The Rich History and Iconic Venues of the San Francisco Music S…

Castro Theatre building with a rainbow flag on Castro Street in San Francisco

San Francisco’s intimate relationship with music stretches back more than 100 years and encompasses a wide variety of sounds, genres, movements, and venues. From jazz to psychedelic rock and disco, the San Francisco music scene has changed over time, but it continues to reflect the city’s vibrant, creative, boundary-pushing spirit.

San Francisco’s music heritage is fueled by the unconventional, anti-establishment attitude that has defined the community for decades.

The 1950s saw the rise of jazz and blues clubs that served as refuges for the area’s marginalized African American residents. Musicians across the country were drawn to San Francisco, and clubs like Basin Street West and The Blackhawk hosted Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, John Coltrane, and many more.

In the 1960s, San Francisco music pivoted towards the alternative, counterculture movement, and the Fillmore Auditorium was filled with the sounds of psychedelic rock. And as this music scene collided with the Beat Generation, the city’s poets and musicians joined forces to form the “San Francisco Sound” — a unique blend of music and spoken word.

Throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s, San Francisco music explored punk rock, new wave, and hip-hop. And as the city became a haven for the LGBTQIA+ community, it embraced disco and dance music.

Today, San Francisco’s music scene encompasses all of these sounds and genres, offering a lively blend of past and present musical styles. The city continues to attract innovative musicians from all backgrounds, who push the boundaries and shape the future of music.

The San Francisco music scene centers around its iconic opera houses, theaters, and music venues. The Bay Area is home to both historic, world-famous venues, such as the Fillmore, and up-and-coming performing arts centers like the Chan National Queer Arts Center.

Originally built in 1930 for the Independent Order of Foresters fraternal society, the historic four-story art-deco space on Valencia Street is being transformed into a performing arts center for the LBGTQIA+ community. Most notably, it is the new intended home of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus (SFGMC).

Since its formation in 1978, the SFGMC has known no permanent residence, spread out across office spaces, storage facilities, and rehearsal spaces throughout the city. But the organization will finally have a home — just outside the Castro District, where their story began.

The Pansy L. Chan and Terrence D. Chan National Queer Arts Centerwill serve as a vibrant hub for the LGBTQIA+ arts community, offering SFGMC the opportunity to expand its leadership, musical activism, and support for under-represented artists.

From concerts and productions to workshops and research, the Queer Arts Center will become a haven for LGBTQIA+ artists throughout San Francisco and beyond.

Although it was never intended to last, the Palace of Fine Arts has become a prominent San Francisco landmark. The venue was originally constructed as an art exhibition center for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition — a world fair held in San Francisco in 1915.

A number of structures were built specifically for the expo, including nine other palaces, but the Palace of Fine Arts is one of the few that was preserved and remains standing. Designed by Bernard Maybeck, who was inspired by the solemn beauty of ancient Greek and Roman ruins, the site was so impressive that a Palace Preservation League was founded to save it before the fair had even ended.

The Palace continued to operate as an art exhibition center for a number of years, but it began to decay over the next few decades. The site was turned into a home for tennis courts, then military vehicle storage, a limo motor pool, a storage facility, and even temporary headquarters for the fire department.

But the non-durable materials used to build the originally-temporary structure were showing their wear, and by the 1950s, the Palace had become an actual ruin. So in 1964, the Palace was demolished down to the steel framework and reconstructed over the next several years.

The new Palace first housed the Exploratorium interactive museum, then the Palace of Fine Arts Theater as well. In 2003, further restoration began on the structure and surrounding site to safeguard against earthquake damage.

Now, the Palace of Fine Arts stands solidly, its impressive architecture reflected in the surrounding man-made lagoon, and hosts a variety of San Francisco music events.

While the Fillmore name has expanded to other concert venues throughout the country, only San Francisco can claim the real Fillmore. Originally called the Majestic Hall, the Fillmore has undergone numerous changes in name and purpose since its opening in 1912.

In 1936, it became the Ambassador Dance Hall, and from 1939 to 1952 it served as the Ambassador Roller Skating Rink. Then in 1954, San Francisco local Charles Sullivan, a highly successful African American businessman, began booking bands at the venue and gave the Fillmore its iconic name.

Together with Bill Graham, a well-known rock concert promoter, Sullivan turned the Fillmore into a home for psychedelic music and its counterculture fans. Throughout the mid and late 1960s, the Fillmore hosted a variety of big names, including the Grateful Dead, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Jefferson Airplane, The Steve Miller Band, and Pink Floyd.

After Sullivan’s murder in 1966, Graham continued to manage the venue for several more years, changing its name to the New Old Fillmore and then to The Elite Club. Finally, damage from the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 forced the venue to close. But after Graham’s death in a helicopter crash in 1991, his close friends and family carried out his dream to repair, preserve, and reopen the original Fillmore.

Today, the Fillmore is once again a San Francisco music hot spot, hosting a wide range of modern entertainers, while still preserving the traditions of its youth.

Originally named the San Francisco Civic Auditorium, the Bill Graham Auditorium is another remnant of the 1915 Panama-Pacific Expo. However, the four-story, 300,000-square-foot venue was constructed of sturdier materials than the other temporary expo buildings and remained in use throughout the 20th century. Shortly after the expo ended, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra moved in — along with the world’s seventh-largest pipe organ — drawing crowds and establishing the venue’s reputation as a cultural center.

The venue underwent a massive reconstruction effort in 1962 to update and revitalize the building. When completed, it was one of only two major San Francisco venues that could accommodate large crowds and performances, so the Civic Auditorium saw an impressive variety of events. Under the management of Jim Graham (no relation to Bill Graham), the venue hosted everything from political conventions to sporting events to concerts — and even circuses.

Due to earthquake damage, the venue once again closed for reconstruction in 1989, reopening in 1991. Then in 1992, after the death of iconic rock concert promoter Bill Graham, the venue was renamed the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in his honor. It continues to host numerous concerts from all genres, along with political, corporate, and sporting events.

The Great American Music Hall is another venue that has seen a variety of changes, names and uses over the years. Built in 1907, the interior was designed by a French architect and features ornate balconies, impressive columns, and mesmerizing frescoes. But it was originally called Blanco’s Cafe and served as a restaurant, gambling den, and brothel for the city’s wealthy clientele.

In 1936, it was purchased by Sally Rand, an infamous burlesque dancer, and renamed the Music Box. Patrons enjoyed an assortment of burlesque shows until the end of World War II, when the venue finally closed. It was reopened as a jazz club in 1948 and operated as Blanco’s Cotton Club — the city’s first desegregated club — but it only lasted a few months before closing again.

Over the next two decades, the building saw a few short-lived uses, but it mostly sat unused and in decline until it was nearly demolished. But it was purchased and saved by Tom Bradshaw in 1972. He refurbished and updated the venue, preserving the original architecture, and reopened it as the Great American Music Hall. Since then, it has been filled with the sound of music — from jazz to rock and roll — and Rolling Stones magazine even named it the sixth-best rock club in the US in 2013.

While it may not have the colorful history and ornate architecture of many other San Francisco venues, the SFJAZZ Center can boast this: it is America’s first stand-alone venue built specifically for jazz performances and education.

Designed by Mark Cavagnero, an award-winning architect, and Sam Berkow, a nationally renowned acoustical consultant, the venue opened its doors in 2013 as a home for all things jazz. And while the center itself is only 10 years old, the organization behind it, SFJAZZ, has served as the largest non-profit jazz presenter in the world for 40 years.

In addition to over 350 diverse jazz concerts every season, SFJAZZ also produces the annual San Francisco Jazz Festival and offers dynamic musical education programs to more than 23,000 public school students throughout the Bay Area. The organization is dedicated to exploring and sharing jazz music in all its styles and forms and honoring the artists who have shaped it.

Built in 1932 as a monument to San Francisco residents killed in World War I, the War Memorial Opera House is the centerpiece of the San Francisco Performing Arts Complex. Designed in the American Renaissance style by Arthur Brown Jr. and G. Albert Lansburgh, the theater has been a prominent center for San Francisco music and performing arts for over 85 years.

While it is home to both the San Francisco Opera and the San Francisco Ballet, the site has additional historical significance. In 1945, the venue hosted the first organizing assembly of the United Nations, and then in 1951, it saw the signing of the Treaty of San Francisco, which declared peace with Japan.

The venue expanded throughout the 1970s and 1980s — both in size and performances — but it sustained significant damage in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. In 1992, the building was restored, renovated, and retrofitted with seismic safeguards, and it continues to host over 60 opera performances every year.

The culture of San Francisco embraces the future while remembering the past, and its music scene is no different. Blends of genres and styles from every generation can be heard throughout the city, and modern sounds fill century-old venues.

Today, San Francisco is at the heart of the LGBTQIA+ arts community, and it is committed to giving a voice to under-represented and marginalized artists. The development of the Chan National Queer Arts Center will help the SFGMC continue to fulfill this mission, empowering LGBTQIA+ youth, artists, and performers to usher in the next era of San Francisco music.