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John Cipollina
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John Cipollina
John Cipollina (August 24, 1943 – May 29, 1989) was a guitarist best known for his role as a founder and the lead guitarist of the prominent San Francisco rock band Quicksilver Messenger Service. After leaving Quicksilver he formed the band Copperhead, was a member of the San Francisco All Stars and later played with numerous other bands.
John and his twin sister Manuela were born in Berkeley, California, on August 24, 1943. Cipollina attended Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, California, as did his brother Mario (born 1954) and sister Antonia (born 1952). Their father Gino, a realtor, was of Italian ancestry (Genoese origins). Their mother Evelyn and godfather José Iturbi were concert pianists.[citation needed]
John showed great promise as a classical pianist in his youth, but his father gave him a guitar when he was 12 and this quickly became his primary instrument.
Cipollina had a unique guitar sound, mixing solid state and vacuum-tube (valve) amplifiers as early as 1965. He is considered one of the fathers of the San Francisco sound, a form of psychedelic rock.
I like the rapid punch of solid-state for the bottom, and the rodent-gnawing distortion of the tubes on top.
To create his distinctive guitar sound, Cipollina developed a one-of-a-kind amplifier stack. His Gibson SG guitars had two pickups, one for bass and one for treble. The bass pickup fed into two Standel bass amps on the bottom of the stack, each equipped with two 15-inch speakers. The treble pickups fed two Fender amps: a Fender Twin Reverb and a Fender Dual Showman that drove six Wurlitzer horns.
He has been referred to as the "archetypal psychedelic player" who originally was a classical guitarist who became a folksinger and switched to electric guitar after the British Invasion. An example of his technique was displayed in the live version of the Bo Diddley song "Who Do You Love" which spanned the entire first side of the 1969 album Happy Trails where he "whips out nearly every technique and effect known to rock guitarists at the time, including heavy distortion, feedback, tremolo, echo, and slide effects" with "jazz influences, whammy vibratos, and string-bending techniques." In conjunction with second guitarist Gary Duncan who provided chords and wah effect accompaniment as noted on the song "Calvary" where Cipollina laid the groundwork for the future "textbook of psychedelic guitar" with "harmonic runs, distorted blues licks, and feedback effects."
After leaving Quicksilver in 1971, Cipollina formed the band Copperhead with early Quicksilver member Jim Murray (who soon decamped for Maui, Hawaii), former Stained Glass member Jim McPherson, drummer David Weber, Gary Phillipet (a.k.a. Gary Phillips (keyboardist), later a member of Bay Area bands Earthquake and The Greg Kihn Band), and Pete Sears. (Sears was eventually replaced by current and longtime Bonnie Raitt bassist James "Hutch" Hutchinson after Sears left the band to record on piano with early Rod Stewart and play bass with Nicky Hopkins. Hutch played on Copperhead’s first official LP and stayed with the band for its duration).
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John Cipollina
John Cipollina (August 24, 1943 – May 29, 1989) was a guitarist best known for his role as a founder and the lead guitarist of the prominent San Francisco rock band Quicksilver Messenger Service. After leaving Quicksilver he formed the band Copperhead, was a member of the San Francisco All Stars and later played with numerous other bands.
John and his twin sister Manuela were born in Berkeley, California, on August 24, 1943. Cipollina attended Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, California, as did his brother Mario (born 1954) and sister Antonia (born 1952). Their father Gino, a realtor, was of Italian ancestry (Genoese origins). Their mother Evelyn and godfather José Iturbi were concert pianists.[citation needed]
John showed great promise as a classical pianist in his youth, but his father gave him a guitar when he was 12 and this quickly became his primary instrument.
Cipollina had a unique guitar sound, mixing solid state and vacuum-tube (valve) amplifiers as early as 1965. He is considered one of the fathers of the San Francisco sound, a form of psychedelic rock.
I like the rapid punch of solid-state for the bottom, and the rodent-gnawing distortion of the tubes on top.
To create his distinctive guitar sound, Cipollina developed a one-of-a-kind amplifier stack. His Gibson SG guitars had two pickups, one for bass and one for treble. The bass pickup fed into two Standel bass amps on the bottom of the stack, each equipped with two 15-inch speakers. The treble pickups fed two Fender amps: a Fender Twin Reverb and a Fender Dual Showman that drove six Wurlitzer horns.
He has been referred to as the "archetypal psychedelic player" who originally was a classical guitarist who became a folksinger and switched to electric guitar after the British Invasion. An example of his technique was displayed in the live version of the Bo Diddley song "Who Do You Love" which spanned the entire first side of the 1969 album Happy Trails where he "whips out nearly every technique and effect known to rock guitarists at the time, including heavy distortion, feedback, tremolo, echo, and slide effects" with "jazz influences, whammy vibratos, and string-bending techniques." In conjunction with second guitarist Gary Duncan who provided chords and wah effect accompaniment as noted on the song "Calvary" where Cipollina laid the groundwork for the future "textbook of psychedelic guitar" with "harmonic runs, distorted blues licks, and feedback effects."
After leaving Quicksilver in 1971, Cipollina formed the band Copperhead with early Quicksilver member Jim Murray (who soon decamped for Maui, Hawaii), former Stained Glass member Jim McPherson, drummer David Weber, Gary Phillipet (a.k.a. Gary Phillips (keyboardist), later a member of Bay Area bands Earthquake and The Greg Kihn Band), and Pete Sears. (Sears was eventually replaced by current and longtime Bonnie Raitt bassist James "Hutch" Hutchinson after Sears left the band to record on piano with early Rod Stewart and play bass with Nicky Hopkins. Hutch played on Copperhead’s first official LP and stayed with the band for its duration).
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