they should "go with the flow" to see where the music would take them. Management Hollingworth, who also managed Quicksilver Messenger Service became a paraplegic as a result of an automobile crash near Muir Beach, California in 1967. Hollingworth's stewardship transferred to Ron Polte. Polte was known for going to great lengths to accommodate the welfare of his musicians. When perennial studio musician Nicky Hopkins joined Quicksilver in 1969, it was the first and only band that included him in its performing and recording revenues. Hollingworth died in 1996, and Polte in 2016. Late 1960s Ace of Cups made their debut in the early spring of 1967. In late June, Jimi Hendrix invited the band to open for him at a free concert in Golden Gate Park. In London that December, Hendrix told Melody Maker: "I heard some groovy sounds last time in the States, like this girl group, Ace of Cups, who write their own songs and the lead guitarist is hell, really great." In San Francisco, Polte had the Ace of Cups and Quicksilver playing regularly, the Cups headlining at smaller clubs such as The Matrix and performing as the opening act at larger venues such as the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore. In mid-1968, the band appeared on a local television program, West Pole, along with San Francisco legends Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. In 1969, they opened for The Band's first concert as The Band along with The Sons of Champlin. Several record companies were interested in signing Ace of Cups, but Hollingworth and then Polte felt the band was worth more than the record companies were offering. Also, some of the band members were concerned that a record contract might require the band to tour, and they were worried that family pressures would interfere. Consequently, Ace of Cups never made any professional recordings of their own, although in 1969 they contributed vocals to Jefferson Airplane's Volunteers, Mike Bloomfield's It's Not Killing Me, and Nick Gravenites' My Labors. At the Altamont Speedway Free Festival that December, Kaufman (who had married saxophonist Noel Jewkes and was pregnant) was hit in the head by a full beer bottle. Nobody knew who threw the bottle, but Ralph J. Gleason wrote, "Hell's Angels played catch with full beer cans all afternoon". She suffered a fractured skull and needed emergency surgery at San Francisco's Mt. Zion Hospital to remove a