Upcoming Exhibition

Marin Rocks
Summer 2009

The Marin History Museum will open the Marin Rocks exhibition at the Museum’s new 4th Street Gallery (the historic Masonic Building) in central San Rafael in the summer of 2009.

Here, the history of rock will be uniquely filtered through a Marin lens, portraying how dozens of the world’s top rock musicians migrated out of San Francisco and other parts of the nation (and the world) to make Marin County their personal home. Many more located their band headquarters in Marin, while others recorded historic albums in studios throughout Marin—all while headlining at famous San Francisco venues and touring worldwide.

The exhibition will run for 24 months at the new gallery thanks to the generosity of the Masonic Lodge. It will include state-of-the-art interactive features along with eye-opening film and video footage and artifacts provided by bands, musicians and collectors. The exhibition is geared to rock fans of all ages, with an emphasis on encouraging new music-making.

Rendering of Marin Rocks exhibition space. (Courtesy of Academy Studios.)

Focus will be on resident bands and musicians. The bands will include the Grateful Dead; Big Brother and the Holding Company featuring Janis Joplin; Quicksilver Messenger Service; Journey; Huey Lewis and the News; the Jefferson Airplane and Starship; the Rowan Brothers; and the Sons of Champlin.

Significant Marin-based musicians include James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich (founding members of Metallica); Carlos Santana; Sammy Hagar; David Crosby; Van Morrison; Steve Miller; Jesse Colin Young and members of the Youngbloods; Tupac Shakur; Bonnie Raitt; Clarence Clemons (of Bruce Springsteen’s E-Street Band); Maria Muldaur; Elvin Bishop; members of the Kingston Trio; David Grisman; Michael Bloomfield; Ali Akbar Khan; Bonnie Hayes; Tom Johnston; and Dan Hicks.

One celebrated visitor to Marin County was Otis Redding, who wrote “Sitting On the Dock of the Bay” while renting a Sausalito houseboat in 1967. That song soared to number one after his death in a Wisconsin plane crash in 1968, just months after he recorded it, and became the sixth most performed song of the 20th Century (with nearly 6 million performances of it to date).

The late concert promoter Bill Graham, who received distinguished musicians at his home high on the hill in Corte Madera (in a house he called “Masada” after the Jewish fortress of antiquity) often escorted visitors like Eric Clapton and Jim Morrison of the Doors up into Marin’s Muir Woods and down to the Pacific shore.

Others, like Bob Marley, Sly Stone, Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey, Dave Matthews, The Doobie Brothers, and Carrie Underwood rented homes in Marin and recorded some of their finest albums at The Record Plant in Sausalito and at other studios like Narada Michael Walden’s Tarpan. The very latest World Music continues to be created at Mickey Hart’s studio and at the Ali Akbar Khan College ofMusic; Metallica recorded much of their newest music at their San Rafael-based HQ Studios; and the Grateful Dead did much of their rehearsing at the legendary Club Front, also in San Rafael.

Regular visitors to Marin’s intimate clubs (the Sweetwater, Rancho Nicasio, and dozens more) and world-famous record stores like Mill Valley’s Village Music, include the likes of Mick Jagger, Elvis Costello, Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe, and Mark Knopfler.

Rendering of Marin Rocks exhibition space. (Courtesy of Academy Studios.)

To create MARIN ROCKS, artifacts are being donated or loaned by dozens of prominent musicians; band managements; recording studio owners; music clubs; record stores; fans of the many bands; memorabilia collectors; the world-famous psychedelic-era Marin-based poster artists; and members of the well-remembered Artista “art-gang” based in Marin.

Events such as one of the world’s first rock festivals, “Magic Mountain,” held at the Mt. Tamalpais outdoor theater high in hills above the Pacific Ocean, which gathered over 15,000 fans the week before the Monterey Pop Festival, will be well remembered. The world-renowned Bread & Roses production company, which has brought top musicians to prisons, schools, retirement homes, hospitals, and hospices, was founded in Marin by singer Mimi Farina.

One feature of the exhibition will be based on perhaps the most famous Marin-inspired song, “Get Together,” originally written in 1963 by Dino Valenti (then known by his birth name of Chet Powers) which became a worldwide hit sung by Jesse Colin Young and the Youngbloods (and is true today just as in the past):

“C’mon people, now, smile on your brother
Everybody get together, try to love one another right now.”

To contact the Marin History Museum about Marin Rocks or to donate to the exhibition, please email us at marinrocks@marinhistory.org.

Click here for information, images and video from the Marin History Museum's Spring 2008 gala Marin Makes Music.

Press
Paul Liberatore: We need our own rock hall of fame 
Paul Liberatore: Tribute to rockers is rolling
Paul Liberatore: Wave of nostalgia: Readers share rock 'n' roll stories
Paul Liberatore: Wanted: Marin rock mementos
Paul Liberatore: Honoring Marin's rock 'n' roll history with exhibit

Posters above courtesy of Paul Getchell.