This is a bit beyond my ken, but since I have one Warlocks post, and an early Phil post, and since LLD has a Menlo Park angle, I thought I'd make a note of it. This may well be in the record, but I don't recall it. This is from a ca. early 1991 interview with John Dawson.
Describing his hook-up with the GD and eventual NRPS people, Dawson notes that Garcia and Nelson gave music lessons "at various and sundry music stores around Palo Alto." He mentions Dana Morgan's of course, but also describes Dana Morgan, Jr. leaving and Phil coming in thusly: "It was in a different music store called Guitars Unlimited, which is in Menlo Park."
Again, I haven't consulted my old GD stuff in a long time, so this could well be well-known. I thought I'd put it out there for you Menlo Park types, just in case.
BTW, Dawson also mentions a place called Pinky's Pizza in Menlo Park as the place where Dana Morgan played with the Warlocks. I have no idea if that's new information or a muddle of Magoo's, but, again, there you have it.
Source: Brown, Toni A. 1991. New Riders of the Purple Sage Interview. Relix 18, 3 (June): 19-20.
Guitars Unlimited was at approximately 417 El Camino in Menlo Park, a few blocks south of the original Kepler's on the same side of the street. It was a fine guitar store that, like Draper's and Dana Morgan's in Palo Alto, has disappeared.
ReplyDeleteThe store was owned by Dick VonMeyer.
DeleteBob Weir also taught there.
Thank you!
DeleteIn 1965, I was a young 14 year old guitar player, growing up in Mill Valley. My father, being divorced from Mom was living in Menlo Park. One evening while visiting, I took a stroll down El Camino down to Kepler's Books, Discount Records and then stopped in at Guitars Unlimited where I found some guys in the back, listening intently to this 50ish Jazz-style player who used chords for each note of the song. I listened for a while totally captivated, acknowledging the other 2 longer hair older guys, and continued home. A few months later I walked up the stairs to The Fillmore to see The GD play for the 1st time and Jerry Garcia was standing there, with us seeming to recognize each other, which I later realized was from Guitars Unlimited. It wasn't until they played that night that I realized he was the GD guitar player, Jerry Garcia!
ReplyDeleteThis is so cool. Thank you for sharing your recollections! I wonder who he was listening to.
DeleteI just read these comments from someone on youtube, take that for what it's worth...
ReplyDelete"Grif Torres
The Grateful Dead were still called The Warlocks, and Jerry used to give guitar lessons at this guitar store in Menlo Park. I would go in there after school and wonder at all the guitars- new, used, electric, acoustic, Martins, Gibsons, Fenders, Rickenbackers. I recognized him from the Warlocks poster on the shop's door, but he wasn't famous, and I didn't know his name, or anything. He was sitting by the counter, talking to the owner and waiting for his student to come in for his lesson. I was a beginner on guitar myself, but I wasn't taking any lessons- just trying to pick up stuff from the few chords I already knew. Jerry took a Mosrite guitar off of the wall, and started playing it unplugged. I noticed he was fast... He played the little guitar lick from "Mystic Eyes", by Them . I was impressed. He looked at me like "what are you starin' at, kid?", and said something to the owner about how he thought the guitar's neck was too thin and fast for his taste. He then casually strummed the D-A-E- chords for "Gloria", and he hung the guitar back up on the wall. I watched his fingers, and noticed that those were chords that I knew! I spent much of the rest of the afternoon back in my room playing the song on my new nylon-string guitar. It was the first rock and roll song I ever learned...
(Continued..)
Like I said, I didn't take lessons from Jerry, I just saw him at the store, and I didn't find out who he was for a few months yet (and he was still only a "local" guitar hero, then.) The store was called "Guitars Unlimited", and it was kinda long and narrow. There were two tiers of guitars on the wall on the left, and two on the right, and there was a sort of rack in the middle, with some guitars lined up in it. At the back, there were three or four little rooms (booths, really) where lessons were given. Sometimes, when I went into the store to look around, Jerry was in one of the rooms at the back practicing banjo or recorder. There were a lot of guitars, new and used. I don't remember what they had for amplifiers, though. It was my first up close look at things like an S.G., a Telecaster, a Guild Thunderbird, an ES-335, a Rickenbacker 360-12, a Martin electric, a beat-up army-green National single-cone resonator guitar, a Gibson Hummingbird, and many others. This was right around the corner from the pizza place where members of the Dead had played the previous summer as a jug band (though I missed that). I guess I remember because I was only 15 at the time."