Group Members:
- Formed: 1967, San Francisco, CA
- Disbanded: 1974
- Genres: Rock
Biography
Red Mountain was in its own unique way the ultimate counterculture act, literally serving as the long-term house band at a hippie commune. Originally comprised of singer Bryce Sullivan, guitarists Larry Otis and Chris Oesch, bassist Rod Moxie, and drummer Lloyd Wick, Red Mountain's members were part of the Chosen Family, a collective of hippie dropouts who made their home on the grounds of northern California's Rancho Olompali, located on the 20,000-square mile grounds of what is now Olompali State Historic Park just north of the community of Novato. The band lived with their fellow commune members in Camilo Ynitia Adobe, a crumbling two-story frame house once said to be the oldest house north of the Golden Gate. Interestingly, the Grateful Dead moved into the building (then owned by University of San Francisco and nominally a Jesuit retreat) during the summer of 1966, welcoming Haight-Ashbury royalty including Janis Joplin and Grace Slick during their stay; the following year, Don McCoy leased the building to house his Chosen Family commune.In this environment, Red Mountain rehearsed each day in the hayloft of a barn located on the property -- reel-to-reel tapes later compiled on the Rockadelic release Red Mountain and the Chosen Family reveal a psych-blues sound that's rooted in the San Francisco sound yet compellingly distinctive. In the spring of 1969 the group recorded a demo at Berkeley's Sierra Sound Labs -- the session resulted in an offer to work with producer Roger Dollarhide, and after swapping Oesch for guitarist Steve Avery, Red Mountain left Rancho Olompani for Los Angeles. Adopting the new moniker Born Again, the band recorded an album's worth of material, which remained unissued until the 2001 release of Rockadelic's Pagan compilation; the group soldiered on until 1974, when Otis resigned to join the Ike & Tina Turner Revue.
Postscript: in the fall of 1969, an electrical fire destroyed most of the original Camilo Ynitia Adobe structure and rendered the house uninhabitable. (It was purchased by Marin County officials in 1977 and opened to the public as a historical site in 1990.) After the fire, the Chosen Family's members largely went their separate ways. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
