Garcia-Saunders with Guest Doug Sahm, ca. December 1972

Clearing out old paper files of stuff, found this piece by John Swenson about Doug Sahm:

Swenson, John. 197305. The Psychedelic Cowboy Makes His Move. Crawdaddy (May): 65-70.

After narrating the good time on 11/23/72 in Austin, Sahm continues

Then we went back up to Frisco an' did it up at Keystone with Tom Fogerty where Jerry does that jam thing. We kinda learned a few tunes an' said we'll go see whut this audience loos lahk, makin' that trip 'n it was jes that monster same reaction. [He started to sing: "Well, it's not love ..."] Y'know, there's the Berkeley freaks, they dig it y'know an' it was weird because ah ain't played Frisco in years man, 'sbeen ages (Swenson 1973, 68).

By my reckoning, Tom Fogerty never played with The Group in 1973, though that's not 100% established. So the likely dates for this event are the following:

• 12/6/72 or 12/7/72 - note that we have some eyewitness recollections from one of these shows of Sarah Fulcher being around. Like Sahm, she was a Texan with plenty of San Antonio time. Not sure that makes Sahm more or less likely (or doesn't change my estimate) for these nights, but there you go.
• 12/20/72 or 12/21/72 - the only other JGMS Keystone Berkeley gigs in the window.

So, not sure the dates, but wanted to pin these here the best I could.

update: we have pinned these to 12/6/72 at Jerrybase, because it lines up with Sarah, who also guested that night or the next.

Ross Valory "has ... jammed with the Jerry Garcia - Mel [sic] Saunders group in Bay Area clubs" (Spurious)

update: David Kramer-Smyth notes in comments that the article was edited, and that it originally said George Tickner had sat in with Jerry and Merl. True enough. I will keep this here for posterity, in any case.

Blumenthal, Les. 1975. Music to make your adrenalin [sic] rush. Spokesman-Review, July 6, 1975, Spokane Week section, p. 1.

This is the kind of tiny little random mention that comes over the transom that I just have to pin down. At some point, Ross Valory apparently sat in with Jerry and Merl. I hope the magic of the internet can happen here, and someone can come up with a concrete memory - preferably dated. Heh heh.

Expressway Day: Garcia-Saunders at the Golden Bear, Huntington Beach, December 29, 1974

I woke up this morning with "Expressway (To Your Heart)" playing in my head.

Not just any Expressway, mind you. But the one played by Jerry and Merl and crew (possibly calling themselves Legion of Mary backstage and such) at the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach on December 29, 1974, to end (or just about) the late show. And not just any generic representation of it, but the one  captured by "Flashback" Charlie DiSalvo using 2x Shure Unidyne IVs (spaced ca. 15') > into his Uher 4400, little 5" reels @ 3.75ips.

You see, way back when my digital home was DeadNetCentral (DNC), and especially the Garcia folder there (shocker). And someone with whom I have just been reconnected, but whose name is eluding my brain right now, either encouraged or brought over legendary East Coast taper Jerry Moore, who brought over his ol show-going pal Flashback Charlie. Or something like that. We also had the great Jimmy Warburton over there at times as I recall, Harvey Lubar maybe on occasion, and other folks. Again, I am foggy on the details, but somehow I got connected with all of those guys. Jerry and I got quite close, and I was lucky to work up the info files for the systematic state-of-the-art digital transfers a group was doing under the "Moore's Masters" moniker.

Charlie had made a tape that made a huge impact on me, and that was this 12/29/74b. Someone, maybe Jerry but not sure, had transferred the tape to DAT, from there it went to CD, from there it came to me, maybe via Sean Cribbs. (At some point Charlie sent me a sweet print of Bob Minkin's pic of the Jerry Band at the Cap, 11/26/77, and a print of his picture of Jerry Garcia and Friends from the Music Hall, 3/25/72, which IIRC Charlie got into by climbing up a fire escape), and I extracted the audio (using EAC with offsets corrected, etc., natch), tracked it using WavMerge and CDWav (guaranteed to cut on sector boundaries, important to us back then), and losslessly compressed it to .shn format using mkwACT. Looks like I forget to make the shn files seekable, which is a major blunder, and someone came along and re-encoded them to make them more usable. I submitted the fileset to the etree database on May 7, 2002 (I presume semester had just ended), where it still lives today as shnid-8643. I assume I circulated it in various ways, and certainly at some point uploaded it to the tol.etree.org FTP server, from where it became forever part of the arcHIVE, the brilliant, massively redundant decentralized repository of bit-perfect clones comprised by all of our collections.

Charlie became unwell, and as far as I know he is still alive, but is not reachable for me. I hope he is OK, because he was a sweet wonderful guy in my experience with him. Jimmy has told me that Charlie's tapes ended up with an ex in a divorce, may still exist, but it's not known how to get a hold of them. If anyone here has any notion of that, please drop me a line!

Charlie said this about taping these shows (DNC Garcia folder post by Sean Cribbs, April 3, 2002):

That machine was a bitch to run! ... I placed one mic in front of Jerry and the other one was passed down to total strangers in front of Martin Fierro. The stereo effect was amazing, almost like setting up in a studio. You can hear the drums go from the left to the right.

Anyway, that tape BLEW MY MIND. It is burned into my DNA. Especially the 16+ minute version of "Expressway (To Your Heart)", which is a great Philly soul number in its own right, but which Garcia and Saunders made into a soul-jazz-funk extravagaganza (typo, but I'll keep the extra syllable in there for fun) that burns, drives, hops and grooves, and makes me want to boogie. I had listened to it a few more times over the years, then in January 2021 the GEMS crew polished it up a little bit, put it together with the early show, and circulated it anew as shnid-151373. This invited --no, practically obligated-- me to revisit the ol' favorite and I did so over a few different sessions earlier this year. 

And man does it stand up.

I lack the understanding and vocabulary to do it justice, beyond "jeepers, mister, this is really strong" and whatnot. Here are my real-time listening notes:

I really hear the bassist SHREDDING, e.g., in the 4-minute range and I ask myself if this is really John. Not that he couldn't shred in this period - he could. But man is he on fire here. Martin has been laying pretty low this version so far. There he is, stepping up at 6:25. Tutt is hammering, BTW. Man, this is so good. Revisiting some months later: 4:39 it's just hot hot hot, and this is John all right. Man is this hot. 4:57 inpsired little slide. Hangs a big pull 5:18. John is *feelin' it* to 5:29!!! Listen to Tutt in the 9 min mark! MAN. Martin doing "Red Clay" 10:56, Kahn giant response 11:10, Tutt KILLING, all behind Garcia absolutely tearing it up. Down low and quiet 12:37, such a nice contrast with the preceding insanity. More "Red Clay" over 15.

Anyway, here on the show's 47th anniversary, I invite you to get a killer audio setup to enjoy the big stereo separation from the spread mics, settle in with your cuppa coffee or whatever, listen to Jerry and Merl and KAHN and TUTT and Martin absolutely tear it up. Kahn is especially unbelievable here, but I also find Tutt just slaying over and over again. I am not saying this would be the first 16 minutes of Jerry and Merl I would bring to the proverbial desert island, but if I got 5 such chunks it'd be in the running. Two big snaps up.

Let's all give a big shoutout to Flashback Charlie for pulling a masterpiece out of the fog. As self-appointed mayor of my imaginary Garciaville, I hereby decree December 29th to be Expressway Day in his honor. Turn it up!

Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
Golden Bear
306 Ocean Avenue
Huntingon Beach, CA 90740
December 29, 1974 (Sunday) Early and Late Shows
shnid-151373 GEMS Remaster and Packaging of SHNIDs 8643 and 93978

 --early show (7 tracks, 5 tunes, 83:41)--
e-t01. [0:03] That's A Touch I Like [10:54] [0:07] % [0:16]
e-t02. Favela [16:22] [0:22]
e-t03. ambience [1:35]
e-t04. You Can Leave Your Hat On [16:58] [0:35]
e-t05. Sitting In Limbo [16:26] [0:14] %
e-t06. ambience [1:07]
e-t07. I Second That Emotion [18:32] (1)

--late show (9 tracks, 6 tunes, 93:54)--
l-t08. Mystery Train [14:20] %
l-t09. ambience [1:14]
l-t10. La-La [16:47] ->
l-t11. People Make The World Go Round [428] [0:10] %
l-t12. (I'm A) Roadrunner [15:14] [0:11] %
l-t13. ambience [1:17]
l-t14. Going, Going, Gone [22:07] [0:20] %
l-t15. ambience (2) [1:15]
l-t16. Expressway (To Your Heart)// [16:32#]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - electric guitar, vocals;
! lineup: Merl Saunders - keyboards, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - electric bass;
! lineup: Martin Fierro - saxophone, flute, percussion;
! lineup: Ron Tutt - drums;
! guest: Maria Muldaur - vocals (e-t05).

JGMF:

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

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19741229-01 (early); https://jerrybase.com/events/19741229-02 (late)

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/8643 (late show, same source tape, shnf); http://etreedb.org/shn/17019 (same as shnid-8643, seekable shn); http://etreedb.org/shn/93978 (early show, same source tape, but via taperpat's 1st gen reel); http://etreedb.org/shn/151373 (this fileset).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/1bJXKA6b1Kv

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2011/12/golden-bear-306-ocean-avenue-huntington.html

! listing: Los Angeles Free Press, December 20, 1974, p. 19;

! personnel: the female singer was long identified (e.g., in "Odds and Ends," Dead Relix 2, 1 [January-February 1975], p. 21) as Donna Jean Godchaux, but in seeding this years back I thought it sounded more like Maria. Listening to this again, definitely Maria.

! R: field recordist: [early show] Charlie Disalvo

! R: field recording gear: [early show] 2x Shure Unidyne IVs (spaced ca. 15') > Uher 4400, 3.75ips master reels

! R: source tape: [early show] taperpat's 3.75ips 1st gen reel

! R: transfer: [early show] A > D by Matt Smith: Akai GX 625 playback > Apogee Mini ME (@24/96) > Apogee Mini DAC (monitoring) > Wavelab 5.0 (dithered to 20/44) > CD

! R: lineage 1 (ca. 2003): [early show] Track & FLAC (jj): EAC > CD Wave > Sony Sound Forge Studio 7.0 (d1t01 fade-in, d2t01-d2t02 fade-out/in, d2t03 fade-out) > Trader's Little Helper (FLAC8 encoding).

! R: lineage 2 (2020): [early show] speed corrections by Jason Chastain per request of JGMF. Mastering by Jamie Waddell. Track FLAC and Pack by Steve Gravel. Note - Multiple moments of digistatic repaired, most are undetectable but a few major spots were damaged beyond invisible repair, but are much more listenable now. seeded to www.shnflac.net January 4, 2021 16 bit 44.1 kHz FLAC8

! R: recollex: Taper "Flashback" Charlie Disalvo says this about taping these shows (DNC Garcia folder post by Sean Cribbs, April 3, 2002): "That machine was a bitch to run! ... I placed one mic in front of Jerry and the other one was passed down to total strangers in front of Martin Fierro. The stereo effect was amazing, almost like setting up in a studio. You can hear the drums go from the left to the right."

! P: e-t02 Favela Martin takes the first feature, good. Jerry steps in around 6:15 and it's his turn, Martin now shaking some percussion. JG only goes three minutes, now Merl 9:15ff. Merl didn't really do much with his turn. 11:46 some muddle as to who's doing what.

! P: e-t05 SIL Garcia plucks ethereally 10.

! P: e-t07 ISTE I am not a big fan of this tune, and this version captures why, at least up to the 11 minute mark. Garcia just doesn't have much place to go with it. Martin quotes "The Entertainer" at 11:10, a second time. Silly.

! e-t07 (1) JG: "Thanks a lot. See y'all later on."

! metadata: Late show was previously believed to be set II of a two set show, but the taper confirms that this is the late show.

! R: field recordist: [late show] Charlie Disalvo

! R: field recording gear: [late show] 2x Shure Unidyne IVs (spaced ca. 15') > Uher 4400, 3.75ips master reels

! lineage 1 (ca. 2003): [late show] MAR > ? > D > CD. Extraction using EAC, slight re-tracking using WavMerge and CD Wave, and .shn compression using mkwACT.  Proper sector boundaries verified using shntool. Seeded by jjoops@attbi.com.

! R: lineage 2 (2020): [late show] speed corrections by Jason Chastain per request of JGMF. Mastering by Jamie Waddell. Track FLAC and Pack by Steve Gravel. Note - Multiple moments of digistatic repaired, most are undetectable but a few major spots were damaged beyond invisible repair, but are much more listenable now. seeded to www.shnflac.net January 4, 2021 16 bit 44.1 kHz FLAC8

! R: The late show tape sounds much smoother than the early show.

! P: l-t10 La-La JG steps up 6:40 or so.

! l-t15 (2) Member of the crowd is asking "Who's on the bass?" And at least a few people recognize Expressway as it starts.

! P: l-t16 ETYH of course, having been primed by the question in note #2, I really hear the bassist SHREDDING, e.g., in the 4-minute range and I ask myself if this is really John. Not that he couldn't shred in this period - he could. But man is he on fire here. Martin has been laying pretty low this version so far. There he is, stepping up at 6:25. Tutt is hammering, BTW. Man, this is so good. Revisiting some months later: 4:39 it's just hot hot hot, and this is John all right. Man is this hot. 4:57 inpsired little slide. Hangs a big pull 5:18. John is *feelin' it* to 5:29!!! Listen to Tutt in the 9 min mark! MAN. Martin doing "Red Clay" 10:56, Kahn giant response 11:10, Tutt KILLING, all behind Garcia absolutely tearing it up. Down low and quiet 12:37, such a nice contrary with the preceding insanity. More "Red Clay" over 15.

! R: l-t16 ETYH cuts out, probably not too much missing, though knowing Jerry I might imagine it dropping into a sweet little How Sweet to wrap up the evening's proceedings.

Slowly Unraveled Over You: JGB 3c at Keystone Palo Alto, April 9, 1977

Obviously I am catching up on posting some listening notes. Quality will be even more variable than usual.

LN jg1977-04-09.jgb.all.aud-bunjes.13361.shn2flac

Some tapes travel unlikely paths to our ears. Here's an unattributed aud tape, the only one circulating, which went to Germany before coming out into the broader world. I really love the feel of it. It's not amazing, but it's got character.

The show features what I presently list as JGB 3c. JGB 3 is the basic Keith and Donna version with Tutt, starting in '76. Not least because the JGB was relatively uninstitutionalized at this point, many variations popped up around the invariant Jerry, John and Keith core. I have proposed cataloguing them as follows:

3b: #3 + Maria - e.g., 9/12/76

3c: #3 + second guitarist - e.g., 11/20/76

3d: #3 + John Rich - e.g., 12/21/76

3e: #3 + Maria + second guitarist - e.g., 2/5/77

3f: #3 - Tutt + Errico - e.g., 6/23/77

3g: #3 - Donna + Maria (e.g., 7/3/77)

3h: #3 - Donna (e.g., 7/8/77)

3i: #3 - Tutt + Kreutzmann - e.g., 8/12/77

I know that's a little bit ridiculous, but it has the nice taxonomic quality of the categories being mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive.

So, I say I say I say, 4/9/77 features variant 3c, the basic group plus the second guitarist. He is pretty far in the background most of the night, as he was on every night he played. He plays tastefully throughout, though, seems to eschew a feature opportunity in "Stir It Up" and steps forward a little more, seemingly because everyone else in the band was insisting that he take the space that they were giving him, during "Tore Up". This is his last known appearance with Jerry, though we can't really be sure. At the setbreak announcement, Jerry says something about getting things straightened out, which might be nothing, might be equipment related, or might indeed be about attempting to find alignment with the visitor.

The post title speaks to this version of "Tore Up Over You", which doesn't involve Hank Ballard's sudden rending so much as a soft disentegument. Clocking in at almost 20 minutes (!), this has to be the longest version of this tune ever played by anyone. It finds some nice quiet and open spaces, and Jerry even bends some strings for a bit, but to me it stands as a cautionary tale and monument to the excesses of JGB #3 - whatever the suffix.

Set II is short for the period, 3 songs and 47 minutes (heh heh). I wouldn't be surprised if a tune or two preceded Midnight Moonlight, or happened in between the songs presented here. We can't tell, since there are tape discontinuities after every song. We do know that Tangled Up bumped up against closing time in Palo Alto. (No, not 9 PM, you Weisenheimers.)

All told, very glad this tape made its way into the world, though it does nothing to dissuade me from the view that JGB #3 was most often kind of a snooze.

Jerry Garcia Band

Keystone Palo Alto

260 S. California Avenue

Palo Alto, CA 94306 

April 9, 1977 (Saturday)

aud shnid-13361 shn2flac

--set I (6 tracks, 72:43)--

s1t01. They Love Each Other [8:08] % [0:11]

s1t02. That's What Love Will Make You Do [11:06] [0:05] %

s1t03. Stir It Up [15:40] [0:06] %

s1t04. [0:05] Simple Twist Of Fate [14:02][0:09] %

s1t05. [0:06] Mystery Train [10:22] [0:03] % [0:05]

s1t06. The Way You Do The Things You Do [12:13] (1) [0:20]

--set II (3 tracks, possibly incomplete, 47:17)--

s2t01. [0:08] Midnight Moonlight [14:59] [0:02] %

s2t02. [0:16] Tore Up Over You [19:48] [0:08] %

s2t03. Tangled Up In Blue [11:30] (2) [0:13] % dead air [0:11]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #3c

! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;

! lineup: Keith Godchaux - keyboards, vocals;

! lineup: John Kahn - el-b;

! lineup: Ron Tutt - drums, vocals;

! lineup: Donna Jean Godchaux - vocals;

! guest: [redacted] - el-g.

JGMF:

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

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19770409-01

! db: shnid-13361 (this fileset)

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/6U9QR2V8UV4YwBDh9

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

! band: JGB #3c (http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html). This band features second guitarist XXX, who was also around on 1/29-30, 2/5-6, and 4/10, at least. This might even be considered a separate band, since that's most of the shows from the first part of '77, and possibly some in late '76 as well.

! setlist: Jerrybase lists starting time, presumably from the contract, as 9:30. If we allow for starting very late and for a very long setbreak, and in view of that fact that TUIB definitely lands on closing time, it's possible this set II is complete. But in the absence of other information, we can't really know. I would not be shocked if another song or two preceded Mid Moon.

! historical: Keystone $750 contract

! ad: San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle Datebook, April 3, 1977, p. 43

! R: MAC (unknown taper, equipment, location) > reel > playback on Uher reel-to-reel machine > Marantz standalone CD recorder master CD > Plextor CD extraction using EAC (high, secure, offset-corrected) > .shn encoding using mkwACT. Reel > CD by Thomas Donhauser, EAC > SHN and seeding by Hanno.

! R: s1t01-02 needs retracking

! P: s1t02 TWLWMYD I hear the second guitar now, hadn't heard it in TLEO

! P: s1t03 SIU Keith on electric keys. Second guitarist some very gentle stuff 12ish, as if it were his feature.

! s1t06 (1) JG: "We're gonna take a break for a little while. We'll be back a little bit -- later, see if we can get things straight."

! P: s2t01 Mid Moon should have ended it around 13, Jerry was sort of trying to, but it just kept choogling, so he took another spin with it.

! P: s2t02 TUOY guest takes a feature late 11 over 12. He sounds pretty good! The tune enters an extremely quiet section in 16. I can't believe they will end up playing this song for almost 20 minutes? Jerry bending some strings 17:20.

! s2t03 (2) Emcee: "Thank you, thank you very much. Folks, it's 2 o'clock. [inaudible, maybe 'we've got to go']"

! s1t06 (1) JG: "We'll take a break for a little while. We'll be back a little ... later ... soon as we can get things straight."

Ike Stubblefield with the Jerry Garcia Band (aside on Bernard Purdie)

Thanks to commenter Patrick, the following claim has been brought to my attention: "In the ’70s, during which he moved between London, New York and San Francisco, Ike Stubblefield shared the stage with the Jerry Garcia Band."

I guess Mr. Stubblefield just passed away (RIP). His wikipedia page notes gives a timeframe for the JGB sit-in as 1970-1975, so maybe we can assume this was in the Hopkins-era JGB? There certainly other were other keyboardists in the mix in that period.

Anyone have any leads on this?

Broader point: there are so many of these kinds of claims. I really should gather them all together in one place. Bernard Purdie is another one who apparently sat in with Jerry and Merl (and Paul Humphrey, who he knew) at the Bottom Line in November '74. He would go on to do some work on the Keith and Donna LP.

Please feel free to drop others in comments - please also paste URLs or other reference information so I can keep track of the sources of information.

First JGB at the Keystone: October 11-12, 1975

The JERRY GARCIA Band

Prior to fall of 1975, Garcia's side bands had mostly a) been relatively loose aggregations and/or b) not had his name on the marquee. All of this preserved a kind of informal quality, maybe some plausible deniability, a little bit little less spotlight to go with his insatiable appetite for gigging. "More music [than the Dead afforded him the opportunity to play], less bullshit [than naturally went along with the Dead, and especially with being Jerry Garcia Of The Grateful Dead]" summarizes the Garcia On The Side formula.

Putting his name on the band may have been necessary to sell more tickets, but it implied some kind of ownership / leadership / responsibility, which can all be a hassle, and also killed any shot at anonymity. With the advent of the JGB, every regular band he would ever play in again would bear his name, with the sole exception of 1979's Reconstruction. Now, Garcia being Garcia, he attenuated his ownership by forming JGB as a DBA partnership with bassist and old pal John Kahn and drummer Ronnie Tutt, eschewed leadership by making piano man Nicky Hopkins talk to the audience, and presumably shirked as much "responsibility" as possible by, well, being Jerry.

The Jerry Garcia Band existed in many permutations from 1975-1995, but just about all of them played their first live gigs off the beaten path, on non-weekend nights, or both. JGB #1 established the pattern, debuting Thursday September 18, 1975 in Palo Alto, repeatedly playing tiny River City in Fairfax (including a Sunday and Thursday, as well as a Saturday), and hitting Crabshaw Corner in distant Sacramento, and snagging one bigger payday at a local community college on Friday, October 10th before a Saturday-Sunday debut at homebase, Fred Herrera's Keystone Berkeley. It wasn't big, official capacity of 476, but the audience was the core one that'd keep Garcia in Camels for almost another decade. JGB would play Keystone Berkeley 100 times, according to Jerrybase, which through m0thra's programming wizardry now lets you create a short URL for this kind of search result. (As currently configured, we cannot filter out cancellations. So there are 106 results, and I hand-counted six cancellations. A nice, perfect, pleasing, round 100 results.)

Personnel

This being JGB #1, Nicky Hopkins forms a special point of focus, but of additional interest about October 11-12, 1975 (about which Corry has written) is the presence of a second keyboard player, with Muscle Shoals session man Tim Henson on electric. Henson had already broken in on October 8th for two shows [early | late] in Santa Cruz and played another show on the 9th in Fairfax, skipping Friday the 10th for reasons unknown, so these Berkeley gigs represent his fourth and fifth (and, it seems final) appearances with the Garcia Band, ending what Selvin referred to as a tryout. At times he produces organ sounds, I think I also hear some synth (10/11/75 "No Time", about 1:30 in), but others with better ears should weigh in. Further information is patchy (see here, here, and here for some), but I think Henson would return to Alabama before either ending his own life or being murdered on Christmas Eve, 1977.

A second guest shows up a Saturday night, a guitarist whom Nicky introduces as Mike Godman. I can't really hear him distinctly, and it's possible I am not hearing him at all, as the electric keys deliver a range of sounds. And we can't even be sure that Mike Godman is his name, recalling that Nicky misnamed Tim as "Hensley". I have worked my Google-fu around various permutations of Mikes and Michaels with a variety of proximate family names such as Godwin, Goodwin, Goodman, but I have come up completely dry.

Update: "Mike Godman" probably ends up as a mis-hearing of Nicky saying "My God, man!" I 

RoG gets the credit for figuring that out.

So, on these guests, one request of my faithful readers.

1. Can you please tell me what Tim Henson is playing? Is there electric piano, organ and synth?

2. If you learn anything about Mike Godman, please post in comments.

Randomalia

The band noodles around a few interesting nuggets, such as "Teddy Bear's Picnic" and "Waltzing Matilda".

Introducing "Crazy Arms" on the first night, Nicky credits some of his boogie-woogie piano influences: Albert Ammons, Meade Lux Lewis, Pete Johnson, and Big Maceo Merriweather.

"Edward" is an awesome tune. It would stretch out more over the next few months, and often segue into "Let's Spend The Night Together", but here it stands alone as the show-closer.

Nicky is slurring some here, though not as much as he would in November and December. I have noted that the Garcia Band contract rider included a pint of Cuervo Especial dark tequila in this timeframe, snarking that it probably lasted him through soundcheck.

Nicky mentions his giant mirror, about which Corry has written.

Nicky is a stone-cold piano virtuoso, laying down golden licks all weekend. His composition "Pig's Boogie", written for his orange tabby and which on 10/11 features some awesome boogy bass walking by John Kahn, is a keeper, as is the solo instrumental ballad "Lady Sleeps". His other original, "No Time", suffers from Hopkins's vocal limitations and maudlin lyrics, which nevertheless combine to affect me, actually. Nicky was enduring a difficult period here - not only with his overall health and his heavy drinking and drugging, but also financially. His record label (Mercury) was hassling him, something which he mentions from stage with JGB at Concord Pavilion on October 17, 1975, and perhaps not unrelated, the night before this Saturday gig, on Friday October 10th, he and Dolly went into default on their Mill Valley home. So hearing the man earnestly sing these lyrics (credited to Dolly) with his fragile voice, in a kind of session man's lament, actually really works for me.

No Time

Lyrics: Dolly Hopkins

Music: Nicky Hopkins

Got no time to waste my life

Got no time to play the game

Life can be such a tragedy

And to you all players are the same

Got no time to live in dreams

That's all you've left me with it seems

Wasted too much time in doing things for you

I don't believe you know lies from truth

Now that it's gone

Just how long

Until I find

A place in life

Where I can find myself

And rest my weary mind

You know that music says it all

Some hasty climbers have to fall

In admiring greatness we can rise again

The world can't see its greatest man

Can't play alone

Been too long

Now I must find

Another key

To help me say the things I feel

And hope it helps someone to see

This time the band should get it on

We've played in shadows far too long

It's time for us to believe in what we do

If we want anyone else to

Consider every day as [bluest] day of life

Admiring greatness there's the chance to rise

Anyway, below the fold, you will find raw listening notes for several filesets, with lots more tiny bits and pieces.

LN jg1975-10-11.jgb.all.sbd-minches.31213.flac1644

LN jg1975-10-11.jgb.all.mtx-motb-0113.105413.flac1644

LN jg1975-10-12.jgb.all.aud-menke-falanga.7669.shn2flac

LN jg1975-10-12.jgb.s1-1.sbd-menke-smith.134658.flac1644

What It Is All About: Jerry Band Monday at the Keystone, August 16, 1976

I love love love the mid-1976 versions of "After Midnight", with Donna seconding on "what it is all about". (Happy 73rd birthday to DJG the day of this post, BTW!) I also like the "Stop That Train"s from this era, both imprinted on my brain from some tape I played the hell out of. This show, Monday 8/16/76 at Keystone, is solid. Maria Muldaur harmonizes some in "Ride Mighty High", this now being her earliest verified (by me) appearance with the Garcia Band (next known to me is 9/12/76).

I had thought of naming the post "Do Me A Favor? Open the Door and Let 'Em In", imaging McCartneyesque Jesus to Gabriel after 17 syrupy minutes of JGB "Knockin' On Heaven's Door". I have a rule, induced after listening to 3/12/76: any version of ‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door’ exceeding 17 minutes in length is too long. But I didn't think that set the right tone for a post about a show which I enjoy, despite the serious issues with this particular warbling tape.

Jerry Garcia Band
Keystone
2119 University Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704
August 16, 1976 (Monday)
sbd shnid-13041 shn2flac rename to sets

--set I (7 tracks, 86:09)--
s1t01. ambience [0:59], They Love Each Other [7:05] [0:21]
s1t02. [0:12] %% [0:12] After Midnight [14:00] [0:14]
s1t03. [3:50] Stop That Train [13:40] % [0:05]
s1t04. [0:05] Midnight // Moonlight [8:#06] [0:18]
s1t05. [1:32] How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [9:09] [0:31]
s1t06. [0:50] Knockin' On Heaven's Door [17:45] [0:09] % dead air [0:10]
s1t07. The Way You Do The Things You Do [6:43] (1) [0:07]

--set II (5 tracks, 49:56)--
s2t01. //Mission In The Rain [#9:36] [0:03] %
s2t02. [0:30] He Ain't Give You None [11:51] [0:08] %
s2t03. [0:29] Tore Up Over You [11:20] [0:04] %
s2t04. Strange Man 6:58 [0:04] % [0:03]
s2t05. [0:14] Ride Mighty High :15-8:30 (xx)

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #3
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: Keith Godchaux - piano, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-b;
! lineup: Ron Tutt - drums, vocals;
! lineup: Donna Godchaux - vocals;
! guest: Maria Muldaur - vocals (s2t05 only).

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.

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19760816-02

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/13041 (this fileset)

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/LDc43

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/02/keystone-2119-university-avenue.html;

! venue: URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2010/12/2119-university-avenue-berkeley-ca.html; URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2011/01/jerry-garcia-and-keystone-shows.html.

! band: JGB #3 (http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html)

! ad: SFSECDB19760808p39; SFSECDB19760815p43

! listing: SFSECDB19760815p07

! notes: JGB played Keystone Berkeley Wed 8/11, Mon 8/16 and Sat-Sun 8/21-22 - four shows in ten days, three of them on somewhat atypical nights. He was also at Elliot Mazer's studio working, I guess, on JGB tunes to sell to Arista, including "Ride Mighty High". Very long first set here.

! personnel: Maria Muldaur comes in and adds some "ride mighty high"s to the mix in the 6-minute range. As of 8/22/2020, this is her earliest known JGB sit-in, next one coming 9/12/76.

! R: SBD R/? > CDR > shn; shn2flac jgmf 8/2020.

! R: hissy, running fast, with lots and lots of warble, especially in KOHD, TWYDTTYD, & MITR (especially, especially the last one.

! R: I have flac files dated 10/17/2010, but don't have the original shns. So this was labeled as a .shnf folder, but I am changing it to a .shn2flac.

! P: s1t02 AM In the cassette days I had a tape of 7/9/76, I think, or maybe it was this show or 7/8/76, and I just love the AMs of this era. The vibe is just right, the way Donna adds her "what it is all about" refrain just smites me.

! R: s1t04 Mid Moon cut in Midnight Moonlight at 1:09

! P: s1t06 KOHD this version violates my red-line rule, first articulated in connection with 3/12/76, that "any version of ‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door’ exceeding 17 minutes in length is too long". And Jesus to Gabriel, pace Paul McCartney and Wings: "Do me a favor - open the door and let 'em in."

! s1t07 (1) JG: "We're gonna take a break for a little while. We'll be back a little bit later on."

! R: s2t01 MITR cuts in

! s2t01 at the wind-down of MITR, it sure sounds like Keith is noodling around with the chords of "Positively 4th Street", but maybe I am hearing things.

! P: s2t04 ASM very slow and gentle to start, but Donna really oversings as it develops.

! P: s2t05 RMH huge grand finish

! s2t05 (2) JG: "thanks a lot. We'll see y'all later on."

Two Sax Attack? JGMS at the GAMH, February 5, 1974

LN jg1974-02-05.jgms.all.sbd-ladner.32088.flac1644

I won't elaborate much. I have always held early '74 Garcia-Saunders in rather low esteem, despite my early familiarity with, place-based affinity toward --I attended Campolindo High School, just down the road-- and resulting inordinate love for the 2/9/74 Rheem Theater show. I was prompted to check-in with 2/5/74 by valued commenter runonguinness's observation that there appears to be a second sax present in set II, and esteemed fellow blogger nick's engagement with the issue, raising the possibility that it's Martin doing his best Rahsaan Roland Kirk and playing two horns at once. I was rather gobsmacked at either notion, having produced an earlier lossless fileset many years back from the same Ed Perlstein board patch (shnid-11254), and apparently not having noticed the second saxophone appearing throughout set II. What else have I been missing? God only knows.

Anyway, as you will see from my listening notes below, my method was to try to track moments where the saxes appear to diverge, and I find a number of them. I have posted my basic conclusions as comment at deadthinking, and if you have thoughts or comments on the key question please consider posting them over there, so we don't fragment "the literature" too much. I just have to post my own notes when I have them, because that's how I roll.

I enjoyed the show, a Tuesday at the amazing GAMH, very much. It's LONG, and quite good. I hated the overwrought vocals on Road Runner here in early '74, but there's a lot of good stuff here, including some nice melty stuff at the end of My Funny Valentine.

Listening notes below the jump.

updated post on Garcia's unidentified guests

I have cleaned up and slightly updated my ten-year old post on Garcia's unidentified guests.

JG-HOST: Garcia hosting other musicians

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17wXtgegY_SfHpa609QibCj-RPdoRoRN6p-cdU2D8w5o/edit?usp=sharing

Have at it. You will see some ambiguities around guest vs. membership. I am happy to receive any thoughts or comments you might have.

Long Ago and Far Away: JGB at Cumberland County Civic Center, Portland, ME, June 20, 1982

LN jg1982-06-20.jgb.all.aud-lamarre.139447.flac2496

Great pull by Doug Lamarre, very good JGB from the strong month of June 1982. Bobby Cochran and Bob Weir from Bobby and the Midnites sit in on the encore, which includes the JGB singleton "Johnny B. Goode".

Jerry sounds quite strong.  Two new tunes stand out. "Valerie" holds some serious heavy-metal appeal, and "Run For The Roses" involves some uncommon wah-pedaling.

Kahn gets two mentions, first for some big pulling at the start of "Mission In The Rain" and, second, neater, for some noodling he is doing at the start of the show. Here is an mp3 of the snippet, which runs about 20 seconds starting from about 0:23 of the first track of this fileset.

The noodle sounded to me like "Blue Moon", but I don't know squat. Nick urges comparison with Ray Brown's bassline on this Oscar Peterson version of Jerome Kern's "Long Ago (And Far Away)". Getting all musicological up in here, he says that "Kahn is playing what sounds like a C, Am, Dm, and G, which in the language of music theory is a I-vi-ii-V progression.  'Blue Moon' is one famous example of this". So I don't feel totally foolish.

Anyway, I would welcome your analyses. It's always fun when Jerome's namesake comes up, and when a Garcia engagement crosses into uncommon deep Americana.

Listening notes below the fold.

Second Night Out for Liz and Essra: JGB, Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, June 25, 1981

update: the original title of this was "First Night Out", but I have discovered a warmup gig on 6/24/81 at the Keystone Palo Alto (not in Salinas, as I had elaborately laid out).

Liz Stires and Essra Mohawk appear to debut as backing vocalists on the night before this show. There are no singers on the late May shows, then there are here and the next night. One presumes that the 6/24/81 Palo Alto gig was a warmup: off-night, if not quite off the beaten path.

Phil Lesh sits in while John Kahn travels Europe with his mom. Merle [sic] Saunders sits in for the first two tunes - his last sit-in with Garcia On The Side, I do believe.

The only other non-musical thing I'd note was the GD-centric billing in the preview entitled "Night of the Dead". This was uncommon, and for years the standard Garcia Band contract rider prohibited any trading on the name Grateful Dead or on Garcia's association with that band. With Mickey Hart a key principal in the opening band, High Noon, and Phil joining Jerry, this night seems to have permitted of an exception. It's almost like the "Grateful Dead Three Ways" framing around the December 1975 Kingfish, JGB and Keith and Donna Band gigs.

Musically, I like it. Phil sounds good, I really liked "I'll Take A Melody" and "Simple Twist Of Fate".

Jerry Garcia Band
Civic Auditorium
307 Church Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
June 25, 1981 (Thursday)
Senicola-Poris MAC shnid-89567

--set I (7 tracks, 6 tunes, 59:29)--
s1t01. crowd and tuning [1:46]
s1t02. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [7:36] [0:24]
s1t03. Catfish John [8:15] (1) [0:36]
s1t04. Sitting In Limbo [10:10] [0:28]
s1t05. That's What Love Will Make You Do [8:33] [0:40]
s1t06. Mississippi Moon [11:12] ->
s1t07. Tangled Up In Blue [9:41] (2) [0:09] %

--set II (6 tracks, 5 tunes, 56:27)--
s2t01. crowd (3) and tuning [1:28]
s2t02. I'll Take A Melody [12:20] % [0:03]
s2t03. Simple Twist Of Fate [12:14] [0:08] %
s2t04. Knockin' On Heaven's Door [13:22] [0:05] % [0:09]
s2t05. Dear Prudence [9:14] ->
s2t06. Midnight Moonlight [7:00] [0:21]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #13a
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - keyboards;
! lineup: Jimmy Warren - keyboards;
! lineup: Daoud Shaw - drums;
! lineup: Essra Mohawk - backing vocals;
! lineup: Liz Stires - backing vocals.
! guest: Merl Saunders - keyboards (s1t01-s1t03).
! guest: Phil Lesh - el-bass (whole show).

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.

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19810625-01

! JGC: http://jerrygarcia.com/show/1981-06-25

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/9302 (aud shnf); https://etreedb.org/shn/89567 (this fileset).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/kkDtK

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2011/09/civic-auditorium-307-church-st-santa.html
 

! venue: http://www.cityofsantacruz.com/departments/parks-recreation/civic-auditorium

! band: JGB #13a (http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html)

! historical: High Noon opened. Lesh replaces Kahn on bass; Saunders sits in on first two numbers, almost sounds like Melvin was late. Very interesting use of Grateful Dead marketing. This is almost like a "GD Three Ways" kind of feel. See preview title. The listing has a picture of Jerry with caption about "Jerry Garcia and friends", and listing identifies Hart. Clearly planned and sold around Garcia, Lesh, etc.

! seealso: Arnold, Corry. 20160804. June 26, 1981 Fox-Warfield Theatre, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia Band with Phil Lesh/High Noon/Mike Henderson (The Truth Is Out There). Lost Live Dead, August 4, URL https://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2016/08/june-26-1981-fox-warfield-theatre-san.html, consulted 7/28/2019. That's where Corry reports that John Kahn was touring Europe with his mom during this timeframe.

! preview: "Night of The Dead," Good Times, June 25, 1981, p. 5

! ad: Good Times, June 25, 1981, p. 12

! listing: Good Times, June 25, 1981, p. 20

! R: field recordists: Richard Senicola and Jaime Poris

! R: field recording gear: 2x Nakamichi 300 + 1x Nakamichi 700 > (Nak 550) > Sony TC-D5M (Mark Severson's equipment)

! R: field recording media: 2x Maxell MX cassette

! R: field recording location: 35 feet back from right center of stage

! R: Transfer and FLAC encoding by David Minches: Master played back on Nak Dragon > Grace Lunatec V3 (24/96) > Digital Audio Labs Card Deluxe > Adobe Audition 2.0 > (dither/downsample) > FLAC encoding.

! R: this is a great pull! Drums are super-punchy. What a tape!

! personnel: Definitely two keys plus two backup singers. I presume that Merl was playing Melvin's Hammond on the tunes that list him, and that Melvin was sitting out. I probably wouldn't be able to hear three keyboards at once, anyway.

! s1t03 (1) JG: "We'd like to thank Merl Saunders for sittin' in with us for a couple of tunes."

! P: Phil is pretty hot and heavy for Miss Moon and TUIB. BTW, earlier in the set an audience member mentions him by name, lest there be any doubt that Lesh is in the house.

! s1t07 (2) JG: "We're gonna take a lil short break, we'll be back in a [inaudible] minutes."

! s2t01 (3) @ 0:18 crowd member starts singing "Elvira" ... now there's a time capsule for you.

! P: s2t02 ITAM @ 2:01-2:04, you hear Philip Lesh playing the freaking bass. Wow. Great backing vocals @ 5:48. Rare to hear them this clearly ... great stuff! @ 11:19 JG is doing some ridiculous running around the chords.

! P: s2t03 STOF is incredible, careful, deliberate, beautiful! This tape captures it really, really nicely. STOF without the bass solo is interesting

! P: s2t04 KOHD @ 6-min mark, Jimmy Warren's little solo is not great.

! R: s2t06 Midnight Moonlight [00:01 - 00:07] patched with SHNID-9302

At Wolfgang's Orpheum: JGB with Clarence Clemons, March 3, 1989

The success of the Dead's Touch of Grey didn't only limit that band's venue (and even city) options. It also impacted ol' Midas's bar band. Freddie Herrera's last remaining club, the 700-seat Stone on Broadway, didn't stand a chance, and a four-night Garcia Band run on May 27-28 and 30-31, 1987 brought the curtain down on Jerry and Freddie's professional relationship. It's hard to know how Jerry felt about moving up in the world and bringing his solo band's gigs into Bill Graham's orbit - maybe it was a mixture of pride at his success and chagrin at having to cut Freddie loose, or maybe it was one, the other, or neither.

Regardless, from 1987 to the end, Bill was Jerry's local promoter, starting with the direct-from-Broadway acoustic-electric shows at the Warfield just after Thanksgiving of that year. And, again, from 1990 to the end Garcia Band services were held there, at 982 Market, 3,000 congregants at a time getting some rel'g'n in between Dead shows at the Coliseum and Shoreline. In between times, though, Bill undertook major renovations at homefield, and Jerry's relatively infrequent local gigs in 1988 and 1989 happened in other spaces, most commonly the Orpheum Theatre a little ways down the street at 1192 Market. It was a great room, and the Orpheum gigs all have that nice, clean feel present throughout the period, with a healthy, happy Jerry doing his low-key R&B, Beatles, Dylan, and Garcia-Hunter material in tasty spaces with the super-consonant supporting cast of JGB #21b - THE Jerry Garcia Band. With all involved at least "tryin' to have a reasonably good time", as ol' Jer put it, and mostly succeeding, it's never a bad instinct to call up one of these Orpheum gigs and hit play.

The Friday, March 3, 1989 Garcia Band gig fits the bill just fine. There's nothing bad here, and there's plenty of good stuff, for me especially in Deal and Harder They Come. Clarence Clemons mostly bores me (when not annoying), and for the life of me I can't figure out why Jerry liked having him along for most of the year. I just don't love the Illinois Jacquet-established R&B sax style, I guess (blasphemy alert). Blair wrote up a short review in the Golden Road that raved, and you should certainly trust his judgment over mine, but on this listen (following partial listens at least in 2011 and 2014, according to my notes), the show didn't absolutely slay me. It was good and solid and fun, and Taz Yamaguchi (like Bill Reutelhuber) pulled a great tape, but the show never achieved escape velocity, for me. YMMV.

Jerry Garcia Band

Orpheum Theatre

1192 Market Street

San Francisco, CA 94102

March 3, 1989 (Friday) - 8 PM

Taz MAC shnid-94638

--set I (8 tracks, 56:36)--

s1t01. ... Let's Spend The Night Together [#6:19] (1) [0:32]

s1t02. Stop That Train [6:45] [0:18]

s1t03. Forever Young [8:35] [0:04]

s1t04. Run For The Roses [5:34] [0:16]

s1t05. Like A Road Leading Home [7:45] [0:05] % [0:08]

s1t06. (2) That's What Love Will Make You Do [8:27] [0:08] % [0:05]

s1t07. I Hope It Won't Be This Way Always [4:38] ->  

s1t08. Deal [6:52] [0:06]

--set II (8 tracks, 75:39)--

s2t01. The Harder They Come [11:39] (3) [0:48]

s2t02. Waiting For A Miracle [5:44] [1:06]

s2t03. Someday Baby [[6:39] [1:12]

s2t04. And It Stoned Me [7:16] % [0:17]

s2t05. Evangeline [4:25] [0:04] %

s2t06. Don't Let Go [15:01] [0:23]

s2t07. That Lucky Old Sun [9:52] ->

s2t08. Tangled Up In Blue [10:52] (4) [0:22]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #21b

! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;

! lineup: John Kahn - el-bass;

! lineup: Melvin Seals - keyboards;

! lineup: David Kemper - drums;

! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch - vocals;

! lineup: Gloria Jones - vocals;

! guest: Clarence Clemons - saxophone.

JGMF:

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

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19890303-01

! JGC: https://jerrygarcia.com/1989-03-03

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/17554 (Schoeps CMC 34shnf); https://etreedb.org/shn/21091 (Bill Reutelhuber shnf); https://etreedb.org/shn/86325 (Schoeps CMC34 flac1644); https://etreedb.org/shn/94638 (this fileset).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/mr3oJuLND6u

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/08/orpheum-theatre-1192-market-street.html

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

! review: [positive] Golden Road no. 19 (Spring 1989), p. 10. Blair loved the show, and said "Jerry looked like he was in heaven all night." I don't love it as much as Blair did.

! historical: $18.50. Garcia played the Orpheum for Wolfgang in '88 and '89, while the Warfield was in renovations. Specific dates: 5/7/88, 12/2-3/88, 1/27-28/89, and 3/3-4/89. He'd enter the Warfield in December '89 and stay there until the end.

! seealso: JGMF, "Mahalo, Jer," URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2014/05/ln-jg1989-01-27jgballsbd.html; JGMF: "'We're Having a Reasonably Good Time Here' (LN jg1989-01-28.jgb.all.sbd-goetz-retracked.28352.shn2flac)," URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2014/06/ln-jg1989-01-28jgballsbd-goetz.html

! R: field recordist: Tazuo Yamaguchi

! R: field recording gear: 2x Nakamichi 700/CP701 (in hat) > Reutelhuber P/S -> dbx type II Encoder -> Sony TCD5M

! R: field recording location: FOB, Row L

! R: Transfer and FLAC encoding by David Minches: Master played back on Nak Dragon > Grace Lunatec V3 (24/96) > Digital Audio Labs Card Deluxe> Adobe Audition 2.0 > (dither/downsample) > FLAC encoding

! R: sounds pretty good to me.

! P: old notes: Set I is lackluster.

! R: s1t01 LSTNT first 2 minutes patched from SHNID-21091 (same recording equipment, processed by Bill Reutelhuber and Charlie Miller)

! P: s1t01 LSTNT guitar comes in @ 1:17, nicely. I can already tell that I am not a fan of CC's work. JG steps back for some nice big guitar work late 3 over 4. They end it in lieu of something else.

! s1t01 (1) JG: "Thank you very much."

! P: s1t05 LARLH CC's entrance is not graceful. Lyric flub 3- mark. Very nice soaring guitar solo ca. over 4, soaring again 4:33, but I wish it were a little louder in the mix.

! P: s1t06 TWLWMYD (2) false start, sort of, first 0:12. CC lead turn 4:30ish ff, still going over 5 - this is good. Some big drum part 5:33ish. Melvin takes a lead 5:44ff. Outstanding guitar grab right after 7-min mark, singing enthusiastically. In 2011 I had said this didn't light me up. Right now (6/6/2014), I am loving it.

! P: s1t08 Deal big guitar starts at 3:30. Old notes say "it is smokin' hot - wow. 5:38 is just one reference." And, again, 10 years later (!), I went to start typing when Jerry was shredding, and it was at 5:38. Not sure this whole version smokes, per se, but that peak is a good one. Pretty short version.

! P: s2t01 HTC outstanding. Garcia is growling 10 minute mark, really giving it a lot of oomph. Nice!

! s2t01 (3) JG: "I'd like to thank Clarence Clemons for sittin' in with us tonight."

! P: s2t06 DLG CC is very repetitive for awhile in 7. 8:13 JG breaks out of the rhythm. Clean return to song at 13:10.

! s2t08 (4) JG: "Thanks a lot. See ya later."

JGB in Chumash Country: Campbell Hall, UCSB, February 5, 1977

In my writeup of the Garcia Band's 11/20/76 gigs at the Pismo Theatre, I noted that Jerry urged the crowd to come see ol' Hoyt Axton in a couple of weeks. "He'll be down here doin' a benefit for Redwind, which is just a good scene, about forty miles from here, a lot of good people workin' real hard."

I elaborated:

The RedWind Medicine Camp was a Native American community, chiefed by the last full-blooded Chumash, Semu Huaute, located in rugged San Luis Obispo County. In correspondence, Bob Sewana Saenz explains: "Jerry visited me in SLO after a show at the Pismo Beach Theater in late 1976. I drove him and a few band members to Semu Huaute's (Chumash) Red Wind Medicine Camp. I showed him a school project that we were in need of funds to develop for the many children there." I presume they went up on Saturday, and came back down in time for Jerry to play his shows. He must have been moved, because he speaks. Even more importantly, he puts his money where his mouth is, headlining a benefit for the RedWind Foundation at UCSB on February 5, 1977 - but I'll get to that later.

Later is now. On 1/19/77, the UCSB Leg. Board approved the benefit gig, to be put on by Bob Sewana Saenz's Band Aid in support of Red Wind. The pre-show publicity doesn't mention this - nothin' in re benefit status of this event. But the documents are clear that the Garcia Band not only played the gig, but lent the promoter $1,000 to help put it on, a pretty righteous thing to do and part of a small inflection in benefits Garcia played in '77 (see also 6/23/77 for the Forest People of Camp Meeker and 8/12/77 for Greenpeace).

The shows don't move me all that much, though the late show "Don't Let Go" has some interesting passages. I find the sociometry more interesting, on three fronts.

First, there is a second guitar player present, playing country style backing licks. As noted on the 11/20/76 post, I know who this is but am holding it back for the book (major scoop! - not really). But, this player was present on nearly every known show from the first half of 1977, raising the question of whether this was a distinct band configuration as opposed to just a guest shot. These are academic questions also impossible to answer, but it's nevertheless interesting that a heretofore unknown aggregation appeared regularly as late as 1977.

Second, Chris Sobik drew my attention to a second female vocalist, and indeed we find Maria Muldaur providing backing vocals for both shows. This is the earliest Maria engagement with the JGB. update: that lasted for almost a day.  I have now heard her on 9/12/76. She had sat in with Jerry and Merl several times in '74 (and one night, 10/12/74, the Garcia-Saunders-Fierro-Kahn-Humphrey aggregation backed her for a whole set), and at least once with the Legion of Mary in '75. (This post seems to cover the bases.) But, while Corry has JGB #4, with Maria a full member, emerging on 11/15/77, she had already joined the band onstage at least 9/12/76, this night (February 5th), July 2-3 (without Donna Jean), August 7, August 12 (Greenpeace benefit), and maybe others from this slow period for the JGB.

Oh yeah, one last thing: Deborah Koons made this trip with Jerry. FYI.

Listening notes after the jump.

The Reedman vs. The Gunslinger: JGB with David Murray, Madison Square Garden, November 12, 1993

LN jg1993-11-12.jgb.all.aud-brennecke-litzenburger-GEMS.91812.flac1644
LN jg1993-11-12.jgb.s2.aud-gastwirt.139507.flac1648

The man had conceived the band bearing his name as a way to scratch some musical itches, play some mostly consonant music with mostly-simpatico (or at least deferential) people, and make a little bit of walking around money. The Jerry Garcia Band provided its namesake with a comfortable and, eventually, highly lucrative musical diversion which allowed him to be himself, do most of the soloing, not have to figure out where Mickey Hart put the one, and maybe share some laughs (among other things that release endorphins, kill pain, and produce euphoria [Dunbar et al. 2012]) with his ol' buddy John Kahn.

Yet, Jerry was Jerry, with all that implied. Like Midas, everything he touched turned to gold, and that included his bar band, half of whose members played for free in Oakland churches on Sundays. By contrast, on Friday, November 12, 1993, this group sold out Madison Square Garden, grossing almost half a million as part of its twenty night, fifteen gig swing through the eastern time zone, its last real tour. Unlike a decade earlier, a relatively punishing bus tour with Garcia deep in heroin haze, this one was first class all the way, with the band staying in New York City and flying in and out of Teterboro, while battalions of squeaks (sound techs) and squints (light techs) did the heavy lifting. It seems like only half the gigs sold out, but these were mostly good-sized rinks and arenas with five-figure capacities, the kinds of places the Dead had been playing only a few years earlier.

The Garcia band's cozy sociality also meant that guest shots became scarce once the years' third digits turned to nines. The E Street Band's good-time "Big Man" Clarence Clemons sat in once in 1990, reprising his steady gigging with the JGB from late 1989, and banjo wiz Béla Fleck joined in on a couple of numbers at the Greek Theater in Berkeley two months later, in the dark early weeks following Brent Mydland's passing. As good as Fleck is, he played in a decidedly consonant mode, picking some pretty accompaniment to Pete Rowan's "Midnight Moonlight" and, doubly improbably, some mandolinish lead reggae banjo on "Harder They Come". The next fall, while still a member of the Dead, the great Bruce Hornsby sat in with Jerry in Hampton, Virginia, on the decade's other east coast swing, in November of 1991.

Hornsby certainly had the chops and the chutzpah to challenge Garcia, and he did so regularly in the Dead before stepping back off the scene to pursue his own extremely successful career, and perhaps to ward off the curse of the Dead's keyboard players. The one guy to really push Jerry around on his own stage was hotshot jazz saxophonist David Murray, who showed up two years after Hornsby's visit, and six weeks after sitting in with the Dead, at the aforementioned Madison Square Garden gig. The man BLEW, which is to have been expected. As Dead family insider Gary Lambert put it, "expecting a force of nature like David to function as a 'sideman' for the JGB (or any band) is kind of like saying to Jackson Pollock, 'Gee, I really admire your work. Now, could you paint me a nice Andrew Wyeth?'"

The reedman put some air into a number of very sharp notes, with a Garcia Band that was mostly soft, cottony round edges by this point in time. Garcia appears to have taken notice. Attendee Eric Pooley recalls that "Murray was in Garcia's face a little more than Garcia would have liked: [he] attacked, and Garcia retreated into shoetop space", chin on chest. Jim Powell observed that "Murray cut Jerry to shreds at that MSG Jerry Band show - maybe the only time old gunslinger Garcia ever came out on the short end." But the evidence of the night's "Lay Down Sally", normally a smooth, easy, good-time roller hewing closely to Clapton's original, belies this perspective, with all due respect to the poet and Macarthur Genius grantee who proffered it.

Segueing out of the churchy "My Sisters And Brothers", Garcia displayed little Christian charity in first feinting at the Stones' "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love", then shifting into "Lay Down Sally", taking a couple of extra measures at the start to let Murray his footing and thus making it, if not quite a fair fight, at least an honorable one. Typically, in the Garcia Band, Jerry gets the first solo (and usually the second, third and fourth). Here, Murray challenges the old fella in the light purple shirt right out of the gate, and they step on each other for a minute or two before Jerry lets him have his say, comprised of some sharp, loud bursts that might have blown back his shock-white mane. After that, still only fifty-one despite the white hair and haggard mien, the gunslinger drops the hammer, pursuing a million aggressive leads, syncopating some minor chords, and generally, all due apologies, not taking "no" for Sally's answer. Clocking in at over sixteen minutes, and finishing with an emphatic strum over the setbreak announcement, the "Lay Down Sally" from November 12, 1993 provides one of the finest musical displays of Garcia's late solo career, proving that he could still rise to a challenge when the occasion called for it.

I picked and chose from the two filesets named at the top, so some sketchy listening notes follow the fold. "Shining Star" also illustrates the reedman and the gunslinger trading blows, and both "The Maker" and "Don't Let Go" from the 86-minute second set are outstanding and worth your time.

June 1990 at the Warfield

The post-coma Garcia Band was getting hotter and hotter from 1987-1989, in my view, and somewhere along the line two kinds of business/money decisions were made. First, it'd start regularly playing the Warfield, which I think had been recently renovated, for Wolfgang.  JGB played fifteen gigs at 982 Market in 1990 --February 2-4, March 1-2, April 13-15, June 12-13, August 7-9, and November 20-21. Second, for the first time since Old And In The Way, Garcia On The Side would tape itself and release a live record.

These came together, of course: all of the material from the 2 LP Jerry Garcia Band Arista release (hitting shelves on 8/25/91) and the posthumous (1997) How Sweet It Is came from 1990 Warfield shows. If you look closely, you'll notice that only the April and August shows supplied released material, something I have wondered about over the years.

As I listed to some newly-circulating transfers of June 1990 DAT audience masters --as far as I can tell on a cursory glance, other transcriptions of these same masters have been in lossless circulation for a long time-- I was guessing that the reason no material from this Tuesday-Wednesday tandem had been released is that these shows just aren't very good. I stand by the quality assessment. Garcia sounds exhausted, coming right off three nights with the Dead at Cal Expo and heading into another weekend --not very good either, by my recollection-- at Shoreline. The first night is especially ragged, but the 13th isn't great either (IMO, YMMV).

Whatever your view, or mine, or Jerry's/Kahn's/Cutler's on that question, not releasing these shows seems to have been overdetermined. Why? Because, as it happens, only the April and August shows were recorded for release. I had never realized that until prompted to dig through my massive stash of squirreled-away, generally forgotten and largely useless GOTS trivia. But, while the February, March, June and November shows were recorded to two-track DAT, only the A's got the full treatment, with 5000 feet of 2 inch Ampex 456 Grand Master spinning at 15 ips and magnetizing 24 tracks of Jerry, John, David, Melvin, Jacklyn and Gloria for posterity. I don't know why, but it seems to be a fact.

Anyway, with respect to these June shows, they didn't miss much, so it's fine. There are a few good moments, but not that much to show the band at its best to the record-buying public. Clarence Clemons comes in the second night, and contributes nothing of note, to my ears, though I am sure he was fun to party with.

Some listening notes follow, for what they're worth.

~~6/12/90 set II "Rick" MAD shnid-141471--

Jerry Garcia Band
The Warfield
982 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
June 12, 1990 (Tuesday)
s2 Rick MAD flac1648 shnid-141471

-- set II (7 tracks, 73:25)--
s2t01. The Way You Do The Things You Do [12:38] [0:26]
s2t02. [0:12] Mission In The Rain [9:06] [0:26]
s2t03. Dear Prudence [12:52] [1:21]
s2t04. [0:11] Russian Lullaby [11:09] [0:15]
s2t05. Think [8:04] [0:58]
s2t06. Gomorrah [6:32] ->
s2t07. Midnight Moonlight [8:03] (1) [0:12]

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

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [ ] = 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/19900612-01

! JGC: http://jerrygarcia.com/show/1990-06-12

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/11365 (shnf); http://db.etree.org/shn/108908 (Reutelhuber s2 flac); http://etreedb.org/shn/141471 (this fileset). I haven't compared to see if the Bill R. and the Rick tapes are the same, which one might suspect since both are only set II.

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

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/ZW52vfHTbjs

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2013/02/warfield-982-market-street-san.html

! venue: http://hooterollin.blogspot.com/2011/11/september-25-1980-fox-warfield-theater.html

! R: source: DAT Audience Recording attributed to "Rick"

! R: lineage: DAT Archived and Transferred By Stuccoholmes 2018; Edited and Mastered by Jamie Waddell in Wavelab 7.2, 16bit 48kHz FLAC Level8 in TLH

! R: seeder comment: "clear, balanced sound, minimal crowd intrusion, gets an A from me"

! P: s2t01 TWYDTTYD sounds low energy to me.

! P: s2t02 MITR JG sounds a little unsure of himself.

! P: s2t03 DP very good, excellent guitar work throughout. 8 min exemplary playing. At the end, Melvin holds onto it too long, and JG needs to walk it down for an emergency landing.

! P: s2t04 RL JG sounds tired. JK's feature get completely off any known beat at some point. Again, Garcia sounds exhausted.

! s2t07 (1) JG: "Thanks a lot. See y'all later."

~~6/13/90 "Rick" shnid-141472--

Jerry Garcia Band
The Warfield
982 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
June 13, 1990 (Wednesday)
Rick MAD flac1648 shnid-141472

--set I (7 tracks, 65:02)--
s1t01. Cats Under The Stars [8:34] [0:07] % [0:29]
s1t02. They Love Each Other [7:55] [0:39] %
s1t03. [0:13] Knockin' On Heaven's Door [11:08] [0:03] % [0:53]
s1t04. That's What Love Will Make You Do [8:39] [0:58]
s1t05. Like A Road Leading Home [8:55] [0:14]
s1t06. My Sisters And Brothers [4:24] [0:17]
s1t07. Let's Spend The Night Together [11:31] (1) [0:02]

--set II (10 tracks, 8 tunes, 77:07)--
s2t08. Second That Emotion
s2t09. [0:30] And It Stoned Me :31-7:36 - 7:54
s2t10. Tears Of Rage [10:10] [0:07]
s2t11. crowd and tuning [1:28]
s2t12. Reuben And Cérise [7:56] [0:10]
s2t13. crowd and tuning [1:05]
s2t14. Waiting For A Miracle
s2t15. Tore Up Over You [7:24] [0:12]
s2t16. That Lucky Old Sun [11:17] ->
s2t17. Tangled Up In Blue [12:10] (3) [0:17]

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

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/19900612-01

! JGC: http://jerrygarcia.com/show/1990-06-12

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/11366 (unknown MAD, shnf); http://etreedb.org/shn/85819 (mixed sources [Bu & Rick set I, Schoeps CMC 521s set II] flac); http://etreedb.org/shn/141472 (this fileset). I am pretty sure we will find that 85819 and this tape match, but I haven't verified.

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

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/ZW52vfHTbjs

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2013/02/warfield-982-market-street-san.html

! venue: http://hooterollin.blogspot.com/2011/11/september-25-1980-fox-warfield-theater.html

! P: Overall, this is stronger than the prior night (IMO), when Jer sounded really fatigued, but he still sounds a little down and it doesn't knock me out.

! R: DAT Audience attributed to "Rick". DAT Archived and Transferred By Stuccoholmes 2018
Edited and Mastered by Jamie Waddell in Wavelab 7.2, 16bit 48kHz FLAC Level8 in TLH.

! R: seeder notes: clear, balanced sound, minimal crowd intrusion, gets an A from me"

! personnel: Clarence enters about 2 minutes into TLEO.

! historical: Per seeder, "John Kahn's Birthday, crowd sings to him set2". A group wishes him HBD again at the very start of Luck Ol' Sun.

! s1t01 @ about 27 seconds in, someone close to mic says "OK if you move it".

! P: s1t01 CUTS Garcia sounds tired.

! P: s1t03 KOHD was very sweet.

! P: s1t04 TWLWMYD gets nice and  grungy late 6 into 7.

! s1t07 (1) JG: "We'll be back in a little while. Thanks a lot."

! song: R&C (s2t12): this was last played 12/1/89. Not forever, but it just wasn't always played in this period.

! s2t13 (2) female taper's friend: "This is a test of the emergency Jerry system. This is only a test."

! P: s2t17 TUIB JG sounds vocally tired. The playing is fine, but it never really achieves escape velocity.

! s2t17 (3) JG: "See y'all later. Thanks a lot."

Gee Baby, Ain't I Good To You?

A little over a year ago, I found a review of a unique-sounding Garcia-Saunders gig, backing Maria Muldaur at the Berkeley Community Theatre on October 12, 1974.

While unique at the gig level, it turns out that JGMS backing John Kahn's then-"old lady" Maria Muldaur, still flying high from a hit record or two, was actually not unique. Indeed, we have known from tape that she fronted the band on a few numbers --along with a drummer identified as "Ringo"-- on 10/27/74b at the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach, doing Fats Wallers' "Gee Baby, Ain't I Good To You". update: written by Don Redman, but done by Fats Waller.

It turns out that the latter was a pretty strict reprise, since they all did the same tune at the BCT show and the night after the BCT show, 10/13/74 at the Santa Barbara County Bowl. S.B. reviewer David Rowell didn't find much to like about the Garcia-Saunders set --"What was coming from the stage was, at worst, disdain; at best, a 'stoned' lack of awareness"-- but he liked Maria (who also played some tambourine on the number before her star turn). In hitting the previous link, I see that the sit-in is documented at JGC, but I had been unaware of it.

In previewing the Legion at the Granada on 6/26/75, the Santa Barbara News-Review even published a picture of the event in question.

One last point: the same 6/26/75 preview says Maria also sat-in when the Legion played Venice on 6/14/75, so there's a fourth JG-HOST Shared Stage event with Maria (three in SoCal), before she joined the Jerry Garcia Band in its 1977-1978 configuration.

! seealso: http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2011/09/recently-added-to-tjs-saunders-images.html

! ref: Rowell, David B. 1974. Garcia and Saunders take the back seat. Santa Barbara News-Press, October 14, B2.