#3139 The Golden Age of San Francisco Rock

In the mid-to-late 1960s, the San Francisco Bay Area exploded with psychedelic rock that captured the imagination of the world, creating legendary music that endures and influences popular culture to this day. The roots and heyday of the San Francisco Sound will be explored in depth via both common and rare audio recordings by greats like Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, and Santana. We'll also investigate how the Bay Area's unique counterculture, promoters such as Bill Graham, and venues like the Fillmore created a scene in which experimental and idiosyncratic rock music could flower. The course will also detail its roots in folk-rock; the integration of jazz, ethnic, blues, and avant-garde influences into psychedelic rock; and how San Francisco rock continued to evolve in the 1970s, into funk, punk, and beyond.