Abstract
Marin County provided the majestic backdrop for one of the most significant musical revolutions in the history of popular culture during the 1960s and 1970s. In early 2008, the music community lost three significant community members, Chuck Day (blues musician), Alton Kelley (prominent poster artist) and Martin Fierro (saxophonist), accelerating the need to capture the histories of these unique cultural contributors. The Marin History Museum took up the charge to preserve this dynamic history while the key contributors were still alive to share their unique stories. With this purpose, the Museum started their journey to create “Marin Rocks,” an innovative interactive music center focused on preserving the music history of Marin County. Through oral history interviews and networking with the Marin music community, the curatorial team spent two and a half years carefully constructing the “Marin Rocks” exhibition’s content and borrowed artifacts to create an exhibition the likes of which had never been seen in Marin. The Marin History Museum discovered that the history of the music community reached far deeper than just the musicians, and responded by developing an entire Music Center to express the multi-faceted stories. However, due to lack of funding and financial support, the Marin History Museum has paused development of the “Marin History Museum Music Center” and “Marin Rocks” exhibition, further demonstrating that modest regional history Museums must be judicious in assessing even the most ambitious and well received of projects.