Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, 4 Non Blondes, Courtney Love, Chris Isaak, Green Day, Santana, The Pointer Sisters, Credence Clearwater Revival, The Doobie Brothers, The Steve Miller Band, Eddie Money, Train, Pablo Cruise, Tony! Toni! Tonè!, Sly and the Family Stone, Smash Mouth, Third Eye Blind, Counting Crows, Huey Lewis and the News, Night Ranger, Metallica, The Tubes, MC Hammer, and Journey, as well as, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. These bands and musicians are all part of what became the San Francisco sound, with iconic songs that have stood the test of time to this very day.

Culture and music from the past need to be preserved and remembered, as they are part of our present and our future, even in present-day San Francisco, where modern technology and innovation seem to predominate everything, where sometimes the past, the history, seems to be forgotten.

Art is magic and always eternal, no matter when, no matter what. It can inspire artists and intellectuals, as well as the gurus of new technology, the scientists and entrepreneurs, the children.

Art can inspire people all over the world, as a philosophy of living and thinking, of loving and being compassionate and generous, aiming to develop a better future and world, better humanity learning from the past.

“THE SAN FRANCISCO SOUND” project started in 2016 with Michael Baier, a creative spirit, who grew up with the Grateful Dead sound, a patron of the arts for San Francisco artists, the general manager of the Stanford Court Hotel and The Huntington Hotel, and also, for a few years, of the Park Central Hotel in San Francisco.

This project includes a coffee table book and a series of smaller books, all connected together with art, music, and, even, food, cocktails, and wine, in the spirit of good and happy living, exhibitions, multimedia art installations, and a strong social media campaign.

The coffee table book dedicates a chapter to the story of each iconic band or musician, exploring, at the same time, the connection with the city of San Francisco and the Bay Area.

Clemens Prokop, a popular music media critic of Financial Times and Süddeutsche Zeitung, and also a music producer and multi-media artist, has selected ten songs by each musician or group and created a San Francisco Sound double album, making it possible to read the book and listen to the songs at the same time.

The book also showcases some of the most beautiful places in San Francisco and the Bay Area, where all these musicians were inspired and where The San Francisco Sound was born, including the neighborhoods of Sausalito, Berkeley, Palo Alto, San Josè, El Cerrito, and many more.