The San Francisco Sound refers to rock music performed live and recorded by San Francisco-based rock groups of the mid-1960s to early 1970s. It was associated with the counterculture community in San Francisco, particularly the Haight-Ashbury district, during these years.[1] San Francisco is a westward-looking port city, a city that at the time was 'big enough' but not manic like New York City or spread out like Los Angeles. Hence, it could support a 'scene'.[2] According to journalist Ed Vulliamy, "A core of Haight Ashbury bands played with each other, for each other, for free and at Chet Helms's Avalon Ballroom and Bill Graham's Fillmore."[3]
The Bay-Area-based jazz critic and columnist Ralph J. Gleason had established the first journal (Jazz Information) devoted to jazz, in 1939. Gleason was open to new pathways. He admired San Francisco's new music scene in the mid-1960s, and wanted to draw attention to it. According to an announcer for a TV show that Gleason hosted: "In his syndicated newspaper column, Mr. Gleason has been the foremost interpreter of the sounds coming out of what he calls 'the Liverpool of the United States.' Mr. Gleason believes the San Francisco rock groups are making a serious contribution to musical history."[4] The first serious journal of rock music, Crawdaddy, had been founded in the eastern U.S. in 1966 by Paul Williams. However, Ralph Gleason, shortly after the Monterey Pop Festival, became one of the founders of what would become the nation's dominant rock-scene fan journal, Rolling Stone. ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Sound
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