In 1969, the hippies in San Francisco had long since realized that their utopias were doomed to failure. Drugs helped them to endure the disappointment. Allen Ginsberg often sat at home for days looking at the roses in the closet. »In Chinatown«, he wrote, »I’m not going to get myself killed«. In music, this was accompanied by the introduction of the prefix psych in front of the common genres: Psych-Rock, Psych-Pop, Psych-Folk.
With a Little Help from my Jazz Friends
In 1969, the two San Francisco based sisters Wendy & Bonnie, who went by the appropriate surname of Flower, released their only record »Genesis« on Skye Records. They were 15 and 18 years old at the time. A handful of seasoned musicians contributed to the record, including jazz musicians such as guitarist Larry Carlton and pianists Mike Melvoin and Michael Lang, who had played with Henry Mancini, Lalo Schifrin and Gábor Szabó. Szabó himself was involved in the production together with Gary McFarland and Cal Tjader. The result sounds less like The Mama’s & The Papa’s and more like Tony, Caro & John or The Free Design.
Now the Italian label Cinedelic is reissuing the work, also in a limited Green Vinyl Edition that is only available from HHV Records. True connoisseurs such as the Super Fury Animals and Jay Electronica have long since sampled the record, but for everyone else it’s worth rediscovering.
