is Owsley's. The last five boxes on the right in the photo (above) represent the Benefit. All five tapes are marked as "3/18/70 Hot Tuna/NR". Tape #1 says "Banjo Player"--yes, it does--, tape, #2 says "and NRPS", tape #3 just says "NR", and tape #4 says "Hot Tuna" and #5 says "Hot Tuna/NR." So some banjo player opened, and then the New Riders played, and then Hot Tuna ( in both rows of boxes, we can see some other non-Dead shows that Owsley taped and preserved from this period).

The Owsley Stanley Foundation is looking into the whereabouts of these tapes, and we may find out more. For now, we at least know that the benefit actually happened and that the Riders actually played.

Thanks to JGMF, we have a poster that tells us Dave Torbert was a member of the New Riders for this show at the Family Dog on March 18

[update 20240831] Fellow scholar JGMF has uncovered another poster for the March 18, 1970 show at the Family Dog. Remarkably, it names all the members of the New Riders--most significantly Dave Torbert. So anyone tracking the history of the New Riders bass player, which is pretty much just me, has to revise the timeline. Torbert was already in California rehearsing prior to March 18, and the Family Dog was his debut. Interestingly, given the busy schedule of the Grateful Dead during this period, recording Workingman's Dead and kicking off a tour, Torbert had probably hardly rehearsed with Garcia prior to this show.

Ralph Gleason's Chronicle column from Monday, March 6, 1970

Hot Tuna
Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady had been playing around the Bay Area since early 1969. Initially, they had played as an acoustic duo, billed under their own names. After a while, they also played as an electric trio, billed as Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady and (drummer) Joey Covington. When Hot Tuna recorded their famous debut album, at Berkeley's New Orleans House in September 1969, they were billed at the club as "Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady." The name Hot Tuna was not used until early 1970, because RCA needed a name for their new group. Chronicle columnist Ralph Gleason had reviewed an electric performance by Hot Tuna a few weeks before this Family Dog show, at the New Orleans House (in the Monday, March 6, paper, referring to the prior weekend). 

Gleason mentioned Jorma, Jack and Covington, along with a rhythm guitarist whose name he did not catch. I'm pretty sure that the extra guitarist was Paul Ziegler, and old pal of Jorma's from Santa Clara days, and a member of the group Weird Herald. Gleason also mentions Marty Balin singing with Hot Tuna, which was a regular occurrence at the time. Balin did not sing "songs" as such (to my knowledge), just sort of grooved along in an Eric Burdon "Spill The Wine" kind of way. So I assume that was the lineup for the benefit--an electric quartet, possibly with a Balin guest appearance. If the Owsley tape surfaces, the recording would be a different configuration of Hot Tuna than we currently have available.

For the next post in this series (March 20-22, 1970-Big Brother), see here

March 13-15, 1970 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Country Joe and The Fish/Joy Of Cooking [FDGH '70 IX]

 

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."

The Family Dog In 1969
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 (March 6-8, 1970 Lee Michaels) see here
  
• For a summary and the link to the most recent entries in this series, see here

 

March 13-15, 1970 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Country Joe and The Fish/Joy Of Cooking (Friday-Sunday)
Country Joe McDonald and Barry "The Fish" Melton had been playing for Chet Helms since October 21, 1966, when Country Joe and The Fish had first opened for Seattle's Daily Flash at the Avalon. The band had played there many times since. In Fall '66, they had been an underground Berkeley band with a self-released EP available at a few Berkeley shops. By Summer '69, Country Joe and The Fish were nationally known, with two best-selling albums on Vanguard that were staples of FM radio and college dorms nationwide. Country Joe and The Fish had headlined a weekend at the Family Dog on The Great Highway on August 8-10, 1969, warming up for their soon-to-be historic performance at Woodstock the next weekend.

Now, in fact, Joe McDonald and Barry Melton had always considered themselves a duo, not a band. The advice they were given in late 1966, however, when they signed with Vanguard, had made the other members of the group (David Cohen, Bruce Barthol and Gary "Chicken" Hirsh) equal partners. When Joe and Barry wanted to move on early in 1969, they had to buy out the other three. Joe and Barry would find new people to play with them live, but Country Joe and The Fish was a duo that had an electric supporting cast. No fans knew this at the time, nor would they have probably cared. As far as fans were concerned, Country Joe and The Fish were a band.

By July 1969, McDonald and Melton had assembled a new lineup of the Country Joe and The Fish band.  Mark Kapner had been retained as the keyboard player. On bass was Doug Metzner, who had been part of an infamous hippie bunch in New York called Group Image--a band, an artists collective, a commune, a light show, among other things. On drums was Greg Dewey, originally from Antioch, OH, and from the newly-broken up band Mad River. This was the lineup that would play Woodstock. Country Joe and The Fish's most recent album had been Here We Are Again, their fourth album on Vanguard, released right before Woodstock. It was a pretty good album, if not as memorable as their first two. The album was recorded by a hybrid of the original lineup and some subsequent members.

In Ralph Gleason's Friday (Mar 13) column, Country Joe and The Fish at the Family Dog was just another event among many other rock shows over the weekend

Bill Graham had gotten first bite of the apple, as always. Country Joe and The Fish had headlined four days at the Fillmore West from February 12-15, 1970. They were still a popular local attraction, but unlike the Grateful Dead their appeal wasn't infinite. The new lineup of the band was working on a new album with producer Tom Wilson, but the album (CJ Fish) would not come out until May. Country Joe and The Fish probably drew a good crowd at the Dog, but they wouldn't have been a destination event, since they had just played a weekend at Fillmore West.

Joy Of Cooking's debut album would be released on Capitol Records in January 1971

Joy Of Cooking had formed as a duo in Berkeley called Gourmet’s Delight, featuring guitarist Terry Garthwaite and pianist Toni Brown.  Garthwaite was a veteran of the Berkeley folk and bluegrass scene, and Brown was an artist as well as a musician.  The duo expanded to include conga player Ron Wilson, bassist David Garthwaite (Terry’s brother) and drummer Fritz Kasten. They changed their name to Joy of Cooking and had shared management with Country Joe and The Fish. Joy Of Cooking had been a regular performer weeknights at a tiny Berkeley club called Mandrake's, where they built up a solid following.

Joy of Cooking was a significant group on the Berkeley scene, because both Garthwaite and Brown were accomplished musicians. Although both were also excellent singers, Joy of Cooking featured the same kind of lengthy jamming popular at the time, rather than short and sensitive neo-folk songs.  The group were ultimately signed to Capitol Records and would release their first of three Capitol albums in January 1971. 

For the next post in the series (March 18, 1970 Hot Tuna/NRPS), see here

March 6-8, 1970 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Lee Michaels/Rhythm Dukes/Robert Savage [FDGH '70 VIII]

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."

The Family Dog In 1969
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 (February 27-March 1, Grateful Dead) see here
  
• For a summary and the link to the most recent entries in this series, see here

March 6-8, 1970 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Lee Michaels/Rhythm Dukes/Robert Savage (Friday-Sunday)
By 1970, Lee Michaels was just starting his rise as a popular solo artist with a unique sound. Michaels had been in numerous different bands in Southern and Northern California since at least 1964, but he had found a niche by performing as a duo, with just himself on Hammond organ and vocals and an accompanying drummer. A Hammond/drums duo had been a common configuration in nightclubs and "organ lounges" since the 1950s, but they mostly played jazz or rhythm and blues. It was mainly a sound for black neighborhoods, and the best known practitioner had been the great Jimmy Smith. A duo would play popular songs of the day, but jazz them up a little, while usually providing enough of a beat to encourage people to dance. In smaller urban spaces, fitting an organist and a drummer into a club was easier--and more economical--than squeezing in an entire band. Sometimes an organ duo would have a saxophone or guitar as an additional soloist, but it was still compact. A good Hammond organ player could use his feet to play bass pedals (called "kicking bass"), so there was a full range of sound.

The San Mateo Times of November 12, 1965, advertised the Joel Scott Hill Trio and singer Joni Lyman (with Lee Michaels and John Barbata) at the Tiger-A-Go-Go near the SFO Airport

After starting out in a San Luis Obispo surf band (The Sentinals), Michaels had played Hammond organ in various bands since at least 1965. He had been in the Joel Scott Hill Trio with guitarist Hill (later Canned Heat) and drummer John Barbata (later The Turtles, CSNY and Jefferson Airplane), and at one point Bob Mosely (later Moby Grape) had been in the band, too. They had played nightclubs in California (like the Tiger A Go Go near the San Francisco Airport), getting dancers to work up a sweat. When the San Francisco underground hit in late 1966, Michaels led a quartet that played around some places, and he was soon signed to A&M. His first two albums (Carnival Of Life and Recital, both 1968) didn't stand out. 

By his third album, appropriately just called Lee Michaels and released in July 1969, as if it was his debut, he had figured it out. Michaels played Hammond organ, kicked bass and absolutely belted out the blues with his high tenor. South Bay drummer Bartholomew Smith-Frost, better known as "Frosty," was his only band member. It wasn't like a jazz thing, but incredibly loud psychedelic blues. Still--Michaels and Frosty jammed like an organ duo, but with a rock beat and a much louder sound. Michaels' drove his Hammond with a wall of rotating Leslie amplifiers. Leslies were common with Hammonds, but Michaels had a huge stack of them and turned them up high. 

Lee Michaels had included a modest hit called "Heighty Hi" which was actually played a lot on FM radio back in '69, and its surprisingly familiar even today. Michaels also recorded a dramatic version of T-Bone Walker's "Stormy Monday," and it too got played regularly on FM. In 1971, the Allman Brothers classic version of "Stormy Monday" became the best-known cover of that song, but Lee Michaels' version was probably the first one most rock fans had heard. 

Lee Michaels started to tour the country in 1969, and his unique sound stood out. He was earsplittingly loud, but he was direct. His jamming with Frosty was very musical, but easy to follow with just two players. He was a great vocalist, some of his songs were catchy and he was a skinny, handsome dude. He was definitely on the rise (there was a Detroit duo called Teegarden and Van Winkle who had a similar sound, but they never caught on nationally). Michaels went on a National tour in the Fall, playing all over the country. 

Michaels had opened twice at the Fillmore West, first in June 1969 (when Lee Michaels had been released) and then in August. As at most Family Dog shows, Bill Graham was getting first bite of any apples. Lee Michaels had just headlined Fillmore West the weekend of January 22-25, over Albert King and Zephyr (Michaels had replaced Savoy Brown). The Lee Michaels album was slowly getting better known as it continued to get attention on FM radio. Michaels would make his Fillmore East debut on the weekend of March 19-21, 1970 on a bill between the Moody Blues and Argent. 

Our only eyewitness for the Lee Michaels shows was Bill Champlin's legendary road manager, Charlie Kelly. Kelly mentioned in a private email that Lee Michaels was "impossibly loud." Keep in mind, Kelly had managed equipment for the Sons of Champlin at the Fillmores, the Avalon and everywhere else, and had seen any and every 60s band you have ever heard right from the stage, and even he said Michaels was impossibly loud. The Leslie sound was really something when it was turned up. Lee Michaels was kind of an acquired taste, but I definitely acquired it, and it must have been really powerful in a tiny, sweet sounding place like the Family Dog.

The Rhythm Dukes had formed in the Santa Cruz mountains in 1969, and had played the Family Dog on The Great Highway on December 12-14, 1969. Originally the band had featured two former members of Moby Grape, lead guitarist Jerry Miller and ex-drummer Don Stevenson (who switched to guitar). They were supported by bassist John Barrett and drummer Fuzzy Oxendine, formerly of the 60s group Boogie. The band was often billed as Moby Grape, and Stevenson had left by the end of Summer '69. The Rhythm Dukes carried on as a trio, finally adding two more members by December (saxophonist Rick Garcia and keyboardist Ned Torney), when they had played the Dog.

By January, however, the two extra members had left, to be replaced by Bill Champlin from the Sons. By early 1970, despite a loyal Bay Area following and two excellent Capitol albums, the Sons of Champlin were frustrated and broke and they decided to go "on hiatus." Effectively that meant they were breaking up, although they continued to finish an album they owed Capitol (released in 1971 as Follow Your Heart). The Sons had concert obligations through February of 1970, so while Bill Champlin played a few gigs with the Rhythm Dukes, he was also finishing up with the Sons. By March, the Sons had stopped performing--that "breakup" didn't last long, but it's another story--and Bill was full time with the Rhythm Dukes and Jerry Miller. 

The Rhythm Dukes at the Family Dog on The Great Highway, sometime in 1970. (l-r) Bill Champlin, Fuzzy Oxendine, Jerry Miller.

We have some photos of Bill Champlin with the Rhythm Dukes from the Family Dog, although the exact date is unknown. Champlin played organ and rhythm guitar with the Dukes, and was the principal lead singer, although Jerry Miller was also a fine vocalist. Our only tape of this era of the Rhythm Dukes was a privately released 2005 cd of some demo tapes, recorded in a Marin studio on April 16, 1970 (appropriately entitled Flash Back) but they were plainly an excellent live band. The Rhythm Dukes would go on to play the Family Dog again, but they only lasted until July.

Guitarist Bobby Arlin (aka Robert Savage), from the inner sleeve of the 1971 album.

The Robert Savage Group was led by Bobby Arlin, formerly the lead guitarist for The Leaves, a Hollywood band who had had a hit with "Hey Joe" back in 1966. I believe Savage was based in the Bay Area at this time. His current trio had Don Parrish on bass and Tommy Richards on drums. They would go on to release an album on Paramount in 1971, The Adventures Of Robert Savage. 

For a link to the next post in the series (March 13-15, 1970, Country Joe and The Fish), see here