Quicksilver Messenger Service was one of San Francisco’s original psychedelic bands of the late 1960s. Essentially a jam band, their early albums and live shows contributed to some of the best instrumental jams of the period. They were popular around the Bay Area but did not reach the national popularity achieved by their San Francisco contemporaries, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, and others. 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), although Murray left before the band recorded.

Quicksilver released Quicksilver Messenger Service in 1968, followed by Happy Trails the following year. These two albums define a classic period in Quicksilver’s career and are most strongly associated with their unique sound, emphasising extended arrangements. Cipolina’s highly melodic, individualistic lead guitar style combined with Gary Duncan’s driving guitar work showcased a jazzy rock style unparalleled in its day.

Archetypal Quicksilver songs include an elongated, multiply re-titled suite of Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love?”.

They loaded up their from-the-heart songs with free-form jamming; in gigs at classic venues like the Fillmore and Avalon, they stretched out and improvised, pushing their music in unpredictable directions. Tougher than the Dead, looser than the Airplane, but never managing to achieve the popularity of either; they faded away after 1975. Maybe they just weren’t ambitious enough; in the words of guitarist Gary Duncan, “We had no ambition toward making records, we just wanted to have fun play some music, and make enough money to be able to afford to smoke pot”. Sadly, today Quicksilver is too often overlooked as an essential classic rock experience.