Chet Helms

Chet Helms, often called the father of San Franciso's 1967 Summer of Love, was a music promoter as well as a cultural figure in the San Fransico during it's hippie period in the late Sixties.

Helms was the founder and manager of Big Brother and the Holding Company and recruited Janis Joplin as its lead singer. He was a producer and organizer, helping to stage free concerts and other cultural events at Golden Gate Park, the backdrop of San Francisco's Summer of Love in 1967. He was the first producer of psychedelic light-show concerts at the Fillmore and the Avalon Ballroom and was instrumental in helping to develop bands that had the distinctive the San Francisco sound. Helms died June 25, 2005 from complications of hepetitis C. He was 62.

Childhood

Chester Leo Helms was born in Santa Maria, California on August 2, 1942, the oldest of three sons. His parents were Chester and Novella Helms. Helms' father, a manager in a Santa Maria sugar beet mill, died when he was 9. His mother took the boys to Texas and then to Missouri.

Helms spent the rest of his youth in Missouri and Texas, where he learned to organize events by helping to stage benefits for civil rights groups. He enrolled at the University of Texas and became part of the music scene there, a scene that included a very young and inexperienced Janis Joplin. Soon he dropped out of school and, inspired by the beat generation writers, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg to travel across America in search of freedom and inspiration, he set off wearing shoulder-length hair, beard and rimless glasses. He ended up in San Francisco in 1962.

Later he was to return to Austin to persuade his friend Janis Joplin to hitchhike back to San Francisco with him. He knew a band that needed a lead singer and thought she would be just the ticket.

Family Dog Productions

After arriving in San Francisco in 1962, he scrounged a living various ways including the sales of an imported Mexican herb and it was this occupation that first brought him to a boardinghouse at 1090 Page Street. The house was in the Haight-Ashbury District, then a rundown, low rent neighborhood . Having come in contact with many musicians in his trade, and seeing the vibrant music scene in San Francisco, he instinctively recognized the need for a forum for musicians to jam. When he saw the large basement at Page Street he seized the opportunity to begin organizing free-for-all jam session for the local bands and musicians. As he was a naturally good organizer, these jam sessions became popular and he started charging an admission fee of fifty cents. His days as a rock concert promoter had begun.

One day he came across a commune living at 2125 Pine street who threw open dances and wild events and called themselves the Family Dog. They called their house the Dog House because they all owned dogs and so they called themselves The Family Dog. Helms was the ideal person to help this group organzied their presentations and he moved into the Family Dog house. Their first formal production was a concert at Longshoremen's Hall.

In February 1966, Helms formally founded Family Dog Productions to begin promoting concerts at the Fillmore Auditorium, alternating weekends with another young promoter, Bill Graham. As the concerts became more popular, inevitable conflicts arose between the two promoters. Within a few months Helms secured the permits necessary to host events at the Avalon Ballroom, an old dancehall located at the corner of Sutter and Van Ness.

Avalon Ballroom

The Avalon Ballroom, 1268 Sutter Street, San Francisco was the Family Dog's main venue. Here the Family Dog put on a series of great concerts between April 1966 and November 1968. Their shows were a mix of artists, from rock to blues, soul, Indian, to rock and roll. The Avalon Ballroom was known for giving out great posters to all who paid the reasonable admission fee. Helms was also involved in joint productions/promotions at the Fillmore, Longshoreman's Hall, and Haight Street's Straight Theater (not all formal Family Dog Dance-Concerts).

After an eight-year long hiatus, Helms resurged to produce anniversary-type functions like the First "Tribal Stomp" at Berkeley's Greek Theater (1978), a Tribal Stomp in the Monterrey, California Fairgrounds (1979), which included the UK's "The Clash", the 30th Anniversary of the Summer of Love in Golden Gate Park (1997), a free event attended by 60,000 people.

Chet Helms versus Bill Graham

While Graham was an aggressive businessman and professional promoter, Helms presented a folksier image. He related easily to the San Francisco hippy subculture since in essense he was one of them. The San Francisco Chronicle called Helms "a towering figure in the 1960s Bay Area music scene," and indeed he was a huge contributor.

He embraced music for music's sake and the beat-hipster-generation-turned-hippy philosophy. While the war raged in Vietnam and the nation stuttered with race problems and assassinations, the anti-war, anti-establishment youth willingly found itself in the throes of a social revolution. Meanwhile Helms was right there cranking out bands and musicians that espoused the same lifestyle as this new audience, while giving the very distinct impression that he wasn't in it for the money.

The core San Francisco rock bands, the Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and Quicksilver Messenger Service (including pre-Dino Valenti), would play for both Graham's concerts at the Fillmore Auditorium, once a Black Muslim temple, and the Family Dog at Helms' Avalon dances.

Mr. Helms' shows were always more relaxed and offered a pleasant alternative to Bill Graham Presents dances, at a more reasonable admission, and with more room for the stoned-out, freaky, arm-waving, type of solo dancing that personified the era. At a Family Dog dance one would more likely see people dancing, for one, or in various, controlled states of disorientation, or singer Maria Muldaur sitting on the floor with Country Joe McDonald, watching the Great Society band, with vocalist Grace Slick belting out "Somebody To Love," looking sexy in a leather, boots, and a short skirt, backed by her husband, Jerry Slick and brother-in-law, Darby Slick, who wrote the song. One also got the feeling that the audience was an integral part of the concert and was apt to see a bandmember IN the audience, dancing, socializing, buying a drink, or maybe hitting on a young tender. The Avalon always seemed mellower, while the Fillmore in the later 1960s, perhaps through its popularity, seemed to draw more social observers: military personnel on R & R, minors, runaways, weekend hippies, tourists, drunks, gawkers. The nearby Mt. Zion Hospital kept a late-night clinic to accommodate the many drug overdose cases from the Fillmore's less experienced hallucinogen experimenters.

At his dance-rock shows (sometimes called "peace rock" dances -- a segue from the earlier peace rock dances at the Fillmore Auditorium, produced by entities like the San Francisco Mime Troupe, predecessors of Mssrs. Helms and Graham), Helms was always floating around or mingling with the crowd, looking a bit like Jesus Himself, with his beatific smile, long beard, hair down the length of his back, colorful clothes, and sometimes wearing a hat. In fact a Family Dog motto was "May the baby Jesus shut your mouth and open your mind," probably a reference to a psychedelic drug high. The motto was seen on the bottom of the posters promoting the rock show/dances produced by both Graham and Helms, displaying the sometimes brilliant psychedelic art of the day, from artists like Stanley Mouse (b.k.a. "Mouse"), Rick Griffin and Alton Kelly. The large wall-size posters often adorned the walls of people's homes with their splendid colors and soon became collectors' items. The light shows at the dances were often superb, done by artists like Bill Ham and Jerry Abrams. The Family Dog logo, often seen on the posters, was a long-haired man, possibly a Chief, wearing a top hat. Some later posters (possibly by Mouse) displayed a dog with a top hat.

Family Dog Concerts

In the context of the Avalon's "anti-business model," and loose ambience, Mr. Helms' Family Dog would always carry great shows, with premier musical acts. The list is long, compiled from the memory of having been there and from poster art websites. It is presented here:

Mr. Helms presented top blues performers like Country Joe and The Fish; Howlin' Wolf; Bo Diddley; Muddy Waters; Little Walter; Buddy Guy; Junior Wells; the Paul Butterfield Blues Band; Buddy Miles; James Cotton Blues Band; John Mayall; Big Mama Thornton; Albert Collins; Steve Miller (musician); Mike Bloomfield; Elvin Bishop; Blues Project, with Al Kooper; John Hammond; Charlie Musselwhite; Siegal Schwall; rock bands like the Doors; Buffalo Springfield; the Byrds; Bill Haley and the Comets; the Kinks; the Animals' Eric Burdon & War; Mothers of Invention); Lovin' Spoonful; The Carlos Santana Blues Band; Sir Douglas Quintet; the Soul Survivors; the Fugs; Blood, Sweat & Tears; The Association; Shorty Featuring Georgie Fame; Iron Butterfly; the Youngbloods, with Jesse Colin Young; Vanilla Fudge; Steppenwolf (band); Poco; Love, with Arthur Lee (musician); sarode-player and Indian music teacher, Ali Akbar Khan; Sandy Bull; Blue Cheer; the Leaves; New Riders of the Purple Sage; Barry McGuire; the Flamin Groovies; the Loading Zone; It's A Beautiful Day; Joy of Cooking; the Grass Roots; the Sons of Adam; Sons of Champlin; Captain Beefheart; the Electric Flag; Son House; Velvet Underground; Pacific Gas and Electric; Moby Grape; the Sopwith Camel; 13th Floor Elevators; The Charlatans (U.S. band); Allmen Joy; Mother Earth; Southern Comfort; Ace of Cups; Tyrannosaurus Rex; Cleanliness and Godliness Skiffle Band; Flying Burrito Brothers; Congress of Love; Notes From the Underground; Chrome Circus; Initial Shock; Oxford Circle; Daily Flash; Electric Train; Sparrow; the Orchestra; Hourglass; Kaleidoscope; Mt. Rushmore; Other Half; Phoenix; Lothar & the Hand People; Commander Cody; Cleveland Wrecking Company; Rhythm Dukes; AB Skhy Blues Band; Frumious Bandersnatch; Eighth Penny Matter; Jimmerfield Legend; South Side Sound; Super Ball; Solid Muldoon; Box Top; and jazz artists San Francisco's own John Handy; Charles Lloyd; the Jerry Hahn Brotherhood; and folksters Joan Baez; Dave Van Ronk; Jim Kweskin Jug Band; Taj Mahal; Tim Buckley and Flatt & Scruggs.

Janus Joplin

To concertgoers, the Helms' contributions to the music world, like introducing a singer he knew in Texas, Janis Joplin, to the San Francisco music scene, were not always well-publicized, but witnessing the final product of Ms. Joplin, with her powerful, emotional, raspy-voiced performances was an awesome spectacle. First introduced as a new bandmember of Big Brother, she brought what the Dead, Quicksilver, and Big Brother, heretofore didn't seem to possess in their original lineups -- a lead singer aspiring to the greatness of the golden pipes of the Airplane's singers Marty Balin and (post-Great Society) Grace Slick. Ms. Joplin left Big Brother to produce solo albums and make her indelible dent in rock history, starting with a stellar performance at the Monterey Pop Festival.

With Joplin as the lead singer, Helms became the group's manager and introduced them on stage when they made their crucial appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, a performance that marked Joplin's elevation to national prominence.

Some of the performances were replete with lengthy, drug-induced instrument solos and technically perfect renditions were not paramount. Creativity was the essence, and fine, innovative muscianship shone through as this style of using long solos, rambling as they were, borrowed from (while re-popularizing) a vast spectrum of musical idioms, including R&B, East Indian, pop, country, bluegrass, and, to an extent, jazz. These were the Anti-Battles of the Bands and it was uniquely entertaining to hear core S.F. bands' good-natured, obvious replications of each others' lead guitar styles. One would hear, for example, a guitarist, break into a brief, tongue-in-cheek, Jerry Garcia-like interlude. This was out of respect for the other S.F. rock bands, and it was Big Fun to hear and dance to the different renditions of Wilson Pickett's "Midnight Hour, the upbeat "You Don't Love Me No More," and other songs. Music that featured long solos suited stoned, time-distorted audiences, and was soon used by bands everywhere, in performance and recordings, later becoming a major vehicle for helping launch what would become a new FM radio station music format -- the less-commercial "Album-Oriented Rock," in the form of "underground" stations that sprang up coast-to-coast. Exposure on these airwaves further helped the popularity of concert-oriented rock and bands that would play for hours without stopping, as the two-minute hit temporarily was no longer the objective. So the viability of songs with long, art-centric solos gained reaffirmation with the increasing commercial success of the radio stations that became part of the new "movement" genre.

Family Dog Speakers/Poets and Heroes of the Hour

Sometimes Helms cast the music promoter role aside and the Family Dog would feature speakers Alan Watts, Dr. Timothy Leary, Stephen Gaskin, poet Allen Ginsberg), and other counter-culter gurus. Along with these icons that he helped catapult more into the public eye, Helms will always live in the annals of San Francisco Sixties lore, with people like Bill Graham, the Diggers (theater), Emmett Grogan, Ken Kesey, to add to the list of colorful 50's culture heroes, literary and otherwise, like Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, Neal Cassady, Kenneth Rexroth, Ralph J. Gleason, and many, many others, making this a vibrant time to be alive. The heroes were real people, "open door" was the policy, and a chance meandering into a room in the Bush Street Krishna House commune, to the sight and sounds of Alan Ginsberg playing beautiful, little Chinese chimes, or seeing Jerry Garcia in line waiting to see a closed circuit heavyweight boxing title fight at Winterland, a former ice skating rink, at Post and Steiner, or playing blues piano all night at 408 Ashbury, was the norm in this city that Chet helped "build."

Evolution

Bill Graham Presents shows evolved more into high-power, professional lineups of better-known headline bands that made him known as the can-do guy that he was, while Chet Helms, though managing to produce top-flight bands, still showcased bands that tended to be hipper and local. Yet Helms seemed comfortable with the juxtaposition of his old-timey, art deco Avalon Ballroom (suited to the "concert as an artform" concept), with the functional wooden walls of the Fillmore money-making machine. He also didn't seem to have the need to hire zealous uniformed security guards, so teenagers found it easier to sneak into his dances. Helms ultimately allowed free admission after midnight. Winterland became the first "Fillmore West," before Graham re-opened it at the old Carousel Ballroom, on Market Street. The San Francisco Family Dog dances later re-emerged in a new location -- the old skating rink and "Bull Pup Enchiladas" at Ocean Beach, San Francisco, California, at 660 The Great Highway in San Francisco's Richmond district, which appropriately brought everyone closer to the "Pacific Ring of Fire" -- the Pacific Ocean, directly across the street from a surfer spot, known as "Kelly's Cove," where, according to San Francisco lore, the legendary Kelly braved the ice-cold ocean water to swim to Seal Rock every morning. Cat corner from Kelly's was the old site of Playland At the Beach, an amusement park that later closed in 1972.

In his career Helms used other locations like ventures in Denver, Portland, and joint productions/promotions at the Fillmore, Longshoreman's Hall, and Haight Street's Straight Theater (not all formal Family Dog Dance-Concerts), etc. After an eight-year long hiatus, Helms resurged to produced various anniversary-type functions like the First "Tribal Stomp" at Berkeley's Greek Theater (1978), a less successful Tribal Stomp in the Monterrey, California Fairgrounds (which was reportedly unsuccessful, but included the UK's The Clash), the 30th Anniversary of the Summer of Love in Golden Gate Park (1997), a free event attended by 60,000 people.

Although never attaining stellar financial success, it must have pleased Helms to see the recipe for "concert art," comprising theater, music, poetry, light show art, poster art, movement, and audience expression, in which he was so heavily influential, imitated globally by other pioneers and entrepreneurs. Mr. Helms again withdrew from the music production world to run Atelier Dore a San Francisco art gallery.

Chet Helms Memorial

On Oct. 30, 2005, San Francisco celebrated Chet Helms' life, and the love for Chet, after he died, with a free nine-hour Sunday rock concert in Golden Gate Park, named the "Tribal Stomp," [1], attended by tens of thousands, and featuring a full lineup of bands, including the old core San Francisco rock bands, and others like:

Chet Helms Memorial - Speedway Meadows, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, 30 Oct. 2006

The Turtles, Canned Heat,Dan Hicks (singer), the Charlatans, Country Joe McDonald, Barry Melton, Blue Cheer, the Jefferson Airplane's Paul Kantner, "It's A Beautiful Day'"s David LaFlamme, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Lee Michaels, Linda Pense (Cold Blood), Nick Gravenites (Electric Flag), Harvey Mandel, Jorge Santana, Michael Narda Walden, Merle Saunders, Moby Grape's Jerry Miller, and Wavy Gravy (from Ken Kesey's "Merry Pranksters" fame).

Although Helms and Graham were on different but parallel tracks, they complemented each other, and both also gave back to the community in the form of benefit concerts. Each fulfilled a purpose. And like the other icons of the day, the Lenny Bruces, the Mario Savios, the Ralph J. Gleasons, they gave a major push then stood back and watched this great big thing get in motion.

These all somehow fit San Francisco. And it's people like Helms who helped catalyze this kind of social dynamic. San Franciscans will always remember Helms' perennial, easy smile, and how he enriched their lives in helping spawn a wealth of musical talent in their city, and in his contributions to the Peace and Love message and the rock scene of the 60's, which were often one and the same.

Later years

Helms ran the Atelier Dore art gallery on Bush Street in San Francisco since 1980 until he retired last year because of illness.