The story begins in 1962 with Andy and his then unknown banjo teacher, a young Jerry Garcia, finger picking in a back room at a music studio in Palo Alto, and ends in 1980 with Andy sharing joints and good times with the Willie Nelson Family. A skinny six-foot-seven-inch Jewish kid (later known as “California Slim”), Andy divided his time between the usual adolescent interests and music, for which he would go on to provide a capital M by promoting and staging concerts throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. His Palo Alto nightclub, Homer’s Warehouse, across the street from Stanford University, brought revolutionary musicians to young sensibilities hungry for new driving rhythms.
Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart once said, “There was a community in need of music, and music in need of a community.” That community was San Francisco in the ’60s and ’70s, and that music was rock ‘n’ roll.
Presenting every baby boomer’s musical dream, Andrew Bernstein’s “California Slim” takes readers on a mesmerizing behind-the-scenes psychedelic journey through San Francisco’s cultural and musical revolution.
The book provides a real taste of rock ‘n’ roll history, from the moment Bernstein was a 14-year-old kid taking banjo lessons from an unknown music teacher named Jerry Garcia, to the red carpet premier of Willie Nelson’s first movie, “Honeysuckle Rose.”
“California Slim: The Music, the Magic, and the Madness” By Andrew Bernstein ISBN: 978-1-4797-7045-8 Available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Xlibris online bookstores
About the Author In 1969, Andrew Bernstein began working as a creative partner in Crimson Madness, a producer of light shows at Bill Graham’s famed Fillmore West. Bernstein also worked with the legendary B.B. King, Albert King, Iron Butterfly, Boz Skaggs, Grateful Dead, Original Fleetwood Mac, Willie Nelson and many others. He currently resides in San Francisco.