Sonoma party celebrates album by enigmatic '60s-era San Francisco singer Jeannie Piersol
A compilation of songs featuring an unsung San Francisco vocalist from the psychedelic era is celebrated this Sunday afternoon with the record release party for the acclaimed Jeannie Piersol collection The Nest at the Sonoma Speakeasy.
Piersol grew up in Mountain View, where she was born Jeannie Gross. Her early connections with the Bay Area's bohemian set came after she met her future husband Bill Piersol at a poetry reading in the late '50s. They began dating and Piersol introduced her to a growing community of artists in Palo Alto that included such future notables as guitarist and future Grateful Dead co-founder Jerry Garcia and fellow vocalist Grace Slick, who would later front the Great Society and, more famously, the Jefferson Airplane.
Slick would be Jeannie's maid of honor when the couple married in 1962. Faced with the more conservative values of Palo Alto, the Piersols would become part of an exodus to more open-minded communities in San Francisco and, later on, in Marin. Piersol got some of her first musical experience vocalizing with Slick, at one point singing with her in an early version of the Great Society. Piersol would eventually serve front the bands the Yellow Brick Road and the Eastern-tinged Hair, playing alongside the Dead and Janis Joplin at such notable SF venues as the Matrix, the Fillmore and the Avalon Ballroom.
It was her work with the latter band that led to Piersol getting signed to Cadet Concept the more jazz and rock-oriented subsidiary imprint to Chess Records that made waves with its somewhat controversial psychedelicized releases by blues giants Muddy Waters (the future sample favorite Electric Mud) and Howlin' Wolf. The label would only release a pair of singles by the vocalist, but those songs featuring contributions from such Chicago icons as Rotary Connection singer and future solo star Minnie Riperton, later Earth, Wind & Fire founder Maurice White, and lush orchestral arrangements by Charles Stepney (one of the masterminds behind Rotary Connection who worked with Ramsey Lewis and Dorothy Ashby as well as producing later hit albums by EW&F).
When the singles failed to chart, Piersol would abandon her singing career and raise a family. However songs like "The Nest" and "Gladys" would find favor with DJs in the '90s who were drawn to the creative mix of soul, rock and Indian influences heard on the increasingly rare and coveted 45s Cadet put out in 1968.
Renowned '60s-focused reissue label High Moon Records -- which has unearthed lost albums and recordings by Arthur Lee and Love, founding member of the Byrds Gene Clark and underappreciated San Francisco artists like Ace of Cups and songwriter Terry Dolan -- put together a stellar anthology of Piersol's recordings, appropriately entitled The Nest. Issued in January, the compilation collects the aforementioned Cadet singles as well as unreleased songs recorded with the same Chicago musicians alongside demos and live recordings of the Yellow Brick Road and Hair.
Piersol herself will be present for this record release and listening party Sunday afternoon at the Sonoma Speakeasy, as will the compilation's Grammy-nominated producer Alec Palao (who also wrote the extensive liner notes for the booklet included with the album), former Grateful Dead publicist and author Dennis McNally and his wife, Bay Area music photographer Susana Millman as well as other figures from San Francisco's psychedelic era.
Jeannie Piersol album release party
Sunday, March 23, 2 p.m. Free
Sonoma Speakeasy
