The time:
The “Summer of Love” in 1967 and the following twelve months or so...
The place, of course, is San Francisco.
It seemed, at the time, that things of earth-shattering importance were going down in the City by the Bay in mid-1967, but when you kick into Rear View mode, the benefit of hindsight reveals that however much we reminisce about those halcyon days most of the big names associated with the San Francisco scene failed to deliver too much that has lasted, and my favourite albums from the era are, unsurprisingly, by some of the lesser-known participants in that particular scene.
But looking at the big names in turn before the spotlight skips over to a couple of relatively obscure classics...
The Jefferson Airplane, ultimately, had too many conflicting directions and personalities to accommodate under one roof, and in many ways it’s surprising that the structure lasted as long as it did. A couple of classic albums, followed by a gradual decline....
The Grateful Dead’s early studio output wasn’t ever going to snare them a corner of the long term mass market and it took years for them to carve out the niche that they still occupy, a process that’s a topic for a Retrospective rather than a Rear View.
Big Brother and the Holding Company only shot to prominence because of Janis Joplin, and once she was gone so, for all practical purposes, were they.
Country Joe and The Fish were as political as any of them and more political than most, produced two good albums and then more or less ran out of ideas and steam around the same time.