Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-1970 [Box set, Original recording remastered]

Various Artists (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 18, 2007)
• Original Release Date: 2007
• Number of Discs: 4
• Format: Box set, Original recording remastered
• Note on Boxed Sets: During shipping, discs in boxed sets occasionally become dislodged without damage. Please examine and play these discs. If you are not completely satisfied, we'll refund or replace your purchase.
• Label: Rhino Records
• ASIN: B000PHX0VE
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #69,764 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. Let's Get Together - Dino Valenti

2. I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag - Country Joe & The Fish

3. You Were On My Mind - We Five

4. Number One - The Charlatans

5. Can't Come Down - The Warlocks

See all 21 tracks on this disc

Disc: 2

1. Psychotic Reaction - Count Five

2. Got Love - The Front Line

3. Satisfaction Guaranteed - The Mourning Reign

4. Foolish Woman - The Oxford Circle

5. My Buddy Sin - The Stained Glass

See all 19 tracks on this disc

Disc: 3

1. Alabama Bound - The Charlatans

2. Carl Street - The Mystery Trend

3. Somebody To Love - The Great! Society

4. Superbird - Country Joe & The Fish

5. Two Days 'Till Tomorrow - The Beau Brummels

See all 19 tracks on this disc

Disc: 4

1. Evil Ways - Santana

2. Red the Sign Post - Fifty Foot Hose

3. Lemonaide Kid - Kak

4. 1982-A - The Sons Of Champlin

5. How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away - Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks

See all 18 tracks on this disc

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

It wasn't all peace, love, and drugs that made San Francisco the fulcrum of the burgeoning hippie scene in the mid '60s. According to this sprawling 77-track, four-disc set--the third in Rhino's ongoing Nuggets series--it was the music that nurtured and helped create Haight-Ashbury. This expansive package succeeds in presenting the disparate acts involved in that cultural revolution through a detailed aural exploration. Sure, the usual suspects like the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Janis Joplin are here, but it's the obscurities and oddities--some never previously available and many more extremely difficult to find--that provide intimate glimpses into the crevices, building blocks, and influences of what was later dubbed the "San Francisco Sound." The platters are broken down into rough category/chronological groupings, with disc three focusing on 1967, the Summer of Love whose 40th anniversary this box's release celebrates. Even there, acts such as the Ace of Cups, the Mystery Trend, and the Loading Zone fly way below the radar. There's lots to absorb, even for genre enthusiasts, but compiler Alex Palao's extensive, track-specific liner notes provide concise yet vital contextual background to guide the listener through a wildly diverse landscape that runs from the British Invasion-styled pop of the Beau Brummels and the soft folk of the Youngbloods to the furious garage psychedelia of the Count Five and the eardrum-bursting, proto-metal power rock of Blue Cheer. --Hal Horowitz

Product Description

Rhino's Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-1970 4-CD Box Set Celebrates The 40th Anniversary Of "The Summer Of Love" Forty years ago the world turned its ears toward San Francisco as a wave of talented bands gave birth to the American counterculture. On August 27, Rhino remembers that magical confluence of time and place with LOVE IS THE SONG WE SING: SAN FRANCISCO NUGGETS 1965-1970, a 4-CD box set of classics and rarities from the golden age of Golden State rock. SAN FRANCISCO NUGGETS is the last word on one of popular music's defining regional scenes -- though as scenes go, the music it produced is remarkably diverse. The 77 tracks heard here share little beyond an artistic adventurousness long encouraged in the City by the Bay (which was a magnet for free thinkers from the days of the Beats. Seismic Rumbles, as the first CD of SAN FRANCISCO NUGGETS is subtitled, maps the fault lines separating the pop sounds of the early 1960s from more adventurous rock inspired by the arrival of The Beatles and Bob Dylan. By mid-decade, most of the pieces were in place for what would soon be called "The San Francisco Sound," and Disc 1 features the pre-Grateful Dead group The Warlocks, the original line-up of the Jefferson Airplane, a pre-hit Grass Roots, influential existentialists The Charlatans, and Country Joe & The Fish posing that timeless question "And it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for?"

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond The Fringe, September 18, 2007

By 

feralduck "Opinions reasonably priced!" (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-1970 (Audio CD)

What raises this collection above the norm is the selection of obscure tracks by the lesser known bands of the California scene of the middle 60's. There is a sprinkling of familiar songs spread throughout the collection, but the lion's share are tracks you've never heard before, some not so great, but many a delight. Add to that one of the best packages I've ever seen in a box set; a large format book packed with rare photos and details about the bands and songs.
This collection is a must have, one of Rhino's best ever.

68 of 71 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Music By The Bay, January 15, 2008

By 

PHILIP S WOLF (SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, CA. USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-1970 (Audio CD)

Lot's of reviewers have gone after Rhino Records concerning their box set releases. Sound quality, packaging, track selection of past sets have been a big issue of nasty negatives for many reviewers. Well, about this set entitled: "Love Is The Song We Sing"-San Francisco Nuggets 1965-1970, I will go on record to say that Rhino, has really hit a home run here.

This is a hardcover book of 120 pages, filled with great text and some wonderful photographs of the biggest American music city of the 1960's. Packed into this insightful book are 4 amazing audio compact discs of music. All the right bands are here with only a few of my personal favorites missing.
From the Beau Brummels {the first SF band to recieve air-play} thro to the Youngblood's massive 1969 hit of Dino Valenti's: "Get Together", good and bad, loud and soft, this was the sixties, that I remember growin' up in, and it was the most magical place on the planet Earth (along with London/ Liverpool.}

Two AM radio stations were our: 'Colors'. They were 1260 KYA and KFRC. On tiny transistor radios we could listen to: The Jefferson Airplane or Moby Grape, just as often as: The Beatles or The Stones. Wild posters on storefront walls and windows or streetposts in day glo, advertised dance hall concerts featuring: "The Mystery Trend" or "The Sons Of Champlin". R.Crumb was peddling a strange little 'Comix' book outta a baby's carriage on Haight Street. It was for me, at the time, the very center of The universe.

The song selection over the course of these four Discs is indeed vast, with The Dead and Quicksilver right next to The Family Tree and Public Nuisance. There are 77 selections in this collection, some bands you have heard of: "Santana" and "Steve Miller Blues Band", to some that you only knew from posters: "The Oxford Circle" and "The Mojo Men" and some groups, I sure can't remember at all: "Butch Engle & The Styx" and "Teddy And His Patches". From bands that sounded just like: The Yarbirds, as: "The Count Five" with the garage anthem: "Psychotic Reaction" to the soaring violin of David LaFlamme and It's A Beautiful Day's, classic: "White Bird". This box/book is quite a ride of through an era of music and history.

This box set along with the great book: "San Francisco Rock", 1965-1985, by Jack McDonough, are two sides of the same coin. Rhino Records, have really produced an enjoyable set of music and history with this excellent package. It is an honest account {with the good & the bad included} of what went down in northern California, from: 1965-1975. Some of this music drives my wife and kids crazy...and, that is exactly what it is supposed to do! This is not for everyone....but, if your ears still work and you are ready to expand your mind a bit sideways, over under down....This could be your: "E-Ticket" to the Magic Kingdom.
FIVE STARS !!!

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Seventy seven slices of paradise, October 13, 2007

By 

George T. Parsons (Nevada City, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-1970 (Audio CD)

There are a few very well known songs here, but wisely Alec Palao decided to give the main focus to lesser known artists and songs, while still giving ample coverage to all of the giants of the scene and moment. Very beautifully composed 120 page hardcover book with essays and tons of photos as well as track-by-track commentary from Palao. I grew up on this music and still there are many songs or versions of songs I'd never heard before. The single version of Dark Star?! Too bad Rick Griffin didn't live long enough to do the metallic-on-black cover art. Anyway, DO NOT MISS THIS ONE!