The Family Dog on the Great Highway

Chester Leo "Chet" Helms (August 2, 1942 – June 25, 2005), often called the father of San Francisco's 1967 "Summer of Love", was a music promoter and a cultural figure in San Francisco during its hippie period in the late Sixties.

Via "Jerry's Brokedown Palaces" Blog: Family Dog On The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CAThe Family Dog On The Great Highway opened on June 13, 1969 with the Jefferson Airplane. The site was at the former Edgewater Ballroom, part of the Playland At The Beach complex. This same building, originally known as "The Casino," apparently dated to the 1880s and lasted through the mid-1970s. In 1969, Playland ebbed as the San Francisco pop culture was taking hold.I haven't been able to locate any information on the Edgewater Ballroom yet but other interesting facts have surfaced surrounding the area of Playland, Sutro Baths and the Cliff House.Family Dog At The Great HighwayThe Family Dog, the rock dance commune centered around original hippie Chet Helms, lost its lease on their Avalon Ballroom headquarters and moved west, out to the beach, out to a rickety wooden building where generations of San Franciscans had come to eat fried chicken, roller skate, play with their slot cars and now...dance to the Grateful Dead.On summer nights, fog hung in writhing sheets around the old building and the muffled roar of the breakers could be heard through the front door, just on the other side of the seawall. Venturing onto the beach for a night time smoke was, in the parlance of the time, really trippy.Above the dance floor, encircling it were 2 - 3 rows of seats, Chet had put in a bandstand at each end so they'd be no set-up waiting time. In the back was a flagstone patio w/a well and the 'refreshment' stand for mind & body. So great to feel the coolness of the stones as the music came from indoors and the stars were visible w/o the city lights.No wonder Chet Helms briefly advertised the site as "Magic at the Edge of the Western World."

Click HERE to see listings of ALL Family Dog on the Great Highway Concerts.

******Video, Audio clips and full concerts.... Have been added!