Quicksilver Messenger Service - The Other Face of Acid-Rock

Generally the most overlooked of the classic trio of San Francisco psychedelic rock protagonists, overshadowed by their "rivals" Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service display traits no less fascinating than those of their more fortunate peers, at least in the early phase of their career.

Quicksilver Messenger Service came together around the mid-Sixties, on the initiative of musicians orbiting around singer-songwriter Dino Valenti (real name Chester Powers, famous as the author of songs like "Hey Joe" and "Let’s Stick Together"). The first stable lineup consisted of Valenti himself, the two guitarists John Cipollina and Gary Duncan, bassist David Freiberg and drummer Greg Elmore. But just as the group was on the verge of landing a record deal, Valenti ended up behind bars for marijuana possession. Cipollina and co. decided to carry on regardless and played the Monterey festival in 1967: the contract finally arrived (with Capitol) and the band got to work recording their debut album. Duncan and Cipollina now traded off on vocals.

When Quicksilver Messenger Service came out in May 1968 — a belated debut for the band (Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane had already been on the market since 1967 and 1966 respectively) — it was something of a letdown for fans: as with the Grateful Dead, the studio album didn't seem capable of recapturing the thrill of the band's live experience. Still, it's an excellent record, full of ideas and arguably the best studio material the band ever cut, from the unforgettable single "Pride Of Man", a cover of a Hamilton Camp country tune, through the velvety atmospheres of "Light Your Windows" and the easy-listening "Dino's Song" (written by Valenti), all the way to the carefully crafted jam of "Gold And Silver", one of the band's most classic pieces, built around the interplay between Cipollina's and Duncan's guitars.

"The Fool" is a long psychedelic suite in which the band shows off its technical skill through a series of tempo changes and (seemingly) improvised passages. You can clearly hear, in every groove of the LP, that the reins — at least from an artistic standpoint — are held by Cipollina, an imposing personality and a bold, technically flawless guitarist. Live, he would let loose in intoxicating, apocalyptic blues-rock jams, ethereal strings of endless solos, almost like a rawer, more disenchanted version of the ritual performed by fellow travelers Grateful Dead.

Proof of this is the band's second album, and also their masterpiece: Happy Trails (1969), partly recorded live. It isn't always easy to tell which parts were played live and which were added in the studio, but faced with an album of this caliber, that distinction hardly matters.

Side one is taken up by a roughly 25-minute suite version of Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love", transfigured into a tour de force of guitar duels and sharp, stinging solos — the manifesto of the Quicksilver sound and one of the masterpieces of Californian psychedelia.

The B-side (presumably recorded in the studio) also greets the listener with Diddley's unmistakable syncopated rhythm: it's "Mona", which gets treatment similar to "Who Do You Love" on the first side, though in a shorter form. Soon enough, the gritty cover flows into the magnificent "Maiden Of The Cancer Moon", a caustic, guitar-driven track. "Calvary", on the other hand, is Duncan's gem, slowing the pace to deliver genuine sonic flagellations over a dark, obsessive backdrop.

The band's trademark goofiness (the same that had spawned the single "Bears") steps in to lighten the mood, with the title track, a brief reworking of a country song by Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. The band's triumph is sealed, and this will remain the high point of the band's output, the peak of their finest period.

1969 also saw the release of Shady Grove, bolstered by the collaboration of Nicky Hopkins on piano (already a veteran of the Steve Miller Band and the Rolling Stones), and without Gary

Duncan (who had temporarily stepped away from the band). The sound, which shows a turn toward country-rock similar to the contemporary shift of the Grateful Dead, is nonetheless heavily shaped by Hopkins' contribution, who pens the album's masterpiece: "Edward The Mad Shirt Grinder". Other notable tracks include the title track (a cover of a traditional Native American chant), the wonderful "Flute Song", Cipollina's unbridled blues "3 Or 4 Feet From Home" and the fantastic "Joseph's Coat", with its atypical melodic structure. Quicksilver Messenger Service now simply become Quicksilver (to save time).

Meanwhile, Dino Valenti is out of prison and has launched a brief solo career. In 1970 he decides to reclaim what is, after all, "his" band, Quicksilver. Over the course of a series of recording sessions, the prolific singer-songwriter finds time to write (with contributions from Cipollina, Freiberg, Hopkins and Duncan, who has just returned to the group) and record with his band two entire albums: Just For Love, released in August of that same year, and What About Me, released in January of the following year. After recording these two works, Cipollina leaves the band to embark on an ill-fated solo career.

As for the first of these two albums, the one most shaped by Valenti's return, it sounds coated in an often unbearable saccharine sheen (as in the rambling psychedelic folk of "The Hat" or in the two title tracks), and the tone only rises in a few moments: "Cobra", an example of Cipollina curiously converted to cocktail music, and "Fresh Air", the only moment where Valenti truly asserts himself.

The second album, by contrast, has a more open structure and isn't monopolized by Valenti: this gives Freiberg ("Won't Kill Me"), Cipollina ("Local Color") and Hopkins (the magnificent "Spindrifter") the chance to surprise us. For his part, Valenti also delivers his best on this album: the title track, a small hymn to the shattered hippie dream, and "Subway", an energetic rock-blues number with a riff reminiscent of Cream.

Valenti's perhaps somewhat naive songwriting has taken over, and from now on, following the departure of Cipollina (perhaps unhappy with the band's new direction) and Freiberg (who joins Jefferson Starship), it will become the defining trait of the group's sound. The following album, Quicksilver, released in November 1971, is essentially a Valenti-and-Freiberg record, full of fresh pop songs like "Hope" (Valenti's answer to Barry McGuire's "Eve Of Destruction") and the epic "Fire Brothers", and somewhat less fresh ones like Duncan's "I Found Love" (which closely echoes the Everly Brothers' "Cathy's Clown") and Valenti's "Don't Cry My Lady Love", steeped in a swampy, melancholy mood.

Comin' Thru, from May 1972, is Valenti's attempt to bring something new to his band's somewhat stagnant sound: a horn section is brought in to make a lot of noise and little else. The songs, less inspired than ever, are this time muddled r&b concoctions of scant interest. The single "Doin' Time In The U.S.A." and the decent "California State Correctional Facility Blues" are salvageable, while the more daring attempts, like the near-funk "Mojo", sink miserably, along with various banalities (the ballad "Changes", for instance).

In 1973 the band breaks up. An anthology is released to commemorate the band's output up to that point. Curiously, it includes no tracks from Comin' Thru.

Cipollina, perhaps frustrated by the scant success of his solo career, agrees in 1975 to take part in a band reunion that would have been better left in the drawer. Solid Silver, the resulting album, is a dull, stagnant country-rock record, redeemed only by the Eagles-style ballad "Cowboy on the Run" and the effective "I Heard You Singing". After this poor showing, the band breaks up again.

In 1986 Gary Duncan reclaims the band's name to record a dreadful, utterly uninspired synth-rock album, Peace By Piece, with Freiberg also contributing.

Cipollina's death in 1989 puts an end, for fans, to any hope of a reunion of the original lineup; meanwhile, compilations keep coming out nonstop. As usual, the most complete is the one compiled by Rhino, Sons Of Mercury 1968-1975, released in 1991, whose only flaw is that it contains only a shortened version (the single edit) of "Who Do You Love", evidently for lack of space on the double CD.

In 1996 Duncan returns under the name Quicksilver Messenger Service with another equally dreadful album, once again joined by Freiberg and a few high-profile session players: Greg Errico (Sly & The Family Stone) and Lee Oskar (War) among others. In 1999 a double album comes out, half live and half unreleased material, recommended only to die-hard fans.

Here ends the saga of Quicksilver Messenger Service (even though Duncan keeps trying to tarnish the band's name with pointless records). We can thus identify three fundamental periods in their output: the first, with Cipollina at the helm, featuring the masterpieces of the debut album and, above all, of Happy Trails; the second, with the return of Valenti and the assembly of eclectic, exotic albums like What About Me; the third, led by Valenti alone, with folk-pop records and r&b leanings, always tinged with a certain syrupy sheen, a fixed trait of the singer-songwriter's style.

With Cipollina, Quicksilver Messenger Service gave Californian psychedelic music two great masterpieces, fully worthy of comparison with the work of their more celebrated peers Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead. Their sound leaned closer to dirty, roots blues and tribal ritual; Cipollina's guitar ego had no equal, neither in the acid-blues intellectualism of Kaukonen nor in the brazen ease of Garcia. They left behind an immortal body of work before being swallowed up by mawkishness and the wear of time. For this reason they're a band absolutely worth reassessing, essential to know for anyone seeking a full picture of 1960s Californian rock music.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google