The Charlatans
The Amazing Charlatans

It is a classic image. Five rock’n’rollers as 19th century dandy outlaws, operating on the periphery, like a latterday musical Magnificent Seven. And the Charlatans, with their sartorial elegance, defined it long before anyone else came along. But the key word is ‘concept’, the basic tenet at the root of all the Charlatans did. Their career seems by turns astutely planned and unimaginably haphazard, because while the concept was easy enough to envisage, putting it unto practice was a whole other ball game. And in such a way was their sound fashioned. The Charlatans’ tale is an oft-told one because this image was so vivid, but their music has always seemed an afterthought, almost by design. No matter that they presaged the country rock trend, made the old-timey vibe terminally hip, and inspired the rest of the musicians and artists in San Francisco who would go on to eclipse them commercially. In comparison to their peers, if the Charlatans have to be ‘psychedelic’, then it’s by implication only. It’s part of the trip, the put-on, the charade, that only begins to make sense when you observe it from the band’s own, slightly askance view. To be sure, the Charlatans ingested more LSD than probably any other group of the era, but they did not play ‘acid rock’. The drugs were a conduit, a means to an end, to push the concept through, to get it to work. Far from peace and love, the group were sarcasm and cynicism incarnate. Hell, even the name was negative.

There was a...

It is a classic image. Five rock’n’rollers as 19th century dandy outlaws, operating on the periphery, like a latterday musical Magnificent Seven. And the Charlatans, with their sartorial elegance, defined it long before anyone else came along. But the key word is ‘concept’, the basic tenet at the root of all the Charlatans did. Their career seems by turns astutely planned and unimaginably haphazard, because while the concept was easy enough to envisage, putting it unto practice was a whole other ball game. And in such a way was their sound fashioned. The Charlatans’ tale is an oft-told one because this image was so vivid, but their music has always seemed an afterthought, almost by design. No matter that they presaged the country rock trend, made the old-timey vibe terminally hip, and inspired the rest of the musicians and artists in San Francisco who would go on to eclipse them commercially. In comparison to their peers, if the Charlatans have to be ‘psychedelic’, then it’s by implication only. It’s part of the trip, the put-on, the charade, that only begins to make sense when you observe it from the band’s own, slightly askance view. To be sure, the Charlatans ingested more LSD than probably any other group of the era, but they did not play ‘acid rock’. The drugs were a conduit, a means to an end, to push the concept through, to get it to work. Far from peace and love, the group were sarcasm and cynicism incarnate. Hell, even the name was negative.

There was a degree of bravado in what the group set out to achieve musically. The Charlatans had no virtuosos, nor a distinctive lead vocalist, but what they had was a schtick, a pizzazz, a notion that made them far more distinctive than most of their contemporaries. The Victoriana that the group plundered for their image, championed by George Hunter and Michael Ferguson, went on to constitute a major part of the whole look of the San Francisco of the late 1960s, but none of the groups or artists who affected its trappings had the purity of the Charlatans’ vision. And, as mentioned, the music that was created to go along with the image was a combination of careful planning and happy accident. George Hunter made the segue from his original avant-rock ideas to the authentic, indigenous funk of ‘Alabama Bound’ and ‘East Virginia’, drawn from the wellspring of Americana, easily enough. But even he could not have envisioned the remarkable compatibility with which the writing of Dan Hicks would complement the repertoire. Like part of some mystical, larger-than-life jigsaw, the music is the major piece that completes the Charlatans’ puzzle.

If the band’s history is a frequently recounted rock legend, a synopsis is still in order to provide a context for the sounds. Much like a good movie, the action is fast-paced, confusing at times, but wholly engaging. So as the titles dissolve…

Former beatnik George Hunter arrives in San Francisco from Southern California in 1964, hot on the heels of his girlfriend Lucy Lewis. Whilst dabbling in electronica and the avant-garde, he runs across Lucy’s classmate at San Francisco State, Richard Olsen, a music major and horn player. Partly inspired by the British Invasion, together they hatch the plan to form a conceptualized rock’n’roll group, manipulated electronically. Sort of a William Burroughs-nightmare version of the Rolling Stones, to be known as the Androids.

Budget restrictions and the arrival of Hunter’s electrified folkie schoolpal Mike Wilhelm scotch the techno-rock Androids concept. Instead the addition of piano-player Michael Ferguson, bohemian proprietor of the Magic Theater For Madmen Only, a Divisadero Street boutique of Victoriana and marijuana, steers them in a different yet organic direction, to the folk-rock Mainliners. Sam Linde is the ineffectual drummer, swiftly replaced by Santa Rosa folknik Dan Hicks, dryly witty, with a self-generated repertoire to match. They are now the Charlatans.

Intensive rehearsal at Hun