An Award-Winning Author And Music Historian Who Spent Most Of His Career As Publicist For The Grateful Dead.
The year was 1966. LSD was still legal. The Beatles had reignited rock and roll in America. In the San Francisco neighborhood of Haight-Ashbury, a small community of innovators, perhaps 1,000 artists, musicians and other bohemians, were experimenting with new definitions of freedom.
“They were having such a good time,” says Dennis McNally, award-winning author and music historian who spent most of his career as publicist for the Grateful Dead. “So they decided to throw a party.”
The result was the Human Be-In, held in Golden Gate Park on January 14, 1967. All the top counterculture gurus came, including Timothy Leary chanting his mantra “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out.” Entertainment was provided by psychedelic bands from the Fillmore and Avalon Ballroom, including the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Big Brother and the Holding Company along with their new lead singer, Janis Joplin.
Looking back, the Be-In is considered the kick-off of what the media named the Summer of Love, when as many as 100,000 young people came looking for peace and enlightenment. This year, San Francisco and the Bay Area are reprising that summer, celebrating the 50th anniversary of a watershed moment in American - and world - culture.
“The publicity the Be-In generated brought a flood of young kids to San Francisco,” McNally says. “They got here and said ‘take care of me.’ And the people of the Haight made a heroic effort to help them, but were really overwhelmed.”
McNally himself wasn’t on the West Coast that summer. “In 1967, I was a high school senior with zits,” he admits. “When I got to college, I decided to do my doctoral thesis on Jack Kerouac.” He also evolved into a Deadhead, and set his sights on doing a book about the Dead and their music.
The young author sent a copy of his Kerouac book to Jerry Garcia, and when they were introduced a bit later, the musician remembered. It turned out that Jerry was a fan of the Beat poet. “The Beats were really important to him,” McNally says.
In 1981, McNally began work on his book, “A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead,” published in 2002, but soon found himself drafted as the band’s publicist. The gig lasted more than 25 years. McNally recently published a follow-up, “Jerry on Jerry: The Unpublished Jerry Garcia Interviews.”
“So many great memories…,” Dennis recalls. “One of my favorites was after a show in Telluride. We were on a small plane, flying to Phoenix, we all had a window seat, and the pilot says, do you want to be tourists? So next thing you know we’re flying at 1,000 feet through Monument Valley. It was sunset and the buttes turned these magical colors. Cosmic Charlie, the band’s boa constrictor, was crawling around the plane, and Jerry was in the back giving a film history lesson about all the movies John Ford made in Monument Valley. It was hilarious and ridiculous and sublime, all at once.”
Dennis says his most surreal experience with the band took place in Washington, DC. “There I am, introducing Jerry Garcia to Strom Thurmond. It was a great ride.”
This year, McNally curates an exhibit, On the Road to the Summer of Love, at the California Historical Society, that gives context to the cultural phenomenon. “It had roots,” he says. “It didn’t just pop up out of nowhere. It started with the Beats; Ginsberg published “Howl” in 1955. Avant garde artists were creating light shows, paintings in motion, deconstructing American culture, looking at it in a different way. In Berkeley they were protesting the Vietnam War and marching for Free Speech.”
In addition to the exhibit at the Historical Society, hundreds of other events are planned for the Summer of Love 50th Anniversary. “There will be lots of exhibits of posters and hippie clothing, light shows, tribute concerts,” McNally says. Two photographic exhibits he recommends are Jim Marshall’s display of concert photos from 1965-1970 at San Francisco’s city hall, and Elaine Mayes’ exhibit at the SFO Airport gallery of iconic pictures from the Monterey Pop Festival.
“If there was one moment when everything worked it was at Monterey,” Dennis says. “There’s this wonderful picture of a motorcycle officer stringing orchids on the antenna of his cycle. John Phillips, one of the festival’s promoters, brought in 10,000 orchids from Hawaii, and put them on every seat.”
Most historians consider the Diggers’ “Death of Hippie” ceremony on October 6, 1967, the closing bell of the Summer of Love, but for Dennis McNally the end came on Oct. 2, when the police raided the house occupied by the Grateful Dead at 710 Ashbury Street, arresting band members for marijuana possession. “To me, that was the end of the Haight scene,” he says. “The band moved across the bridge to Marin County and never moved back.”
The Dead, McNally believes, made two important contributions to American culture. “One, they created a genuine community that carried on the ideals and vision of Haight-Ashbury. And, two, they popularized a music based on improvisation, on adrenaline inspired risk. Musically, it’s like jumping off a cliff, sometimes you land on rocks, but you’re hearing something you’ve never heard before, and probably won’t again.”
The legacy of Haight-Ashbury lives on in today’s culture, McNally says. “Everything that’s going on today has roots in the Haight,” he says. “The challenges to conventional ideas of gender, of the relationship with the natural world and the environment, all started then. If you’ve ever done yoga, or eaten organic food, you’re participating in something that started in the Haight.”
Visitors today can still find that counterculture spirit on the streets of San Francisco, McNally says. “There’s this wonderful store called Love On Haight, it’s the finest tie dye store anywhere,” he says. “It’s run by a lady called Sunshine, and she’s a living inheritor of what happened here 50 years ago. From there, walk down Haight Street to Golden Gate Park. It’s as if nothing has changed.”
The vibe fostered by the Grateful Dead is alive and well, Dennis says. “It’s amazing to watch it go on. The adventure continues.”
Renee Wright
A graduate of Franconia College in Social Psychology, Renee has worked as Travel Editor for Charlotte Magazine and has written three travel guidebooks for Countryman Press among other writing assignments. She enjoys food and camping.
Make Sure To Stay At:
Marin RV Park, the closest recreational vehicle park to San Francisco--just 10 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Ideally located for sight-seeing of San Francisco, the Golden Gate National Recreational Area, Muir Woods, Pt. Reyes, Napa Valley and many others.