Terry and the Pirates: Twelve Days Old (June 24, 1973)
Tom Donahue put them on KSAN from the Record Plant twelve days later.
By Tom Proctor
Terry and the Pirates played their very first gig on June 12, 1973. Tom Donahue put them on KSAN from the Record Plant twelve days later. The founding lineup was Terry Dolan on rhythm guitar and vocals, John Cipollina on lead guitar, Greg Douglass on second guitar, Hutch Hutchinson on bass, and David Weber on drums.
Hutchinson and Weber had come straight from Copperhead, the band Cipollina built after leaving Quicksilver Messenger Service in 1970. Columbia had signed Copperhead under Clive Davis, released one album, and then Davis got fired in May 1973. Columbia pulled support and reportedly pressured booking agents not to take the band.
Cipollina was between acts at the exact moment Donahue put this set on the air. He'd built a reputation at Quicksilver that the Bay Area hadn't forgotten, and that reputation filled the room. Rolling Stone would later rank him 32nd on their greatest guitarists list.
The Pirates ran for sixteen years with a revolving cast that eventually included Nicky Hopkins and Greg Elmore. Cipollina died on May 29, 1989, at forty-five. This broadcast is the earliest known document of the original lineup. Audio is on the Internet Archive and YouTube.