Original subtitles

["Space Cowboy" playing]

♪ ♪

[Steve Miller Band] ♪ I told you about living ♪

♪ In the US of A ♪

♪ Don't you know That I'm a gangster of love ♪

♪ Let me tell you people That I found a new way ♪

♪ And I'm tired Of all this talk about love ♪

♪ And the same old story With a new set of words ♪

♪ About the good And the bad and the poor ♪

♪ And the times Keep on changing ♪

♪ So I'm keeping on top ♪

♪ Of every fat cat ♪

♪ Who walks in my door ♪

♪ I'm a space cowboy ♪

♪ Bet you weren't ready For that ♪

♪ I'm a space cowboy ♪

♪ I'm sure you know Where it's at ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ ♪

[singers vocalizing]

♪ Yeah ♪

♪ ♪

♪ I'm a space cowboy ♪

♪ Bet you weren't ready For that ♪

♪ I'm a space cowboy ♪

♪ I'm sure you know Where it's at ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ ♪

[Ben] It's 1967.

The media really took notice of San Francisco.

It was clear that something was happening here.

Things got ramped up and all zoomed into a neighborhood.

[Steve] All of a sudden, 300,000 to 500,000 kids

showed up in San Francisco,

started living on the streets.

They were all aimed at the intersection

of Haight and Ashbury, like New York City rush hour

with longer hair, brighter-colored outfits,

or sometimes nothing at all.

[Quicksilver Messenger Service] ♪ Who do you love? ♪

[Steve] Kids coming from Iowa, going, "I brought some flowers"

[Quicksilver Messenger Service] ♪ Who do you love... ♪

The Haight-Ashbury was a utopia

to anybody that was young.

[Bob] It was like every misfit

from anywhere in this country who rattled loose

ended up in San Francisco.

[Quicksilver Messenger Service] ♪ Who do you love... ♪

[Dusty] And then people started hearing

about free love, free food,

that the streets were paved with LSD.

So they would come through in these buses.

[person] The hippies...

a world about themselves and of themselves.

And marijuana, of course, with LSD

is being used.

[Emilio] I remember going with my parents

to Haight-Ashbury because it was in the paper--

the hippies, the love movement--

just to look at them.

We were like animals in a zoo.

-[camera shutter clicks] -And it was the first

collect call we'd had from reality

that people that came looking for this utopia

didn't have one iota of an idea

how we were keeping this together.

-[siren wailing] -[Victor] What started happenig

was that the cops were busting into the hippies' pads

because they're getting stoned.

They were getting laid, having a good time.

And the cops didn't like that.

["Cold Rain and Snow" playing]

[Ben] The Grateful Dead got busted for grass

at their communal pad, 710 Ashbury.

♪ ♪

[Jerry] I was out, and I came back just as

the last cops were leaving the house,

having luckily just missed it.

The place is a shambles, and I walked into the kitchen,

and right there in plain sight on the shelf

is half of a brick, a kilo sitting there.

But they hadn't even seen this fucking kilo, you know?

[laughs]

[Ben] At that time, a guy named Jann Wenner

was starting up Rolling Stone magazine.

And he called up his photographer pal

Baron Wolman and said,

"Let's go over to 710 Ashbury, see what's going on."

♪ ♪

Baron got a number of tremendous photographs

of the band outside their house...

[camera shutter clicks]

...raising their fists

and Pigpen holding a toy rifle,

saying they were not gonna take this sitting down.

And it made for a marvelous

first-issue article in Rolling Stone.

♪ ♪

It helped to define what it was,

what kind of world it was covering,

not just the bands and their music

but also actual news, events, and politics.

♪ ♪

Poster artist Rick Griffin,

he wound up drawing the original logo.

It looks like a poster, actually, in a way.

My roommates and I fell in love with Rolling Stone,

and we used to fight over each issue that came out.

So to be hired by Jann Wenner

to be an editor and a writer was invigorating.

When Rolling Stone started, we were kind of in love

with the music industry and the people

who were involved with music here in San Francisco.

Let's just talk a little bit more

about the band in general.

[Mickey] He was really easy to talk to.

And he was talking the spiritual language

of rock and roll. He had that thing in his writig

and in his way.

He was a head, so we were talking the same language.

You can live a straighter life, and you can still be bent

once in a while.

[rock music plays]

And so, yeah, I found myself bent once in a while...

♪ ♪

...at Avalon Ballroom, California Hall,

the Matrix, and Golden Gate Park.

[Jorma] The psychedelic rock and roll stuff

wasn't on the radio yet.

[Mickey] Our music and a lot of the bands who were improvising

never got played on the radio

because it didn't fit.

[Dusty] We were getting really tired

of 3 minute and 15 seconds' worth of music

coming out of Top 40 radio, your AM radio.

That's not what we were listening to.

[Jorma] And FM radio was still just a jazz station

or nonstop classical music.

[Dusty] Everything changed in 1967.

Tom Donahue came along, and he put all of that stuff

into a big melting pot called KMPX.

[Tom] Tom Donahue at KMPX 107 n your FM dial in San Francisco.

We're playing records 8:00 until 12:00 midnight.

That's Aretha Franklin

from her new Atlantic LP, I Never Loved...

Our guests tonight are Phil Lesh and Jerry Garcia

from the Grateful Dead.

[Dusty] When we got on the air on KMPX,

it was like the doors opening

to an absolute palace of music.

Tom Donahue hired me.

So I just started pushing buttons and turning knobs

until I figured it out.

We were playing whole sides of albums.

We had an opportunity to play the records

that people were buying and putting on their turntables.

Now we were able to put those on the radio.

That's what the Grateful Dead were listening to,

what the Airplane were listening to.

["Section 43" playing]

And that's one of the things that the Haight-Ashbury

locked into.

♪ ♪

[Country Joe] Janis had a flat right above the Haight.

And we were lying in bed, listening to the radio,

to KMPX.

[Tom] Listening to Country Joe & The Fish.

[Country Joe] And they would play Country Joe & The Fish.

Wow, it was too much.

And then they played a Big Brother track.

And we'd go, like, "Ah, wow! Wow!

It's so cool, man."

["Summertime" playing]

[Dusty] Whenever I hear the words "Summer of Love,"

I'm going, eh...

more like the summer of the death of an ideal.

[Jerry] Living in the Haight-Ashbury,

you had your problems.

There was always that certain number of...

weird individuals who are, like,

total burnouts or whatever

that would just come into your house

and be as weird as they wanted to be

until you got up the nerve to throw them out.

[Big Brother and the Holding Company] ♪ Summertime ♪

♪ Time, time... ♪

[David] It was impossible for everybody that decided

they were a hippie to move to San Francisco.

The Haight-Ashbury can't absorb all this.

Just wasn't gonna work.

[Big Brother and the Holding Company] ♪ Fish are ♪

♪ Jumping out... ♪

[Steve] We lived in the Haight-Ashbury,

and I got to tell you, when all those people showed up,

it was pretty funky.

[Big Brother and the Holding Company] ♪ High ♪

♪ Lord, so high... ♪

[Steve] There would be community meetings

at the Fillmore or at the Avalon,

and the bands would get together, and people

would talk, and the Diggers wanted to help the community.

The people that come to the Haight-Ashbury

come here for the same reason that you live here.

These people want the same things out of life that you do.

When the Haight and the counterculture

began to get its own identifiable attributes,

the record companies started coming in.

And they started passing out huge advances

to scoop up these bands.

[David] It really felt good to be a musician

in San Francisco during that time.

I mean, it almost felt like royalty.

♪ Well, when I was A young man ♪

♪ I learned not to care ♪

♪ Wild whiskey in front and ♪

♪ You know often... ♪

Quicksilver wound up being one of the San Francisco bands

that scored a major

record label contract with major money.

[David] We did get a good contract.

Capitol was late to the game,

getting Quicksilver and Steve Miller Band.

[Steve] There were all these bands

that were getting recording contracts.

And we took off.

I think we hold the record

for the most performances at the Fillmore.

♪ Living in the USA ♪

[vocalizing]

♪ Living in the USA ♪

-♪ Stand back ♪ -♪ Dietitian ♪

-♪ Stand back ♪ -♪ Television ♪

-♪ Stand back ♪ -♪ Politician ♪

-♪ Stand back ♪ -♪ Mortician ♪

♪ We got to get away, babe ♪

♪ Living in the USA ♪

♪ Come on, baby ♪

♪ Come on, baby... ♪

Steve Miller had signed with Capitol Records

to do his first album, Children of the Future.

[Steve] One of the things I loved about San Francisco

was the graphic arts part of it.

And Victor, for my taste, was just the most sophisticated

of them all.

I was in awe of him.

And I was really thrilled he was gonna make

our first album cover.

[Victor] The way I work is, every poster, every album,

I tried to do something that I hadn't done before.

With this Steve Miller cover,

I was gonna put wings on them

in the inside foldout of the band flying.

So I had the band in my studio.

And I had them on boxes, jumping up. Chh!

[Steve] I sort of remember being on a box and told

to jump, thinking, jeez, I got on cowboy boots.

I'm gonna rip my arches apart.

[laughing] You know?

The hard part of that job was getting the wings.

So I bought a pigeon,

and I tethered it to my arm.

Chh! Chh!

That's how I got the pictures.

["In My First Mind" playing]

Two different drawings occupying the same space,

and this lettering on the bottom, it says,

"Children of the Future."

Don't read the letters.

Read the spaces in between.

Do you think I'm gonna make it easy?

No.

♪ ♪

[radio tuning]

[Tom] You might like some things

from the Jefferson Airplane LP,

a trio of things.

[Jorma] When we started to make some money,

we wound up buying this Victorian four-story mansion

across the street from Golden Gate Park.

That became the nerve center of the Airplane.

And we built a rehearsal studio in the basement.

[Marty] We'd go downstairs and play and jam

and have parties--

pool table, games.

That one album, Bless Its Pointed Little Head,

that was a picture from a party

that we were getting ready for.

[Grace] We had not had the party yet.

But Jack, being funny, slopped down with his arm

around a wine bottle, and we used it.

All the bands in San Francisco had been in and out of there

for parties and for just hanging out

at one point or the other.

[Dusty] Even Tom Donahue decided

to get married at the Airplane house.

[Jefferson Airplane] ♪ Don't you want ♪

♪ Somebody to love ♪

♪ Don't you need Somebody to love ♪

♪ Wouldn't you love Somebody to love ♪

♪ You better find Somebody to love... ♪

[Dusty] So everybody's, you know...

And I'm staying away from everything

'cause they had these lovely little "wood nymphs,"

I liked to call them, that would clean the house

and cook the meals and put acid in everything.

[Jefferson Airplane] ♪ And your mind... ♪

[Dusty] So I'm being very careful.

Not careful enough.

I was asked by another disk jockey--

he says, "Hey, Streeto, can you do my show tonight?

I'm a little fuckitty up-ed."

Oh, okay.

I can do a six-hour show, no problem.

So I get in the car with my soon-to-be ex-husband,

and I feel like I'm coming on to acid.

And he said, "Well, there was acid in everything."

Everything? All I did was eat the Jell-O.

And he said, "Jesus, the Jell-O?

That's the first thing you shouldn't have eaten."

So I'm pulling these records,

and they're feeling like mush in my hands.

But I get this one brand-new record.

And I'm... [mimicking guitar riff]

["Shouldn't Have Took More Than You Gave" playing]

[Dave] ♪ Shouldn't have Took more than you gave ♪

♪ ♪

[Dusty] And back then, we had to read our own copy.

And so the first copy that I had to read said...

"How would you like to take a really far-out trip?"

And I went into outer space somewhere.

♪ ♪

[telephone rings]

The hotline rings, and I pick it up.

And it's Tom and Rachel,

and they're laughing like hell, and they're going,

"Street, you sound great.

Man, wow, what a show."

Now, when I had to put the records away,

I put them away by color.

It took them six months to figure out

where I put all the records.

[dramatic music plays]

♪ ♪

That so-called "peace and love"

Haight-Ashbury crowd and the Berkeley activists,

there was a rift between us,

because these guys were just, you know, relentless.

-[crowd chanting] -I understand that

they were adamant about the things

that were wrong, and so were we.

But they were relentless, banging the drum.

And I was more about the music.

You know, let's do it through the music.

And the music in San Francisco during that time

was an adventure.

You could hear anything that you wanted.

You could hear a combination of anything that you wanted.

♪ ♪

[Ben] The San Francisco sound did not exist, actually.

There were San Francisco sounds.

♪ ♪

[Michael] There was all these scenes

going on in the Bay Area at the same time

as this hippie world was going on--

serious funk stuff, really great jazz stuff.

But the Fillmore was still the mecca.

[Dusty] And that's when Bill Graham was able

to bring in this huge rainbow

of wonderful music that crossed over genres.

[Emilio] He would be bringing in these eclectic bills--

Sam & Dave, Hugh Masekela, and the Grateful Dead,

you know, Miles Davis.

He brought in all the great blues players--

B.B. King, Albert King, Freddie King--

all the great soul singers.

Otis, he brought Otis in, you know?

♪ ♪

Bill Graham tweaked the collective ear of the Bay Area

by exposing all these hippies

that were loaded to all this different kinds of music.

I mean, they were just completely open to whatever.

That psychedelic thing and the bands

and the whole scene, it had run its course,

and people were ready for something more rhythmic

and a little more soulful.

[indistinct chatter]

[Bill] Born right out of the belly

of San Francisco, Santana.

[cheers and applause]

["Jingo" playing]

♪ ♪

[Carlos] What I was doing is combining African rhythms

with rock and roll.

And Bill Graham loved it.

We developed and unfolded a different sound.

Nobody else in the Bay Area was creating that alchemy,

that combination of things.

♪ ♪

[Gregg] We weren't trying to be any "San Francisco" band.

We knew that we were different, right,

which is what we chose to be.

♪ ♪

[Jorma] Santana was this beautiful surprise.

When Carlos showed up with that band at the Fillmore,

it was like you were in church.

♪ ♪

That band was amazing.

They were like the real musical bomb

in San Francisco.

♪ ♪

[Michael] When I first saw Santana, it was very exciting.

They were really raw.

I could tell that he was different.

♪ ♪

And then one night, I went to a recording studio

to try to get free time for whatever band I was playing in.

I found out that Santana was recording their first album.

But while I was walking in, the drummer walked out.

They just had a big fight.

So they asked me if I wanted to jam,

and we played for a long time.

♪ ♪

And after that, they asked me if I wanted to be in the band.

Of course, I said yes.

But I was just a kid,

so they followed me home to my parents' house,

and they waited outside while I woke up my folks.

I said, "Okay, I'm going now."

And next day, I was in the band.

♪ ♪

I soon learned that this was no hippie love thing.

This was like a street gang, but the weapon was music.

[Santana] ♪ Jingo ♪

♪ Jingo Ba... ♪

♪ ♪

[Michael] It was a big, nasty, mean, beautiful thing.

♪ ♪

We played well all the time

because we rehearsed all the time.

♪ ♪

Of all the bands in San Francisco

that rehearsed more than others,

it was Santana and Sly and the Family Stone.

♪ ♪

[Sly] I thought everybody in the world played music

'cause everybody in my family played.

We didn't even talk about it. Just had to learn that

like you learn to talk.

When I started out, I was on the radio for a while.

-Twenty minutes past midnight. -[singers] ♪ Here comes ♪

♪ Our KSOL weather report From a swinging ♪

♪ Soul brother to you ♪

[Sly] What a groove. Partly cloudy tonight,

-increasing clouds... -I was doing fine

at the radio station, I thought.

[funky music plays]

And then all of a sudden, the group happened.

Jerry Martini is the guy that really started it.

He played saxophone. And he came to the radio station

and decided that, "Sly, you ought to be

the leader of this group."

[Jerry] I told him that you have more

to offer the world musically than being here.

♪ ♪

[Sly] We started looking around for everybody

other than my sisters and my brother

'cause they were automatically in if I was in

'cause Daddy said so.

My sister Rose plays electric piano.

My brother Freddie plays guitar.

And then the drummer, Greg, played in my brother's group.

[Greg] Sly's brother Freddie and I had a group

called the Stone Souls.

[Sly] And the trumpet player, I knew in school, Cynthia.

And then her cousin Larry Graham played bass.

There everybody was.

When we got together, it was such a great feeling.

And I'd never been so happy.

[Cynthia] He was always still telling us

what he wanted us to do

because it was his show.

We rehearsed for two weeks,

and then he told us we had a gig at Winchester Cathedral.

I'm like, "But we don't have enough songs."

[Sly and the Family Stone] ♪ I'm gonna give you ♪

♪ Everything that you want ♪

♪ You got to keep on moving ♪

♪ You got To keep on moving now... ♪

[Freddie] Winchester Cathedral- ah, we'd go there

after we played another club in Oakland called Frenchy's.

-♪ Baby... ♪ -[Freddie] Frenchy's

and Winchester Cathedral--

that was like the incubator.

That's where we were birthed from.

♪ ♪

[Jerry] Our first gig was great.

People sat there with their mouths open.

They'd never seen anything like it.

And in a very short period, we became a cult phenomenon.

Everybody was coming around to see this band called

Sly and the Family Stone.

But when Bill Graham came and checked us out,

he saw us and said, "You guys are a little too radical."

["Dance to the Music" playing]

♪ Dance to the music ♪

♪ Dance to the music... ♪

[Greg] Bill Graham passed on it.

A year later, he paid dearly. [chuckles]

♪ All we need Is a drummer... ♪

[Jerry] We were a mixed group, men and women together,

and not with women standing in the background

singing their doo-wahs.

The front line was all of us.

♪ ♪

[Sly] It's a combination of rhythm and blues,

psychedelic music, church music, jam.

I like all of it. I really do, man.

[Larry] Sly allowed everyone to contribute

what they could contribute.

♪ ♪

There was no one that played guitar like Freddie Stone.

No one played drums like Greg Errico.

That beat--you know, the bum, bum, dum, dum.

Nobody was playing beats like that.

♪ ♪

[Sly and the Family Stone] ♪ Dance to the music... ♪

[Greg] The first time we heard "Dance to the Music"

on the radio, it was a celebration.

That was the launching place for what we were about to do.

♪ ♪

[Dave] The New York critics were saying,

Janis is a star. She's wonderful.

She's a great singer.

But the band, they're not up to her level.

[Janis] If you want to approach it-- well, like,

I mean, I know what the arrangement of the song is

-and how one part works. -[person] Yeah, but you don't--

[Dave] It was uncomfortable, the vibe in the band itself.

There were fights breaking out.

I had a fight with Janis one night.

Peter and she had a fight onstage.

[Peter] I knew what was happening with the drugs,

and I didn't care for it.

I was the straight guy in the band

doing a lot of the signing of the contracts.

[Janis] What are you gonna hear when you hear that, Sam?

You're gonna hear the vocal.

-[Sam] Oh, yeah, yeah. -I mean, you know, like,

for example, listen to-- listen to--listen

to Cream's album, for example, and, say, when Bruce is singing.

I mean, you aren't saying, "Was the rhythm guitar right?"

I mean, you aren't even fucking aware of it

because what you hear is what's up front.

And when we play "Piece of My Heart,"

what's gonna be up front is gonna be the vocals.

["Piece of my Heart" playing]

♪ ♪

[Dave] She announced that, "I'm gonna leave the band."

I was relieved for the months leading up to it.

I knew this was gonna happen.

♪ ♪

♪ Well, come on, come on Come on ♪

♪ Come on and take it ♪

♪ Take another little piece Of my heart now, baby ♪

♪ Whoa, oh, break it... ♪

[Peter] Even though we'd been only together for two years,

I still felt betrayed.

And then Sam said,

"Janis has asked me to come with her."

I said, "Well, I-- whatever."

♪ Well, you know you got it ♪

♪ If it makes you feel good ♪

♪ Oh, yes, indeed... ♪

[Peter] I was pissed off at her.

I mean, I worked with these people

almost every fucking weekend.

And we lived together for six months.

I mean, it was close, real close.

♪ ♪

[interviewer] And then you quit Big Brother

and the Holding Company. Why did you do that?

[Janis] It was sort of just time for us to--

I think, to go on and do something else.

-You know what I mean? -Yeah.

Like, you grow together,

you know, a certain way,

and you sort of exhaust each other.

You exhaust the good that you can do for each other.

And it was just time for each of us

to start growing in other directions.

And that's what, after all, we're supposed to be all about

is trying to get better at what we do, you know?

[radio tuning]

[Tom] This is Stereo 107

in San Francisco, KMPX. And the family...

[Dusty] As soon as you're successful, the bean counters,

as it were, they will try to put that magic in a jar.

They did that to KMPX.

They said all of the guys have to wear suit and ties

and get a nice haircut.

The women need to wear dresses and pantyhose.

So Tom Donahue, of course, went in and said,

"Are you out of your mind?" And they fired him.

Well, we went out on strike.

[picketers singing indistinctly]

But then Tom Donahue made a deal with Metromedia,

and we just moved down the street,

changed the call letters to KSAN,

and started all over again.

[singers] ♪ KSAN ♪

♪ In San Francisco ♪

♪ 95 FM ♪

[John] KSAN came on the air with the old staff from KMPX.

Two days after they went on, we went over with a tape.

We were sort of nervous. We didn't know,

are they gonna like this, or do they want the old

San Francisco sound, so to speak?

Actually, they liked it. and they'd say, "Wow,

some obscure group. We don't even know where they're from."

["Suzie Q" playing]

[Creedence Clearwater Revival] ♪ Oh, Suzie Q ♪

♪ ♪

♪ Oh, Suzie Q ♪

♪ ♪

[John] Having a song on the radio be a pretty massive hit,

I thought, gee, we might be able

to make a go of this thing.

But it was a cover song.

So I was in a panic.

We're sort of famous right now.

The spotlight's shining on us.

And the collective audience is going,

"Well, what do you got?"

[Creedence Clearwater Revival] ♪ Left a good job ♪

♪ In the city ♪

♪ Working for the man Every night and day... ♪

[John] I finished "Proud Mary," and after that,

we were like a Roman candle that was really moving.

[Dusty] Fogerty lived in the East Bay,

and he had a vision for his music.

He found a niche with the band.

We called it swamp rock because of that bayou sound.

Woodstock comes along, and everybody in the country

knows who CCR is.

♪ ♪

Hi. Thank you so much.

[cheers and applause]

[Jack] What was hopeful about Woodstock was,

it was the first time we thought there's more

to all of this than just San Francisco.

[Greg] Woodstock was just a wonderful experience.

It was one-of-a-kind thing.

There was a two-story old-style Holiday Inn.

And the whole top floor

was where they had us all staying--

Sly and the Family Stone, Jimi Hendrix,

Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane.

[person] Come on. Come on.

[Greg] We're all running aroun. The Southern Comfort's going

and the whiskey and beer and everything.

[Grace] Both Janis and I would drink out of the bottle,

because why bother pouring this into another receptacle

if you're drinking it straight?

Somebody once said me and Janis

were nothing but falling-down drunken whores.

We never fell down.

Drunken whores, yeah, but we never fell down.

[laughs]

-[thunder booming] -[Greg] We were supposed

to go on Saturday evening at 8:00 p.m.,

but it had been raining.

And about every hour or two, the manager would come in

and say, "Man, give us another hour, guys.

I mean, we're so sorry, but everything's running behind."

[Cynthia] I looked out there and I mean,

the rain was just pouring in sheets.

Even Freddie and, I think, Larry got shocked, you know,

when the water hit some of their equipment.

[Greg] Our adrenaline is going up, down, up, down, up, down.

And then finally, when it's time to go on,

it's, like, 3:00 in the morning.

[Sly] Yeah, at first, I was scared, to tell you the truth.

I was so glad to be there with Jimi Hendrix,

Janis Joplin, my idols, that I thought,

man, we better not make a mistake.

[Greg] We all looked at each other and huddled and said,

all we can do is just go up there

and do our thing, give it all we got.

[Sly and the Family Stone] ♪ Beat is getting stronger ♪

["I Want to Take You Higher" playing]

♪ Music getting longer Too... ♪

[Greg] By about the third song,

we start getting a heavy response.

People start waking up, getting up.

You could feel the audience.

The energy was so incredible.

♪ ♪

And Sly started responding and taking control

of the control that the audience gave us.

♪ I want to, I want To take you higher... ♪

♪ ♪

[Larry] To hear the roar... [mimics crowd roaring]

-[cheers and applause] -...of half a million people--

I mean, we'd never heard nothing like that.

And it just took us to another level.

[indistinct chatter]

[Country Joe] I came to the Woodstock Festival early.

-[camera shutter clicks] -I was just hanging around

and listening to the music.

["The Star-Spangled Banner" playing]

♪ ♪

I was pretty much there all of the three days.

It was just incredible.

[person] Crew of Santana, if you will, please,

you have some equipment that's necessary for performance.

Would you please bring it right backstage?

[Country Joe] On Saturday,

Santana had trouble

getting to the stage.

So the staff pushed me out there.

Hello, people.

I didn't know I was gonna do this.

I had no idea what to do.

I was really nervous about playing.

I hadn't performed as a solo folk singer for a long time.

And so I went out there, and I said, "Give me an F..."

Give me an F! ...and they looked at me

-and said... -[all] F!

[Country Joe] I couldn't stop.

-Give me a U! -[all] U!

-[Country Joe] Give me a C! -[all] C!

-Give me a K! -[all] K!

-What's that spell? -[all] Fuck!

-What's that spell? -[all] Fuck!

-What's that spell? -[all] Fuck!

[Country Joe] People love to yell "fuck."

They really love to yell "fuck."

["Fixing to Die Rag" playing]

♪ Well, come on All of you big, strong men ♪

♪ Uncle Sam needs Your help again ♪

♪ Got himself In a terrible jam ♪

♪ Way down yonder in Vietnam ♪

♪ Put down your books And pick up a gun ♪

♪ We're gonna have A whole lot of fun... ♪

These people were singing the song.

-♪ What are we fighting for...♪ -I couldn't believe it.

♪ I don't give a damn Next stop is Vietnam... ♪

I didn't know that they had been playing

"Fixing to Die Rag" on the radio around New York City.

It was fucking amazing.

♪ No time to wonder why ♪

♪ Whoopee We're all gonna die ♪

All right!

[cheers and applause]

[person] Ladies and gentlemen, "Country Joe" McDonald.

[cheers and applause]

Ladies and gentlemen,

-Santana. -[cheers and applause]

[Gregg] Michael Lang, the Woodstock manager,

had called Bill Graham for some help

because it was getting out of hand.

Bill told him, "I'll help you,

but you must have Santana."

And he goes, "Who's Santana?"

["Soul Sacrifice" playing]

And that's how we got in was Bill.

♪ ♪

[Michael] Even before I was in the band,

Bill was a fan of the band. And he warned us.

He said, "You're gonna do a festival.

And after that, things are gonna change for you."

♪ ♪

[Carlos] Woodstock was probably the biggest door

I ever walked into.

And the whole time I was there,

I just chanted, "God, please keep me in time

and in tune," 'cause I was very high.

I didn't know I was supposed to go on at that time.

And just as I peaked,

someone said, "If you don't play now,

you're not gonna go out at all." [chuckles]

♪ ♪

All the while, the neck on my guitar

became like a living electric snake.

So that's why I'm making ugly faces,

'cause I'm trying to tame the beast.

♪ ♪

Woodstock was a revelation

that everything my mother tattooed

in my psyche would work.

I remember my mother saying, con ganas, todo se puede.

Con Dios, no hay imposible.

With willingness, everything can be done.

And with God, nothing's impossible.

♪ ♪

[cheers and applause]

[person] Ladies and gentlemen, Santana!

[Michael] After that, everything changed.

Bill Graham was right. Everything changed.

[Jerry] That was the catapult for all of us--

for Santana, for us.

Woodstock just shot us up to the next level.

[Tom] A great deal of the good things that have come out

of the artistic community of this country

have originated in San Francisco.

People talked about an earthquake in San Francisco

for '69, and we wanted to have one.

We wanted to have one

that would bring about a tidal wave

that would sweep across the country.

And maybe next year, every community

would be putting on festivals

that would be created by the artists

for the people in the community.

[Marty] There was this idealism going around

that we all had.

It was this wonderful way

to talk to each other and play music for each other.

And there was this war we were against.

And people had different lifestyles.

And we really believed the dream that

the world could be better and we could change it.

The moment of Woodstock was a coming together

of all that idealism.

You know, I thought that it was just like showing

the whole world what a great thing

it could be--so peaceful.

And after that came Altamont.

And, you know, that was different, you know?

The Altamont Speedway is located some 70 miles

from San Francisco on Route 580.

[Chet] Altamont was this barren, very hot valley

where demolition derbies were held.

Just as you entered the site,

you could see mounds of demolished cars

with the dates that they were trashed.

[Michael] Just getting off the helicopter and going in,

the vibe was different.

I could feel trouble.

It really felt dense, in a way--

the vibration, the frequency.

["Soul Sacrifice" playing]

When we started playing,

people were really close to us,

behind us, going all the way up.

People were on the stage. The crowd was so close.

♪ ♪

[Mickey] The Hells Angels became the security guards,

and that's not what they do.

Hundreds of thousands of people pushing on them--

it was a mess.

[tense music plays]

[Jorma] When you realize that you're at the mercy

of this large group of people, that's a scary place to be

and a situation you really have no control over.

[person] Jefferson Airplane.

["The Other Side of This Life" playing]

♪ ♪

[Jorma] All I can say is, it became apparent

that it was probably a gig that we shouldn't have taken.

♪ ♪

[Jefferson Airplane] ♪ Would you like to know ♪

♪ A secret, baby ♪

♪ Just between you and me ♪

♪ I don't know Where I'm going... ♪

[Grace] Airplane was on, and I didn't wear

my contact lenses that day.

Sort of saw this scuffling going on.

And I went back to Spencer, and I said, "What's going on?"

[Jorma] This Angel got onstage,

and there was an altercation that evolved.

And Marty got punched and went down.

[Grace] He punched him, and he fell down on the stage floor.

[Mickey] He got hit in the mouth because of

something he said to a Hells Angel.

And he just got up, and he said, "Fuck you."

[Grace] And the guy said, "Never say fuck you

to a Hells Angel." So Marty says it again.

-[Mickey] Then he got hit agai. -[Grace] Easy.

[Jorma] Grace is trying to talk and calm the crowd.

[Grace] Please be quiet.

[Paul] Hey, man, I'd like to mention that the Hells Angels

just smashed Marty Balin in the face

and knocked him out for a bit.

-You're talking to my people. -[Paul] Right.

Well, let me tell you what's happening.

You are what's happening.

[Paul] And you're not helping any.

-Hey! Ho! -[Grace] No!

[person] Right there, hold it. Hold it!

[Mickey] It was horrible-- people getting beat up,

Angels going crazy, nothing to control anybody.

And it was just way too far gone.

[person] You know what's happening?

[Michael] It was very dark. I just got the hell

out of there. I ran into Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh

and told them what was going on,

and they couldn't believe it.

Oh, that's what the story is here?

-Yeah. -Oh, bummer.

Really, man. I mean, like, it's scary.

-Who's doing all the beating? -Hells Angels.

Hells Angels are doing beating on musicians?

Marty got beat up. They've been fighting on the stage.

-Doesn't seem right, man. -It's really weird, man.

It's really weird.

[Mickey] Me and Jerry were in a bus. In the back,

they were saying, "Well, what should we do, man?

Should we play? We can't play now."

[indistinct chatter]

[Jack] Got dark. There's no lighting out there.

Everybody had to kind of find their way on out.

[dramatic music plays]

♪ ♪

Altamont...

certainly had an impact on all of us.

Impacted Rolling Stone because

Rolling Stone had to report Altamont for what it was.

There was nobody who was innocent that dark day.

♪ ♪

[Dave] Altamont and things like that were symptoms--

what happened to the Haight.

Things started to really go downhill.

[Dan] ♪ He don't know What's up or down... ♪

[Dave] The Haight-Ashbury was falling apart

and being filled with really bad vibes and bad drugs.

♪ We don't care If his navel shows ♪

♪ People stop ♪

♪ They turn around ♪

♪ Is he wearing a smile Or frown, he's stoned... ♪

[Victor] The very thing that made us enviable

destroyed us.

The kids all show up.

Who shows up with the kids? The sharks.

It was the death of the neighborhood.

[somber music plays]

[Steve] There were drug dealers everywhere

selling speed,

hundreds of people sleeping in the parks,

completely smacked out on heroin.

[Grace] Heroin started changing things.

The amount of money had something to do with it.

Everything comes to an end, everything.

Some of it's slow,

and some of it's immediate, like a car accident.

♪ ♪

[Mickey] Janis came to 710 a lot.

♪ ♪

Pigpen and her had a thing.

They were sometime lovers.

I remember the last time we saw Janis.

Jerry and I were playing together in a park.

We were about to go on.

And there was a guy, Albert Grossman.

He was the new manager of Janis.

He was gonna take her to New York,

get her a new band, and make her into a star.

♪ ♪

He had his hand around her shoulders,

and they were walking to the car.

And I said, "Hey, Janis!"

And she turned around, and we waved to her,

and they were walking. She waved back.

And Jerry said,

"That's the last time we'll see Janis."

And that was it.

♪ ♪

[Dusty] Well, you're talking on KSAN right now.

[person] Hi, KSAN.

[Dusty] I was doing a live show

backstage at Winterland

with all of the San Francisco bands

except for Janis,

who was in Los Angeles, recording.

[person] It's very bright,

and there's lots of good music being played.

[Dusty] So I'm standing there with my earphones on,

and I'm talking to Pigpen.

And in my earphones, I hear, "Dusty,

Janis Joplin has just been found dead at the Landmark."

[indistinct chatter]

Pig's getting ready to go onstage,

and I'm trying to get this information in my ear

and not have it show on my face.

[person] Just a second.

It was an exercise in stoicism.

Is that real? Is that for real?

I really hate to say this.

This is something that just really blew my mind,

but I understand that Janis Joplin has just been

-found dead in Hollywood. -Wow.

You could have knocked me over with a feather.

Wow.

[Mickey] I remember the night Janis died.

[applause]

She had OD'd.

And, oh, my God.

And so I went over to Jerry.

And I said, "Hey, man, Janis just died."

And we were just shocked, just in shock, you know?

It was just so sad.

And I said, "Should we tell them?"

Because it was right before we were gonna go on.

He said, "No, no, no, no, don't bum them out.

They're gonna find out soon as they hit the street."

But we played real sad.

We played for Janis.

["Brokedown Palace" playing]

And I remember that 'cause I was crying.

I remember the tears coming down my eyes,

and they were getting my hands wet.

So I couldn't hold the stick.

♪ Fare you well ♪

♪ My honey ♪

♪ ♪

♪ Fare you well ♪

♪ My only true one ♪

[Dave] Just took me completely by surprise.

And I broke apart. I fell apart.

I cried for about two hours.

♪ ♪

[Ben] Janis' death was just super tragic.

At that time, we had lost

a couple of musicians already.

You think, "Jeez, Janis.

Why couldn't you have had somebody with you?"

♪ ♪

[Grace] I was not shocked

at any of the deaths of the people.

Saddened, yes.

But they would have liked to stay alive.

We were young.

We were making lots of money.

We could have sex with anybody we wanted.

We could take any drugs we wanted.

We were making music. We were having a good time.

And drugs are very powerful.

♪ ♪

[Dusty] We were a drug society.

And unfortunately, the drugs took a lot of people.

It was something that, unfortunately,

we started to become way too familiar with.

♪ Lovers come and go ♪

♪ The river Will roll, roll, roll ♪

♪ ♪

[Dusty] Of course, it devastated the scene.

But music keeps on going, you know?

It's like, you take a piece out,

another piece gets put in.

♪ Listen to the river ♪

♪ Sing sweet songs To rock my soul ♪

[cheers and applause]

[Jorma] Time marched on.

But without Janis, it just wasn't the same.

[somber music plays]

In the beginning, we all lived the same lifestyle.

I think we kind of just aged out of it.

The scene aged out also.

♪ ♪

A lot of the San Francisco bands

had moved up to Marin

across the Golden Gate from San Francisco...

the Dead and us.

When they built Wally Heider's,

then it became no longer necessary

to go to LA to record.

To be able to drive downtown and go to your studio,

that was kind of cool.

[Jack] We're gonna be the first band recording there,

and we're all excited about this.

And so they say they're ready to test out the equipment,

and we come down to test it out.

Their studio is beautiful--

all these chandeliers, stained glass,

and very San Francisco-style accoutrements.

-We fire everything up. -[person] We are now rolling.

[Jack] With my first bass note--boom--

everything starts to rattle and shake and make noise.

All the guys are laughing, and they're just howling.

"Forget it. Go home."

All this tinkling and rattling,

it's all going in the microphone.

They got to tear all this stuff out.

[chuckles]

And of course, and then we came in

and we started on Volunteers after that.

["Volunteers" playing]

[Jorma] At the time, it was a state-of-the-art place.

They also had a lot of rooms in that building.

[Michael] There were, like, three studios.

We were doing Abraxas.

♪ ♪

Creedence Clearwater was across the hall,

doing one of those big records.

[David] Everybody recorded there.

You'd see Quicksilver Messenger Service,

Steve Miller Band, Grateful Dead.

You could just walk in and hang.

It made a big brotherhood.

[Jorma] Why? 'Cause we were all

physically there at that time.

"What are you doing?" "Not much."

"Come on down. You want to play a song?"

[Jefferson Airplane] ♪ Pick up the cry ♪

♪ Hey, now it's time For you and me ♪

-♪ Got a revolution ♪ -♪ Got a revolution... ♪

[Jorma] Some of the LA groups also came up to record.

[David] You could see David Crosby

and Crosby, Stills & Nash at Wally Heider's.

It was really cool.

[Mickey] Once the guys in the Grateful Dead

heard what was happening with Crosby and Stills and Nash,

having these great singers in our midsts,

it was very inspiring, the possibility

of, wow, we play like gods,

but we don't sing like gods.

What if we could sing?

And that's where the Grateful Dead found its voice.

["Uncle John's Band" playing]

♪ ♪

[Jerry] There was something that we could do.

When we did it, it sounded so cool,

just sitting around with an acoustic guitar

and working up those songs, and it sounded pretty,

and, oh, man, that sounds nice.

[Grateful Dead] ♪ Are the hardest days ♪

♪ Don't you worry anymore... ♪

[Jerry] There were times when it was just...

beautiful. It really was.

[Grateful Dead] ♪ There is Danger at your door ♪

♪ ♪

♪ Think this through with me ♪

[Mickey] Everybody wanted to simplify it.

We'd make a simple record, song-based.

[Grateful Dead] ♪ Whoa, what I want to know ♪

♪ Is, are you kind... ♪

[Ben] They were so proud of what they had done.

The manager and one or two of the members of the band

visited Jann Wenner at his office

at Rolling Stone carrying reel-to-reel tapes

of the new album,

throwing it up on the sound system.

And a number of us floated in to enjoy it.

[Grateful Dead] ♪ Won't you come with me ♪

♪ Whoa, what I want to know ♪

♪ Will you come with me ♪

♪ ♪

[Dusty] When you're on the radio

and you get to hear a band

that you absolutely love,

you want to share it immediately

with your audience.

There was a great band out of the East Bay

called the Tower of Power.

I went to a club one night,

and I heard "You're Still a Young Man."

Oh, honey, I needed a change of clothes right then and there.

It was one of the best things I'd ever heard.

♪ You're still a young man ♪

♪ Baby ♪

♪ Ooh-ooh ♪

♪ Don't waste your time... ♪

[Dusty] I went up to the band and said,

"Guys, the minute you got anything,

"you got to bring it to the station."

I want to put you on the air."

So I started playing the album.

And it was one of those moments

where you know

that you have been able to turn your audience on

to music that they ordinarily wouldn't hear.

♪ Oh, her heart in hand... ♪

[Dusty] I loved breaking bands.

[Emilio] Dusty Street played a big part

in breaking Tower of Power.

There were a lot of soul bands then,

and we didn't want to be like the other ones.

I didn't want to be like the other ones.

And so that became our first song.

[Tower of Power] ♪ That I think like a man ♪

♪ You're still A young man... ♪

[Dusty] I really love it.

I may even play it again

after "Listeners' Personals"

on KSAN in San Francisco.

[David] Dusty Street, of course,

had a great platform

to introduce people to music.

I think it was her that got people

really paying attention to us,

because we were on the radio all the time.

["Knock Yourself Out" playing]

[Ben] They had an East Bay connection.

They tied in to the community.

And their album labels would have photographs

of freeway signs in Oakland.

They were big on FM here and onstage.

♪ Talk your trash, mama Knock yourself out, ooh ♪

♪ Yeah, it's all right With me now ♪

♪ Knock yourself out, ooh ♪

♪ Got my game uptight Yeah... ♪

[Ben] Hip musicians--not easy

for a primarily instrumental band

to score hit records.

[Emilio] We went out into the audience with our horns.

We call it a "soul train."

[Rick] Y'all feel all right out there?

[Emilio] Those people went berserk, man.

[Rick] ♪ Let me hear you say yeah ♪

♪ ♪

-♪ Let me hear you say yeah ♪ -[Grace] Nobody'd introduced

that kind of horn section into rock and roll before.

♪ ♪

[Emilio] We knew how to make it fit in, you know?

Because the horn section always sticks out.

We started getting calls.

One night, we're all at my house.

Everybody's partying. Carlos Santana calls,

middle of the night. He says, "We're over here

"at Columbia Studios. We got this song,"

"'Everybody's Everything.' We think it would sound"

really good with horns. Can you come over?"

-And we're like, yeah. -[Carlos] Whoo!

["Everybody's Everything" playing]

♪ ♪

[Santana] ♪ Seem like Everybody's waiting ♪

♪ For a new change To come around ♪

♪ Come around... ♪

[Emilio] So we go there, and they mixed it,

and it was out in a week.

And everybody on the radio was going,

"That's Santana with the Tower of Power horns."

I mean, it was a big deal, because, you know,

they didn't have no horns. And so everybody was going--

you know, they hear this, you know, ba-dah-ba.

[Santana] ♪ You can understand Everything's to share... ♪

[Emilio] Ba-dup, ba-dup, you know?

And they're like, "This is Santana?"

And so within a week,

everybody was talking about this song.

[Santana] ♪ Find it naturally... ♪

[Michael] Everything was changing fast at that point,

in '71, around that.

People were either burning out,

or they were choosing a different direction.

[Jack] The strength of the Airplane being diverse

in the beginning was also its weakness.

We're all still young.

We're all still learning where we're going.

[Grace] A lot of us were affected

by this massive amount of money that's coming in.

[Jack] Marty dropped out of the band, and we had

different people come in, and it was kind of like

an explosion in a universe.

Everybody drifts out.

Jorma and I are starting to play a lot as Hot Tuna.

[Jorma] Me and Jack, I don't think we thought about

forming another band, doing a "Jack and Jorma Show" thing,

but that's what happened.

[Grace] It was kind of a forced evolution,

in that we couldn't find Jack and Jorma.

They were in Europe somewhere.

So Paul and I just started making

what he called Jefferson Starship.

It was just, Jack and Jorma

are more interested in music

than all the stuff that goes on around rock and roll.

They just wanted to play the blues,

but they didn't want to be nasty about it,

so they just disappeared.

[laughs]

[bluesy music plays]

♪ ♪

You know, all good things must come to an end

sooner or later.

What about me?

I want it my way too.

And that's why I'm getting my fucking ass out of here.

[Ben] Bill Graham often bluffed about quitting.

"I've had enough of this, you motherfuckers. I'm out."

What have I said for months and months

what's wrong with this business? That these groups have

gotten to be too authoritarian.

And they have a right to be, 'cause money talks.

Why do you think I want out?

[Ben] Then later on, "These prices of artists

"are getting outrageous.

I can't pay and do a good show. I'm out."

And then now, "Last week of the Fillmore. I'm out."

This is a special week to me.

We're closing the place.

We're having nothing but San Francisco groups.

[Ben] The last week of the Fillmore was three concerts.

The Grateful Dead played that week.

[guitar music plays]

Jerry Garcia's the granddaddy of them all.

I think he's the big papa bear

of what rock music should have been.

I think he and the group just stand

for what the utopia that never was is.

[Ben] Hot Tuna played it,

Quicksilver, Santana, Tower of Power,

and Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Basically, the cream of the scene

who were in town and available played that last week.

-This thing's being billed as-- -[Bill] Closing week.

As the closing weekend.

San Francisco, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, man.

And I've been here since the fucking beginning, man.

You know one of the rights of a producer?

That he chooses the shows he wants to put on.

And these are the shows I've decided to put on.

I've never seen your band.

I'd just like to say fuck you,

and thanks for the memories, man, you know?

The next time you say fuck you to me,

I'll take your teeth out of your mouth and shove them

through your nose.

[Wilhelm] Fucking asshole.

[Ben] It was a festive end of an era for him, especially.

[mellow rock music plays]

♪ ♪

[Michael] If the Fillmore's closed,

that's a big deal.

And it was very personal to Bill

that we were there that night.

♪ ♪

[Carlos] To me, the Fillmore was an institution

like Carnegie Hall or Harvard.

It was the end of an era.

But some people get a little stuck

with nostalgia, you know?

I'm not stuck with nostalgia.

I love expanding, growing,

and discovering all that you are.

♪ ♪

[Ben] I'm sure that some people

marked it as the end of the scene.

But I think insiders knew that Bill was not going away.

It was the venue that was being shut down, not the man.

You know, he didn't really ever leave the music scene.

Bill came back and ran the Winterland,

got involved more heavily in management,

and then created other venues just for his own acts.

But pretty soon after that, a new generation of musicians

were beginning to make their way.

New styles of music were beginning

to make their way in.

♪ ♪

[John] I moved out to California

with a friend of mine.

And we were going to get into a band

with a former Moby Grape member, Skip Spence.

[Pat] When I first met John,

he said, "We want to do vocal harmonies

just like in Moby Grape."

[Tom] John Hartman was looking to get with Skip,

any way, shape, or form.

And I said, "Well, I know him.

"He lives right around the corner,"

if you want to come meet him."

Took him over, and I introduced him.

[Pat] Tom got up there with Skip and the guys

and did a set.

And I was knocked out

by Tom's playing.

♪ ♪

Skip was there, playing rhythm guitar,

but Tom was really the focal point.

And I could tell that they were his songs.

[singers vocalizing]

When they got done playing, I went back there,

and I said, "I love what you guys are doing."

They said, "Well, you should stop by

sometime, bring your guitar."

And that was the start of The Doobie Brothers.

[Tom] By then, Pat was with us, and we were a band.

The Doobie Brothers became a thing.

And we had been writing songs pretty much constantly.

Skip called us and said he was at a place

called Pacific Studios

and they were looking for bands

and would we like to come up and record?

Everybody said, "Sure, let's do it."

And we put some stuff on tape.

["Coke Can Changes" playing]

[The Doobie Brothers singing indistinctly]

♪ ♪

[Tom] Those are the tunes that got

shipped off to Warner Bros.

And they loved it, and they signed us.

And after that, we made

our first album, which was just called

The Doobie Brothers. It wasn't a huge success,

but that was the beginning of everything.

[The Doobie Brothers singing indistinctly]

[Emilio] The Doobie Brothers, we know them from, like, 1969.

And The Doobie Brothers always had really great equipment.

And they had these great speakers

that were, like, super high-quality.

And so they would call us, and they would say,

"if you let us open for you, you can use our P.A. system."

And we're like, yeah, you know?

And so, yeah, they opened for us a lot, you know?

Then the next thing we know, they come out with

"Listen to the Music," right?

And they're, like, the number one act in the world...

[laughs] ...and we're opening for them.

♪ Don't you feel it growing Day by day ♪

♪ People getting ready For the news ♪

♪ Some are happy ♪

♪ Some are sad ♪

♪ Whoa, we gotta let The music play... ♪

[Tom] Right in the middle of the Vietnam War,

I had this idea that if all these leaders of the country

got together and music was playing,

they'd mellow out, get a lot more done

than the way we're going about this.

♪ Gotta give a message Get it on through ♪

♪ Oh, now, mama Don't you ask me why ♪

♪ Whoa, oh, whoa Listen to the music ♪

♪ Whoa, oh, whoa Listen to the music... ♪

[Pat] When he wrote those lyrics, I thought,

if this is our only hit record

we ever have, it'll be a song about hope.

♪ ♪

♪ Like a lazy flowing river ♪

♪ Surrounding castles In the sky ♪

♪ ♪

♪ And the crowd Is growing bigger ♪

♪ Listening For the happy sounds ♪

♪ And I got to let them fly ♪

♪ Whoa, oh, whoa Listen to the music... ♪

[Ben] The Doobie Brothers, they had a sound that

you would not say, whoa, that's a new sound.

It was simply a new group of...

very good musicians

who happened to come primarily out of the South Bay.

And so they get their moment in the spotlight,

a very long, long moment, actually.

[Tom] And then we started touring,

with the success of the band going up,

and we started having singles on the air all the time.

That became a real switch

from the lifestyle we'd known before.

And that happened really fast.

["Jesus Is Just Alright with Me" playing]

[Pat] As we moved out into the big world,

we were taking who we were and that Bay Area

counterculture philosophy with us.

♪ ♪

♪ Jesus is just alright With me ♪

♪ Jesus is just alright Oh, yeah... ♪

[Carlos] Their music is very important.

They transcend a lot of bands.

They transcend a lot of things

because the music is the reward.

♪ ♪

♪ I don't care What they may say... ♪

[Carlos] I like it when they speak about Jesus

in particular. Acknowledging something positive,

a lot of positive vibrations happen.

♪ Jesus is just alright Oh, yeah ♪

♪ Jesus is just alright ♪

-♪ Oh, yeah... ♪ -[band vocalizing]

[Michael] I remember Carlos sitting

with the Jesus shirt on.

And that's when I realized

things were shifting.

Carlos and I were definitely moving

in a different direction.

Like, to stop drugs, be around positive people.

We were feeling that kind of spiritual draw.

So we shifted, and people were pissed off,

talking about Gregg and Neal.

[Ben] I only wrote one major piece about Santana

in Rolling Stone: "The Resurrection of Santana."

Santana, they had formed

in time for Woodstock '69.

And by '71, they're on the verge of breakup--

revolution within the ranks.

[Michael] There was some stuff that was

not so pretty going on.

[Gregg] As Mark Shrieve goes, it was always you two guys.

The way I looked at it is this.

You grabbed ahold of an audience, you've got it.

Don't lose them by going to some jazz stuff.

You're gonna lose people.

[mellow rock music plays]

♪ ♪

[Carlos] I'm more than a musician.

I'm a person who brings

shaman qualities to the table.

Jesus created alchemy, like Merlin.

I want to create an alchemy that brings

unity, harmony, and oneness.

We really are all one.

♪ ♪

[Ben] The thing that I got from the other members

talking about him-- they're mocking him

'cause he's not talking like a street guy, all right,

which is what the other members were proud to be.

With Carlos being the leader, "I want a different sound.

Are you with me or not?" And of course, they're torn,

because they want the money and the fame and the girls

and the drugs and all that.

But Jesus also has to be part of it?

♪ ♪

But Carlos had his way.

♪ ♪

[Michael] Caravanserai-- they didn't like that record.

They left out of frustration.

In fact, they went and started Journey.

[Gregg] Musicians, songwriters, singers,

they're like mountain climbers.

Mountain climber climbs a mountain 'cause it's there.

You know, if you get into doing this

and it gets in your blood, you pretty much can't stop.

[person] Good evening. Welcome to Winterland.

It's our last show this year,

and we're starting it off the right way,

with a new band that just might be setting the mood

for the music in San Francisco.

Let's give them a warm welcome and set ourselves off

by welcoming Journey.

["Of a Lifetime" playing]

♪ ♪

[Gregg] It was like progressive rock.

But the real gist of the band

was to get people high from the music.

♪ ♪

♪ You're sitting, spellbound ♪

♪ Throughout time ♪

♪ ♪

♪ Well, I hope that you Remember what you find ♪

♪ Yeah, remember more Of a lifetime... ♪

[Steve] There's a lot of bands that grew up

in that period of time really taking off.

Signed my deal in '67.

I had put out six albums.

Each one had sold about 200,000 copies.

Capitol Records, they were gonna drop me.

And so The Joker was basically my last shot.

♪ I'm a joker ♪

♪ I'm a smoker ♪

♪ I'm a midnight toker ♪

♪ I get my lovin' on the run ♪

♪ Whoo-hoo-hoo ♪

♪ Whoo-hoo-hoo... ♪

[Steve] The next thing you know, it was

number one all over the United States.

And I-- hey, I've got a hit.

Shit, this is great.

♪ ♪

So I bought a 3M eight-track tape recorder

and set it up in the living room and started working.

Bing, bang, boom, onward.

♪ Open my eyes To a new kind of way... ♪

When I recorded things,

I was doing lead singing, playing harmonica,

about three or four keyboards,

just spread out all over the place.

♪ ♪

♪ Are you feeling... ♪

Our manager found Steve Perry, and we were going,

we're not sure, Neal and I, and he goes, get used to it.

This is your new singer. [laughs]

♪ Am I just a fool ♪

♪ When the summer's gone ♪

♪ She'll be there Standing by the lights ♪

♪ Once she's been To where she's gone to ♪

♪ She should know Wrong from right ♪

[Gregg] So Perry came in, and I welcomed it.

I became a better songwriter,

writing for singing instead of solos.

♪ That way too ♪

[all vocalizing]

♪ Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ Feeling that way too... ♪

[Ben] By about '72 or '73,

the whole scene began to grow so big

that the auditoriums, the ballrooms

became too small to hold them.

And so the scene began to dissipate.

The San Francisco scene may have dissipated,

but what came up out of the phoenix

was something incredible.

♪ What about the children Y'all ♪

♪ With no shoes On their feet ♪

♪ What about the people Yeah ♪

♪ Living in the street... ♪

Youth culture, TV culture--

everything really changed because of what happened

in San Francisco.

♪ O Lord, what about A revolution, yeah ♪

♪ I wanna fly like an eagle To the sea ♪

♪ I wanna fly like an eagle Till I'm free... ♪

And then it got bigger and more successful,

and then big money took over, and everything changed.

♪ Time keeps on slipping Slipping, slipping ♪

♪ Into the future... ♪

We went from playing the Fillmore West

to hockey arenas to city arenas

to football stadiums.

♪ Into the future ♪

♪ ♪

[soft music plays]

But the original peace, love, and happiness feeling

of the whole thing was more valuable than anything

that was built around it.

♪ ♪

[Michael] These are moments in time

like wrinkles in time or openings in time

where I think another energy is let in

at a certain place.

[Jerry] What happened was that everybody

got a glimpse of something.

I can't say what it is. To me, it might have been something

like limitless possibilities.

♪ ♪

[Mickey] A very vital scene that came out of San Francisco,

some people say changed the world.

We like to think so.

It was that powerful.

We were experimenting on the edge,

and the edge was just fine.

♪ ♪

[Dave] There are certain things that were

irrevocably changed by our generation:

the women's movement...

[crowd chanting indistinctly]

...Civil Rights Movement...

the idea of psychedelic consciousness.

♪ ♪

[Peter] It's safe to say

that we lost every political battle.

We did not end war.

We did not end racism.

We did not end misogyny.

We did not end imperialism.

But on the cultural front, we won everything.

[Michael] The things that came from that period--

the desire to see a larger picture

and yourself in the world

more willing and open to be positive--

it's turning back around now in this country.

It's never been as divisive.

What's gonna happen after this is,

there's gonna need to be another hippie movement.

I think everybody could use a good hit of acid.

[Journey] ♪ When the lights Go down in the city ♪

♪ ♪

♪ And the sun shines On the bay ♪

♪ ♪

♪ Ooh, I want to be there ♪

♪ In my city, oh-oh-oh ♪

♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪

♪ Oh-oh-oh ♪

♪ ♪

♪ So you think you're lonely ♪

♪ ♪

♪ Well, my friend I'm lonely too ♪

♪ ♪

♪ I want to get back To my city by the Bay ♪

♪ Whoa, oh, oh, oh-oh-oh ♪

♪ ♪

VICTOR: When you're working alone

in the middle of the night, put on the radio.

It's 3:00 in the morning

with the DJs, Dusty Street.

"Here's a song going out to Victor,

doing his posters." [laughing]

"That's for you, Vic."

♪ ♪

[music fading]