Ace of Cups - Ace of Cups

Ace of Cups - Ace of Cups - 2018

They were arguably the first all-female rock band of importance.

The five-member Ace of Cups was based in San Francisco at the height of the Haight, when the neighborhood in the ’60s was known for its outsider art and hippie culture. They performed with such acts as Quicksilver Messenger Service, Country Joe and the Fish and Jefferson Airplane.

Bill Graham picked them to open for a then-new group called the Band, and Jimi Hendrix, upon returning to England, sang their praises (“I heard some groovy sounds last time in the States, like this girl group, Ace of Cups”).

Original and openly feminist, the act never scored a record deal.

Until now.

Today, with each of the women of Ace of Cups in her 70s, the band has been re-discovered. This month the act released its self-titled debut album via High Moon Records.

“This is a dream deferred,” says Denise Kaufman, who plays guitar, bass and harmonica and has written much of the group’s material.

“It’s magical,” adds guitarist Mary Ellen Simpson, who is simultaneously celebrating another grandchild.

Adds longtime fan Jackson Browne, “I’ve been waiting 45 years for the debut.”

The five original Cups — Kaufman, Simpson, Diane Vitalich, Mary Gannon and Marla Hunt (Hunt is not involved now) — met amid the haze of Haight-Ashbury on New Year’s Eve in 1966. Then in their late teens or early 20s, they were in school or held clerical day jobs.

Gannon, a former Miss Monterey, was working in an all-night doughnut shop, Simpson was studying art at a city college and Kaufman was employed at Fantasy Records, the label famous for its association with Creedence Clearwater Revival. But their passion was making music, and once they merged, they would often practice in Fantasy’s upstairs studio. Eventually, they landed a manager and started getting gigs in venues like the Avalon and the Fillmore.

Their songs upended the “It Must Be Him” sentiments they grew up hearing and boast lyrics like, “There are a whole lotta people tryin’ to mess with your mind.” They were soon part of the fabric of their place and time. None more so than Kaufman, who dropped out of UC Berkeley (where she was arrested in the free-speech protests) at 18, and temporarily hopped on Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters bus. At various points, she was apparently the focus of many a famous male’s life. (Hint: Check out the current biographies of Paul Simon and Jann Wenner)

But the summers of love eventually ended, and by 1972, the Ace of Cups’ moment had passed.

“I like to say we faded away,” says drummer Vitalich.

What followed were their version of normal lives: relationships, babies and geographical changes — or, in the words of Gannon, “a lot of hookups and wrong choices.”

Simpson returned to school and eventually became a substance abuse and mental health specialist. Gannon also went back to college and got a degree in education. Vitalich cleaned houses three days a week, and Kaufman, who was married briefly and gave birth to a daughter, moved part time to Kauai, where she started an organic farm, which is still operating, and with six local women opened a private school for kindergartners to 12th graders. She later became a yoga instructor, and her celebrity clientele has included Madonna, Quincy Jones and Jane Fonda.

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01. Introduction: There’s a Record Being Made
02. Feel Good
03. Pretty Boy
04. Fantasy 1&4
05. Circles
06. We Can’t Go Back Again
07. The Well (feat. Bob Weir)
08. Taste of One
09. Mama’s Love
10. Simplicity
11. Feel It in the Air
12. Interlude: Transistor
13. Stones
14. Interlude: Baby from the Forest of Knolls
15. Life in Your Hands (feat. Taj Mahal)
16. Macushla/Thelina
17. As the Rain (feat. Peter Coyote)
18. Interlude: Daydreamin’
19. On the Road
20. Pepper in the Pot (feat. Buffy Sainte-Marie)
21. Interlude: Breath
22. Indian Summer
23. Grandma’s Hands
24. Medley (The Hermit / The Flame Still Burns / Gold and Green / Living in the Country)
25. Outroduction: It’s Always Safe…
26. Music

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