It was the "Age of Aquarius", a pilgrimage that would forever mark the sixties as a cultural phenomenon while teenage America embarked on their personal sojourn to the "hippie" capitol of the world, San Francisco and Haight Ashbury. Hedonism, cultural acceptance and the neoteric sounds of the music genre resonated through the airwaves.

As the burgeoning crowd began to swell into staggering numbers adjacent to Golden Gate Park, icons of the era also began to storm the grounds and indulge in the domiciles that would evolve into legendary addresses of selected Victorians that lined the streets of the suburban neighborhood. Those who survived the onslaught of psychedelic and the carefree lifestyle afforded the youth of America have become the denizens of The Counter Culture and those who have been beneficial in the perpetuation of the ideology that ran rampant amidst an ocean of tie-dye, Edwardian attire and bare feet. These were the artists that painted the mural of Peace & Love, recreational drugs and music as the ultimate solution for world peace. It was here where the first great music magazine was spawned, i.e., The Oracle ( Alan Cohen )and then suddenly vanquished into California folklore as the first issue of Rolling Stone Magazine ( 746 Brannon Street ) with John Lennon adorning the cover hit the streets. So much history can be ascertained while strolling down the avenues of Haight Ashbury but only if accompanied with those who know of these legendary abodes and the luminaries who lived within the walls of these sacred homes.

It was a fleeting moment in the pantheons of time but the "magic" and avant-garde motif of The Beat Poets had matriculated to the neoteric "hippie-esque" masses that made the nomadic journey to the then quaint and sparsely populated area adjacent to Golden Gate Park and Hippie Hill When the "Big Five", i.e., The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Charlatans and Big Brother & The Holding Company began making their mark on musical history, the bands and subsequent pundits of the music came in waves and within two years The Summer of Love and the demographic area of San Francisco was saturated with staggering numbers of those in pursuit of personal identity and away from the decadence of Vietnam and racial tension.

Dalliances were an everyday occurrence and a few became noted tandems for media exploitation. A brief interlude with Country Joe McDonald & Janis Joplin, Spencer Dryden & Grace Slick, Paul Kantner & Grace, which would culminate in marriage and the birth of China Kantner, David Freiberg and Julie Brigden ("Girl" Freiberg) were obviously the more noted relationships but, it was truly a place for "peace & love" to reign supreme. The early years prior to mass migration would see the first psychedelic "Head" shop, owned by the Thelin brothers at 1535 Haight Street. The pungent aroma and wafts of various fragrances settled over the suburb much like the fog over Golden Gate Bridge. Other addresses of sixties royalty are vastly unknown as the city seems to avoid allocation of some miniscule monetary need for plaques and or street signs. These would be inclusive of Wally Heider's Studio at 245 Hyde Street, Marty Balin's "Matrix", 3138 Fillmore, Graham Nash home and studio, 737 Buena Vista, the first Mouse/Kelley Studio, 74 Henry Street, Cosmo's Factory of CCR fame, 1230 5th Street in Berkeley (Bezerkely to some), and still owned by Doug Clifford, Janis Joplin last residence at 380 W. Baltimore Street in Larkspur and her home at 112 Lyon Street in The Haight, Marty Balin's home, 180 East Blithdale in Mill Valley,

"Masada", the Bill Graham mansion at 800 Corte Madera, now just an address as the house has been imploded, Allen Ginsberg, 1360 Fell Street, Rudolf Nureyev, 42 Belvedere, Hell's Angels Clubhouse at 715 Ashbury, Charles Manson, 616 Page Street, just a few blocks from legendary 1090 Page Street, home of Big Brother & The Holding Company & Sopwith Camel, not to mention Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Free Store at 1090 Cole Street, ( clothes, food, shelter for the lost souls of the decade),

The Free Clinic at 409 Clayton (this actually has a plaque..go figure), 2400 Fulton Street, notorious landmark owned and inhabited by Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead home at 710 Ashbury, Country Joe & The Fish at 638-640 on Ashbury, Jimi Hendrix apartment at 1524A on Haight, The Warfield, 982 Market, Sweetwater, 153 Throckmorton in Mill Valley, now moved to Larkspur, Bill Graham's Winterland, corner of Post & Steinert and now a myriad of condos, Chet Helm's Avalon Ballroom, 1268 Sutter & Van Ness, The Fillmore Auditorium at corner of Fillmore & Geary Streets, The Fillmore West, corner of Sutter & Market (home of last Joplin performance), The Greek Theatre on Gayley Road, Palace of Fine Art, 495 Jefferson Street & Hyde and The Ark, a distant memory at Gate #5, Sausalito where Steve Cropper wrote "Sittin On The Dock of The Bay", soon to be an international favorite for Otis Redding.

These and many others of notoriety are like a stroll through The Smithsonian and National Archives in Washington, D.C. yet, are dismissed as nothing more than questions for music trivia. These are the homes of those who defined the cultural and social values of the sixties, our way of opposing the accepted norm and "mainstream" of prior generations and they need to be memorialized as much as Gettysburg or Appomattox Courthouse, The Freedom March, Bay of Pigs or any significant contribution to society as we now know it. For all of us, the Bohemians of a long ago era, we remain the most romanticized and sensationalized generation known to mankind so, I think the time has arrived for others to document what transpired forty years ago so that the music, musicians and integral personalities of the day are not soon forgotten.



Cheers
Don Aters - Editor
Haight Street Music News - 2008