CHET HELMS
August 2, 1942 - June 25, 2005
San Francisco: Impresario Chet Helms who was known at the "Father of the
Summer of Love" and was the manager & founder of "Big Brother & the Holding
Company" with Janis Joplin as well as the first to produce psychedelic light show
concerts at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium then later at his own Avalon
Ballrooms passed away at 12:35 AM, Saturday, June 25th at San Francisco's Pacific Medical Center from complications due to a stroke Helms suffered on Tuesday, June 21st. Helms was surrounded by his brother John Helms and six close friends at the time of his death. Helms was born August 25th, 1942 in Santa Maria California but lived much of his youth in Austin Texas.
No discussion involving the Sixties, the source of the "San Francisco sound"
or the "Summer of Love" can take place without mentioning Chet Helms, a
front-line contributor to the people, ideas and events surrounding the most dynamic
decade in American history.
Chet Helms and his production company, the Family Dog, turned small
get-togethers of local musicians and artists into a scene that eventually produced the
great, legendary gatherings of the Summer of Love. Rock promoter Bill Graham
first turned to Chet Helms and his well-connected family of artists and
audiences in San Francisco to build his own promotional empire, well after the local
"scene" had been established and nurtured in coffee houses all over the city.
Helms was born in Santa Maria, California, in 1942, and spent most of his
youth in Texas and Missouri. While attending the University of Texas in Austin,
he was drawn to! the civil rights movement bubbling under in the South. A
stepchil d from a mixed-race marriage, Helms became actively engaged in organizing
benefits for non-profit civil and human rights groups, all the while learning
and using the tools of the trade he would later apply to the world of rock
concert promotion.
Helms moved from Austin to San Francisco for the first time in the summer of
1962. He returned to Austin briefly in 1963 to beckon then-unknown folksinger
Janis Joplin to hitch-hike back with him, telling her he would help promote
her career in San Francisco.
In the basement of 1090 Page Street at the center of the colorful
Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, Helms organized informal jam sessions, out of which the band Big Brother and the Holding Company was formed. He later added Joplin as the
group's lead singer and managed the band through its formative years.
Through his relationships with such celebrated figures as Ken Kesey and The
Grateful D! ead, Helms found himself at the center of it all, a willing
coordinator of the era's new interpretation of music and youth culture. By February
1966, Helms started producing shows for many bands under the name Family Dog
Productions at the Fillmore Auditorium, on alternating weekends with Bill Graham
Presents. By April, Helms secured permits to run his own dance hall, The Avalon
Ballroom on Sutter Street.
For three years, Helms and the Family Dog hosted some of the most influential
events in San Francisco rock history, including free events in Golden Gate
Park in 1966 and during what has now become known as the "Summer of Love" in
1967. From The Doors to Bo Diddley, Helms created a unique atmosphere at the
Avalon which encouraged immersive experiences among the artists and audience.
Psychedelic light shows have evolved into what we now know as "multi-media." And
the trademark! posters have skyrocketed in value over the years in the rock
memo rabilia market. It was a formula duplicated by rock promoters all over the
country. Helms also opened up Family Dog dance halls in Denver and Portland
before deciding in 1969 to run his operations out of one ballroom in San
Francisco, on the Great Highway next to Playland-at-the-Beach.
By the end of 1970, the small local scene Helms helped create had grown into
a cultural phenomenon exploited globally by a wide variety of entrepreneurs,
for better or for worse. He decided to take a break, and would not return to
concert promoting until 1978, when Family Dog produced the 1st Annual Tribal
Stomp at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley.
After producing another Tribal Stomp in 1979 at the Monterey Fairgrounds -
highlighted by the first-ever California appearance of The Clash - Helms
retreated from active promotion. He came out of retirement briefly in October 1997 to
produce the 30th Anniversary ! Celebration of the Summer of Love in Golden Gate
Park, where 60,000 fans gathered for a day of free music, with no arrests and
no reports of incidents.
Since 1980, Helms has operated Atelier Dore, Inc., an art gallery in San
Francisco specializing in American and European art from 1850 to 1950.
Chet photos by Robert Altman
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San Francisco Museum
 The Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics
A University Of California Project Ten Years In The Making
The Guardian, February 8, 1964
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