Static Live Magazine March 2020 - 2 Year Anniversary

GREG DOUGLASS,
Unsung Hero of the
Early San Francisco Rock
Around 1972, with Mistress on the brink of financial
suffocation, Greg began to play gigs with Terry Dolan
of Terry and the Pirates. “I guess you could call me
one of the pirates— Arggh Arggh,” says Greg. With
John Cipollina on lead and Dolan carrying most of the
vocal work, Greg handled the rest of the guitar work,
including slide, bass, fills and rhythm, as well as a
revolving door rhythm section.
By Hank Harrison
Greg Douglass first picked up a guitar when he was
6 years old. During his high school years in Walnut
Creek, California Greg played a lot of Beatles and
Stones; until he heard the hard strains of the highdecibel
bands that began to emerge in the mid- to
late-’60s.
During the Summer of Love (1967) Greg formed
and soon ran away to the big city with the Virtues,
his first band; he moved back home long enough
to get married and have a kid. Over the next year
or two, the Virtues grew into a full-fledged band.
Renamed Country Weather, the four-piece group
of acid-rockers managed to make it onto a few
Fillmore posters. Country Weather grew stormy in
1969 after playing numerous gigs at both Fillmore
West and East, and the Avalon in its heyday. They
filled in gigs at every bar and dance hall in Northern
California. Greg was 18 at the time and itching for
a bigger challenge, but Country Weather was in
the process of whimpering its way into the Fog City
night and Greg wasn’t about to quit music. To keep
the ‘60s energy flowing into the ’70s, Greg formed
a power trio called Mistress. Mistress played a lot
of gigs, experimented with musical forms
and even recorded an unreleased album.
In fact, Mistress did everything but make
money.
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Greg moved to Marin in 1973 to work with Cipollina
and a few other bands, and to do studio work with
Van Morrison during Morrison’s rebuilding period. This
took him on the road with Morrison for a year until
Van fired the whole band en masse. The band stayed
together, however, and called themselves Sound
Hole. They eventually found themselves a singer—
one Huey Lewis. Sound Hole became The News and
the rest is music history, but Greg continued to evolve.
In 1974, he went inward, primarily to woodshed. In
that Sausalito period he wrote at least fifteen songs -
all brilliant - but for bread and kicks he went out on the
road with Hot Tuna, including Jack Casady and Jorma
Kaukonen. The Hot Tuna vapor lasted almost a year,
during which Jorma and Greg got along famously and
developed lots of double lead licks on Jorma’s favorite
song, “Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning,”
backed by drummer Bob Steeler.
1975 saw another hiatus. This time Greg traveled
back to Mill Valley and with John Cipollina’s Raven
and appeared on the 1980 album “Raven”. They
jammed all over, starting at the Strawberry Inn, Inn
of the Beginning and The Saloon in North Beach.
This combo sometimes played with Terry Dolan and
sometimes with Nick Gravenites; occasionally with
Peter Albin sitting in on bass.
Greg continued to get better at his art but the stress
of the road and some far too magical flirtations with
drugs caused problems. In spite of the downward
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