2-part docuseries airs Aug. 20 and 27 at 9 p.m. CST on MGM+

By Robert Hunt
It was in 1966 that word started to spread of a “San Francisco Sound,” a new kind of music that had popped up in the Bay area and created new ways of playing and experiencing music. But this was more than just a musical trend or a record label’s marketing ploy.

Sure, a few new bands were starting to attract attention – Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Moby Grape among them – but the music was just one part of a confluence of social movements and utopian ideas that came together in the Bay area. San Francisco in 1966 and the myth of Haight Ashbury were just a day-glo variant of the American Dream, and the “San Francisco Sound” – a mélange of rock, folk, blues, bluegrass, psychedelia and anything else you wanted to slip in the punchbowl – provided the soundtrack.

That’s the lesson stressed by many of the participants in “San Francisco Sounds: A Place in Time,” a lively two-part exploration of the social phenomenon that evolved in the mid-60s, told mostly through the musicians who spread its message.  Directors Alison Ellwood and Anoosh Tertzakian have compiled a dizzying assortment of talking-head interviews, archive material, concert footage and inobtrusive recreations (including an inventive animated scene simulating the effects of a hallucinogen), deftly packing the sights and sounds of a mind-expanding era into an efficient 150-minute package. (Ellwood knows her way around both the music and the cultural context, having previously delivered the 2020 “Laurel Canyon” and co-directed “Magic Trip”). 

Grace Slick and Marty Balin of Jefferson Airplane

In Part One, we see the San Francisco scene develop in an air of almost magical innocence. Strangers wander into each other, drawn by the sound of music playing, and end up forming a band. New styles of art, advertising, and theatrical display (light shows and Be-Ins!) are developed, more from a love of experimentation than for their commercial potential.

The sounds began to spread around the country (Jefferson Airplane hit the Top Ten in early 1967 with “Somebody to Love”), but most of the bands were simply content to keep playing locally. Part One ends with an extended look at the event that gave a national spotlight for many of the Bay area bands and even changed a few skeptical L.A.-based minds, the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967.

Although most known for Jimi Hendrix’s fiery performance and D. A. Pennebaker’s invaluable 1968 film, Monterey was a showcase for San Francisco acts, who made up nearly a quarter of the performers (Big Brother, the Dead, the Airplane, Steve Miller, Moby Grape and Quicksilver Messenger Service all performed) and left no doubt that Janis Joplin was only about a millimeter away from stardom. They came, they played, they conquered.

Sadly (spoiler alert!), it didn’t last. Part Two begins with the much-heralded “Summer of Love,” when the siren calls of Free Love, mind-altering chemicals and rock and roll brought thousands of young people (some reports claim 100,000) to the Bay area, most of them without the benefits of money, resources or much of a plan.

Dusty Street, the first female DJ on the west coast and one of the interviewees who provide observations on the past events, calls it “the Summer of the Death of an Idea.” The scene couldn’t last, but the musicians persisted.

Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company

The wide-ranging second installment follows the paths of the bands from Part One while also chronicling the new acts that continued to emerge: Sly and the Family Stone, Creedance Clearwater Revival, Santana, Tower of Power, Journey, and the Doobie Brothers. The 1969 Woodstock festival (and the enormously popular 1970 film) solidified Sly’s success and made a star of Carlos Santana- whose first album hadn’t even been released at the time. (Janis Joplin and the Dead also performed but declined to be in the film). 

Unfortunately, the euphoria of Woodstock was quickly overshadowed by the despair of Altamont, the hellish December 1969 event (held 2000 miles away from San Francisco), where Airplane vocalist Marty Balin was beaten by Hell’s Angels and the Grateful Dead (who were instrumental in organizing the event – and according to some reports were responsible for hiring the Angels as security) flew away without performing.

“San Francisco Sounds” covers an enormous range of personalities and events, but they’re illuminated by new commentary from dozens of the musicians whose stories are included, as well as other veterans of the scene, like actor Peter Coyote, “Rolling Stone” journalist Ben Fong-Torres, artist Victor Moscoso and the aforementioned Dusty Street.

Curiously, in a directorial decision that ultimately makes emotional sense, we see only the last three on screen;  We hear the voices – some slightly less steady today – of Steve Miller, most of the Airplane, Country Joe McDonald, and many others, but we see them only as they appeared 55 years ago: naïve, energetic and forever young.

Note: this review was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the docuseries being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Tower of Power

Before next month’s premiere of Hemingway on Nine PBS, tonight’s Living St. Louis at 7 pm features author Andrew Theising, who discusses the influence St. Louisans had on young Ernest Hemingway, including the three women from St. Louis whom he married.

On March 29 at 7 pm, Hemingway’s running with the bulls in Pamplona and his relationship with author A.E. Hotchner is on Living St. Louis.  Both episodes will livestream during broadcast and are available to watch after broadcast on ninepbs.org and the PBS Video App.

FILE – In this undated file photo, A.E. Hotchner, left, and author Ernest Hemingway pose for a photo in Seattle. Hotchner was staging Hemingway’s story “A Short Happy Life” in a pre-Broadway tour in Seattle. A.E. Hotchner, a well-traveled author, playwright and gadabout whose street smarts and famous pals led to a loving, but litigated memoir of Hemingway, business adventures with Paul Newman and a book about his Depression-era childhood that became a Steven Soderbergh film, died Saturday, Feb. 15, 2020, at age 102. (AP Photo, File)

Nine PBS will also host a virtual screening with director Lynn Novick and producer Sarah Botstein on Monday, April 19, at noon. Registration will open soon at ninepbs.org/events.  

Ernest Hemingway, the iconic literary figure considered one of the greatest American writers and among the first to live and work at the treacherous nexus of art and celebrity, is the subject of an upcoming three-part, six-hour documentary series directed by award-winning filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick.  

The series airs three consecutive nights, April 5-7, from 7-9 pm, with an encore presentation from 9–11 pm. Hemingway will be available to stream for free on ninepbs.org and the PBS Video App. A trailer for the series is available here.   

Narrated by long-time collaborator Peter Coyote, the series features an all-star cast of actors bringing Hemingway (voiced by Jeff Daniels), his friends, and family vividly to life. Through letters to and from his four wives—voiced by Meryl Streep, Keri Russell, Mary-Louise Parker and Patricia Clarkson—the film reveals Hemingway at his most romantic and his most vulnerable, grappling at times with insecurity, anxiety, and existential loneliness.  
   

Hemingway interweaves a close study of the biographical events of the author’s life with excerpts from his fiction, nonfiction, and short stories, informed by interviews with celebrated writers, scholars, and Hemingway’s son, Patrick. The filmmakers explore the painstaking process through which Hemingway created some of the most important works of fiction in American letters. 

“The documentary attempts to go beyond prevailing assumptions about Ernest Hemingway and his writing. At the same time, we are unsparing in our inquiry into less well-known aspects of his character and writing. Our intent is to offer viewers an honest portrayal of a complex and conflicted writer who left an indelible mark on literature,” says director Ken Burns. 

About Nine PBS  

As an essential community institution, Nine PBS exists to enable access to information, knowledge, and learning opportunities for all. We tell stories that move us. We meet people where they are the most comfortable consuming content. Nine PBS’s platforms include four distinct broadcast channels (Nine PBS, Nine PBS KIDS®, Nine PBS World, and Nine PBS Create), ninepbs.org, social media, the free PBS Video App, streaming services, live and virtual events, and the Public Media Commons. Since 1954, Nine PBS has accepted the community’s invitation into their homes, schools, and businesses. 

Ernest Hemingway and his second wife Pauline Pfeiffer