Guitarist shaped S.F. Sound
Quicksilver was on, they could blow the doors off the Dead and the Airplane. And when they were off, they were still better than most bands.”
Only in concert could a fan hear and see the intricate interplay between its two lead guitarists. There was the skinny and shaggy John Cipollina, and the rakish Duncan, who might dress in a neck scarf, flowing silk shirt and vest and looked like his hair had been blown dry.
“You didn’t realize how good Gary was on guitar because John was so flashy and charismatic,” said Goddard, who saw the band more than 100 times, and ended up married to Cipollina’s sister, Michael. “Gary’s solos were noteperfect.”
This can be heard in Quicksilver’s one radio hit, 1970’s “Fresh Air,” for which Duncan played lead throughout. With the refrain “ooooh have another hit — of sweet California sunshine,” it can still be heard in rotation on college rock stations.
“Gary was the engine of Quicksilver. It would not run without him,” said David Freiberg, a founding member of Quicksilver.
Gary Grubb was born on Sept. 4, 1946, in San Diego. He grew up in Ceres (Stanislaus County) and was adopted by a family that had come from Arkansas. Years later when he found his birth certificate he changed his last name from Grubb to Duncan, after his birth father.
First trained on pedal steel, he played in R&B bands in the Central Valley, and recorded a minor hit with the Brogues. In San Francisco, Duncan worked against the hippie stereotype. He wore a long knife on his belt and was fond of guns and motorcycles.
“He was a tough guy with a soft heart,” said Karl Anderson of Petaluma, a close friend.
The band was meant to be — the members realized that there were two shared birthdays among the five musicians, including Duncan’s, and all five were born under the sign of Virgo, which is ruled by Mercury, the messenger of the gods. Hence the name Quicksilver Messenger Service.
The bandmates lived in a basement near Fisherman’s Wharf, then later in rental houses in Larkspur and Mill Valley, before moving to dairy farm in Olema in West Marin. As its sound crystallized with its extended guitar breaks, Quicksilver was regularly on bills with Big Brother and the Dead. No band was above the others, though Jefferson Airplane had pop hits and was more marketable. The shows went back and forth between Avalon Ballroom, operated by Chet Helms, and Bill Graham’s Fillmore and Winterland auditoriums.
“All our gigs were either at the Avalon or the Fillmore,” Freiberg said, “so we moved back to San Francisco, for the Summer of Love.”
Eventually the band starting touring beyond the city, playing up and down the coast, in addition to bookings in Boston and even one at Carnegie Hall. But Quicksilver never toured outside of the United States.
After Quicksilver played a New Year’s Eve show in 1969 at Winterland, Duncan quit the band to form a band with singersongwriter Dino Valenti in New York. The title to Quicksilver’s second album “Happy Trails,” with the cover image of a cowboy waving his hat as he rode away, was a tribute to him, Freiberg said.
Quicksilver replaced Duncan with keyboardist Nicky Hopkins. But one year later, also for a New Year’s Eve show at Winterland, Duncan returned to Quicksilver and brought Valenti with him. Hopkins also stayed on, forming a crowded stage. “For a while that was a hell of a band,” Freiberg said.
Quicksilver flew off to record in Hawaii, the session that produced “Fresh Air,” but the new sound was apparently not to Cippolina’s liking. He quit, and took the band manager with him.
In 1975, the original lineup reunited for the album “Solid Silver.” The opening cut, “Gypsy Lights,” written and sung by Duncan, got radio play and was the last Quicksilver song to approach a hit.
Cipollina died in 1989 and both Hopkins and Valenti in 1994. Duncan soldiered on and finally toured Europe before playing his last show as Quicksilver Messenger Service in Eureka, on Aug. 22, 2010.
“I don’t think he ever stopped playing,” Freiberg said. “He was a real unusual guy who was full of tales. He was a sailor. He was a cowboy. He had a lot of spirituality.”
At the time of his death, Duncan was in the final edits of a metaphysical story called “Speed
Dreams.” He also was at work on “The Gary Duncan Scrapbook,” featuring photos from 1966 through 2010.
Duncan’s first marriage, to Shelley Eidson, produced two children before it ended in divorce. In 1970, Duncan met Dara Love while Quicksilver was at a makeshift studio in the hills above Haleiwa, Hawaii. They were married at San Francisco City Hall on Sept. 1, 1978, and the couple moved to San Rafael.
When Duncan temporarily soured of the music industry, he got a job as a longshoreman, working the docks along the Embarcadero. The Duncans moved to a garden flat on the Hyde Street cable car line on Russian Hill before buying a home with a white picket fence in Richmond when the first of their three sons was born in 1983.
Their second son, Thomas, was born on the Bay Bridge, in the front seat of a hot rod that Duncan had restored. Duncan enjoyed the story so much he made sure the birth certificate showed that the location of birth was listed as “Bay Bridge Toll Plaza” and the institution listed as “A Chevy Monte Carlo.”
“Gary was a Chevy man until the end,” Love Duncan said.
Duncan is survived by his wife, Dara Love Duncan of Richmond; exwife, Shelley Eidson Hauslouer of Merced; daughter, Heather Duncan of Tracy; and sons, Jesse Duncan of Merced, Michael Duncan and Miles Duncan, both of San Francisco, and Thomas Duncan of Richmond.
A private memorial is being planned.