Playing on the radio builds an audience, part the millionth: OAITW April 1973

I was just revisiting a little item in Todd Tolces's early 1970s column in the Berkeley Daily Gazette. From May 3, 1973:

Picking a very nicely at at banjo all weekend was Jerry Garcia with his new bluegrass group, Old and in Way.

The acoustic quintet played through two nights at the Keystone to a very crowded house each time. The word got out. Either that or everybody beard them on KSAN's 'live'' weekend where Old and in the Way did a smashing one-hour set from the Record Plant in Sausalito.

Also on hand that day and the Friday and Saturday nights at the Keystone was Richard Greene, Seatrain's former fiddler. Greene's presence makes two refugees from Seatrain. The other is Peter Rowan, their lead singer and guitarist.

Greene's presence may finally fill Garcia's desire to ''find a fiddle player and play the bluegrass festivals this summer." However because of the Greatful Dead's heavy work schedule he may not be able to. Let's wait and see.

So, a few things.

First, Tolces somehow got the idea that Greene was there to stay. But as far as I know he'd play the Pacific Northwest shows May 8 in Eugene and May 9 in Portland, and that would be all she wrote.

Second, Corry gets some nice capillary-level confirmation. He had said in re the 4/21/73 KSAN broadcast "Any doubts about Old And In The Way's strategy to popularize themselves like the Stanley Brothers are erased by this broadcast." And here we are the next weekend, packed house through buzz from the broadcast.

Third, I think my putative 4/28/73 Record Plant KSAN Broadcast *must* be a phantom, right? I think Richard Greene had himself at the Plant this date, and remembered doing a KSAN broadcast from there, and he and I conjured this event in the recollecting. Instead, I think RG was at the Plant doing some session work (I don't know for whom) on 4/28, and we both just mixed it with 4/21.

Can I get a collective ruling on that question?

Fourth, Tolces hearkens back to what Jerry had told him on March 13th, very early in the band's run, that he wanted a fiddle player.

Fifth, Tolces is also being communicated some doubts about how much time he'll really have for Old And In The Way. I can imagine three pathways to that. 1) It was just sort of "known". 2) GD sources (e.g., Cutler) planted that, as a shot across the bow to Jerry and his little buddies that they ate last. 3) Jerry planting it to start setting expectations among his bluegrass buddies. He wouldn't want to disappoint them, and he was averse to directly communicating anything even vaguely unpleasant. So maybe Tolces proved a useful conduit to soften the reality.

Sixth, whatever all that is, the whole thing nicely illustrates the burden of being Jerry Garcia (Gans).

On lead guitar and vocals, Mr. Jerry Garcia

Bill Graham:

Good evening. We welcome you, on behalf of the group. We should introduce ... We should thank United Artists and Mr. Ron Rakow. I should make it official. Mr. Rakow is the President of Round Records. He asked if I could be here this evening, and I said 'I'd like twelve dollars and fifty cents', which he paid me at the door, and we flipped double or nothing, and I won, and he wanted to flip again, so I'm being paid fifty dollars for being here. I want to thank him very much.

On the piano we have Mr. Keith Godchaux [electric piano] ... on the drums, on stage left, Mr. Mickey Hart [drums begin] ... on bass and vocals, Mr. Philip Lesh [bah-doomp-bah-doomp bah-doohhhom] ... on rhythm guitar and vocals, Mr. Bob Weir [Bob filligrees a little top knot] ... on the drums on stage right, Mr. Bill Kreutzmann [tss-ts-tss, tss-ts-tss] ... on the vocals Mrs. Donna Jean Godchaux ... on lead guitar and vocals, Mr. Jerry Garcia ... will you welcome, please, the Grateful Dead!

Update: Jesse Jarnow and I are on the same wavelength!

Big Daddy: "This is Old And In The Way, and I'll let 'em stay all night if they want to."

LN jg1973-04-21.oaitw.early.fm-FlyingM.125747.flac1644

Old And In the Way
Record Plant
2200 Bridgeway
Sausalito, CA 94965
April 21, 1973 (Saturday)
57 minute Flying M FM shnid-125747

--(15 tracks, 57:29, basically complete)--
t01. (1) ... Going To The Races [0:15] [0:09]
t02. (2) The Willow Garden [3:57] (3, 4) [0:18]
t03. Katy Hill [2:19] (5) [0:16]
t04. Till The End Of The World Rolls Round [2:13] [0:49]
t05. Panama Red [2:14] [0:45]
t06. Hard Hearted [2:31] (6)
t07. Soldier's Joy [2:16] [0:05]
t08. Wild Horses [4:10] [0:15]
t09. Lost [3:11] [0:32]
t10. Knockin' On Your Door [2:27] [1:12]
t11. Lonesome L.A. Cowboy [4:04] [0:24]
t12. Fanny Hill [4:05] (7, 8) [0:51]
t13. White Dove [4:05] [0:56]
t14. Land Of The Navajo [6:30] (9) [1:42]
t15. false start [0:22], Blue Mule [3:47] (10) [0:08]

! ACT1: Old And In The Way
! lineup: Peter Rowan - ac-g, vocals;
! lineup: David Grisman - mandolin, vocals;
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - banjo, vocals;
! lineup: Richard Green - fiddle;
! lineup: John Kahn - ac-b.

JGMF:

! ! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [ ] = 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/19730421-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/11860 (shn, deprecated); http://etreedb.org/shn/125747 (this fileset)

! map: http://goo.gl/maps/RfHBz

! venue: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/07/record-plant-2200-bridgeway-sausalito-ca.html

! ref: Arnold, Corry. 2012. Old And In The Way FM Broadcasts, 1973 (FM VI). Lost Live Dead, April 12, 2012, URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/04/old-and-in-way-fm-broadcasts-1973-fm-vi.html, consulted 4/22/2012.

! R: source: stereo FM radio broadcast > Unknown > R2R > Teac 4070G (1970s);

! transfer: Pioneer R2R > Audigy 4 Pro @ 24/44 (2010);

! preparation: Audacity (clean up a few flat spots and dropouts) > AudioGate (16-44) >
Audacity (patched missing segments as noted from shn 11860 source) > CD Wav > Flac (Level 8) > Stamp ID3 tag editor.

! R: seeder notes: "This one is from the Record Plant in Sausalito, California (across the Bay from San Francisco). For this live radio show Richard Greene replaced Vassar Clements [ed: this is incorrect, as Clements came in later] and joins with the new boy, Jerry Garcia on the banjo. [ed: the band never existed w/o Garcia, this is a reference to Grisman's joky characterization in introducing Jerry.] Tom Donahue, the father of FM radio is the DJ and engineer for this broadcast. The lineage prior to my tape copy is unknown. The quality is very good, with a slight hiss noticeable in the quietest sections. My tape did not have the opening portion and included a cut in "Lonesome L.A. Cowboy". Patches were inserted using the shnid-11860 source to complete the show. "'till the end of the world" has a squiggly spot in it. there is a slight speed difference between the tape and the SHN 11860 patch source. Someone with a better ear than mine can figure out which pitch is correct and tweak as needed. Hope this makes some people smile. For historical reference only and not intended for resale or any commercial use. Enjoy what may be an upgrade for some -M- (September 2013) FLYING M PRODUCTIONS  FAN RECORDINGS FOR COLLECTORS TRADE FREELY BUT PLEASE DO NOT BUY OR SELL"

! R: t01. GTTR fades in. This is patched in from shnid-11860, which is decidedly inferior to the present recording. Thank you, sharer!

! setlist: I need to check, but my sense is that Going To The Races was the set opener for OAITW, and given how short the songs were, we are probably missing almost exactly (only) the two and a half minutes suggested by the 57:29 run time of the tape. The broadcast must have been 60 minutes, and we are just missing the very start. Update: actually, given how fast this is running, it was probably recorded to 60 minutes, and the missing front of GTR just reflects the startup of the FM broadcast.

! t01 (1) DJ voice over "Old And In The Way".

! t02 (2) PR: "Here's a old-timer called 'The Willow Garden'".

! t02 (3) Big Daddy, Tom Donahue: "Old And In The Way. Live from the Record Plant."

! t02 (4) Peter Rowan: "We're gonna call on Richard Greene, with that little fiddle, to fiddle out one for us. [Greene, calling the tune to the band: "'Katy Hill'".] 'Katy Hill'." Sweet to hear the fiddle player call the tune and everyone start playing.

! P: t02 Jerry sounds really good. He'd been working up his chops during this week. Grisman takes first solo (after the fiddle, of course), after a few measures Garcia doubles behind him. How Richard doubles and Jerry triples. Richard pulls some wicked shit @ 1:35, Garcia plucking louder 1:40, it's a train! It's a train! Great playing by everyone.

! t03 (5) DG: "Fiddlin' Richard Greene." PR: "And here's David Grisman. He's gonna sing a song called 'The End Of The World Rolls Round"."

! P: t04 Garcia first solo.

! t06 R: Grisman's voice sounds Chipmunky. This is running really much too fast.

! t06 (6) DG: "We've got a new boy on the 5-string banjo, just been with us about two months. Jerry Garcia." Let's hear it! Crowd applause.

! song: "Soldier's Joy" (t07): This is *the* canonical Scotch-Irish fiddle tune, now known and played for more than 250 years. The fileset circulated with a parenthetical reference to "Bonaparte's Retreat", but I think that's a different tune.

! P: t08 WH Rowan botches the lyrics.

! R: t08 definitely running fast. Rowan's vocals are just way too high. Chipmunks!

! R: t11 end patched in from shnid-11860.

! P: t12 FH John Kahn plays some really nice lead acoustic bass here for a few spells. Nice. This is good number.

! t12 (7) time for our gospel show. Time for the gospel part of our show.

! t12 (8) Richard Greene is our lonesome LA cowboy. We import him for all of our radio shows.

! t14 (9) JG says "That's it?" Tom Donahue comes over the PA: "Now listen, man, I don't know if anybody can hear me in there, but if you wanna do another song, go ahead and do another song. [crowd: yeah!] This is KSAN in San Francisco, and this is part of our live weekend. This is Old And In The Way, and I'll let 'em stay all night if they want to."

! t15 (10) Big Daddy: "OK, we'd like to thank Old And In The Way ..." (fades out).

somewhere toward the end of the show: ! t?? (??) DG: "We wanna send this one out to all our sick and shut-in friends in radio land."

One of the Great Interviews of the Garciaverse

jg1978-03-11.interview.45mins.fm-gefen-goodbear.retracked.shn2flac

Remember, I am on hiatus until at least March 2013. Having taken this opportunity to remind you of this, as a PSA, let me also leave you something to read.

This is truly one of the great, hilarious interviews in the Garciaverse, chock full of great stuff.

Jerry Garcia Band Interview (by Andy Gefen)
WBRU-FM Studios
75 Waterman Street
Providence, RI 02912
March 11, 1978 (Saturday)
45 minute FM via Gefen-Goodbear shnid 76444 JGMF shn2flac

So, this interview has been circulating forever, but I don't recall seeing a transcription anywhere. So, I did it. It ain't 100% transcribed, but it has the stuff that interests me.

Lots of good direct quotes from Jerry about Cats, Garcia Band per se (and vs. GD, and vs. Weir's side projects), etc. Some snorting and such. Good times.


--(41tracks, 44:34)--
t01. Reuben And Cherise (album version) [5:08]
t02. Andy Gefen Introduction [1:38]
t03. Buzz Buchanan Introduction [1:01]
t04. Ten Grand And A Year in Jail [0:21]
t05. Cats Under The Stars Release Date [0:55]
t06. Is Keith Around? [0:16]
t07. Maria Muldaur [0:44]
t08. Jerry's Day Job and Trouble With Flooding [0:46]
t09. GD Plans [1:01]
t10. GD Movie, TV  [1:10]
t11. GD Tour [0:13]
t12. Let's Talk About The Record [0:23]
t13. We Built The Studio [1:50]
t14. I'm Happiest With This Record [0:44]
t15. Jerry Garcia BAND [0:27]
t16. Rhapsody In Red (album version) (fragment) [0:#50]
t17. Mistakes [0:42]
t18. Tour So Far [0:31]
t19. Album Personnel [1:53]
t20. French Horn [0:35]
t21. Scaly And Weird [1:36]
t22. Being Great Is Your Own Thing [1:30]
t23. Stop Looking At That Thing, If It Gives You The Creeps [0:33]
t24. Rain (album version) (fragment) % [0:14]
t25. SNORT [0:45]
t26. Not Too Hard [1:42]
t27. Playing Together Purely Randomly [1:07]
t28. Garcia V. Weir [1:29]
t29. Keith Olsen [1:32]
t30. Station ID [0:54]
t31. Doing Interviews [1:24]
t32. Another GD Question Goes Nowhere [0:32]
t33. It's That Important To Me [1:27]
t34. What Career? [0:12]
t35. JGB Concrescence [3:04]
t36. You Want It To Move You [0:40]
t37. The Taoism And The Path, Featuring Buzzy Buchanan
t38. Amenhotep's Wine [1:35]
t39. The Invisible Landscape [1:33]
t40. Goodbyes [0:28]
t41. The News [0:08]

! Interview: people present:
! personnel: Andy Gefen
! personnel: Donna Jean Godchaux
! personnel: Jerry Garcia
! personnel: John Kahn
! personnel: Buzz Buchanan

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [ ] = 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.

! TJS: none.

! db: part of shnid 76444 (Gefen > Goodbear).

! R: PREFM-SBD > ? > Gefen Master ? > GoodBear CD (late 1990s) > shn, part of shnid 76444.

! R: shn2flac via TLH, tracking via CDWave, tagging in foobar2000 by JGMF, 8/6/2012.

! t02 Jerry interrupts him Jerry Garcia Band. JG "Under the stars. Not undah." They are wasted. For those of you who don't enjoy the show tonight, I'd like to apologize on behalf of myself and the members of the band. John Kahn. Let's apologize for Buzzy, too. And Buzzy.

! t03 Ron Tutt's been playing with us. Ron isn't playing with us anymore. The new kid in the band is Buzz Buchanan credit to his race, as far as drummers go. From Los Angeles. What happened to Ron Tutt? Kahn: He went back to Los Angeles unfortunately. Buzz who did you play with before? Studio stuff in LA. The Smothers Brothers, played back east with them at the Great Gorge Playboy Club.

! t04 Someone mutters "shit",  and the DJ sounds worried about the ramifications of broadcasting a swear word. "I need ten grand and a year in jail." Garcia, pulling up from an audible snort: "I do. I could use a year in jail. I really think it would straighten me right out. And the $10 grand [fine] would be helpful, too."

! t05 on CUTS release date: That's a good question. If Arista really cooks, they might get it out as soon as the next couple of weeks ... next week or so. Our last really important deadline which we were almost totally convinced we would make was September 10th ... of last year. Unfortunately, we ... slipped up a little right there." JK: "Well, we made the deadline, in a way." DJ: "In a way?" JK: "Yeah. We were mostly dead by then." DJ: "Gratefully ... dead?" JK: "Well, I wasn't all that happy about it, myself."

! t06 Keith Godchaux: This is really harsh. He asks if Keith is around, and they all start snickering. JG: "Not all of us can move, see [laughter] ... sometimes it just doesn't work out right. [hilarity]

! t07 re Maria Muldaur: DJG: "There's somebody else who isn't here. Maria Muldaur is not here. Call John Mr. Maria. JG: "She is now an official member [inaudible]." JK : "The original mistake was "mr." JG: "She is a permanent member of this band insofar as this band is a permanent organization." DJ: "And it's workin' out great." JG: "yeah. Real great." Maria has her own date.

! t08 JG: "We all have to work around each other, know what I mean? Otherwise, y'know, I work at a gas station during the day." John will come back and play with Maria when she comes back to town.

! t09 Q about GD plans. JG: "Yeah, we're gonna be workin' ourselves silly this year. But I don't have a rap to tell you.  I don't have any information that's gonna do you any good on the Grateful Dead right now. Right now this is what we're doin, and this is the most important thing that's happening as far as we're concerned." Bob Weir album recording. JF: "We're looking at recording in the May-June-July area, if things go right we'll have an album out in August." Kahn: Just like our album out in September". Jerry: "Well, yeah, right, we're all hippies. Crazed beatniks. Strange people. Foreigners." JK: "I have a junior beatnik card."

! t10 clips of the GD Movie on TV on "Rock Concert" TV people have been pulling on our legs for many years to go on television. William F. Buckley wanted me to go on Firing Line.
! t11 GD tour maybe early spring starting in Florida. JG doesn't really know about it. Garcia cuts this question off.

! t12 Most like to talk about the record. Record has been a great trip for us. "We started working on it last July. Because we're all doing all this other stuff."

! t13 DJG: "And we built the studio that we recorded it in." JG: "Yeah, we built the studio to do it. What was happening was, we were rehearsing, and all of a sudden ... and it's Tutt that plays on these tracks, not Buzz, unfortunately. [Buzz, wake up!] So we were playing in there and we were making cassettes for practice purposes as we were working on the material. And, uh, Tutt ... was he attracted to ... he liked the drum sound in the room. We hadn't really thought about it before. So we whipped the place into a recording studio, took about a month to do it, two months, maybe. This whole record is, fundamentally, on a technical level it's totally homemade. I mean everything that was done, it was done ... right ... it was all done in the same room." JK: "I remember when we were all splicing wires, we actually, literally, ourselves, put it together [inaudible]." JG: "We were cutting wires, and cutting lines and making cables and doing everything ... we actually built the place--" DJ: "From scratch." JG: "Yeah, from scratch."

! t13 @0102 DJ: "Do you intend to use this studio for future Garcia and Dead endeavors?" JG: "Whether the Dead decide to use it or not is a matter of ... that decisionmaking process ... you know, we don't decide like *that* ... for me, it's a thing that's been a long, slow progression of accumulation of equipment, and the desire to have a really good facility for recording. The neat thing about it is that the room we're workin' in, it just sounds beautiful. It sounds better than any studio I've ever worked in, in terms of the room sound. So, the vocal quality, the instrumental quality, the drum sound, all the sounds that are recorded in the room ...; there's horns and strings and things like that there as well ... and everything  just has a very articulate and nice sound."

! t14 JG: "I'm happiest with this record, of all the ones we've done. It's neat because it's all original material, all the material is our own stuff." DJ: "Can I who produced this album?" JG: "We all" [crosstalk] DJ question about Keith Olsen and production. JK: "I don't know that we have such a specific plan on that level. Things are changeable, always." JG: "Yeah, right, that's the thing, is that no decision is final, and that no operating ... no way of operating is ever completely always gonna be the thing." Jerry really doesn't want to go onto GD terrain, while Gefen really does.

t15 RIR introduction. DJ: "Give us a chance to relax a little bit, with microphones off." JG, laconically: "That'd be swell." DJ introduces song as by "Jerry Garcia", and Garcia insists "Jerry Garcia BAND".

! R: t16 spliced

! t17 silliness

! t18 tour so far, only two gigs. DJ: "How long have you been rehearsing for the tour?" JK "None". JG: "About twenty minutes." JK, laughing: "That's right, it was twenty minutes." JG: "We try to approach this stuff professionally." JK: "Yeah, right. I do remember that twenty minutes, now that I think about it."

! t19 CUTS album personnel: Kahn mentions harmonica player Dave Burgin on "Palm Sunday". Steve Schuster horn player on "Rain". Two string players one was named Brian (Brian Godchaux and Candy Godchaux, Keith's brother and sister-in-law). Then there was that guy whatshisname from the ... [Kahn: "Musicians' union?" [general mirth]. French horn player his name was whatever it says. Stewart somebody from the Oakland Symphony. JG: "Wonderful player. French horn is a really difficult instrument, this guy ..."

t20 John Kahn writing instrumentation wrote the out about five minutes, on the floor, with manuscript paper, scribble scribble scribble for this french horn player ... and he just played it immediately. He's a remarkable player, remarkable." JG, sound a little grumpy: "Uhh, yeah, we have. We've been movin' each other along and I think an awful lot of what's happening in music is just dull as dishwater, man." DJ: "You're not into any disco or New Wave or anything?" JG: "Of those things, of those choices, the New Wave... the whole punk rock trip, I like it best. I like it best, I think. I like it because it has some energy, it has some spirit." JK: "There's the thing of, new music, people are tyring to play [crosstalk] there's thing, in San Francisco, 'cause that's where I was then, when everybody was just learning to play, there was a thing that was missing --" JG: "The thing of people tryin' real hard. JK: "Tryin' to figure out how to make it work." JG: "Yeah, yeah. It's got the spirit, y'know, that's the thing. The nature of the spirit, if you had to describe the spirit, you could describe the spirit as being a little bit edgy, y'know, maybe sort of a Violent spirit, y'know, sort of scaly and weird, maybe, but it's a spirit, and almost anything else lacks spirit of any sort."

! t21 DJ: "I just want to ask a question about your musical influences. Anybody been moving you along lately?"

! t22 JG: "Who is there around to say what being really, really good on an instrument is. There are guys who don't play ... who can't play many notes, that can move you tremendously with what they do play. Then there are guys who can play gazillions of notes, and nobody can even dig it." JK, sounding very strange: "There isn't any best in the world anymore." JG: "No, it's not like that anymore." JK: "There can't be a best guitar player in the world anymore. There's twenty now. JG: "Say, eighty." [cross-talk] DJG: "Being the greatest is no longer the incentive." JG: "Being great is your own trip." More from JK.

! t23 general weirdness, then DJG asks DJ "Do you want us to stop talking?" He says "No, no", and Garica replies "Well then stop looking at that thing, then, if it gives you the creeps." Too funny! "Play something so *you* can relax." General mirth. "Rain" intro by JG

! t25 DJ mistakenly identifie the song as "Gomorrah", not sure. JG, dismissive: "Uh, it's called 'Rain'. It's the one that Donna wrote?" DJ: "I am getting confused in between--" [--SNIFF-- chuckles] "--John Kahn just noticed his own name on Jerry Garcia's Reflections album." JG: "He's into his name because it rhymes." DJ: "With what?" JG: "With itself. John Kahn. John Kahn." He sounds a littel patronizing.

! t26 question about how the decision was made to have Donna and Keith tour with this band and with the Dead. Gets no response, says "OK ... they don't like that question." Then they affirm him a little bit. Donna: "No, no, I just don't understand it." JK "These things happen more than a decision [inaudible]." JG: "See, here's the thing, I mean, I think it best ... in terms of clarity, I think it's easiest not to confuse the Grateful Dead with *this* band . This band really has its own identity, its own evolution." DJ: "I'm only making the comment because there are three members of the Dead in it, as opposed to one [garbled]." JG: "That is an interesting ..." JK: "Well," [cross-talk DJ, something about Bob Weir] "it's coincidental, that's all." JG: "It's coincidental, almost, yeah." JK "We didn't have a piano player, and Keith was the best guy we could find, and Donna's a fabulous singer." JG: "Yeah, actually, this started quite awhile ago. I mean, Keith and Donna have been with us for two years." DJG: "And they needed a piano player, and another singer would be nice. Keith and I live together. It'd be cheap." [laughter] JG: "Not too hard ... and we're all freaks." [crosstalk] DJG: "--just fell into it really naturally." DJ: "May I ask how you originally got involved with the Dead?" JK: "They probably needed a piano player, too." DJG: "They did. That was exactly what was happening."

! t27 JG: "It's a matter of timing, really." JK: "Those things happen. It's not heavy decisions or anything. That kind of stuff just happens ... somebody shows up, and it's right, and everybody knows it's right." DJ question about Bobby and Kingfish. JG: "I guess, so, that's the way it worked out with him. But for me it's always been the thing of, that, decisionmaking is always, always ... I don't dig it, I'm ... It's more a matter of luck. Like, John and I really were thrown together in a gig. We started playing together purely randomly. And we played together for a looong time before we started even talking very much. But we got along musically." JK: "I had known you for about three years--" [crosstalk] "--the first time I ever really talked to you is when you gave me a ride home from the airport once from somewhere." JG: "Yeah. It's just one of those things. Something happens in your life."

! t28 DJ spoke with Weir the day before (3/10/78), asking about parallels. JG: "He was in a situation where he had a created band. He'd done a record, and the record had a certain musical personality ... and he was really in the position, since Weir, Bobby doesn't spend a lot of time playin' around with other musicians, except when he was working with Kingfish and stuff like that, y'know. So, he went down there [LA] and for him it was a good experience because he was exposed to a lot of good players, met a lot of people, and put himself into that situation of, 'OK, now I have to have a band.'."  JK: "He has to cover his album." JG and Donna affirm. JG: "This is a little different." DJ: "What do you think of that album?" JG: "Weir's album?" DJ: "Yeah." JG: "Slick as can be.  Weir has always been a very interesting writer to me. He writes the kinds of things that I would never, ever think of writing, musically I mean. And his development as a composer is gettin' to be more interesting and more resolved as the years go by. He's always been an interesting composer. His ideas are ... they're unique. Whether other people are gonna like it or not, I really haven't the slightest idea, but it really sounds smooth, and it sounds nice and finished. Keith Olsen is a very careful and meticulous producer."

! t29 Keith Olsen: "He showed up and didn't freak out." "he's a good cat. He really doesn't belong in LA. He's a good guy to work with. He's the pick of the litter."  , Dead with outside producer everybody has their own opinion so firmly, it's like imprinted on yourselves. Very hard for us to all. .. it's helpful to have an objective ear. Dealing with ourselves we can hang ourselves up for months and months and months and months and months. "It's not that we don't dig it, but that's what it is."

! t31 random chatter. Running out of things to say. Now, general mayhem. All talking about things. "Being on the radio beats lying around in the gutter, in the snow. ... It also beats things like taking a shower."

! t32 Jerry directing. JG: "Hey, I know, why don't you play nother cut. ... In that case, do what you want." DJ prods him again about asking about the Dead. Jerry sounding a little grouchy "I am just not into it that much right now." GD we're workin'.

! t33 DJ: Are there plans for another Jerry Band album, this is a permanent entity? JG: "Yeah. This is. It's been going on for some time. It's an idea we have been pursuing for some time. John and I have been involved in developing this thing over this long period of time in a kind of crazy way. It's serious. As a personal, as an individual apart from my relationship with the Grateful Dead, which is an important thing to me, this record, this music and this band is the same thing to me. It's that important to me. I care that much about it. I'm that serious about it. I think that this record is the best record that any of our various scenes --if you want to be thinking in those terms, y'know, sub-groups and all the rest of that stuff, if you want to be thinking in those terms, this record is, I think, the best of any of them so far. I mean, in terms of us feeling really good about it. The material is really good. The lyrics are beautiful, the musical ideas, the performances, the sound ... everything is the way we would want for people to hear it."
t34 DJ: "How do you feel everything is at this point in your career." JG: "what career? I don't care about a career."

t35 Kahn: "I'll tell you, of significant importance [sic] is that we've really become a band. It's not like something that Jerry does in his spare time, or that I do in my spare time, or anything like that. It started out that way." JG, to John: "Gimme that drink." JK: "Oh, no." JG: "Go ahead."  [pause all around] JK: "What was I saying? We're a *band*, that's really what's  important to know." @0:32 JG: "But that's like a real thing. It's like a marriage, or something. Not only is it a band, but it's a band that has that ... it has thing of of, ummm, consonance. [That's] the best way I can describe it. In other words, we all think similarly musically." DJG: "The hippest folks out there will know what we man by concrescence .. but only the hippest, y'know." JG: "Probably only the hippest, that's right. All you lame people [crosstalk]." DJ: gives him choices. John Kahn wants to do the news, presumably to take another "break". Jerry says they'll go until Robbie freaks out. !1:35 DJ: "Where were we?" JG: "Where, indeed?" JK: We're into something new." JG: "We're into the music having a personality and a life of its own that is something which we all recognize we're a part of.  It's like you imagine a music in your head, and you don't even imagine it perfectly, it's not even something ... it escapes your imagination ... it's provocative. And then you run into somebody and you see that what they're doing has some part of that vision. And you recognize it. Y'know what I mean? It's not like you invent it, you recognize it. 'Yeah, that, that, that's it, that's it!" JK: "Right. There's there's the possibility of that dream. And you go further." JG: "Yeah. And then you go further, you go further." [crosstalk: DJG: --that has the same dream."] JG: "That's right, that has the same --[crosstalk]. Dynamically, the interesting difference in this thing is that this band represents a kind of amazing agremement, where, by contrast, the Grateful Dead represents this amazing disagreement, in terms of, that everybody has tremendously different ideas about music, just a ... but that's interesting for other reasons. That's interesting for completely other reasons. This is ... this gets us all off in the same way. The Grateful Dead, when the Grateful Dead gets off, everybody gets off differently. But we all get off."

! t36 Kahn's idea about music: "I don't have any idea about music. What to me it means 'good' which is, it has an effect on people. That's what good means to me." JG: "Yeah, me too." JK: "And, other than that, I don't have any idea. We could play bluegrass music, or jazz, or--" [JG: "Yeah, style doesn't have anything to do with it."] --"it doesn't matter. It's all music. It's just music." JG: "And as long as it has an effect on you. When you hear music, you want it to move you. You want it to ... communicate." DJG: "And this band has expanded on that level." JG: "Yeah. We've been hittin' some ..."

! personnel: Buzz Buchanan: t37 Donna brings up Buzzy how John Kahn found Buzzy Buchanan. "He's allowed us to go into spaces in music that we've never gone to before. He's great." Discussion about how John found Buzzy through a Kmart thing, John says it was the 'Best Hits of the Chinese Fifth Dynasty Greatest Hits'. And the particular track I heard was "The Taoism and the Path, featuring Buzzy Buchanan, and because of that I decided that I thought he'd really work well with us. And, oddly enough, it turned out that he was still alive."

! t38 Kahn: wine bottles in Amenhotep's grave ... 1400 BC ... they are drinking ... DJG: "We found this bottle uncorked it and there was Buzzy." ... SNORT ... DJ: herbicides on dope in Mexico ... JG: "What about that clone story?"

! t39 DJ: "What kind of stuff have you been into, as far as--" JG: "Ideas? There's a fantastic book called The Invisible Landscape, that anybody that wants to have their brain turned inside out should read, that is by the McKenna Brothers, who are ... Terrence and Dennis McKenna, who are a pair of scientists ... and in the book they propose a theory ... a holographic theory of mind and the Universe. They talk about the mechanical and electromagnetic way that psychedelics affect the mind, and the DNA and RNA specifically ... [crosstalk] Then they talk about the I-Ching ..."

! t40 even Buzz says goodbye ... network news.

! t41 the news about a Ku Klux Klan rally

NRPS were best when Marmaduke was focused and sober (LN jg1971-10-27.nrps.all.fm-weiner.18357.shnf)

The New Riders of the Purple Sage opened for the Grateful Dead for most or all of its October-December 1971 touring. Happily, a lot of the shows were broadcast and there are pretty good tapes.

This one, from the Onondaga War Memorial in Syracuse, NY on October 27, 1971 is an above-average tape of a well-above-average performance. I can't say I've listened forensically to tons of late 1971 New Riders, but the band represented here is really, really hot. The vocals are tight and correct, with no drunken Marmaduke silliness on, e.g., Honky Tonk Women. He sounds sober and focused. David Torbert sings lead on "Hello Mary Lou" [Allan | Scofield], made famous by Ricky Nelson, and "Willie and the Hand Jive" [Allan | Scofield], which had been a top-ten single for its author, Johhny Otis, in the summer of 1958 [wikipedia]. Nelson is great, as usual, and Garcia is good and tasteful, with the awesome, rusty buzz-sawing steel in "Dirty Business" that I really love.

Anyway, good clean fun, and a very favorable review in the next day's Syracuse Post-Standard (see reference in notes, below).

New Riders of the Purple Sage
Onondaga County War Memorial
800 South State Street
Syracuse, NY 13202
October 27, 1971 (Wednesday)
FM shnid-18357 shn2flac

--complete set (12 tracks, 62:20)--
t01. {03:40} //Six Days On The Road [#2:09] [1:21]
t02. {04:34} I Don't Know You [3:32] [1:02]
t03. {03:30} Down In The Boondocks [3:04] [0:26]

t04. {13:58} Dirty Business [11:03] [2:55]

t05. {04:04} Rainbow [3:11] [0:53]
t06. {07:34} Garden Of Eden [6:41] [0:53]
t07. {03:27} Hello Mary Lou [2:59] [0:28]
t08. {03:58} Henry [3:39] [0:19]
t09. {03:10} S//ailin' [#1:59] (1) [1:11]
t10. {03:57} Sweet Lovin' One [3:10] [0:47]
t11. {06:00} Willie And The Hand Jive [5:55] [0:05]
t12. {04:28} Louisiana Lady [4:00] (2) [0:28]

! ACT1: New Riders of the Purple Sage
! lineup: John Dawson - rhythm guitar, vocals;
! lineup: David Nelson - lead guitar, vocals;
! lineup: David Torbert - bass, vocals;
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - pedal steel guitar;
! lineup: Spencer Dryden - drums.

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [m:ss] = 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 [m:ss] right after a song title is an attempt to say how long the song really was, as represented on this recording. Fancy brackets {} represent track times.

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19711027-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/18357 (FM broadcast, this fileset)

! review: John Wisniewski, "6,500 Rock to ‘Dead’ Sounds; Riders Superb in Warmup," Syracuse Post-Standard, October 28, 1971, p. 8.

! R: "FMMR(C?) > ? > R > DAT > WAV > SHN"

! R: "A > D transfer by Noah Weiner - June, 2003 from Jimmy Warburton's 7" Reel."

! R: "The recording is mono, and the left channel had a great deal more hiss and noise than the right. Thus, the right channel was copied over the left in Sound Forge to produce a more clean and strong signal for the final digital project.  Also, throughout the reel there are occasional static pops, fuzz, and crackles."

! R: "Reel playback on Pioneer RT-701 > Teac AN-180 Dolby decoder > Fostex D5 DAT (A>D only) > Turtle Beach Montego II Digital I/O > Soundforge (wav edits and track IDs) > SHNTOOL (SBE fix) > MKW (shn)."

! R: this has a gen or two on it, and as Noah notes it has some warts, but overall it is quite good, a fine listen.

! historical context: NRPS opened for the Grateful Dead for all of the out-of-town gigs in October-December 1971, with a great many of the sets broadcast on FM radio. The FM broadcasts are nice because I think Marmaduke and the rest are just a little more careful when they think they are being broadcast: things are nice and tight, everything is pretty good. If you wanted to hear what NRPS sounded like at this stage, this set is totally representative. This would be one of Garcia's last gigs with the New Riders, with the last known one being four nights later in Stony Brook, NY. There were apparently no NRPS sets at the Harding on November 6-7, and by Atlanta on 11/11 Buddy Cage had taken over the pedal steel chair.

! NB Torbert lead vocals on Hello Mary Lou (t07) and Hand Jive (t11).

! R: t09 Sailin' has a splice a few seconds in, not sure if there's a verse missing. Cuts in on "//My lady is lovely and she carries no comb".

! t09 (1) station ID: "WAER, Syracuse".

! t12 (2) ?McIntire?: "Yeah, the New Riders of the Purple Sage. Thank you, New Riders. OK, this is what we're gonna be doing for the next twenty minutes. We're gonna have a quick change-around, so we can get the Grateful Dead//"

OAITW: Homer's Warehouse, July 24, 1973

**This is an update to a post originally made 9/19/2010, now updated as of 12/28/2014**

In a first draft of this post, I used the occasion of a listen to an Old And In The Way set from Homer's Warehouse in Palo Alto from Tuesday, July 24, 1973 to drop a few crumbs. I have revisited the material (shnid-11861), and will repackage, a little, add a little, update based on this listen and synchronic read through the promoter's account (Bernstein 2013, 149-152).

First, how was this show structured?

The fileset said this was a complete show. This is also all of the material which Bernstein (2013, 152) lists for the evening, but he shows a setbreak before Lonesome L.A. Cowboy. I think this must be mistaken, for several reasons.

Reason 1: this tape runs continuously, including across the putative set divide (t06-t07); Reason 2: The DJ (note 1) says there will be another go 'round the bases with Asleep At the Wheel and "Jerry Garcia and Old And In The Way", and that stuff's not here; Reason 3: Vintage 1973 Garcia would never inhabit a set structure that would give him two cracks at 53 minutes – it would be a decade before he'd inflict that kind of "cabaret economics" on his own fans.[1] Update: that's wrong. Sets at the Boarding House and Homer's, when they were in the early-late format, ran about an hour Reason 4: ear- and eye-witnesses. Corry, who listened to the show from home, says "I'm certain the broadcast was early in the evening. … I think part of the reason for the broadcast would have been to encourage people in the listening area (all near Homer's Warehouse) to come on over. I'm sure Asleep At The Wheel and OAITW played another set, as it was not a midnight broadcast." cryptdev: "I listened to and taped this show and Corry is absolutely correct. Two sets for each band, and KZSC only broadcast the first sets by AATW and OIITW, respectively". Attendee Anonymous: AATW was the 9pmish opener at one show. Then OAITW came on, played 'til the wee hours (1-2 am) … I know they took two breaks, as we gathered outside for warming ceremonies".[2]

I am prepared to call it on that basis. This appears to have been one continuous evening of music, running 1) Asleep At The Wheel, 2) Old And In The Way, 3) AATW, 4) OAITW, the first two of which were broadcast and the second of which is represented on shnid-11861. (Who has a copy of the AATW set, BTW?) What we have on the tape is piece #2 from the evening. Eyewitness Anonymous says things kicked off around 9 PM and stretched into the wee hours. If we assume that AATW played an hour, this set is starting at maybe 10:30 and going until midnight. And then it'd be AATW and OAITW another time 'round the bases. Nice.

It appears that this was only ticketed once, which would have been very much out of pattern for Homer's (or the Inn, or the Share) in this kind of situation. The first thought in the minds of these club proprietors is always that they can turn the house when Garcia's billed. Corry suggests it's soliciting traffic to the venue itself– a certain number of people within earshot may well have put on their sneakers and got on down to the club, later this same night or some other night. (The DJ does not make it sound very inviting in note 1 – sounds like it's already packed!) Whatever, it's a rather distinctive setup, for sure, with Asleep At The Wheel, Hell's Angels around, FM broadcast, and of course the legendary Vassar Clements, rightfully at the center of much of the interest and energy around these shows.[3] The promoter: "we had managed to choreograph a pretty sophisticated little production, bringing together a diverse group of people who spanned Tennessee [sic: Florida] (Vassar), West Virginia (Benson), and planets as yet undiscovered (the Dead family)" (Bernstein 2013, 149-150).

Second: "The Burden of Being Jerry" (Gans and Greenfield 1996)

No biggie, but it seems clear that Jerry would not have wanted the band called "Jerry Garcia and Old And In The Way". The DJs may not know much about this stuff (one of Corry's points in comments), but in any case I find it noteworthy that this is seen and discussed as a Jerry Garcia thing. Which it is, of course, but sort of shouldn't be, in a way. If you follow me. Better it should be a Vassar thing, or a Grisman or a Rowan thing.

Third: Jerry's Fans and Unamplified Music

After "Eating Out of Your Hand", at note 4, Grisman asks the crowd to refrain from clapping along, since it made it hard for the band members to hear themselves (unamplified instruments and all that). This is consistent with the view that the "Garcia" audience needed to be educated/acculturated into bluegrass. It probably didn't make things better that the clapping seemed to be dreadfully off-time, but in any case this is an interesting (if tiny) instance of the encounter between hippies and the bluegrass world, about which I'll have more to say at some point.

In comments, LIA draws our attention to Garcia's own discussion of the issue, in 1976: "We ran into a really weird problem in terms of dynamics which was that bluegrass music is like chamber music: it’s very quiet. And if the audience got at all enthusiastic during the tune and started clapping or something, it would drown out the band and we couldn’t hear each other" (Relix).

It's no big deal, but I thought it was worth noting a specific instance of the phenomenon.

Fourth: A Note on Asleep At the Wheel

Ray Benson had great respect for Jerry Garcia and wanted to play on a show with him before The Wheel left the Bay Area for good. Jerry's blue grass fans and the Wheel fans would love that, so we dropped the idea on Sam Cutler, who said he would get back to us. Sam also told us there would be a new musician with Old and in the Way. Vassar Clements, the most respected blue grass fiddler alive, had joined the band. In a few weeks, he would be making sawdust on our stage. The next morning, we got a call back from Sam that Jerry was okay with The Wheel opening the show. "Jerry's only request of them," he said, "is please don't blow the audience into center field with volume." When I called Benson to tell him the deal was on, he flipped. (Bernstein 2013, 149).

Fifth: The Performance

Meh. After listening to this again, I am underwhelmed. It's possible things are running slow, and/or that we're not picking up some of the instrumentation because of the technical challenges posed by sound (re-)production, which can be considerable. I had high hopes early on when Jerry takes a nice turn, but he doesn't knock me out this night overall, and rather the contrary. Things sound a little disjointed, almost fall apart a few times. This band needs more gigs! (I seem noncommittal about overall performance quality in my analysis of the 7/21/73 gig in Berkeley.)

More detail, references, etc. below the fold.