With his friend from his teens, producer, and guitarist Nick Gravenites,[1] Polte, a keyboardist and successful songwriter,[2] migrated to the San Francisco Bay Area, where the Beat Generation had long flourished but was evolving into the hippie culture.
[5] During Polte's time as manager, Quicksilver's lineup included guitarists Cippolina, Gary Duncan, David Freiberg (also bass) and Dino Valenti.
Polte also founded the booking agency West Pole, which handled Bay Area groups such as Big Brother, with whom Janis Joplin sang, and the Sons of Champlin.
[3] Polte was almost unique in his expeditious attention to the needs of his artists, rapidly securing housing, transportation and rehearsal space, all with an eye to making their lives easier.
[7][8] Funding for the concerts and events was raised from business, including Wells Fargo Bank, (which arranged to make available three stagecoaches to ferry disabled children from venue to venue) and the music community contributions, with two benefit concerts organized by normally competing entrepreneurs Bill Graham and Chet Helms held to pay for the logistics, one headlined by Joan Baez, the other by Jefferson Airplane, as well as a commitment from Greyhound Lines, and other bus companies to provide free transport to and from the sprawling Golden Gate Park sites.
National festival director Barry Oliver was to provide classical music including Italy's Amici Della Musica, and an hours-long performance scheduled by Ali Akbar Khan.
Invited and anticipated groups included Quicksilver, Sons of Champlin and the Ace of Cups, but also Aum, Big Brother and the Holding Company, The Charlatans, Cleveland Wrecking Company, Country Joe and the Fish, Creedence Clearwater Revival, It's a Beautiful Day, Janis Joplin, Linn Country, Mad River, Mother Earth, Santana, Sir Douglas Quintet, Sly and the Family Stone, and West.
200,000 attendees were expected with AM/FM radio personality Tom Donahue predicting, "Wild West can make a statement: That San Francisco is a beginning for so many groovy things and attitudes."
"[8] Thanks to pressures brought by residents of the Richmond and Sunset Districts which bordered the park, fearing of the influx of concertgoers, but also because of a surfeit of political correctness, coming from some of those ostensibly more concerned about the supposed exploitation of participants, the production was canceled, in its final stages of preparation.