Quicksilver Messenger Service is an American psychedelic rock band, formed in 1965 in San Francisco and is considered one of the leading acts on the city's psychedelic scene in the mid-to-late 1960s. Essentially a jam band, Quicksilver Messenger Service gained wide popularity in the Bay Area and with psychedelic rock enthusiasts around the globe. Many of their albums ranked in the top 30 of the Billboard Pop charts. Though not ultimately as commercially successful as their contemporaries Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead, the band was integral to the beginnings of their genre. With their jazz and classical influences, as well as a strong folk background, the band attempted to create a sound that was individual and innovative. Member Dino Valente drew heavily on musical influences he picked up during the folk revival of his formative musical years. The style he developed from these sources is evident in Quicksilver Messenger Service's swung rhythms and twanging guitar sounds. After many years, the band has attempted to reform despite the deaths of several members. Recently, original members Gary Duncan and David Freiberg have been touring as the Quicksilver Messenger Service, using different musicians to back them up.
The original band members were John Cipollina (guitar), Gary Duncan (guitar, vocals), David Freiberg (bass guitar, vocals and viola), Greg Elmore (drums), and Jim Murray (vocals, guitar and harmonica), though Murray left before the band recorded.
There is some confusion as to the real origins of the group. According to John Cipollina:
“It was Valente who organized the group. I can remember everything Dino said. 'We were all going to have wireless guitars. We were going to have leather jackets made with hooks that we could hook these wireless instruments right into. And we were gonna have these chicks, backup rhythm sections that were gonna dress like American Indians with real short little dresses on and they were gonna have tambourines and the clappers in the tambourines were going to be silver coins.' And I'm sitting there going, 'This guy is gonna happen and we're gonna set the world on its ear.”
The next day, Valente was arrested for possession of marijuana, and spent the better part of the next two years in jail. But Gary Duncan notes:
“That’s the story Cipollina told everybody. But according to Dino, that wasn’t the case at all. When he’d been looking for a band, he’d talked to Cipollina, and everybody somehow put two and two together. He actually lived with us when he got out of prison, and while we played some music together and wrote songs, he had no interest in playing in Quicksilver; he wanted to start his own career. Well, when his own career didn’t do so well, he had more interest in playing in Quicksilver!.”
Whether Quicksilver Messenger Service was what Valente had in mind, it appears from Duncan's recollections that he had at least talked with Cipollina about forming a band; Cipollina remembered that:
“I was recommended to Dino, probably because I was the only guy playing an electric guitar, let alone lead, at the time ... We talked about rehearsing one night and planned to rehearse the following night but it never happened. The next day Dino got busted.”
At the same time, David Freiberg, a folk-guitarist friend of Valente's, was recruited to the group. He had previously been in a band with Paul Kantner and David Crosby but like Cipollina he had been arrested and briefly jailed for marijuana possession and had just been released. "We were to take care of this guy Freiberg", Cipollina recalled, and though they had never met before, Freiberg was integrated into the group. The band also added Skip Spence on guitar and began to rehearse at Marty Balin's club, the Matrix. Balin, in search of a drummer for the band he was organizing (which became Jefferson Airplane) convinced Spence to switch instruments and groups.
To make up for his poaching of Spence, Balin suggested that they contact drummer Greg Elmore and guitarist–singer Gary Duncan, who had played together in a group called The Brogues. This new version of the group played its first concert performance in December 1965, playing for the Christmas party of the comedy troupe “The Committee”.
It was a band without a name, Cipollina recalled:
"Jim Murray and David Freiberg came up with the name. Me and Freiberg were born on the same day, and Gary and Greg were born on the same day, we were all Virgos and Murray was a Gemini. And Virgos and Geminis are all ruled by the planet Mercury. Another name for Mercury is Quicksilver. And then, Quicksilver is the messenger of the Gods, and Virgo is the servant, so Freiberg says 'Oh, Quicksilver Messenger Service'."
Jim Murray left the group not long after they performed at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June 1967. The band began a period of heavy touring on the West Coast of the United States and featured on many star-studded bills at the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore West. They refrained from signing a record deal at the time but eventually signed to Capitol Records in late 1967, becoming the last of the top-ranked San Francisco bands to sign with a major label. Capitol was the only company that had missed out on signing a San Francisco “hippie” band during the first flurry of record company interest and, consequently, Quicksilver Messenger Service was able to negotiate a better deal than many of their peers. At the same time, Capitol signed the Steve Miller Band, with whom Quicksilver Messenger Service had appeared on the movie and soundtrack album Revolution, together with the group Mother Earth.
Quicksilver Messenger Service released their eponymous debut album in 1968. It was followed by Happy Trails, released in early 1969 and largely recorded live at the Fillmore East and the Fillmore West. According to David Freiberg, at least one of the live tracks was augmented with studio overdubs and the tracks "Calvary" and "Lady of the Cancer Moon" were recorded in the studio just before Gary Duncan left the band.
These albums, which have been hailed as "two of the best examples of the San Francisco sound at its purest" define the classic period in the group's career and showcase their distinctive sound, emphasizing extended arrangements and fluid twin-guitar improvisation. Cipollina's highly melodic, individualistic lead guitar style, combined with Gary Duncan's driving rhythm guitar, feature a clear jazz sound, a notable contrast to the heavily amplified and overdriven sound of contemporaries like Cream and Jimi Hendrix. In 2003 Happy Trails was rated at #189 in the Rolling Stone Top 500 albums survey, where it was described as "the definitive live recording of the mid-Sixties San Francisco psychedelic-ballroom experience". Archetypal QMS songs include the elongated, continually re-titled suite based on Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love?", featured on Happy Trails.
Duncan left the group not long after the recording of Happy Trails; according to David Freiberg, this was largely because of his escalating problems with opiates and amphetamines. His 'farewell' performances were the studio recordings that ended up on Happy Trails and a final live performance with the band on New Year's Eve 1969.
Duncan recalled 18 years later: "Well, let's put it this way, at the end of 1968, I was pretty burned out. We'd been on the road for, really, the first time in our lives. I just left for a year. I didn't want to have anything to do with music at all. And I left for a year and rode motorcycles and lived in New York and L.A. and just kind of went crazy for about a year." Freiberg later recalled that Duncan's departure took the core of the band:
"Duncan was the "engine" man, it just didn’t WORK without him ... for me. I was really ... I was devastated ... ".
Duncan was replaced by renowned English session keyboardist Nicky Hopkins, who had played on scores of hit albums and singles by acts like The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, The Who and Steve Miller, among many others. This version of the group released 1969's Shady Grove, dominated by Hopkins' virtuoso piano boogie. Hopkins left just before the album was released and he was replaced by percussionist Jose Reyes, who contributed to their next album, What About Me, much of which had been recorded in the same sessions as Shady Grove
Quicksilver Messenger Service would record two more albums for Capitol records with a nucleus of Dino Valenti, Gary Duncan, and Greg Elmore. Before sessions began on their next album Quicksilver, bass guitarist, David Freberg left the band facing drug charges to be replaced by Mark Ryan while Mark Naftalin continued on keyboards. Quicksilver was released in November, 1971. Six months later, the band released one last album before disbanding, Comin' Thru, a mere 36 minute album panned widely by fans and critics for its forced latino jazz embellishments and weak material. "Doin' Time in the USA," a political rant became the album's most familiar cut, but the band was quite different from the sound of its early days which helped define the San Francisco sound.
In 1975, original members Greg Elmore, Gary Duncan, Dave Freiberg, John Cippolina, and Dino Valenti would reunite for one reunion album, Solid Silver featuring cameo performances by Nicky Hopkins on a couple of the tunes. Various San Francisco area musicians including Jefferson Starship's, Pete Sears, contributed to the album which neither broke new ground nor fully captured the style which defined the band in the late 1960's. Freiberg was already a member of Jefferson Starship working with Paul Kantner and Grace Slick to form a trio on the album Baron Von Tollbooth and the Chrome Nun leading to full-time membership in the dying days of Jefferson Airplane as the band morphed into Jefferson Starship.
Since Solid Silver, Gary Duncan assembled various different lineups performing as Quicksilver Messenger Service still performing in the 2000's.
After leaving Quicksilver in October 1970, Cipollina, Reyes and original member Jim Murray formed Copperhead (which resembled Quicksilver updated for the 1970s) followed by Raven, which resembled Copperhead. In 1974 Cippolina guested with Quicksilver-idolizing Welsh progressive rock group Man, playing with them at their 1974 Winterland concerts and guesting with them on a subsequent UK tour, which resulted in the 1975 live album Maximum Darkness[12]. Cipollina died in 1989, at the age of 45, from emphysema, probably attributable to his heavy cigarette habit. His performances were marked by the trademark lit cigarette perched on a guitar string stub.
Duncan, Elmore, Valenti and Freiberg continued until September 1971 when Freiberg was jailed for marijuana possession. He was replaced by Mark Ryan (bass) and the group added Chuck Steaks (organ), and this lineup rcorded two more albums, Quicksilver (Nov. 1971) and Comin' Thru (Apr. 1972).
Hopkins continued his career as a studio musician, including playing with Jefferson Airplane at Woodstock. He died in September 1994. Dino Valente died in November 1994.
After his release from prison Freiberg moved into session work, eventually joining Jefferson Airplane and staying with them through their evolution into Jefferson Starship.
In the 1980s Gary Duncan resurrected the name and released the albums Peace By Piece in 1986, Shapeshifter Vols. 1 & 2 in 1996, Shapeshifter Vols. 3 & 4, and Strange Trim in 2006, along with several live albums and a website, quicksilvermessengerservice.com. He toured on and off for the next decade or so under names "Gary Duncan's Quicksilver" and "Quicksilver '96".
In 2006, Gary Duncan and David Freiberg launched a 40th-anniversary Quicksilver celebration tour as Quicksilver Messenger Service. They still perform as of 2009, often opening up for Jefferson Starship.
In 2002, there was a Quicksilver tribute band formed called Quicksilver Gold. They performed the music of the Quicksilver Messenger Service and members included Dino Valenti's son, Joli Valenti, as well as John Cippolina's brother, Mario Cippolina, and some members of Zero. This band broke up in 2004.
The band appeared at the Rhythm Festival in August 2008 alongside their musical contemporaries Jefferson Starship.
"All I ever wanted to do"
Mona
Fresh Air
Dino's Song
Mojo
Subway
