Chet Helms

Chester Leo "Chet" Helms (August 2, 1942 – June 25, 2005), often called the father of San Francisco's 1967 "Summer of Love," was a music promoter and a counterculture figure in San Francisco during its hippie period in the mid- to-late 1960s.

Helms was the founder and manager of Big Brother and the Holding Company and recruited Janis Joplin as its lead singer.

He ended up in San Francisco in 1962.

Later he returned to Austin with his best friend at the time, Peter Haigh, to visit his friend Janis Joplin.

He thought she could make it as a singer in San Francisco.

After a week of partying, they persuaded Janis to drop out of school and hitchhike back to San Francisco with them.

Later he would bring her to the attention of Big Brother and the Holding Company.

After arriving in San Francisco in 1962, he scrounged a living in various ways, including selling marijuana, an occupation that caused him to go to a boardinghouse at 1090 Page Street.

The house was in Haight-Ashbury, then a rundown, low-rent neighborhood.

Having met many musicians in his trade, and appreciating the vibrant music scene in San Francisco, he instinctively recognized the need for a forum for musicians to play music together.

When he saw the large basement at Page Street, he began arranging jam sessions for the local bands and musicians.

Helms, an astute organizer, made those sessions popular and started charging an admission fee of 50 cents.

His career as a rock concert promoter began.

Big Brother and the Holding Company formed and Helms functioned as their informal manager.

He teamed up Janis Joplin with Big Brother for music sessions in the Haight-Ashbury basement.

In February 1966 he formed a loose connection with the Family Dog at 2125 Pine Street, a hippie commune, which hosted dances and events.

Helms was the ideal person to help this group organize their presentations and he moved into the Family Dog house.

Their first formal production was a concert at Longshoremen's Hall.

In February 1966, Helms formally founded Family Dog Productions to begin promoting concerts at The Fillmore Auditorium, alternating weekends with another young promoter, Bill Graham.

Helms was instrumental in introducing Bill Graham to the nascent music scene in the Haight Asbury District of S.F. Helms was nurturing when Graham caught wind of the excitement Helms was creating and promoting.

As the concerts became more popular, inevitable "conflicts" arose between the two promoters.

Chet's style was "easy-going, mellow, soft-tempered until pushed."

Graham's style was more driven.

Within a few months Helms secured the permits necessary to host events at the Avalon Ballroom, an old dancehall at 1268 Sutter Street, on the corner of Sutter and Van Ness.

Big Brother and the Holding Company debuted there in June 1966.

Later Helms would get them the appearance that made them famous, the Monterey Pop Festival, where Albert Grossman spotted Joplin and offered her a contract.

In the context of the Avalon's "anti-business model" and loose ambience, Helms' Family Dog held a series of concerts between April 1966 and November 1968, featuring a mix of artists, including rock, blues, soul, Indian, and rock and roll.

He was a producer and organizer, helping to stage free concerts and other cultural events at Golden Gate Park, the backdrop of San Francisco's Summer of Love in 1967, as well as at other venues, including the Avalon Ballroom.

He was the first producer of psychedelic light-show concerts at the Fillmore and the Avalon Ballroom and was instrumental in helping to develop bands that had the distinctive San Francisco Sound.

Helms died June 25, 2005, of complications of a stroke.

He was 62.

Chester Leo Helms was born in Santa Maria, California, the eldest of three sons.

His parents were Chester and Novella Helms.

Helms' father, a manager at a local sugarbeet mill, died when his oldest child was nine.

Chet's mother, Novella, took the boys and their terminally ill father to Texas where her family, the Dearmore family resided.

After Chet's father passed away his mother studied to become a school teacher and took the boys to the Ozarks in southwest Missouri and taught school in a two-room schoolhouse.

She taught four grades in one room and the other four grades were taught by another teacher in the other room.

Helms spent the rest of his youth in Missouri and Texas, where he learned to organize events by helping to stage benefits for civil-rights groups.

He enrolled at the University of Texas and became part of the music scene there, a scene that included a very young and inexperienced Janis Joplin.

Soon he dropped out of school and, inspired by the Beat Generation writers, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg to travel across America in search of freedom and inspiration, he set off wearing shoulder-length hair, beard and rimless glasses hitchhiking across the country.