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f all the bands that made up the mid- ‘60s San Francisco scene, the Wild Oflower may have been the perfect conglomeration of Haight Street expecta- tions. Combining the streamlined, jet-age folk-rock sound of Takes Off-era Jefferson Airplane, jammy aspects of the Grateful Dead, the pretty harmonies of Sopwith Camel and the We Five, bluesy numbers like Quicksilver Messenger Service and Big Brother & the Holding Company, and the folk punk of the Harbinger Complex, the Wild- flower were not some cheap imitation of these groups. They were contemporaries of them, sharing smoky nightclubs and ball- room stages from day one. And though they were there from the beginning, were courted and trotted out with the best of them, the Wildflower never landed “the big one,” and thus, sadly and unfairly, have remained but a footnote in San Francisco music history. The Wildflower was born in a time before the whole world knew about San Francisco and the fun its denizens were having. The Beat scene of North Beach had been slowly evolving into some- thing new. The area around Haight and Ashbury, near where the universities were, was a low- rent paradise filling up with creative young people, recently untethered from their families and ready to try just about anything. But as more and more people arrived to take part in the celebration, things started to take a turn. By the time Surre- alistic Pillow hit the racks at Magic Flute, ex- ploitative articles declaring the Haight a hippy haven filled the pages of mainstream rags like Look and Life. People began piling into the City by the busload and things quickly became messy and overcrowded. “Not since the California Gold Rush had San Francisco been flooded with such a large group of outsiders carrying dreams and little else,” wrote Pam Tent in her Cockettes memoir Midnight at the Palace (2004). Listening to Love is the Song We Sing, Rhino Record’s recently released history of the Bay Area rock scene, you can actually hear the dissolu- tion of the fraternity. Things get horny and more bombastic post-‘67. For the most part harmo- nies go out the door in favor of scorching leads and caterwauling vocals. By 1969 the best days of San Francisco were way behind it. If you want to hear what it sounded like in the good ol’ days, dig up a copy of Mainstream Records’ With Love: A Pot of Flowers compilation LP. Not only is it a great time capsule of the Bay Area scene before the major labels came in and turned the Sum- Issue 29 Ugly Things 121 mer of Love into the bummer above, but it’s was happening below the corporate music radar. also the best place to hear the Wildflower in their He had turned me on to Sandy Bull and Ravi prime. Shankar the previous year and now he had the newest releases from them, but more impor- FOLKY BEGINNINGS tantly, he had the entire Byrds album. I had only heard the single up until then and what I heard ike pretty much all of the San Francisco from his stereo defined the path I was to take. Lgroups, the Wildflower took root in a coffee- Back at art school, I was having a hard time house. The coffeehouse scene of the Peninsula concentrating. The music was more important may not have been as widely heralded as the than anything visual. There was energy in the Village scene three thousand miles to the east, new forms of song that was emerging. Not so but it definitely spawned its fair share of memo- much with art. I was actually visualizing the rable players. Within these dingy haunts, from music in my head; organizing tones into colors, San Jose up to Belmont, the guys and gals who notes into strokes. I had actually expressed this would go on to form some of the most influen- to one of my more sympathetic instructors and tial rock groups of all time got their start pluck- he encouraged me to pursue this. ing solo or in loosely organized combos like the There was this guy I vaguely knew from my Black Mountain String Band, the Faux Pas, and hometown on the Peninsula, who was going to the Southgate Singers. CCAC. A red haired folkie who had a reputation of getting in your face. His mother had actually Stephen Ehret: The coffeehouse scene was been my Latin tutor during my sophomore year the only thing that was happening back in high school and the most I really knew of then. From The Tangent in Palo Alto and the him was his mother yelling at him all the time Orpheus’ Children, Eilleen Gammill and Off Stage in San Jose, to the Gaslight in San for terrorizing his siblings. “Stephen! Stephen, Stephen Ehret, ca. 1963. (Photo: Peter Albin) Mateo and the Coffee Gallery, Coffee & Confu- you leave (fill in the blank) alone!” I knew he sion and the Drinking Gourd in San Francisco, John Jennings: I started off in rock, moved played 12-string and had been in the folk music something was happening. We didn’t know what into folk and moved back into rock. I was in a scene at College of San Mateo. We had friends in it was, but it was happening. bunch of folk groups while in high school. I common. So I found out where he lived and first started playing Duane Eddy tunes on the made the trek down the hill to see him. all and outgoing, Stephen Ehret caught the guitar and singing Everly Brothers songs. The Stephen lived with his girlfriend and former folk bug in 1962 while a student at the Col- T Ventures were a huge influence as well. Later, in singing partner, Eilleen, in a small apartment not lege of San Mateo, just a few miles south of San high school, I got turned on to Joan Baez, New far from the campus. I brought all my new Francisco. Taking up the guitar, he formed a duo Lost City Ramblers, Pete Seeger, etc. Simulta- records down for him to hear. We had the Byrds, called Orpheus’ Children with his then girlfriend, neously I was listening to Lightning Hopkins, the second Sandy Bull release, the Stones (Out Eilleen Gammill. “We were into a more contem- Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee as well as a of Our Heads had come out the year before) and porary folk sound than the traditionalists like huge amount of classical music (my girlfriend at the Beatles. I had a really crappy guitar my dad Peter Albin and Jerry Garcia,” Ehret remembers. the time was a world class cellist). Later, in col- had bought for me, a Sears Roebuck Silvertone, “We played throughout the San Francisco pen- lege, it was the Stones and the Beatles, Sandy a real log, but Stephen and I jammed to Sandy insula and North Beach at clubs like Coffee & Bull, and finally the Byrds pushed me over the Bull’s extended raga-esque version of “Memphis” Confusion and the Off Stage in San Jose, where edge. Peter Albin and I played together as Peter & and the world was good. But I had to get a better we did a gig with Ron McKernan (Pig Pen) pre- the Wolves while we were at College of San instrument. Grateful Dead. Basically [it was] just 12-string Mateo. And Bob Jones, the lead guitarist for We Somewhere in there the topic of starting a guitar and two vocals but later Michael Riggs Five, and I were best friends while we were at band came up. That was the only excuse I needed joined us. Michael was a guy who had a stand University of San Francisco in 1963/64. to blow all my savings on some equipment. I up bass when nobody had a bass... no one was had become enamored of Chris Hillman’s bass using electric.” 1 GROWING playing on the Byrds release as well as Bill Wyman’s playing on all the Stones records. So Michael McCausland (poet and Wildflower n 1965, Ehret and Jennings found themselves buying a bass was paramount. And of course an lyricist): You two were the West Coast Ian and Istudying art together at the California College amplifier was needed. And no one really had an Sylvia or Richard and Mimi Fariña. Dylan thought of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. It was there that electric guitar so that was needed, and of course Fariña was his only competition and he had the the seeds of the Wildflower sprouted. an amplifier for that. So began the first of many hots for Mimi—who didn’t? Just like [everyone treks downtown to Leo’s Music, where the in- did] for Eilleen. JJ: September 1965, I’ve escaped my family struments were free, all you had to do was sign again. Living in a basement room in the Oakland your name. Now that my savings were gone I n late 1963, Stephen, Eilleen and Mike hills, I’m starting my junior year of college as a needed a plan to recoup my investment. And I I Riggsteamed up with Charlie Ewers and Ray freshman at California College of Arts and Crafts; know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the sub- Vigil as the Southgate Singers, and in 1964 Ehret just a little humiliating but I’m out of the house ject of playing as a group came up with the in- helped organize the College of San Mateo Folk at least.