"Quicksilver Messenger Service/Happy Trails" by QUICKSILVER MESSENGER SERVICE – May 1968 US Debut LP and March 1969 US Second LP on Capitol Records (New Studio Material, Some Recorded Live At The Fillmore East & West and San Francisco’s Golden State Recorders in 1968) Plus Two Bonus Non-LP 45-Single Sides – Featuring John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan and Greg Elmore (7 November 2025 UK Beat Goes On (BGO) Compilation – 2LPs Digitally Remastered onto 2CDs with Two 45-Single Non-LP B-Sides as Bonus Tracks on CD2 – Andrew Thompson Remasters) - A Review by Mark Barry...

https://amzn.to/42vgfKZ

"….Where You Love…"

In the late Sixties as the counterculture raged and changed everything everywhere, the initial line-up of American Rock-Psych-Blues four-piece Quicksilver Messenger Service lasted only two albums when they did get to record and release – their May 1968 US self-titled debut and the LP they are most famous for - "Happy Trails" – their March 1969 follow-up that was half live and half studio and all out there. 

San Franciscans John Cipollina (Lead Guitar), David Freiberg (Lead Vocals, Bass and Viola), Gary Duncan (Lead and Rhythm Guitar and Vocals) and Greg Elmore (Drums) had been about the Bay Area Scene since 1965 with other giants like The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. As much admired as those other legendary names, QMS struck what looked like a sweetheart deal with Capitol Records but wouldn't see an actual album until the late spring of 1968. 

Bad luck seemed to dog them (if you could call it that). Before imploding on the departure of Gary Duncan just as the second and most popular platter of theirs was released ("Happy Trails" peaked at No. 27 in the US 1969 Billboard LP charts – a real feat back in the day for a completely unknown band – the debut did not chart) - QMS could have played Woodstock in July of that year and made a serious splash (like Ten Years After did) or toured the country with their surprise hit album (Capitol wouldn't invest in them in disarray) – but alas, it was not to be. British Keyboardist and ace session-man Nicky Hopkins then joined and future releases featured an array of revolving door members and similarish Top 30 US LP placings. But here we concentrate on their auspicious beginnings – Rolling Stone's Greil Marcus even going as far as saying (of the live stuff on LP2) – that when Rock & Roll makes its rebellious stand "…it will be music like this that makes it…"

England's BGO has been a friend to QMS for more than three and half decades now - first issuing "Comin' Thru from May 1972 on BGOCD88 in July 1991, "Happy Trails" in September 1992 on BGOCD 151, "Just For Love" from August 1970 on BGOCD 141 in December 1992, the November 1971 album "Quicksilver" on BGOCD 217 in January 1994 and the self-titled debut in 2009 on BGOCD 861. 

They have also done a September 2025 Remaster for the 2LP "Anthology" set from 1973 as BGOCD1565 (it gathered up tracks from five LPs and other rarities). 

What we have here is Beat Goes On (BGO) pairing up the first two albums from 1968 and 1969 into a 2CD compilation with new 2025 Remasters and two Bonus Tracks thrown in (non-LP 45-single sides on CD2). It tidies things up nicely. Here are the Maidens of the Cancer Moon…

UK released Friday, 7 November 2025 - "Quicksilver Messenger Service/Happy Trails + Bonus Tracks" by QUICKSILVER MESSENGER SERVICE on Beat Goes On Records BGOCD1562 (Barcode 5017261215628) is a compilation that offers 2LPs from 1968 and 1969 Remastered onto 2CDs Plus Two Non-LP Bonus Tracks (Both on CD2) that plays out as follows:

CD1 (31:39 minutes):
Pride Of Man [Side 1]
2. Light Your Windows
3. Dino's Song
4. Gold And Silver
5. It's Been Too Long [Side 2]
6. The Fool
Tracks 1 to 6 are their debut album "Quicksilver Messenger Service" – released May 1968 in the USA on Capitol ST 2904 (Stereo Only) and October 1968 in the UK on Capitol T 2904 (Mono) and ST 2904 (Stereo) – only the STEREO Mix is used. Produced by Harvey Brooks, Nick Gravenites and Pete Welding

CD2 (56:09 minutes):
1.Who Do You Love Suite: Who Do You Love - Part 1 [Side 1]
2. When You Love
3. Where You Love
4. How You Love
5. Which Do You Love
6. Who Do You Love – Part 2
7. Mona [Side 2]
8. Maiden Of The Cancer Moon
9. Calvary
10. Happy Trails
Tracks 1 to 10 are their second album "Happy Trails" – released March 1969 in the USA on Capitol ST 120 (Stereo only) and September 1969 in the UK on Capitol Records E-ST 120 (Stereo only). Produced by QMS – it peaked at No. 27 on the US Album charts

BONUS TRACKS
11. Bears – Non-LP B-side of "Stand By Me", November 1968 US 45-Single on Capitol 2320
12. Stand By Me - Non-LP A-side, as per Track 11

The card-slipcase lends the 2CD compilation a classy look and feel – the 12-page booklet featuring new liner notes from SEAN EGAN (dated 2025). You get the rear artwork on the inner pages but it would have been a nice touch to feature the rare Picture Sleeve for the US 45 to "Stand By Me". The ANDREW THOMPSON Remasters rock – clean and clear – even when something as overloaded as the "Stand By Me" stand-alone 45 threatens to overdo it production wise – it still sounds as good as we are going to get. The British Mono Mix LP is not even mentioned – bluntly it could have been a first on CD1 – but. To the albums…

"Quicksilver Messenger Service" opens with a God of Gold damnation song that is so 1967 – lyrics about greed and whispered slaps in the cultural puss - "Pride Of Man" even fading out with a bended guitar note (written by singer and actor Hamilton Camp). Things become more strangely musical ala Doors with the Freiberg/Duncan song "Light Your Windows" – great ideas and chord changes that suggest QMS will be a storming experience in the live arena (and they were). Things boogie up fast with the Dino Valenti penned "Dino's Song" where our hapless suitor hopes she can love him too (even if he is in prison on a drug’s bust – apparently why Valenti never got to fronting the band with Cipollina). In an album that promises Guitar-Psych, it finally arrives with the killer 6:40 minute instrumental and Side 1 finisher "Gold And Silver" – a guitar-battle speaker-rattler written by Gary Duncan and Saxophonist Steve Schuster that showcase both styles of Cipollina and Duncan. The two cuts that make up Side 2 open with the 2:57 pop minutes of "It's Been Too Long" where the band is obviously hustling for a commercial winner that might just do it. And while it’s good, it is quickly whomped by the LP’s centrepiece - "The Fool" – a 12-minute (largely instrumental) swirling guitars and viola fest that is brilliant and sounds just amazing on this latest Remaster. Guitars battle it out in varying soundscapes (plain, flanged, etc) before it settles into a slow moody strum-fest peppered with treated guitar interludes. It takes until seven minutes in until we get lyrics about golden suns and sun-signs getting it on with love is life and life is love man – oh yeah baby. A surefire inclusion on the inevitable 4CD compilation Now That's What I Call Psych – this is why the debut is such a discovery – brilliant and still sounding shockingly contemporary (like cool James Gang). 

Apparently culled down from a 27-minute live jam, the 6-part 25:22-minute Suite that is "Who Do You Love" is a wild re-working of the Bo Diddley Chess R&B classic where that loose backbeat gives way in sections to varying Guitar Passages. It took up the whole of Side 1 and Capitol even truncated a 45 variant for release in July 1969 as the LP was surprisingly adopted by an intrigued (and possibly stoned) buying public in the summer of 1969. Capitol 2557 paired the "Who Do You Love" portion on the A-side with the wild feeding-back guitar sounds of Freiberg’s "Which Do You Love" on the flipside and it made No. 94! In fact, it’s hard to think if such an album of loon improvisation could even be made now – the crowd slowly clapping in as Part 3 starts to get their attention – all hippy-ish and Haight Asbury and mellowed and yet batshit nuts as Cipollina rocks out in Part 4. It does seem a shame that the full cut isn’t available here but what is here sounds fab – whacking bass and steady drums. Got a cobra-snake for a necktie, the boys sing as they bring a quiet, controlled yet loose Part 6 home – who do you love indeed.

Side 2 of "Happy Trails" opens with another Bo Diddley cover version, an equally heavy but sexy groove where for seven-minutes and a few seconds their guitars mimic Elias McDaniels and his red-box Gretsch sound. "Mona" is cool as fuck and my go-to track on the LP - where a chilled but Doors-growling QMS sound like a more swamped up version of Creedence Clearwater Revival. And somehow too the speaker to speaker panning and stark guitars with effects pedals works a treat – soloing between the fruity lyrics - I wonder why Capitol didn’t try their luck with a 45 of it. The Diddley epic slyly segues into more Television-sounding guitars for "Maiden Of The Cancer Moon" – a sonic continuation of the heaviness – an Iron Butterfly three-minutes. Again, we slyly segue into doomy Acoustics and Guitars for an even stranger sonic soundscape – the near 13-minute recorded-live-in-the-studio track called "Calvary". Acid Rock, Psych, Granny On A Trip to the Guitar Shop – tis all here. Then the whole thing ends on the silly and dippy Country cover of "Happy Trails" (well of course it does) – more panning but this time with happy-go-lucky whistling as our heroes walk away into the Californian sunset with a copy of How To Grow Grass At Room Temperature (And Stick It To The Man, Man) under their sunkissed arms.

Perhaps because it has a silly "Happy Trails" country-ditty vibe to it, the B-side "Bears" is offered to us first instead of its A-side - "Stand By Me". The A-side is not the Ben E. King song but a Dino Valenti tune and a pretty one at that. This lost gem ends CD2 with a very cool listen (and in great audio too). Nice…

To sum up - with the best will in the world, you could not call either of these QMS albums flavour of the month in 2025 (or 2026 for that matter) and yet they remain heroic – a sound that expressed freedom even it was wrapped up in indulgence that no record company would allow today. The Acid-Rock of Quicksilver Messenger Service will not be for ABBA fans or Swifties – but man those Sunshine State boys made a cool racket and were fun (and out there too). Recommended…