Quicksilver Messenger Service – Who Do You Love: The Recordings 1967–1972 7CD Box Set Review
There are certain band names that immediately transport you to another era, and Quicksilver Messenger Service is definitely one of them. This was a time when bands seemed to have at least three words in their name, when the music was stretching out, when the studio clock did not always seem to matter, and when San Francisco was one of the most important musical centres in the world.
Who Do You Love: The Recordings 1967–1972 is a new 7CD clamshell box set from Esoteric Recordings, part of the Cherry Red family, and it gathers together the classic Quicksilver Messenger Service period in one very generous collection. For anyone wanting to understand the late 60s West Coast sound beyond the more commonly mentioned names of Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company, this is a very good place to start.
Inside the box, the CDs are housed in individual card sleeves. These are simple single-sleeve reproductions, so some of the original gatefold presentation is not replicated here, but the set itself is absolutely packed with music. Across the seven discs you get the self-titled debut album from 1968, the live material from 1968, Happy Trails from 1969, Shady Grove, Just For Love, What About Me, and then Quicksilver and Comin’ Thru together on the final disc.
There is also an illustrated booklet, and as I often say with these sets, you know you are in for a serious essay when the print is tiny. That is usually a sign that there was far too much story to tell and not enough room to waste. Here, the booklet gives you a really useful overview of the band, the changing line-ups, the tracks, the credits, and the context around the recordings. For a band like this, that is important, because Quicksilver Messenger Service were not just another psychedelic rock band. They were part of the atmosphere, the mythology and the creative explosion of late 60s San Francisco.
The key to their sound, especially during the early period, is the guitar interplay between John Cipollina and Gary Duncan. Cipollina’s SG tone is one of those sounds that seems to cut through time. It has bite, elegance, fluidity and a slightly dangerous edge. Gary Duncan is equally important, and together they create that exploratory, improvisational sound that made Quicksilver Messenger Service so influential.
This was not guitar playing designed to show off in the modern sense. It was more about listening, responding and following where the music wanted to go. That is what makes the live material here so compelling. There is a sense of the band tuning into each other in real time. Nobody is counting down the bars from behind the glass saying, “wrap it up.” They just go where the music takes them.
Of course, the album many people will go to first is Happy Trails, and I would suggest that is exactly where new listeners should begin. The title of this box set comes from the band’s version of “Who Do You Love”, which takes up a huge part of the original album and becomes a kind of extended psychedelic journey. It probably pushed the limits of what one side of vinyl should have been asked to accommodate, but that is part of the magic. This is a cornerstone of late 60s West Coast rock: loose, alive, dangerous, exploratory and completely of its time.
What I love about this set is that it does not just give you the famous album and leave it there. It allows you to hear the band developing across a five-year period. The self-titled debut has that youthful spark and already contains the seeds of everything that would come later. Happy Trails is the big statement. Shady Grove brings in Nicky Hopkins, one of the great keyboard players of the era, and you can hear the music widening out. Then, as Dino Valenti becomes more involved, the group’s sound shifts again through Just For Love and What About Me. By the time you reach Quicksilverand Comin’ Thru, you can feel the band moving away from the raw exploratory force of the early years into something more polished, and perhaps inevitably, starting to lose some of that original fire.
But that journey is part of the fascination. These bands worked incredibly hard in those days. Albums appeared quickly, line-ups changed, touring took its toll, and the whole countercultural dream could burn very brightly and then start to fray around the edges. This box captures that arc very well.
There are also bonus tracks, including demos, rare singles and additional recordings, which help deepen the story. These are not just throwaway extras. For collectors and long-time fans, they add real value, and for newcomers they help show how the band’s ideas were forming and evolving.
I also have to mention the Welsh band Man, who were huge admirers of Quicksilver Messenger Service. John Cipollina later appeared with them on Maximum Darkness, and that connection makes complete sense when you hear the kind of guitar-led, exploratory rock that Quicksilver were creating. Their influence travelled far beyond San Francisco.
I have not had the chance to absorb every second of these seven discs yet, because there is a lot here, but I have dipped into every part of the box and spent the most time, unsurprisingly, with Happy Trails. That is the album that still feels like the doorway into their world. If you are coming to Quicksilver Messenger Service for the first time, start there, then work backwards and forwards.
This is another excellent Esoteric / Cherry Red release. It is the kind of box set that does exactly what these collections should do: it preserves a key part of rock history, it gives existing fans a well-presented way to revisit the music, and it opens the door for new listeners who may know the names Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead and Jimi Hendrix, but have never really stepped into the world of Quicksilver Messenger Service.
Who Do You Love: The Recordings 1967–1972 is a brilliant introduction to a legendary West Coast band whose music still has that sense of freedom, risk and discovery. Put on Happy Trails, turn the lights down, and let those guitars take you somewhere else.
Phil Aston | Now Spinning Magazine
