JGB: Halloween 1981 - LN jg1981-10-31.jgb.early-late.aud-levene.88958.flac1644

Late Jerry loved playing on Halloween. In the last fifteen years of his life, the only years he is not known to have gigged on Halloween are 1982 and 1994.

Table xxx. Garcia on Halloween, 1980-1994. Orange is GD, blue is GOTS.

As indicated in the table, things were distributed across the GD (6 dates/shows) and JGB (7 dates, 9 shows). From 1985 forward Garcia played Warren Zevon's "Werewolves Of London", and a good time was generally had, as at the 1989 (a very good JGB show) and 1990 (a raggedy Dead show) iterations, which I attended.

On October 31, 1981, the Jerry Garcia Band played two Halloween shows to open its 18-show-in-20-night "Return of Ron Tutt" tour. Since Garcia had actually been in London at the start of the month, it seems plausible that he might have given "Werewolves" a shot, but it was not to be.

Nevertheless, any start-of-tour is interesting to examine, and this one has some of the telltale signs, including a burst of adrenaline in the early show followed by a shorter and more uneven late show. I have not directly A-B'd his vocals here against vocals later in the tour (I have addressed myself to 11/10/81b Palladium, 11/13/81 Boston, 11/15/81 Provy, and 11/17/81 Chicago), but my unsurprised sense is that they sound better here at the front end than they do at the back end. Update: 11/19/81 has a bone to pick with this idea. Obvious enough, but aAnyway, always nice to see how they sound, take JGB #14b's temperature.

The Tutt angle is especially rich. In 1981-1982, as he descended deeper into a drug haze when not playing, Garcia nevertheless, rather ironically, started getting his business affairs in order. It seems that one early order of business was to square up with Ronnie Tutt, one of the three principals dba Jerry Garcia Band from the very beginning of the JGB and who  for many years faced liens earned by Jerry and John well after Tutt's 1977 departure from the touring band. In later years, as his income grew, Garcia expanded this practice of engineering a payday or few for a collaborator he had done/allowed to be done wrong -- see Saunders, Merl and Grisman, David. Here, in late 1981, both Peter Rowan (who opened a number of shows on the tour) and Ronnie Tutt get to set the precedent. I don't hear anything that seems particularly emotionally resonant here - more typically, I hear Jerry and the band, perhaps particularly Tutt, getting themselves together a little bit.

Two more small pieces of preface. First, I grabbed this to put some context around 11/4/81, which I have revisited pursuant to Weiner (2014, pp. 67-76), and on which I hope someday to report. Second, in terms of tape archaeology, this is the only tape in circulation as of this writing (4/11/2015). I figure several masters must have sauntered into the Philly morning, but this is the only one to have come into the digital light. Thanks to John Levene and all involved in bringing these very nice tapes forward.

Anyway, a few bullets, in no particular order.

1. The tapes sound great.
2. The early show is very long (over 90 minutes), and is outstanding.
3. The late show is much shorter (just over an hour and a 10-minute encore, still not bad), but more importantly, it just doesn't light me up, finding Garcia having to pull the e-brake on as both "Valerie" and "I'll Take A Melody" fall apart. The one exception is "Russian Lullaby", which is stellar, a smoky sensorial mix of Django Reinhardt and Irving Berlin.
4. Jimmy Warren sounds absolutely fine. People have been way too hard on the guy.
5. "Valerie" is not quite together, but boy oh boy do I love this song.
5. Late 1981, JGB #14b, is a fascinating period. Garcia's voice is still present here at the start of the tour, but with just enough weary crackle to give songs like "Simple Twist Of Fate" and "I'll Take A Melody" the ballast they really need.

Listening Notes follow.

Jerry Garcia Band
Tower Theatre
19 S. 69th Street
Upper Darby, PA 19082
October 31, 1981 (Saturday)
Levene shnid-88958

--early show (8 tracks, 93:53)--
e-t01. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [9:15] [0:08] %% [1:08]
e-t02. Catfish John [11:29] [0:10] % [0:58]
e-t03. That's What Love Will Make You Do [10:48] [0:36] % [0:14]
e-t04. [0:21] Simple Twist Of Fate// [13:22#] %% [0:29]
e-t05. Knockin' On Heaven's Door [16:20] [0:10] % [0:18]
e-t06. (I'm A) Road Runner [9:01] [0:15] %
e-t07. [0:14] Deal [8:17] [-0:05] ->
e-t08.  Tangled Up In Blue [+0:05] [10:08] (1) [0:06] %

--late show + encore (8 tracks, 73:57)--
--late show (7 tracks, 64:44)--
l-t01. //The Way You Do The Things You Do [#7:28] [0:08] % [0:08] %
l-t02. They Love Each Other [6:56] %% [0:15]
l-t03. [0:10] Valerie :11-7:04 [0:04] % [0:36]
l-t04. I'll Take A Melody [11:47] %% [0:21]
l-t05. Russian Lullaby [10:14] [0:04] %% [0:30]
l-t06. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down [8:02] ->
l-t07. Dear Prudence [10:40] (2) [0:12] %% [0:16]
--encore (1 track, 9:12)--
l-t08. Sugaree [9:07] [0:05] %

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #14b
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-b;
! lineup: Jimmy Warren - electric keyboards;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - organ;
! lineup: Ron Tutt - drums;
! lineup: Julie Stafford - vocals;
! lineup: Liz Stires - 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/19811031-01 (early), https://jerrybase.com/events/19811031-02 (late).

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/88958 (this fileset).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/IBjq9

! venue: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/12/tower-theatre-19-s-69th-street-upper.html

! band: JGB #14b (http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html)

! seealso: 11/10/81b, Palladium, NYC (http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2014/03/ln-jg1981-11-10jgblateaud.html);  11/13/81, Orpheum, Boston (http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2014/03/ln-jg1981-11-13jgbearly-lateaud.html); 11/15/81, Provy (http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2014/03/ln-jg1981-11-15jgballaud.html); 11/17/81, Uptown, Chicago (http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2015/03/ln-jg1981-11-17jgballaud.html).

! data: Billboard, 11/21/81, p. unk, via Google Books: two sellouts, gross $58,276 on 5,960 tickets sold.

! R: field recordist: John Levene

! R: field recording gear: 2x Nakamichi 300 (cp4 shotgun) > Marantz CD330

! R: field recording location: taper: "I seem to recall that I taped the early show in the back of the floor seats, but no recollection of where I was for the late show?  I think it was the balcony."

! R: Transfer: Yamaha K-1020 > Sony SBM-1 > Nomad JB3 > Creative Play Center > Soundforge v6e > CDWav. reative Play Center software used to copy to laptop. Soundforge used to prep file for tracking. CDWave used to track and flac at level 8 compression.

! P: historical: Cognitively, we are drawn to variation, a point I discussed in "James Booker,  Classified". Methodologically, my day-job sistren and brethren like large random samples, and preferably Randomized Control Trials under asymptotically-approaching-the-experimental ideal conditions. Given the impossibility of that kind of construction in re my study of the Garciaverse, we'll have to select strictly *unrepresenentative* moments, informed by strong priors. For example, I am listening to this show precisely because it's got some unusual features from which I hope I might learn some things. Most obviously, this is the first night of the "Return of Ron Tutt" tour, 18 shows in 20 days on the road. In 1981-1982, as he descended deeper into a drug haze when not playing, Garcia nevertheless, rather ironicallym, started getting his business affairs in order. It seems that one early order of business was to square up with Ronnie Tutt, one of the three principals dba Jerry Garcia Band from the very beginning of the JGB and who  for many years faced liens earned by Jerry and John well after Tutt's 1977 departure from the touring band. In later years, as his income grew, Garcia expanded this practice of engineering a payday or few for a collaborator he had done/allowed to be done wrong -- see Saunders, Merl and Grisman, David. Here, in late 1981, both Peter Rowan and Ronnie Tutt get to set the precedent. Beyond that historical context, there's just the chance to hear the first night of the tour, see how they sound, take JGB #14b's temperature, and also to put some context around 11/4/81, which I have revisited pursuant to Weiner (2014, pp. 67-76). Oh yeah, one more thing: this is the only tape in circulation as of this writing (4/11/2015). I figure several masters must have sauntered into the Philly morning, but this is the only one to have come into the digital light. Thanks to John Levene and all involved in bringing these very nice tapes forward.

! EARLY SHOW NOTES

! R: this is a really nice tape - outstanding! There are some singers around, there's lots of ambience. There's also someone nearby who is quite knowledgeable, cheering John by name during his STOF feature.

! P: early show: I don't recall being lit up by the first three tunes when I listened to them spring break 2015. In returning 4/10/2015, a couple weeks later, I find this to be absolutely smokin. The band sounds great, everybody - Melvin a little buried in the mix but ethereal, Jimmy Warren playing well, the ladies singing powerfully for white chicks.

 ! P: e-t01 Weird little "ooh-ooh" backing vocal in HSII, a little arrangement variation to start the tour, but I think they'd drop it - wonder if they were asked to do so, or instructed to do so by Melvin?

! R: e-t01 HSII @ 3:48-3:56 real time gap. Listening to the crowd clap is just a joy - this tape sounds great.

! R: e-t04 STOF cuts in

! P: e-t04 STOF I am picking this back up a month or so after the notes from the first three tracks. Here I note Tutt sounding totally in the pocket, and Garcia singing well. The tape is great. Around 2:10 he hits a nice vocal thing, letting himself sound world weary, in a delivery that really suits the song. Huge long phrasings over 4. More long Jerry passages. John picks up his feature at 8.

! P: e-t05 KOHD Jimmy Warren takes a totally respectable solo late 7 to 8. Kahn sounds great, the whole band sounds great. As this songs ends after 16 minutes, I find myself reminded why I love this song during this era. Unlike the dirge of 1976 (which admittedly could clock in over 20 minutes, IIRC), this just hops really nicely along. I love how they arranged this with the organ, giving it a nice little lilt that it never had before. Awesome.

! P: e-t06 IARR so great! He doesn't get the lyrical progressions right, but it pops pretty nicely. Note that this is a real punchy tape and I find the music sounding punchy.

! P: e-t07 Deal this is real nice as Jerry takes another turn late 1 over 2, and he is playing very creatively and enthusiastically. 2:30ish "since you poured the wine for me", then a little vocal flub before "composin' loneseome blues". Big long 1981 vintage pull as he starts ramping Deal up ... that's a good thing. Nice feedback 4:15, great sustain, now picking up his action, characteristically great 1981-Deal-guitar. Pedals in some more raunch, dials up a little, 4:55 and over 5 he's starting to get his wail on. I can't believe he's going to play TUIB after this. Recall that 11/17/81 Chi and maybe 11/19/81 Denver are long. No shortchanging the early show ticket holders here on the opening night of the tour. 6:10 they are being treated to some serious rock and roll guitar, way up the neck 6:25 ish, mixing up long sustains and fast descending scales. Very nice guitar late 6. Doing a little Carlos thing start of 7.

! P: e-t08 TUIB first solo right from 2. Nice, sounds great. Very stringy (that's a good thing) 2:27. Another go 2:40ff, excellent. @ 2:57 Tutt hits a high hat that is perfection itself. Mid-7 just some great long TUIB expressions, very fluid and fluent. 7:58 big rock chord, faster rounds 8:07, huge feedback 8:15, wow, that is a keeper piece of feedback right there.

! e-t08 JG: "Thanks a lot. See ya later on."

! LATE SHOW NOTES

! R: late show: I suspect stage right/house left a little bit. Organ more audible late show than early show. It's very nice instrumentally, bass a little indistinct to start, now coming in l-t04 ITAM. As of ITAM I'd say the bass is still overloaded a little bit, unfortunate. This is the only circulating pull of a night that must have seen at least several tapes saunter out of both shows. Overloading again on "Sugaree".

! R: l-t01 TWYDTTYD cuts in. It sounds a little oversaturated, levels come down 0:17. Jimmy's piano very forward, way more present on the than Melvin's organ playing.

! P: l-t01 TWYDTTYD Jerry's first solo 1:44 he has turned up a little, comes in with enthusiasm and the tape picks up the crowd, pleased.

! P: l-t02 TLEO not my favorite choice, but I can be surprised sometimes. Here, because the tape has Jimmy Warren's electric piano so far forward, you can really hear what he could do, and I will say here that I think he sounds absolutely fine. It sounds like Jerry hasn't quite pinned down all of these arrangements with his band out on its first night of a very long tour. On TLEO, Tutt and Jerry don't seem sycn'd up to start, easy to say since it's just the two of them to start. But Jimmy picks up his part right on time. Melvin follows and they are providing a nice bass of support for the rhythm section to get together. I can't really hear John very well, so maybe he was responsible for the thudding start. It gets more together, but it never really goes any where for me.

! R: l-t03 Valerie taper has his levels way up and things overload until 0:16, when taper dials down.

! P: l-t03 Valerie, by contrast to TLEO, is a song I love, and this is a very early version that I look forward to hearing. On this tape, so from wherever we are in the room, we'll get a nice perspective on the early take of a great song in its too-brief place in the Garcia Band repertoire. My take is that it's what you'd expect for a new song on opening night of the tour in Philly. They are clearly pinning it down, but it's mostly fine and at times very good. Late 4 Jerry has stacked up some nice guitar and the crowd perks up its ears. Jerry delivers this song, with its shoulder shaking, finger-wagging, mane-shaking defiance, with the appropriate attitude. But then, whoops, early 6 he mumbles through a forgotten verse and is pulling the rip chord ... run away! John became audible there for a moment. So, it's a mixed bag, but interesting to hear. I love this song and you can already tell it has great promise from the get-go.

! P: l-t04 ITAM: This song sounds great in late 1981. Jerry can still sing, but he's already taking on and making good use of a weary scratch. He can still, just barely, sustain his notes, and he warbles his weariness with just enough remaining lung and force to get it a great swinging groove. He sounds confident, he's still moving ontstage with some swagger. Soon enough, heroin would trump cocaine and place the swagger with mooby, withdrawn stationarity, but not yet. On 10/31/81 in Philly Garcia can still bring it. Late 10 there is a nice scrub that sounds promising but then, in 11, and like Valerie, it just falls appart at some point ca. 11, and Jerry leads the close, preempting other trouble.

! P: l-t05 Russian Lullaby: "Russian Lullaby", how do I love thee? I love thee lots. I am really looking forward to hearing this, based on the start. Jerry and John are have constructed a bar scene in a Django Reinhardt - Irving Berlin suspensorium, to the drinker's soaked delight and amazement. This is careful, attentive music, totally respectful of the traditions, standing with and bheind them, spinning threads 3:20 and after 3:30, Tutt all gentle highhat, Melvin was playing so beautifully in this period, calm and spacious. Jerry 4:20 breaks off a shard, Jimmy feature 4:30ff and he sounds just fine, still fine over 5 and sounding great, with a glissando 5:11, cool and sounding very nice as he hands it off to John, 5:33ff. Tasteful piece. By 8:10 Jerry has bent in a little minor urgency, everything takes on a different color, John skipping lightly, Melvin and drums super tasteful.

! P: l-t06 TNTDODD This works well in this late 1981 Jerry voice. I worry about hearing this at the end of the tour, but here at the start it works well.

! l-t07 (2) JG: "Thanks a lot. See ya later."

Is Jimmy Here? JGB, Keystone Palo Alto, January 23, 1981

LN jg1981-01-23.jgb.all.aud-latvala.97205.flac1644

Well, I hear some electric piano here (see notes), but I think it's Melvin. So, as Corry indicated, this (along with 1/22/81) might be a hitherto unknown quartet configuration of Garcia, Kahn, Seals and Shaw -- no Jimmy Warren on second keys, as traditionally believed.

Otherwise, nothing to write home about, to my ears.

Jerry Garcia Band
Keystone Palo Alto
260 South California Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94306
January 23, 1981 (Friday)

--Set I (5 tracks, 53:57)--
s1t01. Sugaree [12:36] [0:07] %
s1t02. They Love Each Other [8:03] [0:07] % [0:05]
s1t03. That's What Love Will Make You Do [11:57] [0:09] % [0:05]
s1t04. /Mississippi Moon [10:56] [0:04] % [0:06]
s1t05. Deal [9:30] (1) [0:09] %

--Set II (5 tracks, 57:19)--
s2t01. The Harder They Come [12:35] [0:02] % [0:12]
s2t02. When I Paint My Masterpiece [10:10] [0:05] %
s2t03. Russian Lullaby [14:03] [0:05] %
s2t04. Dear Prudence [12:06] [0:04] ->
s2t05. Midnight Moonlight [7:47] [0:09] %

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #12a
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-bass;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - keyboards;
! lineup: Daoud Shaw - drums.

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/19810123-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/97205 (this fileset). There are no other known recordings.

! band: JGB #12a (http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-
1995.html). This is a quartet, very rare. Only these two shows (1/22-23) in this configuration. Then Jimmy Warren comes in, and later they add backing vocalists to turn it into a septet.

! R: Field Recordist: Dick Latvala;

! R: Field Recording Equipment: Nakamichi CM-300 microphone(s) > Technics 686 cassette
recorder;

! R: Field Recording Location: front tables;

! R: Post-Master Lineage: 1st generation cassette played back on Tascam 112mkII > Manley SLAM! > Anagram ADC (16/44.1) > HHB CDR 850 >  CD > EAC > WAV > tracking (CDWave) > flac encoding (FLAC Frontend, level 8). All transfers and edits by df.

! Notes: “- A huge thanks to Jeffrey Knudsen for supplying the analog tapes”

! Notes: “- Time between songs was either edited out by Latvala or recorder was off between songs"

! R: Recording is fine.

! P: not much to write home about.

! Q: s1t01 Do I hear piano @ 3:52 of Sugaree?

! P: s1t01 Sugaree Jerry's solo @ 6:59 is uninspired

! s1t03 TWLWMYD there's an electric piano solo @ 9:05-9:38 ... can I hear the organ behind it? I am not sure. I think I can.

! R: s1t04 MM clips in

! R: s1t05 Deal pop at track marker

! s1t05 (1) JG: "We're gonna take a break for a little while. We'll be right back."

! s2t01 @ 1:00ish, crowd guy gives a big ol "Yay Jerry!" Do y'thing, mang.

! s2t01 @ 7:31 Jerry starts in with the really round wah that would characterize his playing for the rest of his life. Think of his style on the GD's "Fire On The Mountain", big, fat, round and reggae. HTC did not used to sound like this (I say having just spent some time with June 1974). When did that round wah pedal really come in? Melvin is stepping up around 12:20 ish, but Jerry thinks discretion is the better part of valor and he shuts it down. I think Melvin was ready to tear it up. Before too long, I'd be this song has another several minutes on it, the delta comprised by Melvin Seals-lead interludes. Dude was born to play organ on "Harder They Come".

! personnel: I hear no electric piano in set II.

Melvin in the House: JGB, Keystone Palo Alto, January 22, 1981

LN jg1981-01-22.jgb.partial.aud-latvala.97266.flac1644

Corry listened to this and said he didn't hear two keyboards (in comments to his main post on Jimmy Warren). I don't think I do, either, but I'd love for someone to check the 2-minute mark of I'll Take a Melody and the 6-minute mark of Like a Road.

I have a much longer post about all of this, but for now I thought I'd post my listening notes.

Jerry Garcia Band
Keystone Palo Alto
260 South California Avenue
Palo Alto, CA, 94306
January 22, 1981 (Thursday)
partial show

--(5 tracks, 58:36)--
jg1981-01-22-latvala-partial-t01. Let It Rock [8:04] [0:03] % {8:07}
jg1981-01-22-latvala-partial-t02. Simple Twist Of Fate [12:53] [0:06] % {12:59}
jg1981-01-22-latvala-partial-t03. Like A Road [13:27] [0:04] %
jg1981-01-22-latvala-partial-t04. … Sitting Here In Limbo [9:09] [0:07] %
jg1981-01-22-latvala-partial-t05. [0:04] I'll Take A Melody [14:29] % [0:07]
[MISSING -> Midnight Moonlight

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #12a
! lineup: Jerry Garcia – el-g, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn – el-bass;
! lineup: Melvin Seals – keyboards (Hammond B3);
! lineup: Daoud Shaw – drums.

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/19810122-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/97266 (this fileset). There are no other known recordings.

! band: JGB #12a (http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-
1995.html). This is a quartet, very rare. Only these two shows (1/22-23) in this configuration. Then Jimmy Warren comes in, and later they add backing vocalists to turn it into a septet. See further notes below.

! R: Field Recordist: Dick Latvala;

! R: Field Recording Equipment: Nakamichi CM-300 microphone(s) > Technics 686 cassette recorder;

! R: Field Recording Location: front tables

! R: Post-Master Lineage: 1st generation cassette played back on Tascam 112mkII > Manley SLAM! > Anagram ADC (16/44.1) > HHB CDR 850 > CD > EAC > WAV > tracking (CDWave) > flac encoding (FLAC Frontend, level 8). All transfers and edits by df.

! Notes: “ - A huge thanks to Jeffrey Knudsen for supplying the analog tapes”

! Notes: “- Dick put this as fill on the 01-23-81 tapes sent to Jeffrey.”

! R: This is a really nice recording. Everything is there. Keys, bass, drums also captured very nicely.

! Setlist: my sense is that this is the end of set II (one can faintly hear Midnight Moonlight starting up). This fragment of tape supplies the only setlist information for the show.

! Historical: Personnel: I have noted that this is probably the great Melvin Seals’s debut with the Jerry Garcia Band, with which he’d play nearly without substitute for the next 15+ years. Melvin enters the taped record of his time with the Jerry Garcia Band with a nice, full, sweeping, on-key, sufficiently loud drop into this version of Let It Rock, about 25 seconds in. He is right there with everything to start Let It Rock. An impressive debut. This is also the public debut of Daoud Shaw with the JGB. On current understanding, he would play through June 1, 1981, though I’d want to widen my confidence bands around that estimate. Finally, as of December 2011, this has also been considered the public debut of Jimmy Warren, who played a Fender Rhodes electric piano. For almost a year and a half (into June 1982), the JGB would feature a twin keyboard attack almost unique in Garcia’s entire musical career. Yet it is not clear to me whether Jimmy Warren is here. Corry noted at Hooterollin’ Around that he is not present. I thought I heard a piano twice in listening to this, around 2: If that’s the case, then this is a previously-unknown quartet –Garcia, Kahn, Seals, Shaw—a relatively rare formation for Jerry. I guess now I need to listen to the next few shows, to learn more.

! P: t01 Let It Rock @ 2:20 he just does a second solo right away, and by 2:30 it's fanning like a motherfucker. Then he runs another bar of solos at 2:50ish formed not of malevolent fanning, but of aggressive, brassy picking and bending. Second verse comes in maybe 3:25 and Jerry is positively *enthused*. Melvin had been a little forward for a bit prior to this second verse, but we aren't really doing the Everything-I-Needed-To-Know-I-Learned-In-Kindergarten thing (to wit: “Share your toys”) thing here. Jerry’s just gonna keep soloing. That’s great. This is a brand new band. These other guys have maybe just been learning their charts and haven’t had time to think (nor reps to practice) soloing. And, hell, “When in doubt, let Garcia solo” is not a bad rule of thumb. Garcia is shredding like a motherfucker here, very much akin to what we’d hear on, say, February 4, 1981 at the start of the east coast tour.

! P: t01 LIR JG solo @ 6:50 just filthy. Not surprising that the only shows that sound remotely like this are also first-half of 1981. In fact, I’d say that there is a distinctive sound to the first half of 1981 (and obvious historic reasons for which they should sound of a piece).

! R: t02 enters with more hiss. There are a couple of indeterminate little clicks in the first 0:45, but give the picture that one can paint of taping this gig at this time/place (see the gloriously mindblown narratives that attach to the contemporary Jeff Knudsen tapes), and so one can infer that it’s from the master, its true nature is probably indeterminate, and it’s to be enjoyed as another artifact, brought to the future, of the glorious space-time confluence of the Keystone Palo Alto, on this night.

! P: t02 STOF @ 12-min mark is kind of a clusterfuck. It’s good that Jerry is trying to be assertive in signaling to these new guys that he wants to wrap it up, but it just comes off a little abrupt. And, for this era, it is pretty abrupt. This may well be one of the shorter pre-coma versions of STOF out there.

! setlist t03 This is the first “Like A Road” since March 14, 1974 (TJS).

! t03 Audience member calls out Like a Road while they are warming it up. What a knowledgeable audience! (I know it was released on Live at Keystone.) That’s gotta feel great to Garcia, to play to these people who know him so well, even in Palo Alto. I’d bet Freddie Herrera is on the peninsula when Jerry’s there. A nice, friendly, comfy crowd.

! P: t03 LAR Melvin Seals is a genius.

! P: t03 I think I can hear the electric piano in the 2-min mark of LAR. Piano playing while Melvin has got two hands, making his Hammond testify to us that there is, indeed, “a road leading home”. He is right there. I am not 100% sure it’s not Melvin playing organ with one hand and a little keyboard with the other … I just don’t know.

! P: t03 Like A Road is nice. It’s a little shaky, a little fragile. But think about what a genius choice it is when you have Melvin Seals, who has been spending 15 years of Sundays in Oakland churches, on the bench over there.

! R: t04 SIL enters in progress, not much missing. First 30 seconds sound is low (levels, loose cable, I dunno), more hiss and so forth, but things click in @ 0:32 or so and we’re back to a nice tape.

! P: t04 SIL @ 4:30 Garcia does repeats a nice little upward three-note run maybe three times. It’s pretty, not something I recall hearing him do much. @ 5:15 Melvin does a powerful blast off, where the Hammond is really vocalizing and says to the audience “I’m here!”. An aggressive, confident, and picture-perfect note. And you can feel the crowd jump back a little bit, and cheer. And even at this remove, that note gave me a little jolt. Well, guess what … Jerry heard it too! And they double-time it (not quite, maybe time-and-a-half-time it) for just a little bit. Really nice interplay between Melvin and Jerry, and I have to say that Daoud Shaw is right there in the pocket. That guy’s a pro.

! P: t03 LAR @ 11:57 Jerry shows a little vocal strain on “you travelin’ on” … it’s a little rough, but someone in the audience claps a little bit to pick him up. And in the context of the song (“and the road \ you’ve been travelin’ on \ doesn’t seem to be goin’\ anywhere”), it’s powerful. Not much sense speculating too deeply about people’s personal lives and proclivities, so that’s not the point. The point is just that that snapshot in time (Jerry feeling it, trying to get there but falling short, audience member picking him up and dusting him off, and Jerry gamely picking it up) is really evocative. The crystal of that moment embodies a lot of truth, tells us a lot. If the arc of anyone’s life is a series of moments, and if the idea of prosopography is that, given the time, energy, data, measurement technology and so forth, we can know things in ways approximating “truth”, then we could hold the jewel of that moment up, spend a long time with it, and learn an awful lot. The meaning of life might be hidden in that moment if we care to unlock it.

! Q: t05 Are there two keyboards @ 6:08 of ITAM, or is that all Melvin?

! P: t05 ITAM Daoud Shaw jumps onto a little double-time thing for awhile and gets Jerry to put his cape on. John keeps reasserting a slower pace (which I guess is his job), and after galloping around for a few bars Garcia digs deep and loud into a slightly more deliberate pace. But it’s a neat 30-second speed interlude in a song that almost never featured such a thing. @@ May well be unique (or I could find that it was always there, I just never noticed it until now).

! setlist: one can clearly hear the first notes of Midnight Moonlight coming out of ITAM.

JGB "1st Northern California Tour": August 6-8, 1981

One of the oddest little jaunts you'll find the in Garcia On The Side histories is one billed as the "1st Northern California Tour", comprising the following three off-the-beaten-path gigs:

• Wednesday, August 6, 1981, Sherwood Hall, 940 North Main Street, Salinas, CA
• Thursday, August 7, 1981, Freeborn Hall, UC Davis, Davis, CA
• Friday, August 8, 1981, Fox Theatre, 216 E. Main Street, Stockton, CA

I have just posted listening notes for the only recordings known to me of the August 6-7 shows (follow the links above), though the latter might well be from the 8th. If there are other recordings out there, even really nasty old cassettes, I'd love to be able to give them a listen.

Here I just want to reflect a little bit on this mini tour. Let me start with the ad that ran in BAM magazine. I first reproduce the full page in bad quality (including the TOC for the 7/31/81 issue of BAM, which is still an unindexed goldmine of late 70s-1980s Bay Area music information), and then a clearer but less complete scan focusing on the Garcia ad.

The tour is interesting for a few reasons. First, it occurs during a particularly fluid time in terms of membership of the Jerry Garcia Band. So I'll cover personnel issues first. Second, it's just a weird little tour. So I'll say maybe a thing or two about the tour overall, maybe a sort of business/economic aspect. Third, I'll just open up a slightly broader context to the rest of 1981.

First, personnel was extremely fluid around this time.

a. Keyboards. At the start of the year, Melvin Seals had come in on the Hammond B-3 organ, and after a few gigs Jimmy Warren was also brought on as keyboardist on his electric piano (I think it was a Fender Rhodes, but I am not sure). So, here we have Melvin and Jimmy Warren on keys, which is confirmed by the two tapes.

b. Drums. Historically, TJS did not show a drummer between 6/1 and 12/17, when Kreutzmann is said to come in. We know from our various discussions here and elsewhere, ultimately reflected in and derived from Corry Arnold's contemporaneous lists, that Bill Kreutzmann came in on drums for the Concord Pavilion show on September 7, 1981. I think he was also drumming in the Bay Area on December 17-18-19, while Ron Tutt had apparently taken the October-November 1981 national tour, as well as the other September '81 Bay Area shows. Anyway, Corry reckons that Daoud Shaw was around until Concord, i.e., through 8/23. That makes a lot of sense. Shaw and Essra Mohawk were an item, and both disappear from September 7 forward. So, here we presumably have Daoud Shaw drumming (though there are no guarantees of this).

c. Backing vocals. This is understood to be the short-lived Liz Stires-Essra Mohawk tandem on backing vocals. They debuted June 25, 1981 at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, their first, the first Garcia Band show with backing vocalists since the Donna Jean Godchaux-Maria Muldaur arrangement vanished in late 1978. Essra appears to be gone by 9/7/81, replaced by Julie Stafford, so apparently our "School House Rock" heroine only sang a dozen or so times with the JGB.) (For more on backing vocalists, see here for early 80s, here for mid-1982 and here for late 1983.)

(One further note here, on Concord 9/7/81, JGBP says "Actually GD Archives source mentions Liz's sister. It's handwritten. [MS 332 Ser. 3, Box 1:2, GDR: Show Files: GD Concert Dates-Tour Schedule, Grateful Dead Archives, Special Collections, McHenry Library, UC Santa Cruz, CA].)

d. Bass. This is usually a non-issue: it was John Kahn. But recall that on 6/25/81 (Santa Cruz), 6/26/81 (Fox Warfield Theatre, San Francisco) and 8/22/81 (Fairfax Pavilion!) Phil Lesh played bass with the JGB, and Kahn was not present. I don't know anything about why this was the case, nor why John would miss a few more shows in March 1982, when David Torbert filled in. No point in me speculating about it, I just don't know. Anyway, based on a review of the two tapes of this mini-tour that I have heard, The Mule is in the house.

e. Summarizing, here's my best guess as to the personnel of the Jerry Garcia Band for the August 6-8, 1981 "1st Northern California Tour":

• Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
• John Kahn - el-bass;
• Melvin Seals - keyboards (Hammond B3 organ);
• Jimmy Warren - keyboards (Fender Rhodes electric piano);
• Daoud Shaw - drums;
• Essra Mohawk - backing vocals;
• Liz Stires - backing vocals.

Second point for this post, what an odd little tour.

a) It was organized as a set, it was advertised in BAM, there were posters made, etc. There's a promoter behind this. Yet I don't see that kind of information in the materials. Doesn't seem like Graham, both because his name isn't on the materials and because it's just too obscure. He seemed to let littler, further downmarket, and/or farther flung places be by this time. Since most of them seemed to pose little meaningful competition (and many seemed to come and go, change names, and generally struggle), he didn't really need to compete on that margin. UPDATE: This is a Keystone Family joint.

b) The itinerary is pretty unlikely. San Rafael to Salinas to Davis to Stockton to San Rafael? Now Salinas has the whiff of Steinbeck and is close to Monterey. Davis is a really nice college town. Even Stockton, not generally considered a desirable place to be, brings some California Delta charm, where the Gold Rush meets the Central Valley, all of which one can appreciate in an anthropological sort of way. But not in August. We're talking easy triple digits in all three of these places, but especially Stockton. August 8th in Stockton ... oof. I start sweating just thinking of it.  I'll reserve judgment on the halls; a Fox Theatre can, of course, be a magnificent thing. So I am not knocking any of this, just suggesting that it's a bit odd.

c) Putting these together, it's the juxtaposition of utterly implausible levels of organization with utterly implausible itinerary that really strikes me. There are few other tours that look quite like this that I can think of. There were lots of obscure gigs in lots of obscure places beyond the core Bay Area over the years, of course. But most didn't have the faintest whiff of business professionalism about them, with the exception of the Freddie Herrera clubs (in which Ol' Jer played a ton, 'a'course). The only other tours were typically larger scale (N > 3 shows), usually further away (e.g., midwest <--> east coast). The SoCal tours bear the closest resemblance, such as the couple-day jaunts by Legion of Mary in March (7-9) 1975, Reconstruction in July 1979 and JGB in May (17-20) 1984. But SoCal is a plane ride, and anyway with all of John's people and places down there it's probably very comfortable. These places 100 miles from SF are actually less convenient in lots of ways.

Third, just a note about the rest of the year, especially re recordings. The Garcia shows that follow this one are pretty well represented. August 20-21-22-23 are ca. 70% in circulation (missing most of two of eight sets, less a little) and represent the last Phil Lesh guest slot (8/22) and the apparent end of Daoud Shaw and Essra Mohawk's time with the JGB. There are a number of dates from after that not in circulation that I know of (scanning TJS 1981, 9/20/81, 10/25/81, 10/27/81, etc.), but there's enough sprinkled through that we can interpolate across most of them.

Before this minitour is a different deal. Going back three months (to May), I see these dates unrepresented (back of the napkin only!): 5/20/81, 5/23/81, 5/24/81, 5/27/81, most of 5/28/81, 5/30/81s1 [now see shnid-116252], 5/31/81, 6/1/81, and 7/23/81 and 7/24/81 [now see shnid-132091]. Only 5.5 of the 18 JGB shows in this period currently circulate in the digital realm, to my knowledge. And the May shows might be interesting. Melvin and Jimmy and Daoud had been around since January so they were broken in, yet the evidence of what would come -- the recruitment of the backing vocalists from 6/25/81-- suggests that Garcia (and/or Kahn) was/were not satisfied with what the band was doing. As Kahn would tell Blair Jackson, "it wasn't one of our better bands" (Jackson 1999, p. 321), though it's not clear if he meant before the vocalists came, after they arrived, or both. We get the strong sense from this same material that Garcia's heroin use is escalated at this time. In any case, having almost an entire month of gigs missing here is a drag. If anyone knows of any of these tapes, please contact me, as I'd like to study them!

Anyway, mostly I just liked the artwork and wanted to shout out for BAM, and the rest of this is just an excuse to post those scans. ;-)

REFERENCE:
Jackson, Blair. 1999. Garcia: An American Life. New York: Penguin Books.

! see also: JGMF, "JG19810624: Wednesday, June 24, 1981, Sherwood Hall, Salinas, CA (UNCERTAIN)," http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2011/04/jg19810624-wednesday-june-24-1981.html.

LN19810129 JGB Catalyst Santa Cruz

Jerry Garcia Band, Sunday, January 29, 1981, The Catalyst, Santa Cruz, CA. shnid 111412.

So I thought I'd check out an early Melvin Seals JGB show as a reward for having concluded that his public debut with JGB was 1/22/81. Randomly picked this one. Pretty nice tape that puts you FOB, but the show is not much of a treat. In fact, it's a total trainwreck. I cannot recall hearing Jerry sound this out of it this early on. It's not quite as bad as ca. August-December 1984, but it's pretty bad. Melvin is bringing it, the drummer seems on, and it sounds to me like the main culprit is Garcia.

Anyway, this is a quintet, post-Ozzie Ahlers and pre-arrival of the backup singers in June, featuring Jimmy Warren and Melvin Seals on keys and Daoud Shaw on drums. By my reckoning this is their fourth show together. Things would get better very, very quickly ... the February '81 east coast tour is quite hot right from the get-go. So this sounds like a down night, warming up a new band, fighting technical gremlins. Can't win 'em all.

Jerry Garcia Band
The Catalyst

Santa Cruz, CA zzzzz
January 29, 1981 (Thursday)
JS MAC

--set I (4 tracks, 47:12)--
d1t01. How Sweet It Is [8:55] [0:12] % [1:15]
d1t02. Catfish John [8:55] [0:07] % [0:26]
d1t03. Like a Road [16:18] [0:03] % [0:09]
d1t04. Deal [10:23] [0:13]

--set II (6 tracks, 62:15)--
d2t01.  //Harder They Come [12:39] [0:10]
d2t02. % [0:05] Mission in the Rain [12:59] % [0:22]
d2t03. That's What Love Will Make You Do [9:29] [0:02] % [0:40]
d2t04. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down [8:21] ->
d2t05. Dear//Prudence [#9:24] ->
d2t06. Midnight Moonlight [7:54] [0:09]

This originally listed as shn 17145 with incorrect attribution and lineage.

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-bass;
! lineup: Daoud Shaw - drums;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - keyboards (organ);
! lineup: Jimmy Warren - keyboards (electric piano)

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [mm: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 [mm: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/19810129-01  

! R: field recordist: JS

! R: field recording gear: 2x Electrovoice RE-10 microphones > Sony TC-D5m

! R: Transfer: Nakamichi Dragon (Dolby B decoded) > Macintosh with Digidesign AudioMedia III sound card(A/D 44.1/16) > Pro Tools (minor "nip and tuck" edits, normalization and tracking - no EQ or digital noise reduction) > AIFF > CD > Toast > xACT (FLAC level 8 files with sector boundaries verified); transfer by JS.

! Recording: Nice FOB tape. Vocals are low, bass is pretty near inaudible, but the drums are right on you and guitar is pretty good. Keyboards nice and clear. Not too much crowd.

! R: d1t01 HSII some tape funkiness at start

! P: d1t01 HSII @ 1:22 Melvin does an 8-second sustain and then comes in with a nice solo. This is clearly early Melvin, and he is tearing it up! HSII goes for almost three minutes instrumentally, as they try to find the groove and as the sound people try to get things right. Jimmy solo, but Melvin solos over him, @ 2:12. Jerry's guitar is completely absent, then there's a crowd cheer @ 2:24 and Jerry's guitar comes in. Sounds like technical difficulties. First vocals don't start until 2:57! Then there is a lot of playing around before they land back .... Jerry starts the song back over at 6:46 with first vocals again ... yikes! He hits two clams in a row and sounds really, really bad. HSII vocals almost inaudible, more technical difficulties, @ start. Jerry sounds pretty sick on the opening vocals of HSII. Ragged. HSII @ 7:32 second vocals another horrible vocal clam. OUCH.

! Performance: Jerry's vocal weaknesses on this show, and his overall sound, lead me to conclude that he was probably not making healthy choices this night, or in any case was just off his game. I was going to lambaste the four-song first set, but I think equipment problems dictated that. There's a longish delay before the setbreak announcement (after Deal), Jerry sounds a little exasperated, and there are audible electronic gremlins out of the PA while he's talking.

! P: d1t04 Jimmy Warren is really not bringing much to Deal

! R: d2t01 HTC cuts in, enters on "battle won"

! P: MITR bad vocal flubs ca. 2:45. He sounds lost, and so he forgets the words, and he gets embarrassed and sings in a more constricted way, and so forth. A struggle. He is LOST.

! R: d2t05 Dear Prudence tape flip @ 0:05.1.

When did Melvin Seals begin with JGB?

Edited 20110216

The Jerry Garcia Band show listed as Saturday, December 20, 1980, Keystone Palo Alto, Palo Alto, CA, has always struck me odd. I argue here that (1) "12/20/80" is a "phantom" listing, a mislabel of 12/20/79. Along the way (2) I argue that "1/18/81" is also a phantom, a mislabel of 1/18/83. This leads to a new-to-me understanding of when Melvin Seals joined the band; I (3) conclude here that Melvin Seals's public debut as keyboardist with the Jerry Garcia Band was Thursday, January 22, 1981 at the Keystone Palo Alto, Palo Alto, CA. This can be seen as a companion piece to my query about the start of the Garcia-Saunders relationship.

Observation #1: all circulating tapes of "12/20/80" are actually copies of 12/20/79. No-one with ears to hear (or eyes to see, if one had been there) could confuse Melvin and his Hammond B-3 with Ozzie Ahlers and his electric piano (can't remember the precise gear right now).

Observation #2: the last reasonably well documented JGB show before "12/20/80" is August 9 (*shiver*), 1980, Keystone Palo Alto, Palo Alto, CA (shnid-29088 [partial sbd]). As we presently understand it, that is the last show of the Garcia-Kahn-Ahlers-Errico quartet version of the Jerry Garcia Band. (Errico would return on October 13, 1982, for another 8-month stint.)

Observation #3: I know of no hard evidence (newspaper ad, ticket stub, attendee recollection, distinct tape, etc. etc.) of a JGB show on 12/20/80. Gordon Sharpless, credited as contributor at TJS, has shared his conclusion that "12/20/80" is a misdate of 12/20/79 in comments.

Observation #4: there have been tape recordings labeled "Melvin Rehearsals", dated Wednesday, January 14, 1981 through Friday, January 16, 1981, at Club Front in San Rafael, CA. I have January 16th to listen to (thank you, wk!) but haven't gotten around to it yet. It's the kind of thing that is going to be all consuming for 90 minutes, and I tend not to have chunks of time like that. Tape datings are among the least reliable data sources we have --I have created a new tag called 'methodology', by the way-- but the coincidence of Wed-Fri rehearsals right before starting up the new configuration the next week is a strongly suggestive one. (I would have guessed that they'd gig on Saturday 1/17, but if they weren't ready they probably spent a few more nights rehearsing.) There may well have been further rehearsals, but there is no public information about that. Anyway, these rehearsals are consistent with a later starting date than "12/20/80" ... I don't think workaholic Jerry would have been rehearsing this new band for the 3-4 weeks required to have started up before 12/20/80 and still been rehearsing in the third week of January.

Observation #5: The next conventionally-listed JGB gig is Sunday, January 18, 1981, Catalyst, Santa Cruz, CA. This would be a plausible first gig for a band with a new lineup: Sunday night at the relatively out-of-the-way Catalyst. I see three reasons to conclude that this date is bogus, though. First, the tapes circulating with this date are all from January 18, 1983 (same venue, the Catalyst). Mislabels being what they are, this doesn't mean an '81 show on this date and venue didn't happen. Second, TJS had this note: "DeadBase's setlist for this show is a duplication of their 01/18/83 setlist and incorrect", and it credits gorshar as a contributor. This is exactly like the profile of 12/20/80, of course. Third, the manucript tradition (i.e., Corry's lists) never contained information on this show. Strike three and this date is out, as far as my current reasoning goes.

Interim Analysis. Here's what I think happened for both "12/20/80" and "1/18/81". The old manuscript tradition correctly had no listing for these shows. At some point a tape of 1/18/83 gets mislabeled "1/18/81" (easily enough), just as a tape of 12/21/79 became "12/20/80" (though this one has a less obvious orthographic explanation). This tape forms the basis of a Deadbase listing (most of which, but obviously not this one, drew from Corry's lists). When the Jerry Site comes around in ca. ?1999? or ?2000?, gorshar tells Ryan about the mislabel, but Ryan (rightly, conservatively) makes the note but keeps the entry in, just in case. But I am prepared to conclude here that 1/18/81 is also a bogus listing.

Observation #6: the next known JGB show is Thursday, January 22, 1981, the first of two nights at the Keystone Palo Alto in Palo Alto, CA (Jerrybase, shnid-97266 [Latvala's partial audience recording]). These are Melvin's presumed third and fourth shows, after "12/20/80" and "1/18/81". But I argue there that 1/22/81 is the correct dating for Melvin Seals's public debut with the Jerry Garcia Band. The two preceding dates, "12/20/80" and "1/18/81", are both phantoms, by my analysis.

Aside, re: personnel: Melvin would never leave the JGB's keyboard chair, putting in an astonishing 14+ years. Without checking the numbers, I think this makes Melvin Jerry's #2 onstage musical collaborator (in terms of frequency) outside the Grateful Dead, following Jerry's ol' buddy John Kahn. There is obviously much, much more to say about Mr. Melvin Seals, who continues, 30 years on, to engage this music as "Melvin Seals and JGB".

Aside re: venues: Corry's pathbreaking work on the Keystone complex, including his Garcia shows at Keystone overview, deserves to be borne in mind at all times. His economic analysis is especially important, really providing some good hard evidence about the Garcia-Keystone (let me use that as shorthand for Freddie Herrera and the whole complex here) symbiosis. He mentions the nice complementarities of Jerry being able to rotate through the various clubs, especially in this period when the Keystone Berkeley, Keystone Palo Alto, and the Stone (San Francisco) were all operating. I don't read him as identifying any further division of labor, but I have a hypothesis: the Keystone Palo Alto was more likely to be used midweek than either of the other two clubs. That's not to say the KPA never got weekend shows, just that, by the early 80s, if there was woodshedding to be done and a Keystone club was to be involved, it was more likely to happen in Palo Alto than in Berkeley or SF. Otherwise, it seems like slightly more out-of-the-way places such as the Catalyst and the River Theater got a disproportionate share of the "debut" action. And given the fluidity of JGB membership in the early 1980s (e.g., in terms of backup singers and drummers), there was an unusual amount of woodshedding to be done. I do think we could get at this with some very simple statistic tests, but I'll add that to the "to-do" list.

And a meta point underneath (or "over", anyway) that: maybe the fact that less central venues tended to get the "debut" performances in the early 80s is why information on precise starting and ending dates has been so inconsistent. Fewer notetakers and tapers = less carry-though to the present. An interesting sociology of knowledge involved in all this, but I digress ...

Upshot:

1. I argue and conclude that the "12/20/80" JGB date is a phantom
2. I argue and provisionally conclude that the "1/18/81" JGB date is a phantom.
3. I argue and conclude that Melvin Seals's public debut with the Jerry Garcia Band was January 22, 1981, following at least some rehearsals the week prior.

Source Check:
McNally, LST: no mention
Jackson, Garcia, p. 321: Melvin's arrival and tenure noted, but no starting date/timeframe given.
Jackson, cutting room floor: no mention.

JGB: early 1980s drummers and backup singers

I posted some listening notes from the 10/13/82 JGB show at the Catalyst in Santa Cruz, CA. A priori, two things are particularly interesting about that show. First, it's the public debut of drummer Greg Errico with the Jerry Garcia Band in this particular stint (he had done a mini-tour with them in July 1980). There's much more to say about him and that. Second, there are no backup vocalists, as this was a ca. four-show interregnum between the departure of two female vocalists after the June '82 east coast tour and the arrival of Jacklyn LaBranch and DeeDee Dickerson two unknown singers on 10/24/82 at the River Theater in Guerneville, CA. (I'll do a post or two on that show as part of this thread, I hope.) (For some more backing vocalists talk with data relevant to what I'll post here, see this discussion of the personnel working the late '83 JGB tour.)

As as so often the case, Corry replied with knowledge that far exceeds that which is the present public "state of the art". All of this has been known by Corry all along, mind you, but it just never made the various leaps from him to what's currently publicly "known". So glad he is blogging so we can recover and extend all of this!

Anyway, he left a series of great comments, which I am going to try to respond to ad seriatim before I try to summarize where I think we are in terms of the early 80s drummers and backup singers. It's more complicated that one might think. In fact, these are among the last reasonably consequential Garcia mysteries from the 80s onward.

Comment 1:
Do you know anything about Jimmy Warren? Where he came from, what he did before, whether he ever did anything after? I don't.

Warren wasn't a guest star, he was in the JGB for 18 months and played dozens of shows. One of the biographers (Blair?) said "he had problems," but who knows what that meant.

Not much to go on. I would love to be able to talk to him, to learn more.

Here's Blair: "Electric pianist Jimmy Warren was, to put it delicately, sympathetic to Kahn's and Garcia's offstage behavior ... even John Kahn admitted that 'things got kind of out of control around then. Jimmy Warren was just sort of a friend. It didn't work out and it went on too long ...'" (Jackson 1999, 321). I believe he mostly played a Fender Rhodes. He came in with Melvin in January of 1981 (I believe "12/20/80" is just a mislabel of 12/20/79). He and Liz Stires were an item, so this band initially had both the Liz Stires-Jimmy Warren couple and the Essra Mohawk-Daoud Shaw couple. I doubt he was especially "problematic" in terms of personal issues among those within Garcia's orbit at that particular time. Blair continues on pp. 321-322 about the fact that Garcia was in pretty deep at this point. I don't know anything about his tenure except that TJS lists his last gig as September 7, 1982. So, yeah, 18 months, no flash in the pan.

Comment 2:
Essra Mohawk and Liz Stires were the vocalists from June 25 '81 (Santa Cruz) through Aug 25 '81 (Keystone PA).

I don't list this 8/25/81 show. Should I? update: no, probably a phantom, and 8/23/81 is the last Essra show

I have just checked on 5/30/81 and 6/25/81, and indeed there are no vocalists on the former and two female backing singers on the latter. So I'd say 6/254/81 is, as far as we currently have evidence, the return of backing vocalists to JGB after 2.5 years of having none.

Comment 2: 
Julie Stafford replaced Essra Mohawk starting on September 7, 1981 (Concord Pavilion). Stafford and Stiles [sic] were the singers through June 24 '82 (Capitol Theater, Passaic). 

Julie Stafford is completely missed by TJS. I know that she is credited for background vocals on "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" from the Run For the Roses album. I never knew that Essra was in for such a short time, really just a handful of shows. In fact, I am a little bit skeptical of this. I have to go back and check some stuff.

What's more, I know that Liz Stires left after the Mosque (Richmond, VA) show on 6/22/82. She was not there for the rest of the tour. I need to revisit tapes, but a review of the 6/23/82 Stanley Theater (Pittsburgh, PA) show (1) says that there were two keyboard players and one female vocalist.

What's also strange is that an eyewitness to the 10/24/82 River Theater (Guerneville, CA) show, which we know featured the return of female vocalists after the brief four-show interregnum of 10/13 and 10/21-23, thought that "Julie" was one of the singers. This was how Julie Stafford first came to my attention as someone who might have sung onstage with JGB, something which another band member from this time has confirmed. Update: that appears to have been reference to 5/31/82.

Upshot, I have some doubts about this particular time period. Corry, can you say more about how you came to this understanding?

Comment 3:
David (Daoud) Shaw was the drummer for the Jerry Garcia Band starting in January '81, and he remained the drummer through Aug 23 '81. [ed: Comment 4 says this was 8/25/81, which was a phantom listing.]

I have always followed TJS and had Shaw in through June 1, 1981, which has always left open the question of who played the June-July-August shows. I am more than happy to fill Shaw's name into the drum slot here, but can I ask again about sourcing?

Comment 3:
The next JGB show [ed: after 8/23/81, implied by comment 2] was Sep 7 '81 at Concord Pavilion. Bill Kreutzmann played drums.For the three other Sept JGB shows (Sep 18 Keystone Berkeley, Sep 19-20 The Stone), Ron Tutt played drums. Tutt also played drums on the tour that started in Palo Alto on Oct 25 and headed East from Oct 31 (Philadelphia) through Nov 19 (Denver). On the Grateful Dead hotline, the tour was billed as "The Return Of Ron Tutt."

It absolutely blows my mind that it was billed this way, and that this has somehow been lost to history insofar as that is represented at TJS, etc. It also reconciles one little factoid which has been bugging me, which is that Ozzie Ahlers has said that Tutt played some shows after he left. These would be them, I guess.

I list Kreutzmann on 9/19/81 at the Stone, though that may have just been me following TJS. I did conclude that "[drummer] is an animal" in my listening notes.

Comment 3:
Bill Kreutzmann returned to the drum chair on Dec 17 '81 at Keystone Berkeley and seems to have held it through Jun '24 82. I have not absolutely confirmed that, however, and it's possible that there were subs at some show (Gregg Errico, Gaylord Birch, etc) or that someone else took over the drums entirely. I do know that Kreutzmann generally played drums at Bay Area shows during this period, because I asked anyone who went to a show. 

Yes, there is an old tape of 12/17/81 with audience chatter suggesting that Kreutzmann is in the house.  And, with you, I assume that there are some discontinuities or non-linearities kicking around from night to night.

So much for bullet-type responses to Corry's comments. What's the big picture?

First, we still have some meaningful gaps in our knowledge of who was on stage in the 1981-1983 period, especially. This is true in terms of drummers and backup singers.

Second, this is probably a case where lots of listening is required. I wish I were more perceptive in terms of being able to hear different drumming and singing styles, but I am not. Sometimes audience chatter and stage talk can reveal a thing or two.

Third, we may never be able to pin it all down. Much as I like knowing, not knowing is OK, too. Keeps some mystery in the whole thing.

Thanks for giving lots of food for thought, Corry!


REFERENCE:
(1) John Allison, "Garcia band hot at the Stanley," Daily Collegian (Pennsylvania State University), June 25, 1982, p. 13.