A complicated history with little known about the band and in particular exactly where they were based....it must have been fairly local to the city where as you can see they played the 'matrix' who in it's early days seemed to feature local bands...the band at this time was : jeanie piersol/john oxendine/bing nathan/terry clements & henry salas....peirsol had in fact been afounding member of the 'greast society' back in '65. The band was in existence from '66-'67 playing a mix of psychy-garage and gigging on a fairly regular basis going on the posters i've found...
They played the matrix 21/22/23rd march and then again 1st & 2nd april '67....they then again played the matrix aprilhttp://youtu.be/Jo6Qh0310tohttp://youtu.be/X7NyBBkpUok 7/8/9th....
Then suddenly darby slick from the great society joins the group after the society's break up in late '66....darby had recently returned from india where with peter van gelder they had gone to study indian classic music with musician and master ali akbar khan...hearing that 'somebody to love' his song from the society had been recorded by the jefferson airplane and money was due from the song writing copyright's he decided in later '67 to return to san francisco...its here that i have little information why and how he joined...he had known singer jeannie piersol from his brother jerry's friend bill piersol when the first incarnation of the society was forming...so in many ways joining a group with someone he knew made sense but on joining they changed their name to 'hair'....
With mother earth and then again october 20/21/22 with van morrison and the daily flash...august that year '68 saw them at the fillmore with the young rascals and the charles lloyd quintet....
Then as suddenly as he had joined the band darby and jeannie up and left for chicago! going into the 'chess studios' the couple laid down four tracks with darby producing ' gladys/with your love & the nest/your sweet inner self'...a promo film of gladys (written by jeannie) was duely made (up on sf scene channel...) the nest is really something special with its fabulous dance oriented soul sound and a big favourite on the northern soul scene in the u.k...it features some tasty fuzz-guitar work and could this be darby?..on their return a short while later jeannie joined yet another band 'brotherly love' who played bjornson park crow canyon june 16th 1968 with the loading zone/transatlantic railroad & sly and the family stone...
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promotional shoot 1968.
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Quite what happened to both 'yellow brick road and hair' i have no further information but if you can help out please get in contact....
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poster from davis sacramento.
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Gladys the track written by jeanie was also covered by los angeles band 'sagittarius' on their 'blue marble' album released on 'together records' 1969....one thing to be aware of is there was a club named 'the yellow brick road' run by a high school student russ rapp & the guitarist from the wakefield loop band denny mahdik over in fremont..many see a poster with the name and presume its the band!...the line-up that released the single 'when fall arrives/day before tomorrow' on baytown records is NOT this band! i have heard from a daughter of one member and await further info from her (hopefully..) but the f.bulgar given song writing credit was a member....
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