RN Sandy Troy's One More Saturday Night (1991)

Troy, Sandy. 1991. One More Saturday Night: Reflections with the Grateful Dead, Dead Family, and Dead Heads. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Reading Notes

“by the fall of 1974 the band’s business ventures began to unravel” (Troy 1991, 27). #business

JG and MG moved in together early 1967 (Troy 1991, 68). #women

#v-Carousel as described by MG: “It was a beautiful place; nobody could believe it. It had wooden floors, a fairly low ceiling, plus sets of French doors that opened to let in fresh air. It also had beautiful gold framed mirrors, strange 50’s light fixtures, weird old tables, and red push sofas. It even had a great kitchen and we served dinner, too. (MG in Troy 1991, 91).

#Chet Helms knew Phil first, through the Mime Troupe, though they had a totally non-musical relationship. They’d hang out, smoke grass, and talk politics. (Troy 1991, 98).

#houses #Olompali interview with Rock Scully says when they left Haight they went to Camp Lagunitas, then moved to Olompali. But I think he’s confused. “Olompali was a big old Spanish estate that had a swimming pool, some outbuildings with bedrooms, and enough space so that we all could live there and have a good time. We would [122] get the word out that we were having a party and people would come and jam. It wasn’t a set thing where the Dead would play, but it was a jam session where musicians from the Airplane, Quicksilver, the Charlatans would jam with us. It was a chance for all our friends from the City to come and hang out with us outdoors in the sunshine. We’d set up the stage between the house and the pool and people would being [sic] doing acid and hanging out by the pool naked. Sometimes there would be several hundred people partying” (Rock Scully in Troy 1991, 120, 122).

“Garcia, Lesh and Weir really enjoyed Crosby, Stills and Nash harmonies and I think Crosby’s influence helped the band improve their harmonies” (Rock Scully in Troy 1991, 122).

ST: How did the concept of AEWTGD come about? Rock: “It came about because Jerry was playing pedal steel, and digging it. John Dawson knew Jerry and asked him to play pedal steel in the New Riders. “An Evening With The Grateful Dead” worked conceptually because the music of both bands went well together. It stopped being a concept when Jerry realized that playing pedal steel was screwing with his electric guitar playing. The instruments were so different from each [other] that his guitar playing was suffering” (Rock Scully in Troy 1991, 124). #NRPS #pedal steel

Rock on #NRPS: “There wasn’t really one [New Riders] manager.” Rock involved first album and Powerglide. “I remember when the New Riders were living in my house. That picture on the back of the first album, when the band is leaning on the banister, was actually in my house in Kentfield. I guess you could say I was managing them at the time because pretty much all their gigs were with the Dead because Jerry was playing with them. When they got Buddy Cage they started doing shows on their own. Then Dale Franklin and Jon McIntire became their managers for a time” (Scully in Troy 1991, 125).

Chateau d’Herouville 6/21/71 “was Jon McIntire’s baby” (Rock Scully in Troy 1991, 125).

#v-Carousel Healy “It held about eight hundred people … though we would put as many in there as we could get. It was an old ballroom left over from the Swing era. It was owned by an Irishman.” JG: “They had Irish music there on Thursday nights.” DH: “That’s all they had in there. Aside from that it was closed all the time, and had been closed down right after the Swing [145] era. It was still in its original state, right out of the ‘20s, right down to the chandeliers in the place. The interior was beautiful. It wasn’t at all torn up: it was in mind condition.” (in Troy 1991, 144-145).

Lesh on Watkins Glen, the Dead had to run the show, in spite of promoters. “The biggest hassle was convincing the Band to come out and play. Hey man, it’s just down the road a piece, come on out and play. What can you lose? They played great!” (Lesh in Troy 1991, 153).

Constanten: “That’s a chance you have to take in courting serendipity – sometimes serendipity comes to grace your performances and sometimes not” (TC in Troy 1991, 156).

The John “Marmaduke” Dawson chapter (Troy 1991, 164-175) is very important material.

Dawson says he was around in 1958-59, taking guitar lessons from a lady in Palo Alto, when Jerry was with Sara. So that would be 1963. “They dropped in at a guitar thing that my guitar teacher was having at her house one night. I didn’t really meet him until later on at a club called The Tangent” in Palo Alto (Dawson in Troy 1991, 165).  Met Nelson at the Tangent (Troy 1991, 165).

Dawson: Rancho Olompali is a “place where all the Indians used to hang out. There’s an Indian burial ground nearby. It’s quite a lovely place. It had a big old mansion of a ranch house that they lived in for a while” (Dawson in Troy 1991, 167).

Dawson got serious in spring of 1969: “I went with a bunch of guys down to a place called Pinnacles National Monument, … and a group of us ate a bunch of what we thought was mescaline but was some weird little chemical cocktail that had some LSD in it. I had an experience on that particular occasion and I made up my mind that I wanted to write songs more seriously and learn how to sing more seriously. I liked the idea of being a country-western singer and started picking up Buck Owens and Merle Haggard records to try to learn how they were doing it.” (Dawson in Troy 1991, 167).

“Hunter was going to try to be the bass player for a while but he didn't have that many chops together. Bob Matthews tried out but he wasn't able to pick up on the instrument quickly enough because all of the rest of us had been playing for a long time. That's when Phil Lesh finally stepped in and played bass with the New Riders.” (Dawson in Troy 1991, 167). #NRPS

“What had happened is that I invited myself over to Garcia's house one day after he had come back off the road with a brand-new pedal steel guitar. He had stopped in Denver at a music store that had a bunch of pedal steels in it. So he bought one and brought it back. I [[168] bumped into him at the Dead's practice place in Novato near Hamilton Air Force Base. I asked Jerry if I could come over to his house and listen to the steel guitar that he just bought. He said I could come over later if I wanted to hear it. I brought my guitar when I showed up so he would have something to accompany. I showed him a couple of tunes that I had been working on and I got to listen to the pedal steel. That little duet worked into a thing where Jerry asked me if he could come down and practice his pedal steel at my coffee house gig in Menlo Park. I think it was called The Underground and it was a hofbrau kind of thing where they would carve you up a sandwich from a fresh cut of meat, right on the spot.” (Dawson in Troy 1991, 167-168). #NRPS

“they just added Nelson and me to the Grateful Dead tour and we came along with them that way. That's when we first got started on the national scene and you heard us back there in 1970 on the East Coast at the Fillmore - "An Evening with the Grateful Dead featuring the New Riders of the Purple Sage” (Dawson in Troy 1991, 170). #AEWTGD

“That's when you only had to add Nelson's and my ticket to the tour and you had a whole new five-piece band to open, which made it quite handy. That got my songs exposed to a national audience a lot sooner than they would have been otherwise. We also had a gospel quartet that did some stuff. Nelson would play an acoustic and Bob Weir, Jerry, and I would come out and would sing a couple of gospel tunes.” (Dawson in Troy 1991, 170). I love he says “they had a gospel quartet”. A self-contained hippie hootenanny. #AEWTGD

“Phil at some point said, "Hey, I don't want to do it any more:· So that's when David Torbert joined the band.” (Dawson in Troy 1991, 170). #NRPS

“When we finally met another pedal steel guitar player in the person of Buddy Cage on the ride across Canada in 1970, that gave Garcia a chance to go back to just the Grateful Dead” (Dawson in Troy 1991, 171). #NRPS

Festival Express: “The Band was supposed to be on [the train] but the only person from the Band that actually showed up and rode the train was Rick Danko” (Dawson in Troy 1991, 171).

Port Chester February 1971 run Howard Stein painted the Cap performance surface, and they were the New Riders of the Purple Stage! (Dawson in Troy 1991, 173). #NRPS

Dawson: Garcia “is a picking junkie, first and foremost. He would rather be playing than anything else” (Troy 1991, 174).