Sons of Mercury (1968-1975)

Performer: Quicksilver Messenger Service
Distributor: WEA (Distributor)

Notes: This collection spans 1966-1975. An excellent retrospective, with almost all the band's best cuts as well as a couple of highly interesting rarities, including two songs cut before the band's debut album for the soundtrack of REVOLUTION (a documentary on the then-nascent San Francisco hippie scene). Objectively, the best stuff here is on disc one, which showcases the original group's legendary twin-guitar prowess, both in the studio (the 12-minute mostly instrumental "The Fool" is emphatically not the indulgence you might expect; it is in fact a beautifully written, almost classical instrumental suite with lots of melodic invention and mood swings) and on stage (a killer assault on Bo Diddley's "Mona" from HAPPY TRAILS, one of the best live albums of its day). Disc two is something of a let down after that, but there's also some nice stuff from Quicksilver Mark II, featuring British keyboard whiz Nicky Hopkins, and then some fluffy but attractive '70s stuff from their singer-songwriter period with "Get Together" auteur Dino Valente, including the hits "What About Me" and "Fresh Air." There's a lot of terrific music here, but it's ironic that it's the early stuff--which is, after all, the most redolent of the San Francisco era--that's dated the least.

Along with the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service were one of the first and best of the San Francisco '60s psychedelic bands. Though they shared with their peers an improvisational bent and eclectic roots in blues, jazz, folk, and rock, what helped set them apart was the distinctive twin-guitar work of John Cipollina and Gary Duncan, two virtuosic players. When New York singer-songwriter Dino Valenti became their frontman, their sound became more accessible and they scored a couple of minor hits before disbanding in the mid-'70s.

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