The Origins of Psychedelia: How San Francisco’s Music Scene Shaped a Generation

San Francisco was, and still is, a massive cultural hub in California. Hundreds of famous musicians were born out of the home of the Golden Gate Bridge, but one particular era is especially legendary: the 1960s psychedelic movement.

So, how did psychedelia come to be born in the underground clubs and bedrooms of San Francisco? The roots of SF music go back much farther than just the 1960s.

A Hub For Beat, Jazz, and More

San Francisco’s live music scene originated in the 1940s with the Beat Generation. The Beatnik era was also bustling in SF coffeehouses like Hungry i and Vesuvio Cafe. Poets and musicians from around the state, country, and beyond gathered in the city and formed a core part of its identity. Those OG musicians laid the foundation for San Francisco to become the music Mecca it is today.

The Summer of Love

From the 40s and 50s onward, San Francisco emerged as a cultural hub for the growing Haight-Ashbury district, which would become the very center of the 60s counterculture movement. In particular, in 1967, virtually endless streams of musicians, bands, songs, albums, and live performances emerged in the psychedelic rock genre. 

That summer was a bonafide social revolution in a number of ways. Thousands of young like-minded people from around the country gathered there to attend the San Francisco Pop Festival, Magic Mountain Music Festival, and other musical gatherings.

Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, and others blew up in SF, and their legacy is still revered today. But what was it about San Francisco that made it the birthplace of psychedelia specifically? It might all come down to geographical location.

By the 1960s, San Francisco had become a bustling port city. However, it wasn’t too big, like New York City or Los Angeles. It was the perfect place for a scene to grow, and there was already a bustling population of musicians living there, many of which were born there, before hippies flocked to the city from around the country. 

In that sense, psychedelic music was born from musicians simply playing music for other musicians; the rest of the world simply recognized it as revolutionary through radio and television and eventually jumped on the bandwagon. It’s not exactly surprising that San Francisco was once called “the Liverpool” of the US.

After the 1960s and 1970s, punk rock and new wave became staple genres in the city. Today, the city is quite a melting pot of music with no specific genre defining it. Who knows when another countercultural movement will be born out of Frisco? It could definitely happen again.

Photo by Crawley/Kobal/Shutterstock

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