More Love for John Cipollina

It’s so good to see an article on one of the great unsung guitar heroes of the psychedelic era, namely the late John Cipollina [November 2020]. I don’t think I’ve seen his name included in any magazine publications for several decades, so this article comes as a very welcome, long-overdue treat from your magazine. Many thanks for such a well-presented and documented history.

I first encountered Cipollina by way of a copy of Happy Trails, which I bought on a whim shortly after it was released in 1969, largely on account of the album cover art. I knew nothing of the band or their music but decided to take a chance. I was rewarded with one of the most compelling, guitar-driven expeditions into what seemed to me the epitome of what “psychedelic, acid-rock” conjured up in my adolescent imagination. Listening to the album today still generates the same sense of raw excitement evident in the almost telepathic interplay between the two guitar leads, Duncan and Cipollina. Both were highly inventive and capable of very melodic lines, whilst equally capable of whipping up a frenzy of excitement through dynamics and contrasting styles — Duncan’s slightly jazzy explorations against Cipollina’s more earthy, rock ’n’ rollbased approach. Happy Trails is generally regarded as the highwater mark of what that particular incarnation of the band was capable of — namely, instrumental inventiveness of a mesmerising intensity.

— Arthur Wilson