Quicksilver Messenger Service is the debut studio album of Quicksilver Messenger Service, released in May 1968. The group were among the last of the original major San Francisco bands to secure a recording contract, which meant that the album appeared many months after the debut efforts of Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Country Joe and the Fish, Moby Grape, and Big Brother and the Holding Company. Despite this, the album received acclaim and is considered a cornerstone release in the late '60s Haight discography.
Songs and Recording
This was Quicksilver Messenger Service's first album, although they had already recorded two songs in 1967 ("Codine" and "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You") for the soundtrack of the 1968 movie Revolution. Original singer/guitarist Jim Murray quit the group in August 1967, prior to this album's recording in December, as they adjusted to a four-man format. Production was handled by Nick Gravenites and Harvey Brookes of The Electric Flag along with Pete Welding. gradually lengthened over live performances into a showcase for the group's improvisational technique (live versions usually featured an additional lengthy drum solo from Elmore). Elsewhere, "It's Been Too Long" had been penned by the group's manager Ron Polte while "Light Your Windows" was a Duncan-Freiberg original.
The album came out in May 1968, housed in a sleeve whose front cover was designed by famed San Francisco poster artist Rick Griffin, with back cover photographs by Jim Marshall. It charted at No. 63 on Billboard that summer as the group continued to play shows across the country, with a specific preference for the Bay Area. Writing at the time of release, Barry Gifford at Rolling Stone thought the group's sound now resembled that of the Electric Flag a little too closely, but concluded that "the formula works" and was "a much finer record debut than The Grateful Dead's." In the UK, Disc & Music Echo ecstatically opined "beautiful music, carrying you several miles up from your room into the ionosphere and then smashing you back to earth again with things which just shouldn't be...possible on record." Retrospectively, Richie Unterburger at AllMusic called it "inarguably their strongest set of studio material, with the accent on melodic folk-rock." – 3:08 (Dino Valenti)
- "Gold and Silver" – 6:43 (Gary Duncan, Steve Schuster)
Side two
- "It's Been Too Long" – 3:01 (Ron Polte)
- "The Fool" – 12:07 (Gary Duncan, David Freiberg)
Personnel
;Quicksilver Messenger Service
- John Cipollina - lead guitar
- Gary Duncan - rhythm and lead guitar, vocals
- David Freiberg - bass guitar, vocals, viola
- Greg Elmore - drums
;Additional Personnel
- The Ace of Cups - backing vocals on "The Fool"
Charts
; Album
Billboard (United States)
{| class="wikitable"
!Year
!Chart
!Position
|-
|1968
|Pop Albums
|align="center"|63
|}