Quicksilver Messenger Service gained wide popularity in the Bay Area and, through their recordings, with psychedelic rock enthusiasts around the globe and several of their albums ranked in the Top 30 of the Billboard Pop charts. Although not as commercially successful as contemporaries Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead, QMS 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 Valenti 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.
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 this 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". Drummer Greg Elmore and guitarist Jim Murray were added to fill out the original band.
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 where they built up a solid following and featured on many star-studded bills at the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore West. Sound engineer (and infamous LSD chemist) Owsley Stanley regularly recorded concerts at major San Francisco venues during this period, and his archive includes many QMS live performances from 1966–67, which were released on his Bear Recordings label in 2008-2009.
QMS initially held back 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.
Revolution (movie soundtrack) (UAS 5185 (1968)) with Steve Miller Band & Mother Earth Quicksilver Messenger Service (1968) Happy Trails (1969) Shady Grove (1969) Just for Love (1970) What About Me (1970) Quicksilver (1971)
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