Showing posts with label GSCBF. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GSCBF. Show all posts

Saturday, February 07, 2015

GSCBF18: whole weekend schedule

Here is what I believe to have been the running order of the whole weekend. This is pieced together from schedules, tape lists, and all manner of published info (see REFERENCES). I am about 90% confident in the sequencing. The times are mostly made up, though we sometimes to have stuff to go on (one of the reviews mentions the Dirt Band coming on at 10 pm on Sunday, for example).


Date Time DayAct ActName
4/26/1974 19:00 1 Greenbriar Boys w/ Vassar Clements
4/26/1974 19:45 2 Mac Wiseman, Norman Blake and Tut Taylor
4/26/1974 20:30 5 Maria Muldaur
4/26/1974 21:00 3 Jim & Jesse McReynolds
4/26/1974 21:30 4 Ralph Stanley
4/26/1974 22:00 6 Doc & Merle Watson
4/26/1974 22:30 7 Great American String Band
4/27/1974 12:00 1 High Country
4/27/1974 12:30 2 Cornbread
4/27/1974 13:00 3 Homestead Act
4/27/1974 13:30 4 Emmylou Harris
4/27/1974 14:00 5 Norman Blake & Tut Taylor
4/27/1974 15:00 6 Mac Wiseman
4/27/1974 16:00 7 Ralph Stanley
4/27/1974 17:00 8 Skunk Cabbage
4/27/1974 18:00 9 Buck White and the Down Home Folks
4/27/1974 19:00 10 Rick Shubb & The Hired Hands
4/27/1974 20:00 11 Jim & Jesse McReynolds
4/27/1974 21:00 12 Doc & Merle Watson
4/27/1974 22:00 13 Greenbriar Boys
4/27/1974 23:00 14 Wild Eyed Hippy Stompers
4/27/1974 23:30 15 Great American String Band
4/28/1974 12:00 1 Bear Creek Boys
4/28/1974 12:30 2 Rick Shubb & the Hired Hands
4/28/1974 13:00 3 Buck White and the Down Home Folks
4/28/1974 13:30 4 Jim & Jesse McReynolds
4/28/1974 14:00 5 Norman Blake & Tut Taylor
4/28/1974 14:30 6 Mac Wiseman
4/28/1974 15:00 7 Greenbriar Boys
4/28/1974 15:45 8 Jimmy Martin
4/28/1974 16:15 9 Doc & Merle Watson
4/28/1974 17:30 xx dinner break
4/28/1974 19:00 10 Skunk Cabbage
4/28/1974 19:30 11 Ramblin' Jack Elliott
4/28/1974 20:15 12 John Hartford
4/28/1974 20:45 13 Ralph Stanley
4/28/1974 21:15 14 Donna Washburn, Doug Dillard and the Intruders
4/28/1974 22:00 15 Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
4/28/1974 23:15 16 Old and In the Way



REFERENCES
! ad: Oakland Tribune, April 7, 1974, p. 23-EN.
! ad: San Francisco Examiner, April 26, 1974, p. 25.
! announce: "20 Top Artists Are Expected For Marin's Bluegrass Festival," Marin Independent-Journal, April 6, 1974, p. 33.
! announce: "Bluegrass for the Bay Area," Oakland Tribune, April 21, 1974, p. 7-EN.
! announce: "Bluegrass to Bay Area Fest," Billboard, April 20, 1974, p. 37.
! announce: "Three-Day Bluegrass Festival in Marin," San Mateo Times, April 18, 1974, p. 13.
! color: "Jam", Marin Independent-Journal, April 29, 1974, p. 1. Impromptu jam session with Geoff Berne of Oakland, Jim Caffrey of San Francisco, others, date uncertain but almost certainly either Saturday 4/27 or Sunday 4/28.
! exante: “Festival Campers to be Watched,” Marin Independent-Journal, April 25, 1974, p. unk.
! expost: Staska, Kathie, and George Mangrum. 1974. Rock talk from KG: Maria learned from first LP. Hayward Daily Review, May 3, 1974, p. 42.
! photo: "Crowd", Marin Independent-Journal, April 29, 1974, p. 1. Good-sized crowd, date uncertain but almost certainly either Saturday 4/27 or Sunday 4/28.
! photo: "Down Home Flavor", Marin Independent-Journal, April 27, 1974, p. 1. Greenbriar Boys with Vassar Clements performing, 4/26/74.
! photo: "Nashville Arrives", Marin Independent-Journal, April 27, 1974, p. 34. Mac Wiseman and Norman Blake performing, 4/26/74.
! photo: "Shoes in the Hay", Marin Independent-Journal, April 27, 1974, p. 34. Picture from 4/26/74.
! photo: "Songs and Stetsons", Marin Independent-Journal, April 27, 1974, p. 34. Two older gentlemen, "cowboys from Santa Rosa and Sebastopol", sitting on oil drums, 4/26/74.
! preview: "Western Music to Top Weekend," Marin Independent-Journal, date uncertain, p.1.
! preview: Alex, Bill. 1974. Around the Bay. San Francisco Examiner, April 26, 1974, p. 31.
! review: Cane, Paul. 1974. Bluegrass Festival Was 'Mellow' Event. Marin Independent-Journal, April 29, 1974, p. 1.
! review: Liberatore, Paul. 1974. Bluegrass Festival Opens with Salute to Fiddler. Marin Independent-Journal, April 27, 1974, pp. 1, 4. review of 4/26/74
! review: Nevin, George. 1974. Country Music Festival Keeps Bluegrass Fans Stompin' Feet. Marin Independent-Journal, April 29, 1974, p. 1. review of 4/28/74
! review: Selvin, Joel. 1974. Bluegrass in Marin County. San Francisco Chronicle, April 29, 1974, p. 41. review of 4/26/74
Posted by at 10 comments:
Labels: , , , ,

Sunday, September 07, 2014

David Nichtern and the Nocturnes

http://www.concertvault.com/david-nichtern/record-plant-november-09-1974.html

What an interesting looking little fragment. I wish I could hear it.

In All GSCBF All The Time news, I suspect that Nichtern hooked up with his band, including Hot Band pedal steel player Hank Devito, as well as Nicolette Larson, through the GSCBF. They were all there.
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Saturday, September 22, 2012

GSCBF16: Program Images




More eye candy below the fold.
Read more »
Posted by at 2 comments:
Labels: , , , , ,

Saturday, September 01, 2012

Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival: Index Post (GSCBF15)

Mostly for my own purposes, but a little index of my series on the Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival, held at the Marin County Veterans' Auditorium (building and grounds) in San Rafael, CA (94903) from the evening of Friday, April 26, 1974 through late on Sunday, April 28, 1974.
I have tons more to get to, but we'll just have to see when that can happen. For now, just an index.
GSCBF2: a plea for a release of the film and tapes!
Posted by at 2 comments:
Labels: , , , , ,

Wednesday, September 07, 2011

GSCBF12: Ralph Stanley & His Clinch Mountain Boys: Sunday, April 28, 1974, ca. 21:15

Part of a series of back-of-the-napkin thoughts about the Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival (GSCBF), held in San Rafael, CA from Friday, April 26th through Sunday, April 28, 1974. Click the link to see the posts in this series.

Now I see why I only had a draft of this post for a long time. I didn't ever finish my notes. I guess I'll update this at some point. Consider these some raw notes for now.


Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival
Marin County Veterans' Auditorium Building and Grounds
San Rafael, CA

<--John Hartford precedes-->

Ralph Stanley & His Clinch Mountain Boys
Sunday, April 28, 1974 ca. 21:15

Source: "Debbie reel 4/27/74" CD 4 of 4
Provenance: unknown sbd recording (?maybe MSC > C?) > reel
Transfer: AKAI GX 636 playback > Apogee mini ME @ 24/96 > Apogee Mini DAC (monitoring/mastering) > lynx one soundcard > wavelab 5.0 > CD, by Matt Smith.
Lossless encoding: EAC > CDWave > TLH (FLAC level 8).
Tagging: Foobar 2000.

(8 tracks, 16:40)
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2115-Stanley-t01. % Cacklin' Hen -1:38
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2115-Stanley-t02. Maple on the Hill -4:18 -4:23
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2115-Stanley-t03. talk (1), band intros [2:27]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2115-Stanley-t04. Hemlocks and Primroses -5:21 -5:24
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2115-Stanley-t05. Stone Walls and Steel Bars 1:50 -2:04 w/ mandolin
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2115-Stanley-t06. Bill Cheetham -2:07 -2:19
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2115-Stanley-t07. Nobody's Love is Like Mine 2:31 -2:40
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2115-Stanley-t08. unknown_Stanley_19740428// [fragment] [0:05] %

Lineup:
Ricky Lee - guitar, bass vocals;
Cheryl White - bass;
Ralph Stanley - banjo, tenor vocals;
Curly Ray Cline - fiddle;
Roy Lee Centers - vocals.

Notes:
! % = tape discontinuity; # = truncated timing; // = cut song
! Recording is overloaded for the first few minutes
! Roy Lee Centers would pass away a week or so later, on May 5, 1974. The usual bass player, Jack Cooke, was unable to attend.
! not sure who plays mandolin
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-2115-Stanley-t03 (1) last appearance on the festival this weekend
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-2115-Stanley-t08 fragmentary start of song
! It is not known how long this set lasted - the tape here runs out, and no Ralph Stanley material appears on any of the other sources for the Festival that I know of. This set was scheduled at a half-hour, so barring any other information let's assume that that's right, and that this is missing about 15 minutes of music.

<--Nitty Gritty Dirt Band follows-->

Jerry Garcia's Middle Finger
http://jgmf.blogspot.com/search/label/GSCBF
Posted by at 1 comment:
Labels: , , ,

Thursday, January 27, 2011

GSCBF14: Old And In The Way: Sunday, April 28, 1974, ca. 23:15

Part of a series of back-of-the-napkin thoughts about the Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival (GSCBF), held in San Rafael, CA from Friday, April 26th through Sunday, April 28, 1974.


Previous installments:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Somehow I have a sense of anticlimax, having reached this point. I have gone through the entire, historically precious set of "Debbie" tapes, which pretty completely covers the Sunday, April 28, 1974 afternoon program of the festival. And here we have the first performance of OAITW in almost five months, and the group's last-ever. As Corry has pointed out to me, right around this time Grisman seems to turn from traditional bluegrass and from the song (i.e., with vocals) orientation that Peter Rowan represented in OAITW to what would become "Dawg Music", as first systematically explored in the Great American Music Band. So this is a really pivotal moment for lots of things.

Yet, the set just doesn't light me up. They are obviously running up against a hard time limit and really have to rush. Things never really take flight. So, historically important, but not the OAITW set I'd grab first for musical quality (for that I'd turn to the Boarding House shows from October 1973, which have given us all of the officially released OAITW material).

Thanks to Matt Smith for sharing these incredible tapes with me. I plan to continue the series as I pick my way through the "soundman" tapes, which sound much nicer but which pose considerably greater challenges in terms of days/dates, sequences, running time of the sets, etc.

Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival
Marin County Veterans' Auditorium Building and Grounds
San Rafael, CA

<--Nitty Gritty Dirt Band precedes-->

Old & In The Way
Sunday, April 28, 1974 ca. 23:15

Source: "soundman reels, disc 6 of 6 (4/28/74)"
Provenance: reel
Transfer: AKAI GX 636 playback > Apogee mini ME @ 24/96 > Apogee Mini DAC (monitoring/mastering) > lynx one soundcard > wavelab 5.0 > CD, by Matt Smith.
Lossless encoding: extraction (EAC) > initial tracking (CDWave) > minor edits (Wavelab 5.0) > FLAC level 8 (TLH).
Tagging: foobar2000 v0.9.6.8.

(7 tracks, 21:07)
t01. monitor talk [0:35]
t02. High Lonesome Sound [3:43] [0:13]
t03. Pig In A Pen [2:01] [0:10]
t04. Panama Red [2:56] (2, 3) [0:37]
t05. Wild Horses [4:42] [0:05]
t06. encore calls [0:50]
--Encore--
t07. Hobo Song [4:58] (4, 5) [0:14]

Lineup:
Peter Rowan - ac-g, vocals;
David Grisman - mandolin, harmony vocals;
John Kahn - ac-bass;
Jerry Garcia - banjo, vocals;
Vassar Clements - fiddle;
?unknown? - harmonica ("Hobo Song" only).

JGMF Notes:

! 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.

! Recording: Matt Smith has since done a new high-res transfer as of about 2010. I had already noted and extracted the CD copies he sent me a few years ago, and in any case since I wanted to patch from the Debbie tapes it made sense to just work with the 1644s. I'll probably cut and note the high-res copies of the soundman tapes separately, with no patches, at least in a first cut. With the patches from the Debbie tapes, this is basically a continuous 21 minutes, and is the entire OAITW set.

! Recording: The Debbie tape and the soundman tape play very nicely here in terms of coverage. The soundman source is much nicer, and especially much more present in the right channel, so the transitions are a little jarring. I just didn't have time/energy to really do it up more smoothly, not least knowing that there's a high-res version of the soundman tapes sitting on a hard drive. I haven't listed the provenance of the Debbie tapes above: it's the same as on all the Debbie tapes, albeit from "4/28/74, disc 2 of 2".

! Performance: OAITW hadn't played for almost five months, probably since November 4, 1973. There was absolutely not an OAITW set on the Saturday, April 27, 1974. The recordings that circulate labeled this way are just wrong. There was one OAITW set at the GSCBF, it was Sunday to close the festival, and this is it. This is really just a quicky reunion to cap things off. Remember that the GSCBF was dedicated to Vassar Clements, and of course being in Marin the locals (most prominently Garcia) were crowd favorites, so it was a good call to have OAITW close it out. They sound very rushed for time, which is a shame.

! t01 and first 5.5 seconds of t02 (High Lonesome Sound) patched in from Debbie source. You can hear how the different mix, and how much nicer these soundman tapes are.

! t02 HLS some tape munching @ 2:30

! t04 PR @ 1:20 some channel panning just at the start of Garcia's banjo solo

! t04 (2) @ 3:00 Grisman, off-mic: "We've got time for one more." Garcia: "One more and an encore, man!" [JGMF note: wants to play!]

! t04 (3) @ end of track: Grisman to crowd: "Thank you, we've got time for about one more."

! t06 between Wild Horses and Hobo Song, the soundman source had 30 or so missing seconds, from about 0:15 to about 0:45. I butt-patched in the Debbie material here. The transitions are audible, but I am just not skilled enough to balance, etc. The channels may even be inverted ... what do I know?

! t07 @ 0:26 Hobo Song some funkiness, almost a sub-second blip

! t07 Personnel: unknown harmonica on Hobo Song

! t07 (4) Rowan: "Thank you very much, everybody! It's been a great festival. Thank you all!"

! t07 (5) @ 5:08 Unknown speaker: "Good night, thank everybody for comin'. Have a safe trip. See you next time."

<--end of Sunday program-->
<--END OF FESTIVAL-->

Jerry Garcia's Middle Finger
http://jgmf.blogspot.com/search/label/GSCBF

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

GSCBF13: Nitty Gritty Dirt Band: Sunday, April 28, 1974, ca. 22:00

Part of a series of back-of-the-napkin thoughts about the Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival (GSCBF), held in San Rafael, CA from Friday, April 26th through Sunday, April 28, 1974.


Previous installments:

 We are almost to the end of the Debbie tapes, which are probably multigen cassette-sourced (and have the corresponding sonic limitations), but run pretty continuously from Sunday 3 pm until about 11:30 pm or midnight.

So we just had the very traditional-sounding Ralph Stanley & His Clinch Mountain Boys. The Debbie tape of that is only about 17 minutes, while I expect that the set ran at least 30. Unfortunately, and uncharacteristically for the Debbie tapes, it feels fragmentary, cut on both the front and the back end. Now that I think on it, I think the sound quality is inferior, as well. Weird.

Anyway, Colorado boys The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band come on around 10 pm, let's say -- we really can't be sure until I read and hear more accounts. (Note to self: I need to read the Marin Independent-Journal from about December 1973 through 1974. I think that will tell a lot more about what went down with this Festival.) That's how it was scheduled, so we'll just go with that as an anchor, in any case.

So these guys were famous for lots of stuff, but especially for getting old-time and modern country players together ca. 1972 for the Will The Circle Be Unbroken project. Let me refer to it as WTCBU for short. So this was a huge deal, though I have a lot more to learn. I know that lots of the '73 bluegrass festivals billed a "WTCBU Reunion" as the show-closer. This was presumably various permutations of the great many amazing folks who appeared on the record. (FYI, Bruno has a post on the NGDB.)

The GSCBF would be no different. Back in GSCBF3 I synopsized the Sunday afternoon-evening schedule. Ralph Stanley was scheduled for a half-hour set starting at 9, then a "special guest" and then the Dirt Band. The basis for that schedule was an undated document from the Southern Folklife Collection. (Have to see if I can post images of docs from their collection.) It is so much more detailed than any other listings I have ever seen that I assume it was printed pretty close to show time. Here's what it read across the bottom:

Beginning at 10:30 p.m. Sunday there will be a reunion of the "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" album including Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Vassar Clements, Merle Travis, Doc Watson, Jimmy Martin, Norman Blake. Every effort is being made to include all others performing on the Circle album.

That's not quite what we get. Vassar and Doc Watson are the only two who actually come out with the Dirt Band for "WTCBU", even though Jimmy Martin had said a few hours earlier that he'd be there for it (GSCBF5, recording note #6). I assume that the rest of these guys are partying back at the hotel or driving or flying out of town already. It seems like everyone's having a pretty good old time, and there are lots of guests: Colorado mandolinist Jerry Mills, John Hartford, Vassar Clements, Doc Watson, David Nelson, and lots of other people make appearances during this roughly 70-minute "set". (We might consider it two sets, but since the NGDB guys are constantly on stage for this, I consider it a whole.)

Oh yeah, and a guy named Jerry Garcia. No-one has ever really bothered to pin this down as far as I know, but he is playing electric guitar here. I originally thought it even sounded like something different from his standard electric guitar from this time frame, but now I am not so sure. Note that Garcia's total time on tape here is about 10 minutes. It's very interesting for Garcia folks to hear this material (as it is to hear his 15-minute banjo sit-in with the Greenbriar Boys earlier in the day) , because any time he's doing something that was out of the pattern it's fun to consider how it fit in. He doesn't knock me out here, but I really just can't tell.

So, here we go, the penultimate set of the Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival, running from maybe 10 pm to about 11:15 pm, by my reckoning.
Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival
Marin County Veterans' Auditorium Building and Grounds
San Rafael, CA

<--Ralph Stanley & His Clinch Mountain Boys precedes-->

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Sunday, April 28, 1974 ca. 22:00

Source: "Debbie reel 4/28/74" CD 1 of 2
Provenance: unknown sbd recording (?maybe MSC > C?) > reel
Transfer: AKAI GX 636 playback > Apogee mini ME @ 24/96 > Apogee Mini DAC (monitoring/mastering) > lynx one soundcard > wavelab 5.0 > CD, by Matt Smith.
Lossless encoding: extraction (EAC) > initial tracking (CDWave) > minor edits (Wavelab 5.0) > FLAC level 8 (TLH).
Tagging: foobar2000 v0.9.6.8.

(24 tracks, 67:49)
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t01. Steve Martin banjo tune and introduction [0:55]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t02. talk and tuning [0:37]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t03. Some of Shelley's Blues [2:33] (1) [0:40]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t04. The Moon Just Turned Blue (J.D. Souther) [2:50] [0:38]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t05. Tulane and Johnny (Chuck Berry) [2:59] [0:46]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t06. Cosmic Cowboy [3:28] [0:16]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t07. Jerry Garcia introduction [1:14]

--enter Jerry Garcia (el-g)--
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t08. Jambalaya (Hank Williams) [4:21] [0:18]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t09. Sally Goodin [0:45] ->
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t10. Battle Of New Orleans (J. Driftwood) [2:44]

--exit Garcia--
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t11. talk and introductions [2:31]

--enter Jerry Mills (mandolin), John Hartford (fiddle), Vassar Clements (fiddle)--
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t12. Teardrops In My Eyes (Osborne Bros.) [2:12] [1:05]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t13. Bonie Maronie [2:42] [0:58]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t14. Randy Lynn Rag (Earl Scruggs) [3:12] [0:13] %
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t15. ... Flint Hill Special [#1:55] (2) [1:00]

--??exit Hartford?? ??exit Mills??--
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t16. Mr. Bojangles (Jerry Jeff Walker) [3:43] [0:49]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t17. Honky Tonkin' (Hank Williams) [2:10] (3) [0:56]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t18. Diggy Liggy Lo (J.D. Miller) [2:20] (4) [0:21]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t19. stage talk, set up [2:18]

--enter Doc Watson (guitar, vocals), David Nelson, John Hartford--
--1st encore--
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t20. Will The Circle Be Unbroken [4:34] [0:48]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t21. Way Downtown Fooling Around [3:21] (5) [0:38] %

--2nd encore--
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t22. tuning and talk (6) [0:58]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t23. (7) Down Yonder [3:25] [0:12]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t24. announcement (8) %

Lineup (needs confirmation):
Jimmie Fadden;
Jeff Hanna;
Jim Ibbotson;
John McEuen.

JGMF Notes:
! 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.
! Mono recording.
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t03: (1) "This is the best concert we've ever seen". The artists seem to be enjoying the Lammers' hospitality!
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t11: reference to "our friend David Nelson over here"
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t12. Teardrops In My Eyes, I think I hear David Nelson singing harmony @ 1:50 ish
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t14. skip or other anomaly @ start of Randy Lynn Rag, when the washboard comes in. Some kind of anomaly
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t15. Flint Hill Special fades in
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t15. (2) audience member: "Play more Chuck Berry!" Answer: "We're gonna get back to that. We can't get too loud, folks, they told us they're gonna shut us down if we get loud again. We got some nice pickin' comin' up after this, too, so we don't want to spoil it."
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t17. (3) "There's another band comin' out called Old And In The Road [sic], too."
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t18. (4) "Thank you very much, bye bye."
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t21. (5) encore calls.
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t22. (6) "I'd like to thank all you people again for coming', if you like this type of thing. Hope you do. I think the people that did it are gonna try to do some more in the future." That wouldn't happen.
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t23. (7) Doc Watson to kick off Down Yonder: "How does it go, Vassar?"
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-2200-NGDB-t24. (8) "Old And In The Way is gonna come up and do a set, folks, so sit tight."

<--Old And In The Way follows-->

Jerry Garcia's Middle Finger
http://jgmf.blogspot.com/search/label/GSCBF
Posted by at 2 comments:
Labels: , , , ,

Monday, January 17, 2011

GSCBF12: Ralph Stanley & His Clinch Mountain Boys: Sunday, April 28, 1974, ca. 21:15

Part of a series of back-of-the-napkin thoughts about the Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival (GSCBF), held in San Rafael, CA from Friday, April 26th through Sunday, April 28, 1974.

Previous installments:
Can't believe I haven't posted in this series since November 7. Well, after John Hartford puts on a great display of musical virtuosity and fellowship, up next comes the legendary Ralph Stanley. I am trying to educate myself about bluegrass, so I won't even hazard a pithy summary. I am just not there yet.
Truth be told, it feels like a little bit of culture shock in this recording. Note (1) in the recording notes have this little interchange:

After crowd is calling stuff out, RS scolds "I tell you what, if you all want to hear me say anything, or want to hear any music, you'd quieten down, you'd be a lot better off, and the whole audience would. 'Preciate it."

Not a big deal, one little thing to extrapolate from. Very risky stuff. But given all the new-fangled bluegrass that had been played over the previous 48+ hours, to say nothing of the country stuff and the hippies smoking rope and whatnot, Ralph Stanley may have been a cultural bridge too far. I dunno.

Questions if I ever get any bluegrass readers:
  1. Did Ralph Stanley take part in the Dirt Band's Will The Circle Be Unbroken project? I have poked around online and the answer has not jumped out at me.
  2. Anyone know what Bill Monroe was doing on April 28, 1974?
  3. How about Earl Scruggs? Scruggs would have fit right into everything, I'd think. And remember that the GSCBF was dedicated to Vassar Clements, who had been in the Earl Scruggs Revue just a few years prior to this. I figure he had another engagement, but it'd be good to get confirmation, I guess.
So, this set only clocks in at 16:40 from the Debbie tapes. I don't think there's any Ralph Stanley on any of the other circulating tape sources, but I'd have to double-check. I speculate in the notes that this set might have run a half-hour or so, which is what he was scheduled for. The Debbie tapes do suggest that they were keeping to a pretty strict timetable, and anyway Stanley et al run through their numbers right briskly. So this would be the biggest missing chunk of material from Sunday after 3 pm, maybe a 15-minute gap in this recording?

Everything else in the notes.

Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival
Marin County Veterans' Auditorium Building and Grounds
San Rafael, CA

<--John Hartford precedes-->

Ralph Stanley & His Clinch Mountain Boys
Sunday, April 28, 1974 ca. 21:15

Source: "Debbie reel 4/27/74" CD 4 of 4
Provenance: unknown sbd recording (?maybe MSC > C?) > reel
Transfer: AKAI GX 636 playback > Apogee mini ME @ 24/96 > Apogee Mini DAC (monitoring/mastering) > lynx one soundcard > wavelab 5.0 > CD, by Matt Smith.
Lossless encoding: extraction (EAC) > initial tracking (CDWave) > minor edits (Wavelab 5.0) > FLAC level 8 (TLH).
Tagging: foobar2000 v0.9.6.8.

(8 tracks, 16:40)
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2115-Stanley-t01. % Cacklin' Hen [1:24] [0:05]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2115-Stanley-t02. Maple On The Hill [2:36] [0:03]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2115-Stanley-t03. talk (1), band introductions [2:27]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2115-Stanley-t04. Hemlocks And Primroses [2:55] [0:03]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2115-Stanley-t05. Stone Walls And Steel Bars [1:51] [0:21]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2115-Stanley-t06. Bill Cheetham [2:00] [0:11]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2115-Stanley-t07. Nobody's Love Is Like Mine [2:31] [0:06]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2115-Stanley-t08. Man Of Constant Sorrow// [fragment] [0:05] %

Lineup:
Ralph Stanley - banjo, tenor vocals;
Ricky Lee - guitar, bass vocals;
Cheryl White - bass;
Curly Ray Cline - fiddle;
Roy Lee Centers - vocals.

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.
! Recording: is overloaded for the first few minutes. Mono recording.
! Personnel: Roy Lee Centers would pass away a week or so later, on May 5, 1974. The usual bass player, Jack Cooke, was unable to attend.
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-2115-Stanley-t03. (1) RS: "last appearance on the festival this weekend". After crowd is calling stuff out, RS scolds "I tell you what, if you all want to hear me say anything, or want to hear any music, you'd quieten down, you'd be a lot better off, and the whole audience would. 'Preciate it."
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-2115-Stanley-t04. levels come up a little @ ca. 0:20. Sound was more muffled before that.
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-2115-Stanley-t08 is just the very start of Man Of Constant Sorrow
! It is not known how long this set lasted - the tape here runs out, and no Ralph Stanley material appears on any of the other sources for the Festival that I know of. This set was scheduled at a half-hour, so barring any other information let's assume that that's right, and that this is missing about 15 minutes of music.

<--Nitty Gritty Dirt Band follows-->

Jerry Garcia's Middle Finger
http://jgmf.blogspot.com/search/label/GSCBF

Posted by at 3 comments:
Labels: , , ,

Sunday, November 07, 2010

GSCBF11: John Hartford (& Friends): Sunday, April 28, 1974, ca. 20:15

Part of a series of back-of-the-napkin thoughts about the Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival (GSCBF), held in San Rafael, CA from Friday, April 26th through Sunday, April 28, 1974.

Previous installments:

John Hartford comes on around 8:15 and plays like a real pro on banjo, guitar, and fiddle for about an hour, it seems. Norman Blake (guitar), Tut Taylor (dobro), Vassar Clements (fiddle) and Doug Dillard (banjo) join in as the set moves forward. I am not quite sure what all's being played, nor by whom, for the encores. See my notes below.

Update: I have now listened to both the "Debbie reels" version and the Kuykendall version, as the latter has been gently edited by PB at the (now defunct - RIP) Steam Powered Preservation Society. The Kuykendall source is less complete but better sounding. See the extensive notes below. I am leaning toward the idea that the Debbie materials indeed do come from cassette masters, while the Kuykendall tapes are indeed from reels. There is still much to unravel here. Anyway ...

~~~~~

Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival
Marin County Veterans' Auditorium Building and Grounds
San Rafael, CA

<--Ramblin' Jack Elliott precedes-->

John Hartford & Friends
Sunday, April 28, 1974 ca. 20:15

Source: "Debbie reel 4/27/74" CD 4 of 4

Provenance: unknown sbd recording (?maybe MSC > C?) > reel

Transfer: AKAI GX 636 playback > Apogee mini ME @ 24/96 > Apogee Mini DAC (monitoring/mastering) > lynx one soundcard > wavelab 5.0 > CD, by Matt Smith.

Lossless encoding: EAC > CDWave > TLH (FLAC level 8).

Tagging: Foobar 2000.

(17 tracks, 59:51)

--John Hartford (banjo)--
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2015-Hartford-t01. % ambient noise % [0:38]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2015-Hartford-t02. //Old Joe Clark [#6:28] [0:08]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2015-Hartford-t03. Up on the Hill Where They Do the Boogie [5:20] [0:16]

--John Hartford (guitar)--
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2015-Hartford-t04. tuning and talk [1:30]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2015-Hartford-t05. Turn Your Radio On [7:34] [0:10]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2015-Hartford-t06. Good Old Electric Washing Machine [2:12] [0:20]

--John Hartford (fiddle)--
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2015-Hartford-t07. tuning, false start & talk to soundman [0:43]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2015-Hartford-t08. Skippin' in the Mississippi Dew [5:01] [0:07]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2015-Hartford-t09. Boogie [3:15] ->
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2015-Hartford-t10. Jelly Bean Psychedelic Song [1:10] [0:18] %

--John Hartford (??instrument??); enter Norman Blake (guitar), Tut Taylor (dobro), Vassar Clements (fiddle)--
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2015-Hartford-t11. Steam Powered Aereoplane [7:12]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2015-Hartford-t12. call out Doug Dillard, tuning [2:43]

--John Hartford (??instrument??); Norman Blake (guitar), Tut Taylor (dobro), Vassar Clements (fiddle); enter Doug Dillard (banjo)--
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2015-Hartford-t13. Wheel Hoss [2:05] [0:08]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2015-Hartford-t14. encore calls [1:05]

--encore (note: 2x fiddle, dobro, banjo, guitar, bass)--
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2015-Hartford-t15. tuning, talk (1) [1:42]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2015-Hartford-t16. Peacock Rag [2:08] [0:15]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-2015-Hartford-t17. Foggy Mountain Breakdown [6:03] [1:13] %

Notes:

! % = tape discontinuity; # = truncated timing; // = cut song

! GSCBF-1974-04-28-2015-Hartford-t02 OJC cuts in with hot levels, adjust in first 0:12.

! GSCBF-1974-04-28-2015-Hartford-t15 (1) JH: "This is the California Chapter of the Dobrolic Plectral Society, which is an organization founded by Tut Taylor in Georgia to honor the dobro."

<--Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys follow-->

~~~~~

Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival
Marin County Veterans' Auditorium Building and Grounds
San Rafael, CA

<--Ramblin' Jack Elliott precedes-->

John Hartford & Friends
Sunday, April 28, 1974 ca. 20:15

Provenance: "master sbd reel" (a.k.a. Kuykendall source)
Source: "SBD: MR > DAT > Echo Mia > Cool Edit > CDWave > Philips CDRW804 > EAC > WAV > SHN."
Transfer: "PB" of thespps.org: received shns > wavs > joined wav (shntool) > tracking (Total Recorder Pro 6.1) > SBE fixed (shntool) > flac(6) (Flac frontend 1.7.1 / flac 1.1.2a) > tagging (Foobar2000 Live Show Tagger).
This info file by JGMF.

10 tracks, 43:44
[MISSING: Old Joe Clark]
hartford1974-04-28t01. //Up On The Hill Where They Do The Boogie [#4:58] [1:45]
hartford1974-04-28t02. Turn Your Radio On [7:28] [0:12]
hartford1974-04-28t03. Electric Washing Machine [2:10] [1:02]
hartford1974-04-28t04. Skippin' In The Mississippi Dew [5:23] [0:18]
hartford1974-04-28t05. Boogie [3:05] ->
hartford1974-04-28t06. Jelly Bean Psychedelic Song [1:09] [0:05] %
hartford1974-04-28t07. Steam Powered Aereo Plane * [7:05] %
hartford1974-04-28t08. Wheel Hoss ^ [2:08] [0:07] % (1) [0:54]
--Encore--
hartford1974-04-28t09. Peacock Rag ^ [2:05] [0:16]
hartford1974-04-28t10. Foggy Mountain Breakdown// ^ [#3:31]

Notes:

! % = tape discontinuity; # = truncated timing; // = cut song

! * with Blake, Taylor & Clements

! ^ with Blake, Taylor, Clements & Dillard

! This fileset calls the event the "First Annual Golden State Bluegrass Festival." GSCBF is technically correct, though the program does call it the first annual.

! This source definitely sounds better than the "Debbie reels" source, less hiss. The Debbie source is also more present in the L channel than this one, which seems to have a more balanced, centered sound. This could well be from master reels for all I know, though I am slightly dubious about that. It certainly looks for all the world like this is a 7.5 ips reel side (note the proximity to 45 minute total time). The "Debbie reel" source, of course, clocks in at 60 minutes. The big differences are the start (7:30 or so more on Debbie) and the end (3:45 or so more on Debbie). There a few more minutes missing here between the Doug Dillard call onstage and the start of "Wheel Hoss", and another 1:45 or so (encore calls from the crowd) between Wheel Hoss and Peacock Rag. That probably accounts for the lion's share of the time difference, though this source makes the Debbie tape (with its possible cassette gen) feel like it's running a bit slow. I suspect that, as Matt Smith's genealogy for the Debbie reels suggests, they may be sourced from cassettes. I.e., the Debbie reel source for this Hartford set probably lived on a 60-minute cassette at some point, perhaps even from the master. The patterns of recording discontinuities don't match this perfectly (the Debbie source seems to start with 35 continuous minutes of tape, whereas we'd expect 30 at a time from 60-minute cassettes), but everything else points in this direction.

! hartford1974-04-28t01 Up on the Hill comes in about 21 seconds into the song.

! hartford1974-04-28t01 Note that the time between Up on the Hill and Turn Your Radio On is identical here and on the Debbie tapes. Same between Washing Machine and Skippin'.

! hartford1974-04-28t04 Haven't figured out the time difference between the two versions of "Skippin' In The Missippi Dew" ... this one is about 15 seconds longer, and I don't hear a splice in the Debbie version. I am sure I am missing something.

! hartford1974-04-28t08 (1) JH: "This is the California Chapter of the Dobrolic Plectral Society, which is an organization founded by Tut Taylor in Georgia to honor the dobro."

! hartford1974-04-28t10 Foggy Mountain Breakdown cuts out @ 3:31 ... ouch!

<--Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys follow-->

THESPPS INFO FILE BELOW:

John Hartford & Friends  
First Annual Golden State Bluegrass Festival,
Marin County, CA   

04/28/74  

John Hartford - guitar, banjo, fiddle
Norman Blake - guitar
Tut Taylor - dobro
Vassar Clements - fiddle
Doug Dillard - banjo  

1.  //Up On The Hill Where They Do The Boogie
2.  Turn Your Radio On
3.  Electric Washing Machine
4.  Skippin' In The Mississippi Dew
5.  Boogie >
6.  Jelly Bean Psychedelic Song (break?)
7.  Steam Powered Aereo Plane*
8.  Wheel Hoss^
9.  Peacock Rag^
10. Foggy Mountain Breakdown//^

* with Blake, Taylor & Clements
^ with Blake, Taylor, Clements & Dillard

Original Source: SBD: MR > DAT > Echo Mia > Cool Edit > CDWave > Philips CDRW804>
Recieved as CDA audio.  EAC > WAV > SHN
Posted by at 3 comments:
Labels: , , , , ,

Saturday, November 06, 2010

GSCBF10: Ramblin' Jack Elliott: Sunday, April 28, 1974, ca. 19:30

Part of a series of back-of-the-napkin thoughts about the Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival (GSCBF), held in San Rafael, CA from Friday, April 26th through Sunday, April 28, 1974.


Previous installments:

Back to Sunday evening. This is a 37-minute set by folk balladeer Ramblin' Jack Elliott (RJE). Some banter during the Greenbriar Boys set at ca. 15:00 suggested that RJE was backstage, and he mentions during his set that he just flew in on "a ae-ro-plae" after a gig the previous night in Detroit. I cant' find any RJE tour dates readily available, but I am guessing a glance through Detroit area bookings would find him there on Saturday, April 27, 1974.

Anyway, this is an interesting set, at turns stunningly beautiful (I am a real sucker for "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright") and then sloppy and, well, rambling, like he shouldn't have sipped from that particular batch of Kool-Aid. On balance I find it totally compelling.

The recording is also interesting. It's said to be from the "Debbie reels", but there are a number of recording discontinuities within this 37-minute span of tape. The other Debbie stuff seems pretty continuous, which makes me wonder. It also makes it impossible to say whether what I list below was the whole RJE set or not.

Anyway ...

Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival
Marin County Veterans' Auditorium Building and Grounds
San Rafael, CA

<--Skunk Cabbage precedes-->

Ramblin' Jack Elliott   
Sunday, April 28, 1974 ca. 19:30

Source: "Debbie reel 4/27/74" CD 3 of 4
Provenance: unknown sbd recording (?maybe MSC > C?) > reel
Transfer: AKAI GX 636 playback > Apogee mini ME @ 24/96 > Apogee Mini DAC (monitoring/mastering) > lynx one soundcard > wavelab 5.0 > CD, by Matt Smith.
Lossless encoding: EAC > CDWave > TLH (FLAC level 8).
Tagging: Foobar 2000.

(9 tracks, 37:00)
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1930-Elliott-t01. % San Francisco Bay Blues (1) (2) [4:44] [0:28]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1930-Elliott-t02. (3) Talking Fishing %// Blues [3:#42] [0:14]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1930-Elliott-t03. Don't Think Twice, It's Alright [3:04] (4) [0:56]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1930-Elliott-t04. Cup Of Coffee [5:58] [0:13]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1930-Elliott-t05. % //Pretty Boy Floyd (1) [3:49] [0:23]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1930-Elliott-t06. Old Shep [2:45] [0:23] % [0:36]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1930-Elliott-t07. If I Were A Carpenter [3:46] (5) [0:33] % [0:06]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1930-Elliott-t08. talk (6) and tuning [1:28]
--Encore--
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1930-Elliott-t09. Strawberry Roan [3:04] [0:45]

Notes:
! % = tape discontinuity; # = truncated timing; // = cut song
! There is some vocal mic distortion here.
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-1930-Elliott-t01 (1) w/ unknown harp player
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-1930-Elliott-t01 (2) RJE: "we just got together about ... y'know, 15 minutes ago" (re: harp player)
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-1930-Elliott-t02 TFB begins with a beautiful 40-second or so little guitar passage that I thought about tracking separately.
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-1930-Elliott-t02 (3) RJE: "I don't know what you been thinking. I just got off a airplane here."
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-1930-Elliott-t02 TFB gap/splice @ 3:25-3:33
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-1930-Elliott-t03 @ 3:44 (4) RJE: "I was over in Detroit doin' a gig last night, and I came back here on a aero-plane, and I would rather be drivin'."
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-1930-Elliott-t04 @ 0:17 RJE: "I sure am glad to be here y'know ... I wouldn't miss it for the world"
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-1930-Elliott-t04 @ 5:18 RJE asks what time it is, and is told (and repeats) "7". That is pretty darn consistent with the Festival schedule and gives even more confident that we have the Sunday night schedule, at least, pretty well pinned down.
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-1930-Elliott-t05 PBF clips in
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-1930-Elliott-t06 Like TFB, Old Shep track starts with a great guitar improvisation (this one about 45 seconds). Very nice.
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-1930-Elliott-t06 @ 2:27 RJE sort of aborts Old Shep after about a minute and a half. "You know the story. I don't think you want to h ... [trails off]" and the song ends.
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-1930-Elliott-t07 (5) encore calls
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-1930-Elliott-t08 (6) including discussion of "Diamond Joe"

<--John Hartford follows-->
Posted by at 1 comment:
Labels: , , ,

GSCBF9: Great American String Band: Saturday, April 27, 1974, ca. 23:15 ("Where's Jerry?")

Part of a series of back-of-the-napkin thoughts about the Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival (GSCBF), held in San Rafael, CA from Friday, April 26th through Sunday, April 28, 1974.

Previous installments:

So I am breaking the continuous look at Sunday. Probably not a good idea, but here we are.

The festival schedule has "Great American String Band & Vassar Clements" closing both Friday night (22:30) and Saturday night (23:15). A few things to note about this. First, the name issue is one that will require a lot of time and a separate post. It's probably more complicated than interesting. Second, as the man to whom the Festival was dedicated, Vassar was all over the place (and the schedule). That said, as far as I can tell he does not play on either GASB set. Third, the fact that Garcia-associated bands would close all three nights of the festival (GASB on Friday and Saturday, OAITW on Sunday, though this last was not billed in advance) is consistent with the view that things were at least somewhat Garcia-centric. (In truth, it's probably more the case that they were Vassar-centric, but I'll have to leave that aside for now.)

I put a parenthetical at the end of this post title: "Where's Jerry?" That is the question posed by an audience member, and it's a good one. Garcia is not playing with GASB here, even though he participated in a workshop on the Festival grounds earlier this very day, had played with GAS/MB the night before, lived in town, and would be all over the place the next day. I had always assumed he was on this, but he isn't. So where was he? Partying back at the hotel? (Apparently the festival organizers took every care to cater to the desires of the talent, including running limos back and forth between the festival site [Marin County Veterans' Auditorium Building and Grounds] and the hotel, and the musicians made great use of this to have a high old time.) He could have been in some other social setting, though taking a Saturday night off would be really uncharacteristic at this time.

I have to believe that our friendly music junkie must have had a really good reason not to be there, and let me offer a conjecture: maybe he was in LA working on what would become Compliments? Here's the timeline. We know that at least some of the album work was done in LA, and that it was happening right around this time. I have information on a session at Heider's Studio A (LA) on April 23rd. Let's assume that Garcia's presence for the Pilgrimage Theater gig on April 20th was related to him being down south for album work. The GAMB/GASB made its way north with a gig at the Arlingon Theater in Santa Barbara on the 24th, sans Jerry. I figure he just stayed back in LA to work on the album. Then he flies up for Friday night at the Festival, but flies back down to LA for studio work on Saturday, April 27th.

Remember that back in these days you could just walk up to ticket counter at SFO, hop a plane, and be in LA less than two hours after walking into the terminal. So I think he played the workshop midday and then caught a plane. I think the pressure was really on to complete the album, which gets to Jerry's personal financial stake in Round Records. Round had sent out invitations for a May 1, 1974 release party for "Compliments" and Robert Hunter's Tale of the Great Rum Runners.
deadnetcentral.com

Gotta love the p.s. ("Come over and get wasted, and listen to some good music"), but anyway.

Again: there's evidence of studio work on 4/23, and there's an album release scheduled for May 1st. I just think it's plausible that Garcia had to finish things up on Saturday, 4/27, and that's why he didn't play with GASB.

Anyway, notes on the GASB fileset circulated by Rob Berger, from Jerry Moore (RIP)'s reels, are below. Thanks, Rob and Jerry!

Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival
Marin County Veterans' Auditorium Building and Grounds
San Rafael, CA

<--Doc Watson precedes-->

Great American String Band
Saturday, April 27, 1974 ca. 23:15

Source: Berger sbd seed from Jerry Moore's reels, "4/27/74" d1t22-24 and d2t01
Provenance: unknown sbd recording > ?? > Jerry Moore's reel.
Transfer: Sony TC-765 playback > sbm1 > dat > cdr > soundforge > cdr > eac > flac by Rob Berger, originally transferred in 1999; from the FLAC fileset I decoded, joined the wavs in Wavelab 5.0, and cut tracks as below in CD Wave;
Lossless encoding: TLH (FLAC level 8).
Tagging: Foobar 2000.

(6 tracks, 20:15)
GSCBF-1974-04-27-2315-GASB-t01. Banter (1), Tuning [0:24]
GSCBF-1974-04-27-2315-GASB-t02. My Plastic Banana Isn't Stupid [3:19] [0:06] % [0:25]
GSCBF-1974-04-27-2315-GASB-t03. Dawg's Rag [7:22] [0:31]
GSCBF-1974-04-27-2315-GASB-t04. Talk (2,3,4) [1:04]
GSCBF-1974-04-27-2315-GASB-t05. I'll Be A Gambler If You'll Deal The Cards [2:27] [0:04] %
GSCBF-1974-04-27-2315-GASB-t06. ... Sweet Georgia Brown [#4:27] [0:04]

Lineup:
Richard Greene - fiddle;
David Grisman - mandolin, harmony vocals;
David Nichtern - guitar, vocals (I'll Be A Gambler If You'll Deal The Cards);
Taj Mahal - guitar, vocals (Sweet Georgia Brown).

Notes:

! % = tape discontinuity; # = truncated timing.

! This performance is very hot.

! There are occasional pops in the recording, which is overall quite good.

! The source tape for this is the "soundman" reels acquired in 1st gen by Will Boswell. So the Matt Smith transfers of the Boswell tapes are probably going to sound better than this, though we'll have to see. Because of the heavy editing of this tape source (there are recording discontinuities before and after every song, unlike the "Debbie" source, which is pretty continuous except for master tape changes), we can really have no idea how much of the GASB set this represents. We can be pretty sure that this is Saturday night, but we can't know much more than that. As noted below, Sweet George Brown is the (expected) last song of the set.

! GSCBF-1974-04-27-2315-GASB-t01: (1) Richard Greene: "... David Nichtern. It's called Plastic ... my ... something about my plastic banana. I don't really remember it." DG: "Well the thing is, that it's not stupid." RG: "Oh." DG: "His plastic banana is not stupid."

! GSCBF-1974-04-27-2315-GASB-t03: this version of Dawg's Rag is smokin' hot!

! GSCBF-1974-04-27-2315-GASB-t04: (2) Richard Greene: "It's really far out. It's very far out. We're really tickled that you like original stuff. It's great. Another original for you, it's by David Nichtern. It's called 'I'll Be The [sic] Gambler If You Deal The Cards'. ... Dawg broke a string ..."

! GSCBF-1974-04-27-2315-GASB-t04: (3) crowd member yells for "Wild Horses". Nichtern: "We don't do that tune."

! GSCBF-1974-04-27-2315-GASB-t04: (4): crowd member asks "Where's Jerry?"

! GSCBF-1974-04-27-2315-GASB-t05: David Nichtern lead vocals.

! GSCBF-1974-04-27-2315-GASB-t06: SGB enters in progress, probably a good chunk missing. This sounds like the (expected) last song of the GASB based on the "thank you"s at the end.

<--end of Saturday, April 27, 1974 festival program-->
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)