Tuesday, November 03, 2015

In the beginning

Grateful Dead Live at Golden State Studios on 1965-11-03

5 comments:

  1. Jerry recorded here on
    11/3/65 Grateful Dead
    Emergency Crew demo for Autumn Records.
    Jerry plays an early 1960's cherry red Guild Starfire III guitar.[3]
    First performance of I Know You Rider.[5]
    In 1965, label co-owners Tom Donahue and Mitchell brought in another one of their acts: an odd blues and R&B influenced rock band called The Warlocks. Half a year earlier, they had been an anarchic acoustic group called Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions. In one day at Golden State, they recorded six songs-four originals, one traditional, and a cover of Gordon Lightfoot’s Early Morning Rain—none of which were ever released until a box set thirty years later. With Kulka at the board, they recorded under the name The Emergency Crew, reportedly because bassist Phil Lesh had spotted an album in a record store by another group called The Warlocks. Soon after, they permanently changed their name to the Grateful Dead, putting an end to any risk of band name infringement.[1]

    The Emergency Crew demo was done in a single afternoon, a typical session in those days lasted three hours-with the band laying down the instrumental tracks first, completely live with no overdubs, and then adding vocals, and perhaps hand percussion such as tambourine."[2]

    1.)^Johnson, Heather, A Historical Tour through San Francisco Recording Studios, pg. 28-36.
    2.)^Jackson, Blair, Grateful Dead Gear pg. 22, 23.
    3.)^Wright, Tom, Garcia musical instrument historian, 2014-03-02, email to author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "and remember that the only time is now,"

    This is wonderful stuff! Thanks for posting this!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yeah, I love these original lyrics and tunes, through and through. This ain't no jug band.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Golden State Recorders was at 665 Harrison Street, very close to the (by then former) site of the bar that Jerry's parents had owned.

    ReplyDelete

!Thank you for joining the conversation!