Happy Trails – QUICKSILVER MESSENGER SERVICE***

Who Do You Love (Part 1)/When You Love/Where You Love/How You Love/Which Do You Love/Who Do You Love (Part 2)/Mona/Maid Of The Cancer Moon/Calvary/Happy Trails

Happy Trails was the second and best remembered album from the San Francisco rock group Quicksilver Messenger Service, which includes some live tracks. (US:25)

“A solid follow-up to their debut, this one presents the 'live San Francisco sound', featuring duelling guitars in a sometimes heavy, sometimes not style. Unfortunately, the quality is inconsistent over the course of the LP. All of the songs on each side run together.”

“It confuses me greatly that this music is labelled 'psychedelic', when to me it sounds mostly like generic blues jams and is a clear antecedent to jam band music. Nothing here resembles the mind-expanding epiphany associated with psychedelic drugs, other than the mind's ability to become overly impressed with simplistic repetition and lose track of time during a twenty minutes jam.”

“Recorded mostly live but with a lot of studio overdubs. Calvary and Maiden Of The Cancer Moon were entirely recorded in the studio. Most of this album is instrumental jam band music and I have to say that it works just fine.”

“I like jam band stuff but this can get a little boring at times, mainly because there's very little variation. I like this band's studio work a lot more.”

“Highly disappointed and somewhat surprised after hearing it that it is held in such high regard. Side two is OK with some nice stuff going on but side one is just a big yawnfest. Boring, pretentious, unimaginative, are all words that came to mind about halfway through the Who Do You Love marathon.”

“Happy Trails is not so much a series of songs as a non-stop psychedelic jam session with minor thematic, chordal and rhythmic changes. I would have welcomed a little more variation.”

“Not only was it a decent live album, but it captured a recognizable slice of the 'San Francisco Scene'. This was the live album to play when you couldn't get to a weekend concert. Today, the album feels a bit dated but it is still enjoyable.”