How Alec Palao Fused Jeannie's Existing Work with Never Before Heard Archival Material. Both Jeannie and Alec tell us the story.
Jeannie Piersol, a striking yet enigmatic figure in the 1960s San Francisco music scene, is having her remarkable story told once more through The Nest, a highly anticipated anthology released by High Moon Records. With its unique blend of psychedelic rock, soul, and Indian influences, Piersol's music never fully received the recognition it deserved during her brief career. Yet, her work has long been cherished by those in the know, and The Nest compiles her most sought-after recordings, including rare demos, outtakes, and live performances.
The compilation is not just a musical journey but a historical snapshot of the Bay Area’s vibrant 1960s music scene. Piersol’s connections to prominent figures like Grace Slick and the Jefferson Airplane, as well as her collaborations with legendary musicians such as Minnie Riperton and Maurice White, place her squarely in the heart of that creative explosion. Despite the brief duration of her career, Piersol's recordings resonate with an authenticity and intrigue that have only grown over time. Alec Palao, a 5x GRAMMY® Award-nominated producer and curator of The Nest, has worked tirelessly to preserve and present Piersol’s legacy, offering insight into her life and the music that defined it.
In this interview, we’re excited to dive into the story behind the music with both Jeannie Piersol and Alec Palao (and with some technical help from Jeannie's son). Jeannie will share her experiences navigating the whirlwind of the 1960s music scene, her collaborations with notable figures, and the path that led her to walk away from it all. Alec will offer a glimpse into the painstaking process of producing The Nest and why these tracks, after all these years, remain as compelling as ever. Join us as we explore the legacy of an artist whose voice and vision are now being recognized as a vital part of rock history.
Evan Toth: I have some questions for you of course as you'd imagine. Do you have any questions for me before we get started?
Jeannie Piersol: Yes, I have. Who the hell are you? [laughter]
ezt: Who the hell am I!
jp: I don't know. I'm sitting in my little house in Sonoma and all of a sudden there's a gentleman talking to me, so it's nice.
ezt: Isn't this amazing? Jeannie, thank you for-- I already thanked you for joining me, but thank you again for joining me. I just wanted to say before we started, wow, what an amazing body of work. I think the best place to start really is I wonder what the impetus was for everybody to say, "Hey, wait a minute, Jeannie has got all this stuff here and we have this music that we want to put together." By the way Alec you were saying you were making some notes and folks should realize that there's this beautiful booklet, you gave me a lot of reading to do before this thing.
jp: Alec, you probably are an author but you should be an author. Really wonderful.
Alec Palao: To answer your question, Evan, I'll take credit happily for making this happen. Only because I'd known Jeannie's voice on those two 45s that she made, in the late '60s for many years. The Nest and Gladys. I often wondered about her, like I said I first heard about Jeannie and found out about her via Darby Slick, but it wasn't until I got friendly with Sonny Anderson who is a very wonderful lady who's the daughter of Ray Anderson, one of the great characters of 1960s San Francisco, who was friends with Jeannie and her late beloved husband Bill, back in the mid-'60s. He was also a pack rat beyond belief. He had--
jp: Oh, my God. He'd come to see us in I don't know where, anywhere we were living. He'd leave and half of my stuff would be gone. [laughter] I'm not kidding, I didn't mind.
ap: Yes. To give a very brief background of Ray Anderson. He was around one of the major light shows in San Francisco in the Ballrooms in the late '60s. He was the first manager of the famous rock club, The Matrix, in San Francisco, which has become a legend amongst aficionados of that era. He was also a documentarian, he liked to tape things, collected tapes and records, and all that kinds of stuff. It was through his stash of tapes that Sonny his daughter gave me access to, that I found a reel that said, "Jeannie," on it.
ezt: Ah.
ap: On that reel was several additional songs from the time period when she'd recorded at Chess. I just fell in love with these things. They were just like, a couple of them were the same that wonderful Chess record sound with the Maurice White, Phil Upchurch, and Charles Stepney, the great musicians and arrangers that worked in Chicago. Some of the songs like that, and then there was a couple that were much more trippier with sarod and flute, and Jeannie doing a lot of Indian type of things with her voice.
I've quickly figured we've got the roots of an album here. Then through another couple of places, I was able to find a tape of her band the Yellow Brick Road performing at The Matrix, and then also a tape of the group called Hair, which was where the Yellow Brick Road went into, and Jeannie was a lead vocalist for both of these groups. That was a studio recording. We essentially had an album, and it's funny these are the only things that I know that exist as Jeannie's music from that time. They're all absolutely wonderful and essential, so there's a natural album just like that.
ezt: Jeannie, how did you feel listening to that music today or revisiting it and seeing it put together in a new package?
jp: I thought it was exciting really, but, I don't know, it's a little bit scary, I guess. I don't even know that person. [laughs]
ezt: Yes. That's a good point, because we are all such different people than we were in our teens and our 20s and 30s, of course, even myself. What do you remember about-- How would you say maybe that that person is different than who you are now? Were you reminded of anything of that younger person that you'd maybe forgotten about during this process?
jp: When I heard the music, you mean?
ezt: Sure.
jp: I guess so. It was wonderful. It was fun. It was very creative, and I don't have a lot of creativity in my life anymore. It's going to the store, and coming home, and that kind of stuff.
ezt: Sure.
jp: You ask your mom and she'll tell you.
ezt: I know. One of the interesting things about your sound, it was the sound that you guys made. You had this really cool fusion of an Indian sound and of course the rock, and then the soul part of it. Do you remember anything about how you put that sound together back then? Was there anything in particular that you recall coming up with that sort of a sound?
jp: I always loved rhythm and blues. I just loved it. Darby who was a member of the band, was always running off to India. Sarigama Padanisa, and so when he came home it was like let's do a raag. That got together, and then he started driving over the Golden Gate Bridge and buying bottles of vodka, and I said, "Oh, I don't think I can do that." I stopped and I quit the band.
ezt: Maybe that was a smart move, even though we wish you'd made more music. Maybe it sounded like it was a good idea to get out of there.
jp: Yes, it kind of scared me, anyway.
ezt: Maybe back to Alec. Alec, can you tell me a little bit about the-- you mentioned the tapes. Can you just tell me and of course, Jeannie too, think about this. You said you had a lot of these, what recordings you had, and of course in the booklet you have a lot of great photographs and a lot of great handbills and stuff like that. Can you talk about assembling this and how it came together, who had some of this stuff, and how you transferred some of the audio, Alec?
ap: Yes, that's what I do as an archivist or reissue producer and back catalog person. I like to always be in charge of all aspects of the compilation, the transfers, the mastering, the notes, and everything like that. I found the tapes and then to answer your earlier question, I remember I called Sonny, Ray Anderson's daughter gave me Jeannie and Bill's number, and I called it but I never heard back. Then Bill told me later, "Oh, we thought it was a scam [chuckles] or a spam call. Anyway, finally I made the connection and we talked, and then I visited with them when they were living in Portland.
We had a really nice visit. Jeannie and Bill had some photos, but most of the pictures-- Actually, this is an interesting thing. Most of the pictures and all the color pictures in this thing, come from a 16-millimeter film that was made by Ray Anderson and Jerry Slick who was Darby's brother and Grace's husband or ex-husband by that time, for the song "Gladys" and you can see that on YouTube. It's a wonderful clip of just Jeannie roaming around San Francisco, and Marin, and everything like that.
I did a bunch of screenshots from that, from the high-res transfer of that film. The art guy, Steve Stanley converted that into color photos which is beautiful and really gave the record and the package a really nice vibe with all the posters and everything. I did ask Steve to make it look like a Chess Record album from 1968 or something like that.
ezt: Right, the label. Yes, I saw that.
ap: Yes, and all that kind of stuff. Normally with these kinds of projects, Evan, I always try and look under every stone and see what we got. Some of the black and white photos of both the Yellow Brick Road and Hair that are in the booklet they came, there were photos that were taken by Ray Anderson too and Sonny had those. It was really nice that we had all these elements that we could put together to tell Jeannie's story.
ezt: Jeannie, you worked with-- There are so many interesting names of other musicians on this project, that of course people who have become very famous in their own spheres. Do you remember working with them and thinking, "Hey, these people are really going places"?
jp: To be honest, when we went to Chicago we were babes in the wood. [laughs] Charles Stepney, Oh, my God, what a great musician he was, and Howlin' Wolf.They were it. It was mind-blowing, really. One of the women who worked in the office at Chess, she and I became friends and her name was Minnie Riperton. [laughs] With the high, high voice. Oh, my God. She and I became friends and I said, "Minnie, we're all having dinner together." She said, "They didn't ask me," and it's really made me mad. I wrote her and said that, "You should have been there and they'll be sorry someday," and they were. [laughs]
That was cool. Minnie. Her daughter is-
ap: Maya Rudolph.
jp: Oh, Maya Rudolph.
ezt: That's right. She's very popular right now. She's having a great career at this time. Absolutely. You had this time with Grace Slick that the two of you were going to be the co-vocalist there. I wonder, have you been in touch with her at all in the last many decades or have you connected at all?
jp: Not really, because she's been ill a lot.
ezt: She was around. I saw her around recently and I don't know what she did, some kind of an interview or something and I wondered if you guys had connected again.
jp: No. She's beautiful. She used to be a model. She modeled for I. Magnin in San Francisco.
ezt: Yes.
jp: This was in the '50s and '60s, but she was really smart, really fun, great musician.
ezt: Right. Absolutely and I love, of course, "Gladys" was supposed to be a Jefferson Airplane song. What was the story? I think people would really enjoy hearing that story. You had a demo and it became a little bit more than that, of course. What was the story of hoping that the Jefferson Airplane might have something to do with it and how it turned back to being your thing?
jp: I don't know. I wrote the song because it was a Sonny and Cher-esque experience and we were looking for a place to practice and we walked into this warehouse. Oh, it was-- I don't know where, but anyway, in San Francisco somewhere. We walked in and said we'd love to rent a room to practice in and the woman looked at us and she said, "Get out." [laughter]
ap: Her name?
jp: Oh, and her name plaque was Gladys. I went home and wrote about Gladys.
ezt: Oh, that's great. That's a great story.
ap: If I interject, I can tell you about the-
ezt: Of course, yes.
ap: -Jefferson Airplane thing. Jeannie wrote the song and by this time, the band, the Yellow Brick Road had become the band, Hair. Darby Slick had returned from India and he wanted to get back into the scene. He joined up with Jeannie who was also by now his sister-in-law. They did a demo of this thing. The fellow that was handling them at that time was a guy called Howard Wolf.
jp: Oh, yes.
ap: He was a LA mover and shaker guy and he'd been involved a bit with the Great Society. He funded this demo session, which is on the album for Hair, and liked "Gladys" so much. He said, "I'm going to shop this song," and because of his connection to the Grace Society, he knew Grace. There's this famous story that he went down to the recording sessions After Bathing at Baxter's to talk to Grace and the other guys in the band, Paul Kantner or whatever, and said, "Look, hey, this is a great song. You should be covering this."
By that time, Jefferson Airplane, it was that era of, like, "No man, we do our own thing." They probably weren't going to cover this. Howard did get it placed. There was a cover version of it that was, thanks to Howard, with the group Sagittarius, which is basically-
jp: Oh, yes.
ap: -a studio project of Gary Usher and Curt Boettcher. If you look at the second Sagittarius album, which is on Together Records, The Blue Marble, there's an interesting version of "Gladys" on that. It's not as good as Jeannie's. Gary Usher changed a couple of things and then gave himself co-writer credit.
ezt: Oh, he did one of those things.
ap: As they did in those days,but it is an interesting thing. I think there was a lot of promise felt with "Gladys". That's why they made the little movie and stuff for it. It's just a shame it didn't happen because I think it's a great piece. It really is.
jp: It's not a bad piece, really. What I liked about it is, I slowed it down. I thought that was clever. [laughs] Getting back to the Buffalo Bills. [laughter]
ap: Yes. That was the Philadelphia Eagles.
ezt: Were you disappointed last night? (this was the afternoon a day after after the 2025 Superbowl)
jp: No. I was a Eagles fan.
ezt: I was rooting for them, too, here in Jersey.
Jeannie's son: Yes. The Chiefs beat the Niners last year.
jp: Oh, yes, that's right. I thought it was a great game and it was fun to see somebody else besides-- what's his name?
Jeannie's son: Patrick Mahomes.
jp: Yes.
ezt: I'm 100% with you. I enjoyed watching the flame out. I liked watching them crash and burn. [laughter]. I did. I really did.
ezt: Jeannie, the interesting part of your story is that you had this musical career and I think people know how much work you have to put into these careers and how difficult the hours are. It's a difficult show business life to lead. You had decided to not do that anymore. You said, "I'm good at this but maybe it's just not for me." Could you maybe explain to our audience a little bit about how that came, that feeling came to you?
jp: It's called, you have children and that's about it. [laughter]
ezt: Right. Done. Period.
jp: I have a friend, Susan Tillem is her name. She said, "You have these kids, they ruin your life." [laughter] Anyway, it was too much for me, I guess, to think about having a baby and being on the road and singing in clubs. [laughs] It was hard. Once when we were starting out, we were at UC Davis and not a very good band. I was singing away and this young man walked up to the stage and he said, "Come here." I thought, "Oh, my God, he is going to shoot me." Anyway, he said, "Your band really sucks." [laughter] I agreed with him.
We weren't very good, but he said, "But you're hot." [laughter] I liked that story. I don't know where he is now, but he made my day.
ezt: Hey, Jeannie, it's interesting to talk about the Super Bowl with you. Did you catch the halftime show?
jp: Oh, my God.
ap: Kendrick Lamar.
jp: I just loved it.
ezt: You loved it. I'm curious. What do you think about, here we are talking about music from the mid to late 1960s. The music that you've seen in the 21st century here that you consume like the rest of us, what do you think? What did you think about that last night, that show?
jp: It's not my style of music. I like Frank Sinatra, but I thought it was good. It was good. He was good. He's in a fight with somebody. Is that it?
ap: Drake or something?
jp: Drake.
ap: Kendrick Lamar and Drake, they're in a fight.
jp: Oh.
ezt: That's it. See, you know the details. You got it.
jp: No, it was all over the tube.
ezt: Yes. Cool. On that note, Alec, you've done such an extensive research and work here on this project and I'm sure Jeannie appreciates the love that you put into this.
jp: Oh, yes.
ezt: When you see reissues like this, you certainly went the extra mile, particularly with the booklet and the interviews that you conducted and you added so much extra context to not just the music. Because the music is one thing. It's fun. It's something that we can enjoy on its own, but you really added such extra context to it that people could understand the value, really, of what you gave to them with this production. Do you think the music industry has gotten better or worse about hanging onto important artifacts like this and saving them for audiences that are a lifetime away?
ap: That's an interesting question, Evan. I've been toiling in these fields for the past three or four decades. There's two aspects to reissues or what have you want to call them, back catalog, there's the well-known things that keep getting recycled and regurgitated, and like, oh, here's the umpteenth super deluxe version of some album, whatever, blah, blah. Then there's things like this Jeannie thing, which I'm much more interested in, in creating new albums, so to speak, from older music. There is as the sales, the physical dip, and all that kind of stuff, and the money goes out of the music business as it traditionally has been, there's still room for these kinds of discoveries.
The truth is, in terms of listenership, it's the broadest it can be now because any person and particularly young people that are interested in music of any kind, they can hear it and get it instantly. I remember growing up in London, late '70s and early '80s, trying to find a The 13th Floor Elevators or a Sonics record back then was impossible, or even Great Society or something like that. Now, of course, you can just dial it up instantly. I'm really hoping that with the various algorithms and whatever that Jeannie's music reaches everybody now. I think it can, because certainly DJs have picked up on it on the past and all that kind of stuff.
It's a timeless sound, I think. I always say it doesn't matter when music is made, it's when you hear it that matters.
jp: Oh, that's very nice.
ap: It's been my great pleasure and honor to get to know Jeannie and the rest of the family, and be able to share these few little nuggets that from her dim, dim lit past. All of a sudden put some light on them and have people enjoy it.
ezt: Jeannie, do you think in 1966 you would have ever imagined that we'd be talking about these recordings in the year 2025?
jp: No. [laughter]
ezt: That's pretty cool. Particularly because you composed them, you must feel very proud of these songs at this stage of the game.
jp: That's what everyone did in that period of time. Everyone, "Oh, let's write a song. Let's get a band together and write a song. Write a tune."
ezt: They didn't have cell phones.
jp: That's right. [laughs] Oh gosh. It was fun. It really was fun. It was great fun. Then of course, can I tell my Janis Joplin story?
ezt: Of course. Am I going to say "no" to a Janis Joplin story from you?
jp: No. [laughter] I was in the panhandle, and I was with some musicians. Janis called and said, "I see that you're auditioning women singers." They said, "Yes, come on over." We were in the panhandle, and Janis comes over and she was singing, "Take another little piece of my heart now baby." Just singing her heart out, and there's a knock on the door, and there's three or four policemen standing outside. We said, "What's up?" They said, "We heard someone's being murdered in this apartment." [laughter] "No, Janis is just singing her heart out. Come on now." [laughs]
ezt: "No, this is just a closed rehearsal." That's a good one. That's a funny one. What do you think as you're watching TV and you're doing your thing, you're going through your life, or you're flipping through a magazine and you see some of these people that you've rubbed shoulders with over the years, what does that do to you? What does that trigger in your mind?
jp: Not a lot really. Really my life changed so dramatically once I had children and was a mom. I think it's wonderful. Like Cher is still kicking around, and she's good. She's a good singer. Let's see, who else did I like? Oh, woman who wrote, "I've looked at life from both sides."
ezt: Oh, Joni Mitchell.
jp: Yes. She didn't look so well. She was in a wheelchair, and that was sad.
ezt: I think she's getting more comfortable with doing the live thing again. She'd stepped away from it for a long time. I think at first she looked a little not so great, but I think she looks a little bit better now.
jp: She looks better, yes. I'm getting a cortisone shot tomorrow so I shouldn't talk.
ezt: That happens to the best of us. Jeannie, and you've told us some really good stories already, but was there anything that really surprised you going through this project or reading the reflections that people had had or listening to this music again, was there anything particularly surprising that jumped out at you?
jp: Not really, no. I think Alec did a wonderful job. God, he should be a professor and write all this down or something. I really was impressed, but no, not really.
ezt: How about you, Alec, as you were going through the archives and the articles, did anything jump out at you that was particularly surprising? Of course, I'm sure there were a few things, but maybe one or two things.
ap: I think what's interesting about Jeannie is there was a lot of, particularly the San Francisco scene as the rock scene as it developed was known for the psychedelic aspect and folk rock and all that kind of stuff, but at the core of it, they were all big fans of black music, and blues, and as time went on soul. In the '70s, a lot of the bands emulated Stax or Motown or whatever, and blah, blah, blah, and doing all that kind of stuff, but Jeannie is the first and one of the few to actually go to the crucible of it, like Chicago or Detroit or whatever, and record with those players.
jp: Oh, they were musicians. [laughs]
ap: People ask me to describe her, I say because as I mentioned in the line of notes, because of the similar backgrounds there's a correlation with Grace, but Jeannie is eminently more soulful than Grace. If you've ever heard Grace and some of the old Jefferson Airplane live recordings where she's trying to sing in the Midnight Hour or something like that, Jeannie would definitely have nailed it. The thing about those songs, she went to Chicago and sang with this great rhythm and blues environment, but it's still Jeannie's voice.
Particularly on "The Nest", which it's just completely hypnotic, the way she sings that. I think even though it's cut from the same cloth as all the great San Francisco bands and everything, Jeannie's music is a little bit different and better for that, I think. It's not the same old, same old that you hear from a lot of San Francisco lesser-known San Francisco bands.
jp: Oh, good. Glad you liked it. [laughter]
ezt: There you go. Hey, Jeannie, do how much the seven inch of "The Nest" is going for online right now? Did you look it up?
jp: No.
ezt: At least $30 for the promo and up to $72 here-
jp: You're kidding.
ezt: -from the UK.
jp: Oh, my God. Do I get to see any of that money? [laughs]
ezt: You don't see any of it. It's all on the used market.
jp: Oh, funny. Oh, that's great. Who cares? I don't need money. I have enough, and wonderful.
ezt: It's not about money, it's just the fact that there are people out there that really want to get their hands on that and want to experience that song on the record that it was pressed on all those years ago in 1969, I guess. "The Nest" was '69, right? Yes.
ap: Yes. "Gladys" was '68.
jp: There's somebody who can't go to sleep. Who is that? Somebody in England. Who is that? I don't know. Anyway, he's very nice, and he--
ap: Oh, Caribou.
jp: Caribou. Do you know that?
ezt: No, that's a performer?
ap: He's a DJ, an English DJ, and he always plays the Jeannie Pierson, "The Nest" as his last song of the set.
jp: So he can go to sleep. [laughs]
ap: So he can go to sleep.
ezt: Oh, that's sweet. That's cool. You're like the end credits.
jp: Yes. Anyway, I put people to sleep and-- [laughs] Oh, my God.
ezt: It's putting them to sleep in a good way, not a boring way.
jp: Oh, yes. I know.
ezt: I think the takeaway for me of this whole project is how close a lot of this music just came to being totally lost. Of course, those singles would still be there. They would be on the used market, but Alec, you did really a heroic work, putting this together.
jp: Thank you.
ezt: Even of course, we're talking about it physically here on vinyl and sounds great by the way, but it'll have digitally as well. It's really important that this is living on here.
ap: Thank you. I always say I'm only as good as the raw material that I work with. There's something about-- I love the '45s. I've had those for years. Then, to find more music from the same source is always wonderful. That's really my goal as a reissued producer or an archivist or whatever is to find more evidence of great stuff. You know what I mean? It's more exciting to create these sort of almost like new albums and share them with the world. Then, just like I said before, to just regurgitate something we're all very familiar with. I mean, yes, you can improve upon it but it's always nice to shine a light on people like Jeannie.
ezt: Right. Alec, maybe could you talk a little bit about you had a lot of different sources. Of course, I would imagine you-- What are we listening to on this? Are they rips of the singles? Did you just try to find clean singles or you didn't have any kind of tapes or anything?
ap: Everything is from tape except for the four sides are on single. The reason for that is you probably know about this, Evan, there are no tapes to these things. They burned in a fire at the Universal storage facility in Los Angeles. That was really my only option. Luckily, I think they came out pretty good.
The two outtakes songs that Jeannie wrote, "Mr. Bright Eyes" and "Everyone Needs Love", those are actually only existed on this tape from Ray Anderson. They were very thin-sounding so I spend quite a bit of time getting them out to snuff.
Then, Dan Hirsch, the mastering guy, he added his two cents and they sound a lot better. Anyone that submitted it would like, Chicago, Detroit soul knows there's a kind of sound. It's not always super high fidelity but it's just that wonderful sound.
jp: Minnie Riperton is on that. She's a backup there.
ezt: That's right. Yes, she's on that one. Listen, you two, I thank you so much for your time and this is such an interesting project. Did anybody have anything that they wanted to share that I didn't get to here today?
Jeannie's son: Jeannie Piersol was also singing on Sesame Street.
jp: Oh, that's right. [laughs]
ezt: Did you? When did you sing on Sesame Street?
jp: I don't know. Years ago.
Jeannie's son: It's a count to 20 song on Sesame Street.
ezt: Oh, yes?
Jeannie's son: I just wanted to throw that out there.
ap: I'll tell you how that came to be. It was with Jerry Slick. He was making films for them, like the little cartoon segments.
jp: Oh, yes.
ap: Not only there's Jeannie doing a wonderful kind of Raga-type thing. There's also, Grace did one, too. There's some really cool little subversive bits being slipped into Sesame Street back then.
jp: [laughs]
ezt: Very cool. I'll have to look that up. Alec, that'll be for your volume II, the Jeannie volume II. [laughter]
jp: I love all your albums in back of you.
ezt: Thank you so much. I have about 8,000 records down here.
jp: Wow.
ezt: I've been collecting them since I was a little boy and of course, back then I was getting them from a quarter to $1 a piece because nobody cared about records. Now, I have all this cool stuff here. I have all my Jefferson Airplane records and everything back there.
jp: Oh, wow. You and Alec should get together.
ezt: Absolutely. I would love to. Listen again, you two, thank you so much for your time and I really enjoyed this project. I want to dig into it even more.
jp: Okay. Thank you so much.
ezt: Okay. Everybody, be well. We'll see you later.
jp: Bye.
ap: See you.
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