Happy Trails From The Quicksilver Messenger Service

Introduction

I remember when I first saw the artwork of this album, I thought the cowboy was riding away from the viewer towards the homestead in the distance. It was years before I looked at it properly and saw he was waving his hat at his girlfriend as he was riding out from the homestead.

I have been listening to this over the last few days but noticed, slightly oddly, that the back cover of my album is marked as Volume 2 whereas the back cover on Amazon does not have this mark.

Maybe the "Volume 2" is because this is the second album by the band.

Most of the album was recorded from two performances at the Fillmore East and Fillmore West, although it is not clear which parts were recorded at which Fillmore.

This is the Wikipedia entry

I am not sure really how to review or comment on this. This is essentially a fifty-minute guitar jam, which signs off with a short cowboy song for the title track.

Because I am listening to it on CD, therefore digitally, I can just listen to it all the way through. The Personnel on this recording are:

Quicksilver Messenger Service

• John Cipollina - guitar, vocals
• Gary Duncan - guitar, vocals
• David Freiberg - bass, vocals, piano
• Greg Elmore - drums, vocals, piano, percussion

You can see drawings of the band members on the back cover which I included above.

So now I will share the music on the album.

"Who Do You Love"

In a self-deprecating poke at the rendition's extended length, it is listed as the "Who Do You Love Suite", with individually titled "movements" which give writing credits to the soloist on each segment.

I found a live take on this from 1973 and while the picture is not great the sound is. Check out the information on this by going to the Youtube page. It uses a call-and-response form over Bo Diddley's rhythm between Duncan's vocals and Cippolina's guitar.

Although the album piece is twenty-five minutes (this live take is just under twenty minutes) it seems to be over very quickly, I have listened to it several times over the past couple of days.

"Mona"

The album continues with another Elias McDaniel (Bo Diddley) song. The same rhythm driving it but this only clocks in at seven minutes but which is still three times as long as the original, although Help Yourself outdid the Quicksilver Messenger Service with an eleven-minute version on "Christmas at the Patti" which you can hear here.

"Maiden of the Cancer Moon"

An instrumental composed by Gary Duncan that still features some excellent guitar work from Cipollina. This sounds like a planned piece, as opposed to the improvisation that he played on "Mona."

"Calvary"

A thirteen-minute concert closer though according to the Wikipedia entry

The live recording of "Calvary" was abridged shortly after the end of "Maiden of the Cancer Moon" and a studio version was recorded and substituted.

It has been described as "acid-flamenco",[2] but it is definitely not flamenco music. It does resemble orchestral or symphonic music, and it is not readily classifiable as rock, jazz, or blues.

"Happy Trails"

The album closer and title track is a song by Roy Rogers and his wife Dale Evans, the theme song for the fifties radio program and television show in which they starred. It was written by Evans and always sung by the duo over the end credits of those programs.

Conclusion

I think this is a wonderful album to listen to, nearly an hour of mostly West-Coast rock which must have been a great gig to be at, when it was recorded.