Herb Greene was a young commercial photographer living in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco when a post-beat, post-Beatle, LSD-inspired subculture took root and flowered in ballrooms filled with flashing lights, colorful graphics and adventurous, eclectic music by Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company, the Grateful Dead and other bands.

Greene worked days as a staff photographer for a San Francisco department store and photographed the Haight Street hippies and the musicians on his own time. As the "San Francisco Sound" developed, so did Greene's professional stature. He shot the cover of the Airplanes Surrealistic Pillow and provided band shots used by Alton Kelley in his collage for the cover of the Grateful Dead's 1966 debut album. Greene earned a Grammy nomination in 1974 for his art direction of the Pointer Sisters' second LP, That's a Plenty.