Album: Various Artists

Love is the Song We Sing: San Fransisco Nuggets 1965-70 (Rhino)

Of all the localised upsurges of activity that have punctuated pop history, few scenes spawned as diversely experimental a range of bands as that which crystallised around San Francisco in the late Sixties. Spawned from a mulch of folk, blues, rock and jugband music, inspired by the breakthroughs of Dylan and The Beatles, and triggered by the new hallucinogens, the hippy revolution found its natural home in the bohemian Bay Area, a magnet for the free-thinking musicians featured on this four-CD overview. Alongside such icons as Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Janis Joplin, Moby Grape and Santana are cult favourites like Mad River and The Charlatans, and lots of little-heard obscurities. There's too little Steve Miller Band, and no Spirit, but there's a satisfying logic to the way the four discs are bookended with the hippy anthem "(Let's) Get Together", Dino Valenti's impassioned original succeeded by The Youngbloods' cover.

Download this: '(Let's) Get Together', 'White Rabbit', 'Omaha', 'Quicksilver Girl', 'Dark Star', 'Soul Sacrifice'