Gloria NON Advenit! JGB at Keystone Palo Alto, Saturday, July 10, 1984

update 1: Jeez ... I now think Gloria must have arrived 7/10/84-7/11/84, a Tuesday-Wednesday in Palo Alto. Working backward: she is mentioned in reviews of August 1984 east coast shows. It is an iron law that the band played local warmups before leaving on tour, which would be these birthday shows. And it is just about an iron law that new members broke in on off-nights, off-the-beaten path, or both. Tues-Weds in Palo Alto fits the pattern better than a Saturday (7/28) in Berkeley the weekend of Jerry's birthday.

Having spent some time with it, I am prepared to declare that I hold that the titular show, JGB at Keystone Palo Alto on Saturday, July 28, 1984 Tuesday, July 10, 1984 represents Gloria Jones's public debut with the outfit. It thus also marks the birth of JGB #21b, THE Jerry Garcia Band, which would play together through November 1993, making it Garcia's longest-running aggregation outside the Brent Mydland-era Grateful Dead.

I have been circling around this conclusion for almost a decade now. Let me reconstruct. Older reckonings had Gloria starting on 7/21/83, or 9/30/83. In late 2010, I found an ad for 11/27/83 naming DeeDee Dickerson and not Gloria alongside Jackie LaBranch, which got me to thinking those earlier understandings were wrong. Five years later, I went through band itineraries for the November-December 1983 tour, which included DeeDee's flight arrangements and so on. So far, this has DDD present through '83, consistent with Corry's current reckoning (as JGB #21a, b. 7/20/83, d. 12/13/83).

I did a bunch of stuff in 2014. First, I conjectured that 1/8/84 was Gloria's first gig, which probably led to Corry's current dating for JGB #21b. I am now pretty sure that was wrong because, second, I found a show review from Santa Barbara (5/19/84) which namechecks the band, including DDD. This is no guarantee, of course, since JGB member names were not always  correctly rendered by local journos, but it was suggestive. And, third, I found pictures from 8/11/84 which show Gloria onstage. So, the bookends have now moved forward quite a bit - DDD was in the house 5/19/84, and almost certainly the last night of the little mini SoCal jaunt it was a part of, 5/20/84 at Wolf & Rissmiller's in Reseda. The next show was 7/28/84, part of a four-night birthday run for Garcia, warming up for the East Coast tour.

So I did some listening around those bookends, the May shows now presumed to be with DeeDee, and the July-August shows now presumed to be with Gloria. Despite obviously strong priors (and probably other bias in favor of finding a difference), I hear differences in the backing vocals. I couldn't characterize them beyond saying they are different. Basic methodology was to find clean tapes (sbd preferred) that have clear backing vocals. I ended up focusing on the first chorus of "Cats Under The Stars" on 5/18/84 (an FM-SBD tape, shnid-32156) and on 7/28/84 (sbd, shnid-14428). Again, the backing vocalists sound different. There aren't a lot of board tapes in these frames, so then I compared the opening stanza of "Catfish John" on the same 5/18/84 and the next known version, 8/10/84. Again, I detect a difference.

update 2: the original version of this post had Gloria arriving July 28th. But I now think it must have been July 10th.

On this basis and on the basis of earlier sniffing around 10/82 and 7/83, I am prepared to "call" the following:

• DeeDee Dickerson's tenure with the Garcia Band ran from 10/24/82 1/13/83 (with JGB #15b) through 5/20/84 (with JGB #21a)
• Jacklyn LaBranch's tenure with the Garcia Band ran from 1/13/83 to the end (4/23/95).
• Gloria Jones's tenure with the Garcia Band ran from 7/10/84 (with JGB #21b) to the end.

My only concern is that I thought there was a new member on 1/8/84 based on audience chatter. That, combined with the fact that journos didn't always have the most up-to-date information about who was in the Garcia Band, gives me some pause. I hope the listening analysis I did holds up!

Now, how about 7/28/84, listening notes for which I post below?

The setlist novelty here is Allen Toussaint's "Get Out Of My Life, Woman", which came in strong and stuck around pretty much to the end of the Garcia Band. The JGB never varied its setlists that much (certainly not relative to the GD), and I don't really have the data I'd need to map song debuts, but this is just about the only new-to-the-repertoire tune I can think of between, say, 1981 and 1985. Are there any others, like, is there a single other cover tune that JGB added to the repertoire between, say, "Eleanor Rigby" in 1980 (sort of) and "It Stoned Me" in 1986? Anyway, great tune, done well, and at points "hot-hot-hot", per my notes.

The show, overall, offers plenty of sloppy pep. I hated when he couldn't figure out how to end "Cats Under The Stars", and this version suffers from that. There's plenty of mumblyverse, slop, and hot energy in tunes like "Tore Up Over You". Not bad, all told.

Listening notes below the fold.


LN jg1984-07-28.jgb.all.sbd-misSHN.14428.shn2flac
LN jg1984-07-28.jgb.s1s2p.aud-tb.149283.flac1644

Jerry Garcia Band
Keystone Palo Alto
260 S. California Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94306
July 28, 1984 (Saturday)
MSC > P > C shnid-14428 shn2flac

--set I (5 tracks, 39:54)--
s1t01. //I'll Take A Melody [11:42] [0:08] % [0:17]
s1t02. Get Out Of My Life, Woman [6:07] ->
s1t03. Run For The Roses [5:06] [0:09] % [0:05]
s1t04. Love In The Afternoon [7:47] ->
s1t05. Deal [8:17] (1) [0:06] %

--set II (5 tracks, 40:03)--
s2t06. Cats Under The Stars [9:14] ->
s2t07. Like A Road Leading Home [9:33] [0:02] % [0:08]
s2t08. Tore Up Over You [8:00] [0:04] % [0:03]
s2t09. Gomorrah [6:04] ->
s2t09. Midnight Moonlight [6:58]

! ACT1: JGB #21b (THE Jerry Garcia Band)
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - bass;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - keyboards;
! lineup: David Kemper - drums;
! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch - backing vocals;
! lineup: Gloria Jones - backing vocals.

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [x:xx] = recorded event time. The recorded event time immediately after the song or item name is an attempt at getting the "real" time of the event. So, a timing of [x:xx] right after a song title is an attempt to say how long the song really was, as represented on this recording.

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19840728-01

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/14428 (this fileset); https://etreedb.org/shn/149283 (TB MAC, missing last two songs)

! band: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html.

! personnel: I believe this to be Gloria Jones's first weekend, after debuting July 10-11 - Gloria advenit. It is now very well established, contra conventional accounting, that DeeDee Dickerson was around through May 1984, and photos establish that Gloria was on board for the August 1984 east coast shows. The Garcia Band was very consistent in breaking new members in locally before taking them on the road. A midweek debut, followed by a hometown weekend warmup before tour makes sense. Update: I have just spent some time listening to the first chorus of CUTS from 5/18/84 and 7/28/84, selected because they are board tapes. Impossible not to to be a motivated listener, but I do feel pretty confident that the shows feature different harmony vocal pairings.

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/Vr6EBXU6KvA2

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/11/keystone-sophies-260-s-california-ave.html

! ad: San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle Datebook-19840715p37

! seealso: "'Garcia Sounds Pretty Wrecked' - JGB at the Stone, July 31, 1984"

! R: Source:  SBD > MC (Sony TCD-D5M) > PCM (unk. model) > Cass (Sony TCD-D5M) > Nak CR7A > Sony PCM-R500 DAT > ZA2  > CDR > DAE (EAC 0.9 beta 4, offset corrected, high & secure) > boundaries confirmed (shntool) > shorten 3.4 > FTP via C.Ladner/candyman FTP.

! R: seeder comments: Thanks to J.R. Wolk/Benny's Jerry Tree for the seeds. Thanks to D. Hollister for transferring to the CDR medium. Another installment of the MissSHN in the Rain wet tshirt contest of TMNSP ... or something like that.

! R: s1t01 ITAM very beginning clipped

! song: s1t02 (Get Out Of My Life, Woman): Garcia debuts that hot Allen Toussaint number just before his 42nd birthday, the first new-to-the-repertoire number for a *very* long time - I can't even think of what might have been the previous case. The Garcia Band never offered the repertorial diversity that the Dead did, and that was especially true during this period - very few new numbers were coming in while Jerry was down in the depths of his heroin addiction. The tune is great, and the band plays it well right out of the gate.

! R: s1t03 RFTR some weird staticky stuff after the tune

! P: s1t04 LITA vocal flubbing first verse.

! s1t05 (1) JG: "Thanks a lot. We'll be back in a few minutes."

! P: s2t06 CUTS some vocal flubs, too many choruses at the end. Finish it!

! P: s2t07 LARLH mumblyverse 2:30ish. Nice high soaring guitar peak late 5. Inexplicably, he is singing "look around" late 8, rather than "turn around".

! R: s2t08 TUOY light static @ start, more @ 0:46-0:52 into early 1. Jerry belts it out at 6:51 with a tad of clipping - taper drops the levels slightly for the remainder of the song and then brings them back up.

! P: s2t08 TUOY very enthusiastically played.

! R: s2t09 Gomorrah small chirp @ ??.

! P: s2t10 Mid Moon vocal flub first verse, flubs "last good morning sunrise" line in the middle verse. Then he sort of adds on a hybrid verse later.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jerry Garcia Band
Keystone Palo Alto
260 S. California Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94306
July 28, 1984 (Saturday)
TB s1s2p MAC shnid-149283

--set I (5 tracks, 41:09)--
s1t01. [0:14] I'll Take A Melody [12:02] [0:11] % [0:18]
s1t02. Get Out Of My Life, Woman [6:13] ->
s1t03. Run For The Roses [5:10] [0:09] % [0:26]
s1t04. Love In The Afternoon [7:54] ->
s1t05. Deal [8:23] [0:09]

--set II (3 tracks, missing 2 tunes, 27:38)--
S2t06. [0:06] Cats Under The Stars [9:18] ->
S2t07. Like A Road Leading Home [9:41] [0:06] %
S2t08. Tore Up Over You [8:17] [0:11] %
[MISSING s2t09. Gomorrah]
[MISSING s2t10. Midnight Moonlight]

! ACT1: JGB #21b (THE Jerry Garcia Band)
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - bass;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - keyboards;
! lineup: David Kemper - drums;
! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch - backing vocals;
! lineup: Gloria Jones - backing vocals.

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [x:xx] = recorded event time. The recorded event time immediately after the song or item name is an attempt at getting the "real" time of the event. So, a timing of [x:xx] right after a song title is an attempt to say how long the song really was, as represented on this recording.

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19840728-01

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/14428 (shnf); https://etreedb.org/shn/149283 (this fileset)

! band: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html.

! personnel: I believe this to be Gloria Jones's first weekend, after debuting July 10-11 - Gloria advenit. It is now very well established, contra conventional accounting, that DeeDee Dickerson was around through May 1984, and photos establish that Gloria was on board for the August 1984 east coast shows. The Garcia Band was very consistent in breaking new members in locally before taking them on the road. A midweek debut, followed by a hometown weekend warmup before tour makes sense. Update: I have just spent some time listening to the first chorus of CUTS from 5/18/84 and 7/28/84, selected because they are board tapes. Impossible not to to be a motivated listener, but I do feel pretty confident that the shows feature different harmony vocal pairings.

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/Vr6EBXU6KvA2

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/11/keystone-sophies-260-s-california-ave.html

! ad: San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle Datebook-19840715p37

! R: field recordist: TB

! R: field recording gear: 2x Sennheiser MK 441 mics -> Sony WM-D6

! R: Note: "Only one disc survived...seems as if 'Corona' caught me - cannot locate the missing 2 songs, sorry ... will deliver whenever I find these."

!P t02 GOOMLW hot hot hot 3 min mark

! P: s2t08 TUOY great energy, nice crowd singalong late 6, which the board tape probably does not pick up.