The Nest by Jeannie Piersol

Jeannie Piersol is one of the enigmas of the mid-1960s San Francisco rock scene. Though little known, the distinctive singer emerged from the same community to the south of San Francisco that nurtured the principals of the Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Big Brother and other enabling constituents of the city’s future rock meritocracy.
Close friends with Grace Slick and her brother-in-law Darby Slick, Piersol duetted with Grace in an embryonic line-up of pathfinding early SF outfit The Great! Society, before leaving to front her own band, The Yellow Brick Road, who worked the clubs and ballrooms of the emerging SF circuit, including legendary venue the Matrix.

Upon his return from a sojourn to India to study sarod, Darby Slick transformed the The Yellow Brick Road into a multi-racial psychedelic soul outfit know as Hair. This is turn led to Jeannie getting signed as a solo act to Cadet Concept, the hipster imprint of venerable R&B label Chess Records. Slick and Piersol travelled to Chicago in 1968 to record with by the master musicians of Chess, the result a hip hybrid of rock, soul and Indian flavors.

Despite healthy airplay, neither of Jeannie’s two singles managed to make any commercial headway and she would soon leave the rock scene behind. Nevertheless, a growing cabal of collectors, deejays and indie rockers have discovered the delights of tracks the slow burning, entrancing ‘The Nest’, the rousing Airplane-like ‘Gladys’, or the fuzzed-out dancefloor fave ‘Your Sweet Inner Self.’

Piersol’s brief but fascinating 1960s career is anthologized for the first time on High Moon’s The Nest, which features her two sought after singles and various other studio outtakes from Chicago and Los Angeles.

The track list also features material by the rarely heard San Francisco rock groups that Jeannie fronted: Hair (featuring Darby Slick) and The Yellow Brick Road, the latter represented by live recordings from the Matrix.

The handsomely-appointed package comes with a deluxe and extensively illustrated 20-page LP booklet with a 7500 word essay from Grammy-nominated producer Alec Palao.

Jeannie Piersol is one of the enigmas of the mid-1960s San Francisco rock scene. Though little known, the distinctive singer emerged from the same community to the south of San Francisco that nurtured the principals of the Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Big Brother and other enabling constituents of the city’s future rock meritocracy.