Triple-Booked Vassar: October 6, 1973

My post on Old And In The Way in Santa Cruz on Friday, October 5, 1973 referenced some of the band's contemporaneous gigs. One of these was a gig the next night in Berkeley.

In comments, I then noted that Vassar was advertised with Tut Taylor that same Saturday at the Exit/In in Nashville, whereupon commenter extraordinaire runonguiness pointed me to Andrew Bernstein's California Slim (2013, p. 139), which published a handbill showing Jerry, Vassar and the OAITW crew at Homer's Warehouse that same night.

So, ex ante, Vassar was triple-booked this night.

While I haven't checked for the Tut Taylor record that was being recorded this night, there is no tape of any OAITW, alas. But, thanks to various miraculous institutions (the concert review) and technologies (microfilm), I happen to know he and Jerry and the rest played the Berkeley gig, because Len Lyons (1973b) evaluated it in the next week's Berkeley Barb. He loved Asleep At The Wheel, which opened, and he admired Vassar, but he had little but contempt for Jerry's banjo playing and OAITW's whole style. I paste the review below.

Mr. Lyons was no Garcia fan. A few months earlier, he had excoriated the recorded-for-Fantasy July 10, 1973 JGMS gig (see, among others, here, here, here and here), urging readers, "Don't bother buying the record. Five years from now, you may be hearing it for free over Safeway's MUZAK system" (Lyons 1973a). He was, as I say, not a fan.

Vassar's Debut With Old And In The Way

Listing for "Old And In The Way" featuring Jerry Garcia, Richard Greene, David Grisman, John Kahn and Peter Rowan, Tuesday, June 5 at the Aquarius Theatre", Boston Phoenix, May 29, 1973, p. 27.

Mention for "Jerry Garcia, Richard Green [sic], 'Old And In The Way', June 5th, 8 PM at the Orpheum", Boston Phoenix, June 5, 1973, section 2, p. 16.

Old And In The Way (OAITW) was at one point, by some of those involved with it, foreseen as touring out-of-state during the summer of 1973. For various reasons which mostly remain obscure, the band hit the road for only a small handful of gigs. They hired bluegrass legend Vassar Clements to fiddle for the occasion. He hooked up with them on June 4 in Boston, they rehearsed in the hotel, and Vassar Clements debuted with Old And In The Way at the Orpheum Theatre on June 5th, 1973.

Follow the tag for Vassar Clements to see what I've had to say about him. No time. Time only for trivia.

The ads above raise two points. First, note that the earlier listing bills the band at the Aquarius Theatre on June 5th. I have no idea who or what that is, it may be a typo, but in any case we know that they played the Orpheum. Second, both pieces advertise Richard Greene on fiddle. It's interesting to imagine the timelines and/or information flows whereby that information got into the papers as late as the very day of the show. Hippies and their goofy marketing.

Anyway, there are two audience tapes known from the evening, and Andrew F. has recently compiled them into an optimal complete fileset, shnid-131167.

I listened to this recently, and, as has been the case lately, I don't have a lot of takeaways. Garcia's banjo really does not impress me, while Vassar's fiddle really does. There are a few little tidbits of color in the listening notes --local yelling for "Dahk Stah" to general amusement, and generally it sounds like a good time is being had by all.

Oh yeah, I believe t08 has been unidentified, but I believe it is the Grisman original "Cedar Hill".

Old And In The Way
Orpheum Theatre
1 Hamilton Place
Boston, MA 02108
June 5, 1973 (Tuesday)
composite auds shnid-131167

--main set + encore  (29 tracks, 110:48)--
--main set (25 tracks, 98:08)--
t01. Jon Scher intro [1:12]
t02. Old And In The Way Breakdown [3:30] [0:27]
t03. Tragic Romance [3:55] [0:12]
t04. The Willow Garden [5:12] [0:12]
t05. Going To The Races [2:50] [0:27]
t06. Muleskinner Blues [3:03] [0:19]
t07. 'Til The End Of The World Rolls 'Round [2:22] [0:16]
t08. Cedar Hill [3:40] [0:16]
t09. Land Of The Navajo [8:45] [0:23]
t10. band introductions [2:08] (1)
t11. Pig In A Pen [3:04] [0:12]
t12. Lonesome L.A. Cowboy [4:37] [0:03]
t13. (2) [0:09] Hard Hearted [2:59] [0:10]
t14. Panama Red [2:47] [0:12]
t15. (3) [0:08] Wild Horses [4:44] [0:17]
t16. Fanny Hill [3:35] [0:20]
t17. The Hobo Song [5:10] [0:18]
t18. High Lonesome Sound [3:38] (4) [0:39]
t19. Down Where The River Bends [4:16] [0:12]
t20. Love Please Come Home [2:42] [0:16]
t21. Lost [3:40] [0:10]
t22. Knockin' On Your Door [3:05] [0:11]
t23. crowd (5) [0:57]
t24. White Dove [4:38] (6) [0:50]
t25. Blue Mule [4:43] [0:17]
--encore (4 tracks, 12:39)--
t26. pre-encore tuning [2:02]
t27. How Mountain Girls Can Love [2:15] [0:22]
t28. Mississippi Moon [4:21] [0:22]
t29. Orange Blossom Special [3:10] [0:07]

 ! ACT1: Old And In The Way
! lineup: Peter Rowan - guitar, vocals;
! lineup: David Grisman - mandolin, vocals;
! lineup: Vassar Clements - fiddle;
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - banjo, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - bass.

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: 

! JGC: https://jerrygarcia.com/show/1973-06-05-orpheum-theater-boston-ma/

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/11889 (aud, shnf); http://etreedb.org/shn/83303 (allsoundz MAC), http://etreedb.org/shn/131167 (composite, this fileset).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/wve0H

! venue: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/09/orpheum-theatre-1-hamilton-place-boston.html

! listing: Boston Phoenix, May 29, 1973, p. 27;

! mention: Boston Phoenix, June 5, 1973, sec. 2, p. 16.

! R: Source: This is a composite edit of audience tapes shnid-11889 and shnid-83303. Thanks to the tapers! Transfer: SHN & FLAC > TLH > WavMerge > Wavelab > CD-Wave > TLH > FLAC 1644 tagged.

! Show notes: This is Vassar's first gig with OAITW, and Jerry's first performance at the Boston Orpheum (of 20). Allsoundz - the taper of the 83303 source - states that there was only one show (not early and late as previously listed) and that Doug Sahm was the opening act. Allsoundz also recalled there was possibly a set-break somewhere but this is not evident from the tapes; it appears the show might have been one long set with a three-song encore.

! R: seeder notes 1: "Composite notes: For this show, both sources had pros & cons, and it appeared that the show could benefit from a composite that joined the two together. Allsoundz tape 83303 has the benefit of being complete and with known lineage, but was recorded farther back resulting in a more distant recording, with a lot of thumping near the mic. And, while shnid-11889 is incomplete and with unknown number of tape generations, it was recorded closer, delivering a nice aural picture of the concert. The shnid-11889 taper appears to have been a lot closer to the stage, perhaps with the mic right on the stage, as the between-song banter from Spud and the boys can be heard clearly. shnid-11889 was chosen for the bulk of the show, with shnid-83303 providing patches and the final part that was missing from shnid-11889.

! R: seeder notes 2: "Allsoundz states that his tape is mono. It also appears that the shnid-11889 original recording was mono, as the Wav's are identical, albeit having been shifted out of phase, probably from the few generations of re-recording. For both sources, DC-offsets were removed, left and right channels were manually aligned, then each source was merged to mono for editing. Both sources were apparently running slow; shnid-83303 between 40 & 50 cents, and shnid-11889 between 75 & 85 cents. Each source was speed-adjusted as best as possible given the difficulties of dealing with these old tapes. It's probably not exact, but it's pretty close..."

! R: seeder notes 3: "Lots of small edits were done to soften mic-bumps, attenuate clapping, repair drop-outs, etc. Small FLAC size due to mono WAV data. Patches from shnid-83303 added as follows: Willow Garden 3:18 > 3:19, Lonesome L.A. Cowboy 4:29 > Hard Hearted 0:49, crowd end of Love Please Come Home 2:39 > Lost 0:06, crowd end of Lost 3:38 > Knockin' on Your Door 0:18, and crowd end of Knockin' on Your Door 3:04 > thru to end of the show. Enjoy! (Aug 2014)

! P: t02 interesting to have Jerry lead things off on banjo with this breakdown. Vassar steps up 0:34, oh my God!

! t10 (1) Note how PR introduces David: "David D. Dawg Diadem Grisman"

! t13 (2) PR: "We'd like to do a tune that Vassar recorded some years ago with Jim & Jesse McReynolds. The tune is called "Hard Hearted'."

! t15 (3) someone asks for Wild Horses, band member says 'you got it'. How could anyone in Boston have known to request this song? Maybe they set up one of the Brothers to ask for it, or these were some friends of the Rowans.

! P: t15 Wild Horses 3:06 JG's banjo just doesn't impress me. He sounds rusty, here and throughout.

! t18 (4) some talk over a dedication to Mr. Mcord? Mr. Gate?

! t23 (5) crowd yelling requests, some guy says play anything, some guy wrily says "Dahk Stah!" and everyone, including taper, laughs.

! t24 (6) Dawg: "We've enjoyed pickin' for you folks." Applause. Boston dude: "We enjoyed listening to you folks." Applause. Dawg: "We'll be coming back again sometime." "Dahk Stah" joker yells out again.

OAITW: July 18, 1973, Inn of the Beginning, Cotati

The McNally-Arnold JG List had listed an Old and in the Way show at the Inn of the Beginning, 8201 Old Redwood Highway, Cotati, CA, 94931, on Wednesday, July 18, 1973. This carried through to Deadbase (Corry Arnold having given a copy of the list to Stu Nixon) and through to The Jerry Site (Ryan having used Deadbase IX for the Jerry Site's foundational list). I have no idea how Dennis originally tracked this date down, because as far as I have known there's no tape, no ad, no nothing.

I don't have a copy of the IOTB calendar from July 1973, for some reason, though somehow I have the "July Notes" from the Flyer, which usually had the calendar on the front. Maybe July 1973, exceptionally, had no single calendar, but was laid our only through the narration of the Flyer. I can't remember. Anyway, here's the page where it discusses July 18th:

Inn of the Beginning Flyer, July 1973, 2nd page. Courtesy of Mark Braunstein.

At the bottom-right we see blurb for "Wed. & Thurs. July 18 and 19 SPECIAL SHOW" has a listing that will probably be of interest of anyone who cares about It's A Beautiful Day: "Many of you who follow rock and roll scuttlebutt know that the name IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY was awarded to the man who thought it up, so technically that group is no more. The music, however, belongs to the people making it. We are happy to to Sonoma County MOON featuring four out of five former members of It's a Beautiful Day."

There's also a little tidbit on Joy of Cooking, if any one cares: "On Wednesday [July 18, 1973], joining them will be David Anne and Friends. David, the original bass player from Joy of Cooking, will be introducing his new band." I think "Anne" is supposed to be "Annie", based on other materials, BTW.

Anyway, there's no mention of OAITW at the Inn this night in any of the pre-published materials (e.g., monthly calendar, Flyer, posters, advertisements).

But the ledger has MOON crossed out on these nights, and above Wednesday is written "Old + In The Way 80%". These ledgers were cross-checked at the end of every month and they strike me as extremely accurate as to who actually played (as compared with the pre-published calendars). So here we have this particle of a show floating in the air, and now we have a piece of information that confirms it perfectly. So perfectly, in fact, that I wonder if at some point McNally didn't see these notebooks? Mere speculation, but it'd be cool  if that were the case.

Oh yeah, and the show is historically very, very interesting. As I noted in my post on the 7/21/73b gig, Clarence White died on July 15, 1973. It seemed to hit all of these guys (Grisman, Garcia, Rowan, Greene) really, really hard, because by all accounts the guy was both a genius guitarist and a real Mensch. Beyond the emotional, there was also the professional reality for Rowan, Grisman and Greene that the Muleskinner Band would end. (Though one wonders, with the last known [to me] Muleskinner gigs being in March, whether that conclusion hadn't already been reached?) As I narrated it,

A few days later, we have a show listed as OAITW, a Wednesday (7/18/73) in Cotati, which I find perfectly plausible. This would be Vassar Clements's first Bay Area OAITW show. Gotta get warmed up together, run through some numbers? Do it midweek in Cotati.

This was in support of a post the main thesis of which was that Vassar Clements's membership in OAITW nearly merely qualifies as "membership", because he was basically a hired gun. I have much, much more to say about that at some point. Suffice it to say, for purposes of this post, that anything to do with Vassar's first Bay Area gig with OAITW qualifies as reasonably important. Even if it's "just" an entry in a notebook ledger. Given the overall verisimilitude of a gig this Wednesday night in Cotati, I feel pretty near 100% about this regrettably obscure evening.

The New National Anthem of Bluegrass: OAITW, Stinson Beach Community Center, September 30, 1973

 LN jg1973-09-30.oaitw.all.aud.11862.shnf

Old And In The Way
Community Center

32 Belvedere Avenue

Stinson Beach, CA 94970
September 30, 1973 (Sunday)

This old fileset (shnid 11862, probably created around September 2002) has always interested me. The format of the info files was very distinctive around a whole big batch of the iffily-lineaged OAITW shows. The material was obscure and remains, I am persuaded, almost wholly unlistened-to (though widely collected). The tapes tend to be a little rough around the edges. Information is sketchy. But whichever grizzled old OAITW fan(s) preserved and digitized these tapes, I thank you. Because they capture some fantastic music.

Case in point: Sunday, September 30, 1973, at the Stinson Beach Community Center. Stinson Beach is very evocative for all kinds of reasons. First, if you’ve ever been there, well, you understand it’s appealing. Second, of course, the principals in Old And In The Way (Peter Rowan, David Grisman, Jerry Garcia) all lived in this little town. Garcia’s place, Sans Souci (“No Worry”), has its own deep importance. It’s the house that Mountain Girl wanted that led to Jerry’s first solo album, Garcia. It’s where the Signpost to a New Space interviews were conducted (see reading notes and dates). It, and especially through about 1973, seems to embody a very brief moment of relative domesticity for Jerry. I don’t know when he’d move out, but my notes say that by end of 1975 he and MG had basically split up. Anyway, this is a brief moment when life is good at home and at work. Garcia’s playing around like crazy and living life to the fullest. Nice.

update-20150103-It gets even nicer feeling: this was a benefit for the Bolinas-Stinson School District's music programs - 2 p.m. start. Way to give back to the community, young men!

So this hometown gig, from an unknown (to me) audience recordist, is just a whole lot of fun. The tape isn’t perfect, and neither is the gig. But it’s one I find myself listening to with fair regularity. In a circumstance in which listening time is the dearest commodity, that really says something. It feels good to listen to this. I don’t have the energy to do a full-blown analysis on this, so let me just go shotgun style.

1.     Vassar Clements is a genius. Check out “Lonesome Fiddle Blues” or “Kissimee Kid”. (By the way, I have no idea why it’s spelled with only one ‘m’, when the town in North Florida which is being referred to –Vassar’s hometown, or close to it—is properly spelled Kissimmee. I see it spelled “incorrectly” in the liner notes to Breakdown. I wonder if this is a stoned Deadhead thing that has just lived on forever? Sheesh.) And it’s not just the fiddle tunes that he tears up. He tears everything up. Right on, man.

2.     David Grisman introduces “High Lonesome Sound” [Allan | Scofield] as “The new national anthem of bluegrass music.” I am surely reading too much into this, but we know that David Grisman was a very ambitious young man. I wonder if this was, indeed, his ambition? We have often heard that Old And In The Way was the best-selling bluegrass record of all time, for a time. We don’t really know if that’s true, at least I don’t. But it’s not hard to imagine David seeing the band as fixing to conquer the world. And if that’s the case on 9/30/73, and if they play some incredible shows through October 8^th (which they do) and things are going really well, then why did OAITW end so suddenly? There’s the makeup gig at Sonoma State and a 20-minute reunion on April 28, 1974. That’s it. (I show a Nov. 8^th date with no other information. I have no idea where it comes from, but I doubt it’s anything other than a phantom.) I am just trying to reconcile in my mind the sense of ambition and possibility that I hear with the knowledge that it would end very, very quickly from this point.

3.     The performance is just lovely. “That High Lonesome Sound” is a fantastic song (a Peter Rowan original). “Land of the Navajo” is beautifully done. Hell, all of the Rowan songs are really, really good. As are all of the bluegrass songs. Etc. You get the idea.

4.     The little bits and pieces of things we know about OAITW said that they played some really local gigs such as this one. It’s nice to have one tape of neighbors getting together for an evening of music like this, Jerry just Jerry and not Jerreeeee. Indeed, the fans seem more crazed for Vassar than for the bearded freak playing the banjo.

Listening Notes, not real elaborate, follow.

Old And In The Way

Community Center

32 Belvedere Avenue

Stinson Beach, CA 94970

September 30, 1973 (Sunday)

93 minute audience recording, shnid 11862

Disc 1 (11 tracks, 47:00)

d1t01 - [0:04] /Going To The Races [2:12] [0:10]

d1t02 - [0:13] On And On [3:42] [0:06]

d1t03 - [0:30] (1) Lonesome Fiddle Blues [2:45] [0:06]

d1t04 - [0:17] Land Of The Navajo [8:43] [0:21]

d1t05 - Eating Out Of Your Hand [2:28] [0:06]

d1t06 - [0:33] Panama Red [2:47] [0:37]

d1t07 - Pig In A Pen [3:02] [0:09]

d1t08 - [0:10] Hobo Song 5:18] [0:20]

d1t09 - [0:12] Lonesome L.A. Cowboy 4:26] [0:10]

d1t10 - [0:42] (2) White Dove [4:36] [0:05]

d1t11 - [0:12] Workin' On A Building// [1:57#] [0:02]

Disc 2 (10 tracks, 46:23)

d2t01 - [0:02] //Swing Low Sweet Chariot [#3:29] [0:15]

d2t02 - [0:35] Kissimee Kid [3:17] [0:16]

d2t03 - dead air [0:08] [1:26] Wild Horses [5:24] ->

d2t04 - Midnight Moonlight [5:12] [0:38]

d2t05 - [0:35] Drifting Too Far From Shore [4:39] [0:03]

d2t06 - [0:13] I Ain't Broke But I'm Badly Bent [3:12] [0:17]

d2t07 - [0:12] Wicked Path Of Sin [2:23] [0:13]

d2t08 - [0:10] Lost [3:34] [0:40]

d2t09 - [0:30] (3) High Lonesome Sound [3:28] [1:01]

d2t10 - [0:08] Blue Mule [4:39] [0:38]

! ACT1: Old And In The Way
! lineup: David Grisman - mandolin, vocals;

! lineup: Peter Rowan - guitar, vocals;

! lineup: Jerry Garcia - banjo, vocals;

! lineup: John Kahn - bass;

! lineup: Vassar Clements - fiddle.

JGMF:

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

! TJS: http://www.thejerrysite.com/shows/show/977

! db: shnid 11862 (this fileset).

! venue: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2011/09/community-center-32-belvedere-ave.html
 

! R: Definitely an audience recording. L channel is out for the first several minutes, until about 2:16 of LOTN.

! R: Given lineage: "AUD (DAT: MAR > D > CD)"

! R: Given Comments: "This sometimes is listed as a SBD, but I believe there is just one source for this, a really nice FOB audience recording."

! d1t01 Going To The Races clips in

! d1t03 (1) Vassar Clements ("from Nashville, TN") introduced by David Grisman.

! d1t04 Land of the Navajo is very nice

! d1t10 (2) DG: "What would you like to hear? ... Sunday ... hymns ... hers"

! d1t11 WOAB cuts out

! d2t01 SLSC cuts in

! d2t09 (3) DG: "The new national anthem of bluegrass music, better known as 'The High Lonesome Sound'."

! preview: "Bluegrass Group To Play Benefit," Independent-Journal [San Rafael, CA], September 29, 1973, p. 4.

Vassar Clements Discography

Vassar Clements Discography at deaddisc: http://www.deaddisc.com/GDFD_Vassar_Clements.htm

Welcome to your new home, Vassar Clements: OAITW at the Keystone, 7/21/73

LN jg1973-07-21.oaitw.b-live-all.sbd-PNW.113845.flac1644
 
updated 20110629-1438 EST

updated 20200723

We have here a 94 minute soundboard of Old And In The Way, identified as at the Keystone, 2119 University Avenue, Berkeley, CA, 94704 on the evening of Saturday, July 21, 1973. The tape was in the collection of Will Boswell via Jerry Garcia’s own copy, held and apparently shared by his once and future main squeeze, Debbie. Matt Smith is doing the transfers, and I tend to shorthand these as ‘PNW’ because they emanate from the Great Pacific Northwest. This same source also supplies a rehearsal tape, said to be from earlier this same afternoon at the Lion’s Share, a club which would have been local to the Marin- --and, for a number of them, specifically, Stinson-- based freaks in the band, at 60 Red Hill Avenue in San Anselmo. As Matt pointed out in his notes, it’s neat to have a rehearsal tape and a gig tape from the same day, provides a nice “day in the life” feeling, back when Garcia could still mostly live like a human being.

It’s terrific material, and we are all incredibly fortunate to be able to listen to it. We have to remember what lucky music fans we are. Here we have rehearsal and gig tapes, nice tapes, of the great Vassar Clements. (And all the rest of these guys, natch.) We can study this stuff intensively and extensively. It’s great stuff.

Little outline for what has become a longish (for me) note.

• I. Dating: Might as well call it 7/21/73b.
• II. Aside: Was there a Boarding House show on 7/23/73? tl; dr: YES
• II. Personnel Comments
• A. John Kahn
• B. Vassar Clements
• 1. Welcome to the Bay Area as Member of OAITW, Vassar!
• 2. The Arc (or Three Bursts) of Vassar with/and OAITW
• 3. Was Vassar Clements a "Member" of OAITW?
• 4. The Improbable Junction of Vassar and the Rest of These Guys?
• 5. Clarence White and Muleskinner, RIP
• 6. Was it Mostly About Making (a) Record(s)?
• III. Setlist and Repertoire
• IV. Listening Notes

I. Dating

The gig tape under analysis comes with impeccable provenance, as described in the 1^st graf. It says 7/21/73, and that should be our operating assumption, our baseline.

Yet, some questions arise around this dating.

First, this is the same material that has historically circulated as "7/23/73 Boarding House" (e.g., shnid-4490, shnid-4491, shnid-11888). A priori, a Monday night gig at the Boarding House sounds a little unlikely. Furthermore, I have not seen any evidence for the 7/23 dating other than recordings, though it’s possible I have not looked. The McNally-Arnold JG List lists neither date. update: plenty of listings and such for the 7/23/73 Boarding House show. There are ads in support of a 7/21 listing. If this were all, I’d say it’s an overdetermined, closed case of a more credible tape label and other evidence defeating a less credible tape label. Full stop.

But that’s not all because, second, this recording raises a few questions.

(1)  why is John Kahn not present here (I don't think -- see personnel note below), when he was at the afternoon rehearsal (he does play on the 7/21/73a rehearsal)?

(2)  Why does audience member ask for "Wild Horses" toward the end of this fileset (see d2t10 note 4 below) when they had already played it as the performance is represented here (d1t09 as released; d1t10 on my retracked copy)?

(3)  The placement of certain cuts and chatter doesn't make sense. For example, they say they are on their last number before Hobo Song, but then there's a setbreak announcement after High Lonesome Sound, which is presented as the last song of the night. It's just not consistent with this being in the same order in which it was played, which opens up more general questions and joins with the questions above to raise some doubts.

(4)  Not a question and certainly not a criticism, but the nature of the recording--lots of tape discontinuities-- makes it impossible to know where things should go.

Overall, there's no smoking gun, nothing that unambiguously supports or contradicts either dating for this material. Maybe it’s a little of both. Maybe it’s other dates. Maybe it’s a hodgepodge. We just can’t know, and so I conclude that we should just keep calling it "7/21/73b", the live gig at the Keystone on the Saturday night, after the earlier rehearsal that same day, the 2nd night of weekend in Berkeley, etc.

II. Aside: was there an OAITW show at the Boarding House on Monday, July 23, 1973?

Update: TL;DR: Yes! 

mention: San Francisco Examiner, July 20, 1973, p. 33;

! mention: San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle Datebook 19730722p27;

! listing: San Francisco Chronicle, July 23, 1973, p. 40;

! listing: San Francisco Chronicle, July 23, 1973, p. 41;

! listing: San Francisco Examiner, July 23, 1973, p. 23.

et la pièce de résistance: OSF has a tape of it! QED.

The only evidence known to me is a tape label which, as I have just elaborated, probably loses a provenance test to the PNW source. It is interesting that it did not figure on the McNally-Arnold JG List. More often than not, a tape with these features –not on that list, and duplicating material dated differently—will turn out to have been a mislabel. The Jerry Site's 7/23/73 entry notes contribution from Ed Perlstein, who is pretty good provenance himself. If TJS contributor Kurt Asplundh can shed any light, or anyone else for that matter, that'd be great!

This little period is clearly unique (as they all are, I know!), and might  involve otherwise-implausible gigs because of the details of Vassar’s involvement.  Let me elaborate.

Vassar joins up with OAITW on the East Coast on June 4, 1973, warms up with ‘em in the hotel room, and plays gigs in Boston (Orpheum Theatre, June 5), Passaic (Capitol Theatre, June 6^th, ?Garcia’s first John-Scher booked non-GD gig?) and the Palace Theatre in Waterbury, CT (June 7^th – not 100% sure about this listing). Then they do the Whippoorwill Festival in Warrenton, VA on June 8, 1973 –about which I plan on saying a considerable amount at some point, Garcia burns for two days with the GD and the Allmans and others at RFK in DC, and then one more gig at Temple University-Ambler in Ambler, PA on the 11^th.

After that, Garcia does a tour with the GD after apparently taking a weekend off (Friday 6/15/73 and Saturday 6/16/73 … anyone wanna bet he had his guitar handy, wherever he was?). Then he and Merl warmup on a Thursday at the Lion’s Share (July 5, 1973) before recording a series of shows for commercial release. The 7/7 show is a mystery, but the great July 8^th Record Plant session is a great way to get ready to record. Then come the July 10 and July 11 JGMS shows which gave us a whole mess of officially released material. Live at the Keystone (Fantasy F-79002, 1973), Keystone Encores Volume 1 (Fantasy FCD 7701-2, 1988), Keystone Encores Volume 2 (Fantasy MPF 4534, 1988) were on vinyl. As Scofield notes, “the tracks from the original double LP and the two 1988 releases were reconfigured and released as” the CDs Live At The Keystone Volume 1 (Fantasy FCD 7701-2, 1988) [JGMF], Live At The Keystone Volume 2 (Fantasy FCD 7702-2, 1988) [JGMF], and Keystone Encores (Fantasy FCD 7703-2, 1988) [JGMF]. As far as can be determined from existing setlists, all but three or four of the songs played at this pair of dates were released.

On July 15, 1973, guitar legend, apparent übermensch and Muleskinner compadre Clarence White is killed in a car accident. This forms a piece of the Muleskinner-OAITW jigsaw puzzle that Corry has started to unravel in his "1972-73 Muleskinner/Old And In The Way Timeline" at LLD. At the very least, there's a weird emotional register to the 7/21/73b material that might be partly accounted for by the melancholy of such a moment. Not a lot of cutting up, laughing. Vassar as the only one really yee-hawing it up. (I am not accusing him of being insensitive, BTW. Just pointing it out. We all deal with this stuff as we do. And I think Vassar knew Clarence. Hadn't Vassar been in So Cal for a bit, sort in his Earl Scruggs Revue and Will the Circle Be Unbroken period?)

A few days later, we have a show listed as OAITW, a Wednesday (7/18/73) in Cotati, which I find perfectly plausible. [edit: indeed!] This would be Vassar Clements's first Bay Area OAITW show. Gotta get warmed up together, run through some numbers? Do it midweek in Cotati. I bet it was an absolute blast ... oh to have been a fly on the wall. There are some canceled GD gigs in this window (Duke University, Friday 7/20/73, per Deadbase IX), the weekend in Berkeley, a gig at Crabshaw Corner in far-flung Sacramento –perhaps Garcia’s first GOTS gig in that Queen City (2/12/72 is spurious here)--, then down to Homers Warehouse in Palo Alto on the 24^th before Garcia leaves for Watkins Glen. My friends, that’s six out of seven nights with OAITW. (Jerry spent his “off” night from OAITW with JGMS on 7/19/73, a party gig put on by Fantasy to celebrate the release of Merl's Fire Up. Slacker.)

So my notion is that they played like hell when Vassar arrived to make him some gittin’ started money, and that this makes a 7/23/73 Boarding House gig totally plausible. Maybe it’s not on the old lists because they got a last-minute, Monday night booking? Maybe this is related to the GD's cancellation from Duke? If you owned the Boarding House, wouldn’t you do it? Hell, yeah. Gotta be better than however many dime beers you’d sell otherwise.

Wow, that got long, sorry. Anyway, bottom line: 7/23/73 Boarding House seems pretty rock solid.

Update: there is no longer any doubt. It happened, and Bear taped it.

III. Personnel

A. John Kahn (June 13, 1947 - May 30, 1996)

Is he here? For the life of me, I do not hear a bass player. I think, instead, the bottom I hear is mostly from Peter Rowan’s guitar. It’s possible that Kahn wasn’t mic’d for some reason. But it’s also possible he’s not there. As I note above, this would raise some question as to the dating, since he is present on the 7/21/73a afternoon rehearsal tape. Maybe there was an emergency or he got a flat tire, no idea. And not a big deal in the scheme of things. But the number of shows that Garcia played without either Phil Lesh, John Kahn or David Torbert on bass is strikingly small, and any deviation is probably worth noting.

B. Vassar Clements (April 25, 1928 – August 16, 2005)

1. Welcome to the Bay Area as Member of OAITW, Vassar!

As I noted in discussing the rehearsal tape, this was a pretty big night for OAITW. Insofar as anyone invested any hopes and dreams in this agglomeration, Saturday 7/21/73 in Berkeley was important. I hypothesize that it was conceived as the introduction of fiddle legend Vassar Clements as a member of OAITW to the home crowd (after the smaller "hello" in Cotati on 7/18). I admit that I am mostly basing this on the ad, with its “Special Guest Fiddler From Nashville Vassar Clements” addendum, but it also makes sense. We know that these guys, and it seems to me most notably Grisman, were pleased as punch to have Vassar on board. And why not? The man was a deserved legend.

2. The Arc (or Three Bursts) of Vassar with/and OAITW

I have already chronologized a little above, but let me summarize it in a table, with data derived from the Jerry Site (but excluding the mid- and late-summer 1973 bluegrass festivals, at which OAITW almost certainly did not play).

Old And In The Way w/ Vassar Clements. Data source: The Jerry Site.

OAITW with Vassar Clements amounts to something like twenty shows, total. And, when you look at the pattern I have set out above, you see that it was actually approximately three one-week spurts of gigging, with a single one-off in the middle. (I’ll add that I’d like to see evidence that OAITW played that 8/22/73 gig. Color me skeptical until I do.) You get a spurt in June, one in July, and one in October. The November gig was a reschedule from an earlier cancellation, and then OAITW played one more time, a special reunion to close out the Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival on Sunday, April 28, 1974. That’s it!

3. Was Vassar Clements a "Member" of OAITW in the formalistic way I understand that term (as distinct from "invited guest", as distinct from "sitting in")?

All of this, and some conversations I have been having about the meaning of such concepts as "band", "group", "membership" and others, leads me to revisit something. Here's a tighter view on the Keystone Berkeley ad from the Berkeley Barb, July 19, 1973 - August 1, 1973, p. 21:

Vassar is listed as a "Special Guest". Without taking that word as if it were consciously deployed in the same sense in which I mean it, I wonder if "guest" isn't closer to the truth of Vassar's connection than "member". I don't know. It's heretical and contradicted by the language used by everyone else, as far as I know. But these three one-week spurts ... I wonder when the plan to record live (which is represented by all of the releases featuring material from the October 1 and October 8 shows, recorded by Bear) was hatched, by whom, and if this thought wasn't hand-in-glove with bringing Vassar in? In this sense, I wonder if Vassar wasn't more than a hired gun -- an amazing one, but a hired gun nonetheless?

All we ever hear about Vassar coming in are vague platitudes of the "he was great, he was available, we jumped at the chance" variety. "[fill-in name here, Grisman or Rowan] just called him up." Those things are probably mostly true/accurate. But I certainly think there were good, clean professional and pecuniary motivations at work, too.

update: yes, from the vantage of 2020, I consider him a full-fledged member of the band.

4. The Improbable Junction of Vassar and the Rest of These Guys?

Now, to start, it's not improbable in the sense that they were all pretty hot musicians wanting to play hot music with other hot musicians. We don't need to be musicologists to understand that this drives a lot of things! And the fabric of bluegrass was woven pretty densely, so there are almost certainly a large number of small-world network linkages between these five guys. So I don't want to overstate the case.

But, yet, here's a Southerner (born in North Florida, i.e., the Deep South), 15-20 years older than these other guys, pomade-slicked-it-was-a-crewcut-once 'do, apparently coming off a drinking problem which put his career on hold for some number of years ca. late 1960s-start of 1970s, been gigging around with the cutting-edge Earl Scruggs Revue and and meeting-of-the-generations Will the Circle Be Unbroken project around that same time, who can tear the fucking fiddle to shreds and make you weep while he does it.

Here's fellow former Blue Grass Boy Pete "Panama Red" Rowan, now chasing the next line, Marin on top of LA on top of Bahston, via the Land of the Navajo. Here's the very scruffy and very far-out spacy, but exacting and smokin'-hot-pickin' David Grisman, just out of his "David Diadem" phase and on the verge of creating a pathbreaking musical style of his own. Maybe a big tall feller on the big fiddle, quiet, smart, funny, good player. Last but not least, you learn when you meet him, here's a 'lectric guitar rock star who was once a banjo star. Jerry Garcia is a hairy, hairy freak of a man, but he's a force of nature on every dimension that might matter.

I guess I think the shared interests and the shared networks and the setting and possibilities combine to make the Vassar-OAITW connection. They are in Marin County, CA, it's summertime, they've got a built-in ticket-buying audience (thank you, JERRY ... Jerry ... jerry ... GARCIA ... Garcia ... garcia !!! ... !! ... !), record company lined up ... why the hell not? Line up a bunch of gigs, get warmed up, roll some tape, and then see what happens.

5. Clarence White and Muleskinner, RIP

One other thing. Having just revisited Corry's post on the Muleskinner-OAITW connections. To recap, the members of Muleskinner were as follows:

• Peter Rowan-guitar, vocals
• Clarence White-lead guitar, vocals
• David Grisman-mandolin, vocals
• Richard Greene-violin, vocals
• Bill Keith-banjo

John Kahn also played some bass with Muleskinner, and recall that Richard Greene played fiddle with OAITW for a month or two ca. April-May 1973. So there's massive overlap between the two groups. Corry describes Clarence White's passing thusly:

July 15, 1973: Clarence White died after being hit by a drunk driver at 2am in Palmdale, CA, while White was loading equipment into his car. It would take me 10,000 words to explain how great a player Clarence was, and I'm not even a guitar player (apparently it takes even more if you can play). Suffice to say, any plans that Grisman, Rowan and others may have had for "Muleskinner" would have been put permanently in abeyance with Clarence's untimely death.

At the risk of being crass, I wonder if Clarence's passing, and, as Corry notes, the demise of any professional plans organized around Muleskinner, didn't act as an accelerant for OAITW, or for professional (i.e., money-making) aspirations surrounding it, including Vassar's "membership". I am not saying they called Vassar up on the 16th and asked him to do some gigging and cut some records over Clarence's still-warm body. Hell, they had already played with Vassar the prior month, and it seems pretty clear that they (felt they) needed a fiddle player. And Vassar is one hell of a player. But I do wonder if the short-cutting of Muleskinner engendered the jump-starting of OAITW, both with some gaggles of gigs and through cutting some studio tracks.

6. Was it Mostly About Making (a) Record(s)?

Thought experiment: perhaps it's not coincidence that OAITW ended once the recordings were in the can? After the October Boarding House gigs, did any of these guys play again with Vassar (at least in the 70s) except for the 11/4/73 makeup, the GAMB 4/26/74 sit-in by Vassar, Garcia and Vassar in together with the Greenbriar Boys on 4/28/74, and the OAITW "reunion" performance later that night? It seems like they broke up right after they recorded the live tracks for possible release.Can anyone shed any light on the reported studio recordings of OAITW? Now *those* I would love to hear.

Summary of all of this: To me, Vassar’s playing is the real highlight of this music. He provided such depth to this band of young hotshots. Too bad it didn't last, for whatever reason.

IV. Setlist/Repertoire

I am not sure how noteworthy the setlist is relative to other OAITW shows, but since I have never gone through OAITW setlists very carefully I thought I’d do it here, get a since of the distribution of musical sources and styles. Here’s a table of the credits for the songs they played on this night, from data hosted by Alex Allan.

OAITW’s repertoire presents a fascinating slice of the many American (or pseudo-so, as in "Wild Horses") musics from which the band and its members drew.

First are the traditional, old-timey and bluegrass numbers. There are lots of grey areas here, of course, lots of speciation happening between those niches. Carter Stanley and Bill Monroe credits and that sort of thing. I have no idea if the distribution of songs springing from this well is different here on July 21 than it typically would be around this time, or would have been with Richard Greene in April, or not. I have a tiny hunch that there's more Carter Stanley here than I am used to seeing, stuff shading a little more toward the old-timey and traditional vein, but I can't be sure. Either way, all of that would represent the lingua franca between the hairy freaks and Vassar. If you look through Allan and Scofield's notes on these songs, you'll see a bunch for which tape from Garcia's pre-GD days also exists. This is further confirmation, I'd say, of the lingua franca appeals of the old favorites.

Regarding the specific versions of these songs, I am just not expert enough in listening to this sort of music to give much evaluation. I would love if some bluegrass freak looking for good conversation would join our little community here (but everyone should blog, and blog more! Join us! You have nothing to lose but your time!). Anyway, I'll just mention two specific numbers very informally. Number one: this is the only OAITW version known to me of the great Monroe haunter "Cheyenne". Not sure how the Big Mon could pick up the feel of those particular high plains, but he does it brilliantly here. Great song. (I think Rowan would agree, since "Cheyenne"'s feel becomes "Land of the Navajo"'s hook.) Number two: "Orange Blossom Special" is just a brilliant piece of songwriting. Greatest. Train. Song. Ever.

Second, we find six Peter Rowan originals in the setlist. One function/aspect of the band was indeed as a Rowan "song" vehicle. If forced to choose I would mostly classify these as country-bluegrass, while some ("Lonesome L.A. Cowboy") are closer to soft country rock (early "Eagles", for example). I have to say that these songs are generally pretty awesome, though no versions from this fileset jump out as me as exceptional.

Third, this set features only one instrumental contribution each from David Grisman and the great Vassar Clements, whose "Lonesome Fiddle Blues" is a freaking masterpiece. Haunting and fantastic, right up there with the great fiddle tunes that I know (though I confess to not knowing many.) The Grisman datum is interesting because in listening to the tapes I sometimes get the sense that David is treated a little like a beta dog. "Fanny Hill" also seems not to have been a favorite of his, insofar as it wasn't released until sometime later. It feels kind of like a transitional piece for Grisman, more toward bluegrass than Dawg Music. Grisman was clearly growing very quickly at this stage, and I suspect that the misfit between his own ambitions and musical trajectory and the space allowed for him to enact them in this particular band may have been one of the frictions that led to its too-quick demise.

Fourth, there’s a smattering of other country-bluegrass stuff, on none of which I am particularly qualified to speak.

Summing up, and as Corry has discussed with me, one aspect of the relatively short tenure of OAITW may be the different pulls of, say, Peter Rowan's songs vs. traditional/bluegrass/oldtimey/etc. vs. Dawg Music. I am not making it too conflictual, but we don't know much about how OAITW ended and it's pretty straightforward to suggest that there were just too many tradeoffs to be made, too many songs (and musical styles) chasing too few gigs and album tracks. The fact that certain members had tightly constraining "other obligations" *cough* GD! *cough* certainly wouldn't have helped, but it could be that there other design flaws in the band's DNA that doomed it to be short-lived.

V. Listening Notes follow after the jump.

LN jg1973-07-21.oaitw.early.sbd-smith-boswell.113805.flac1644

ad for Keystone, Berkeley, July 19 - August 1, 1973; Berkeley Barb (7/19/73-8/1/73), p. 21

Let me just make a few points to head up these listening notes for this newly-circulated version of these rehearsals. They are very, very important.

First, the provenance of the tape is awesome. Thanks to the Pacific Northwest Crew for this one.

Second, there's evidence on the tape that lends near-perfect credibility (for me) to the date/time/place/personnel ascribed to this. I totally believe this is 7/21/73 in the afternoon at the Lion's Share, in between two shows at the Keystone, Berkeley which, I am coming to believe, served as the introduction of Vassar Clements to the Bay Area. I also list a show at the Inn of the Beginning in Cotati midweek (Wednesday, July 18), which would have been a good place and time to warm up the act in public, but without a big crowd, before heading to the (relatively!) bigger deal weekend gigs at the Keystone. Anyway, long-winded way of saying, again, that I completely believe that this is exactly 7/21/73 in the afternoon at the Lion's Share. You could call this (presumably part of) the "Vassar Clements rehearsals".

Third, related, I need to go foresensically through the OAITW rehearsal tapes that are around. There are a shitload of filesets out there. While they have been much-collected, I think they are little-auditioned and remain almost entirely unanalyzed. I wouldn't be surprised to find more "Vassar Clements rehearsals", as well as some "Richard Greene rehearsals". (I doubt there are Hartford or other pieces, but who knows?)

Fourth, having confidence in this date/time/location/configuration gives me more confidence that the evening's show from Berkeley, which the Pacific Northwest (PNW) crew has also recently dropped (shnid 113845), is correctly dated. I know that the material is the same as what has long traveled as Monday, July 23, 1973 at the Boarding House, 960 Bush Street, San Francisco, 94109. I am going to revisit it soon, hopefully today, but my working hypothesis is that the 7/21/73 dating is probably correct. I'll report back.

Update: Done!

Fifth, for my taste this source deprecates a bunch of filesets:

• shnid 6386
• shnid 11462
• shnid 20507
• shnid 21835

There may be other bits and pieces of this same material floating around amongst the undated OAITW rehearsal snippets, but figuring that out is a project.

Old And In The Way
Lion's Share
60 Red Hill Avenue
San Anselmo, CA, 94960
July 21, 1973 (Saturday), afternoon rehearsal
PNW sbd shnid-113805

(22 tracks, 78:15)
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t01. (1) [0:28] Little Bessie [3:42]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t02. talk [0:09], % On And On (false start) [0:43]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t03. On And On [3:39]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t04. tuning and talking [1:15]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t05. Lonesome Fiddle Blues [2:59] %
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t06. tuning and talking (2) [1:39]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t07. Land Of// The Navajo [6:#59]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t08. talk and tuning [0:20] % [0:25], Going To The Races [2:33]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t09. Land Of The Navajo [8:25]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t10. talk (3) and tuning [1:14], Cedar Hill [3:37] [0:03], randomness [0:02]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t11. dead air, fiddle/bass jam, tuning and talking [1:22]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t12. High Lonesome Sound [3:42]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t13. false start [0:21] % Hobo Song [4:58] [0:03]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t14. [0:06] % /Wild Horses [4:34] [0:04]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t15. Lonesome L.A. Cowboy [4:29]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t16. tuning and talking, Pig In A Pen chorus practice [2:05]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t17. Pig In A Pen [3:04]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t18. tuning and talking (4) [2:22]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t19. Kissimee Kid [2:56]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t20. Kissimee Kid [3:07]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t21. tuning and talking (5) [1:22]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t22. Midnight Moonlight [4:50], talk (6) and silliness [0:15], dead air [0:07]

! Band: Old And In The Way
! Lineup: Peter Rowan - ac-guitar, vocals;
! Lineup: David Grisman - mandolin, vocals;
! Lineup: Jerry Garcia - banjo, vocals;
! Lineup: Vassar Clements - fiddle;
! Lineup: John Kahn - ac-bass.

JGMF:

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

! TJS: http://www.thejerrysite.com/shows/show/963.

! db: shnid -113805 (this source).

 ! R: MR @ 7.5ips (Recorded by Betty Cantor on her Nagra) > R @ 3.75ips (Jerry Garcia's copy) > R @ 3.75ips (Will Boswell's copy). Transferred and mastered by Matt Smith 5/11. CD > flac using dbpoweramp, checksums created with TLH by gballen 05-28-2011. JGMF copy: files renamed and tagged with foobar2000.

! R: we can call this a soundboard if we'd like, but I have to think that'd be a misnomer. Presumably there were no lines anywhere, and these guys were all acoustic. So this recording would have been an ambient recording, n'est-ce pas?! R: Matt Smith's notes: "This (7-21-73) is from the famed "Debbie Stash" that Will copied back in early 1979. The rehearsal has circulated but the late show from the Keystone has never surfaced until now. The real cool thing about this is that it gives the listener the whole scope of a typical day for Jerry back then. You know, get up, go to the GD office maybe, then rehearse with your bluegrass buddies then decide you are going to do a gig at the Keystone that night!! This time period was probably a very happy time in his life and it comes through in his playing here."

! Technical: since there is no clear set distinction here, I renamed the tracks from the "dxtxx" format to a continuous naming. If you want the original disc splits they were between t10 and 11, though of course with this total time there'd be no need for disc splits at all (unless one could track down some 74-minute CDs!).

! (1) dead air [0:10]; @ 0:xx: ??: "Wanna try that 'Little Bessie' that we were doin' in G last night?" I think this reference to "last night" is important in time-stamping this. The ad in the Berkeley Barb makes a fair amount of "Special Guest Fiddler from Nashville Vassar Clements". This seems to have been billed as Vassar's introduction to the Bay Area as a member of OAITW. Why is that relevant here? Because it makes sense that they'd be rehearsing this stuff in between the two billed shows. It's just a little detail that fits the given date/time of July 21, 1973 in the afternoon (in a little place they've gigged, just down the road from Stinson where Rowan, Grisman and Garcia lived) with absolute perfection.

! setlist: jg1973-07-21a-smith-t01 was listed as "Someone Calling My Name", but its correct title is "Little Bessie". Verified from http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=14718! jg1973-07-21a-smith-t06 (2) Jerry talking about his banjo: gives the names/model, bought it last week. It's brand new.

! jg1973-07-21a-smith-t07 LOTN influenced by Kaw-Liga?

! R: jg1973-07-21a-smith-t07 LOTN splice/jump @ 4:18

! jg1973-07-21a-smith-t10 (3) @ start JG about LOTN #2: "That wasn't as good as the first one."

! jg1973-07-21a-smith-t11: DIME comment #4763536 by randomando at 2011-05-31 21:41:33 GMT: "Vassar teaching somebody the jazz tune "Move" on disc 2 track 1 [i.e., t11] is stunning. Dawg did the tune in the early years of the DGQ (75-76)."

! jg1973-07-21a-smith-t18 (4) JG, cutting up (but precisely how is hard to say without physical or visual correlate): "OK you guys, I'm ready to cut another track." Talk about where they can position themselves. DG: "Wanna try White Dove?" Then they are gonna do "Vassar's tune", and JG is enthusiastic. More cutting up about doing whatever that's called. DG: "Wanna play 'Find Your Name Written There'? JG: "Why don't we just do that tune of Vassar's." I notice that Grisman rarely gets to call the tune. Garcia's assent is always required.

! jg1973-07-21a-smith-t21 (4) ?PR?: "All I know are words. I'll just play with words."

! jg1973-07-21a-smith-t22 (6) JG: "That was all right."

The Birth of the Great American Music Band

Editor's Note: I should point out that the timing of this post was inspired by Corry, who has recently posted on the misty origins of OAITW and who earlier had posted on what might have been the "public debut of a very important band," the GAMB. While I think this post casts a different light on the "public debut" question, I am of course indebted to Lost Live Dead!

I am going to offer and try to defend the hypothesis, just articulated, that the Great American Fiddle / String / Music Band was "born", as recognized by David Grisman at least, on Saturday, March 9, 1974 at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, CA. I will try to post separately on the convoluted tale of the band's name.

Let me start by reproducing a calendar listing for the show from the Hayward Daily Review:

We see the following two listings:

1. Saturday, March 9, 1974: Richard Greene, David Grisman, Vassar Clements and Skunk Cabbage; Great American Music Hall, SF, CA; two shows.
2. Sunday, March 10, 1974: Richard Greene, David Grisman, Vassar Clements and Skunk Cabbage, Great American Music Hall, SF, CA (NB 6 p.m. to midnight)

I believe the first listing is effectively the first GAMB show, and the second is the first with Garcia. Let me lay it out for you.

First, let's recapitulate David Grisman's various tellings of the birth of GAMB.

A gig came up at the Great American Music Hall which was supposed to be Richard Greene and Vassar Clements, each with his own band. Richard asked me to play with him, so we got Eric Thompson on guitar, Sandy Rothman on banjo, and Bing Nathan on bass. Some promoter got a local group called Skunk Cabbage to back Vassar, and on the afternoon of the opening night both bands played a radio show. After Skunk Cabbage heard us play they said “We can’t play with Vassar; he belongs with you guys.” … So they opened the show for us, and we had Richard and Vassar and called it the Great American Fiddle Band. The second night Jerry Garcia played banjo, and Sandy Rothman switched to guitar. Bing Nathan couldn’t make the second night, so Taj Mahal played upright bass. Another musical friend of mine, David Nichtern … had been interested in my stuff … So he showed up the second night (ref 1, p. 34).

Richard Greene and I had a gig at the Great American Music Hall with Vassar Clements and his band, so we called it The Great American Fiddle Band (ref 2, p. 26).

The first quote establishes that Greene, Vassar and Grisman were at the GAMH together for two nights, with Vassar slated to play with Skunk Cabbage. That looks an awful lot like the March 9-10 listings. He also says that Garcia didn't show up until the second night, which is consistent with Jerry and Merl being in Berkeley on the Saturday night (March 9th).

Second, note the 6 pm - midnight billing on Sunday night. This was clearly something special.

Third, I have independent evidence that Grisman and Vassar were interacting with Jerry at precisely this time. There was a Round Records recording session at Columbia Studios, San Francisco, on Friday, March 8, 1974, from 11:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. involving Vassar and Grisman working on "Lonesome Town", "Indiana," and "Russian Lullaby". The first and last of these appeared on Garcia's Compliments, while the middle one is probably "Back Home in Indiana," which appeared as a Compliments outtake on the incredible All Good Things boxset.

Fourth, there is the tantalizing little 7-minute snippet of Stinson Beach rehearsals featuring David Grisman, Richard Greene, Jerry Garcia, Eric Thompson, Bill Wolfe, and maybe others, that is dated March 8, 1974. They work through "Sweet Georgia Brown" and "Limehouse Blues," both of which were staples in the (too brief!) GAM/SB repertoire. Related, there is independent reason to believe that there are four reels' worth of materials labeled "Grisman's House", with this date, in the Garcia vault.

Fifth--and this to me is just the sweetest batch of evidence-- there is a fascinating set of fly on the wall recordings, a few hours' worth, labeled only "Bluegrass at Grisman's," that I think is relevant here. It's a mix of material, including some work-throughs of OAITW material (presumably from ca. early 1973) and some other stuff that sounds more like OAITW. But there's at least 20 minutes, and maybe more, of stuff that is clearly proto-GAM/SB, including very early run-throughs of Grisman's (eventually, but not yet!) amazing "Dawg's Rag." Sandy Rothman seems to be present for some of this, and Grisman, Greene and Garcia are omnipresent.

Now, here is the real kicker. At one point during this GAM/SB-ish material, we have the following exchange between what sounds like an older southerner and Garcia.

Older southerner: "Jerry, everybody, I'll see you bright and early tomorrow. You're playin' a gig tomorrow night, then?"
JG: "Yes I am, yeah."
Older southerner: "Sunday you'll be there."
JG: "Yeah, Sunday I'll be there."

Ladies and gentlemen, I am prepared to call it QED on this basis. This material is from March 8, 1974. Grisman and Vassar do a morning studio session for Garcia for a little payday. Then everyone heads over to Grisman's in Stinson Beach. We already know, from point three above, that a bunch of guys are playing proto-GAMB in Stinson Beach, and uncirculated tapes suggest it's at Grisman's house. It sounds for all the world like someone's living room, including side conversations, phone calls, etc. The southerner gives us days of the week: "tomorrow", a Saturday, when Jerry cannot be there because he has a gig, and then a Sunday when he will be there. Those are clear references to March 9 and March 10. When we circle back to Grisman's account (first quote above), it all fits together perfectly. Note that he mentions both Sandy Rothman and Eric Thompson as being involved with the GAMH gigs. Well, here we have Sandy with these guys on the "Bluegrass at Grisman's" recording, and Thompson listed on the 7-minute snippet that David Gans shared with the world on the amazing (if perhaps presently a bit troubled) KPFA. Way too much coincidence not to be correct, IMO.

In conclusion, the evidence overwhelmingly points in favor of the proposition that GAMB was born on March 9, 1974, and Garcia first joined in on March 10th.

One last thing: it sounds like it was a helluva a great show. One account based on interviews with Grisman refers to the legendary 1974 GAMH gig with a "monumental jam" featuring Grisman, Greene, Vassar, Garcia, Fierro, Nichtern, and “from these jams, the Great American String Band was born" (ref 3). Having Fierro in with those guys would have been interesting, to say the least. I hope he just brought the flute and left the sax at home! I have also heard tell of an incredible rendition of "Wild Horses" played by the GAM/SB with Sandy Rothman around this time frame, taped by Betty but with no tape in circulation, which I believe must be from this night. Sounds like fun! Set time capsule ..

REFERENCES:

1. Forte, Dan. 1979a. David Grisman: Taking the Mandolin Beyond Tradition. Frets 1, 1 (March): 30-36.
2. Juanis, J.C. 1992. Dawgwood Revisited. Relix 19, 6 (December): 25-27. 
3. Sharpe, Ted. 1977. David Grisman: Mad, Marvelous Mandolinist. Blue Sky Review no. 7: unpaginated.

March 1974

update: this post mostly doesn't serve any purpose anymore, but here it is

I am working around an important (to me!) post about the birth of the Great American Music/String Band, and want to lay some foundation. So let me start by mapping the known-to-me Jerry Garcia engagements from March, 1974, and just making a few notes.

1. Saturday, March 2, 1974: JGMS @ Great American Music Hall, San Francisco, CA (JB)
2. Monday, March 4, 1974: Compliments work at Heider's (JB)
3. Wednesday, March 6, 1974: Compliments work at Heider's (JB)
4. Friday, March 8, 1974, 11 AM: Compliments session at Columbia Studios w Vassar, Grsiman, Sandy Rothman (JB)
5. Friday, March 8, 1974: Rehearsal at Grisman's house, Stinson Beach, CA. David Grisman, Richard Greene, Jerry Garcia, Eric Thompson, Bill Wolfe, maybe others (JB | 7-minute recording info) 
6. Saturday, March 9, 1974: JGMS @ Keystone, Berkeley (JB | sbd recording info)
7. Birth of GASB here
8. Thursday, March 14, 1974: JGMS @ Keystone, Berkeley (JB)
9. Friday, March 22, 1974: JGMS @ Chateau Liberté, Los Gatos, CA (JB)
10. Saturday, March 23, 1974: GD at Cow Palace (JB)
11. Sunday, March 24, 1974: Compliments work at Columbia (JB)
12. Monday, March 25, 1974: GD Mars Hotel work at Columbia (JB)
13. Tuesday, March 26, 1974: GD Mars Hotel work at Columbia (JB)
14. Tuesday, March 26, 1974: Compliments work at Columbia (JB)
15. Wednesday, March 27, 1974: Compliments work at Columbia (JB)
16. Thursday, March 28, 1974: Compliments work at Columbia (JB)
17. Friday, March 29, 1974: Compliments work at Columbia (JB)
18. Saturday, March 30, 1974: GD Mars Hotel sessions at CBS Studios, 829 Folsom Street, SF, CA (JB);
19. Saturday, March 30, 1974: JGMS @ Keystone Stockton (JB)

So, why do I list this stuff here?

First, TJS used to list a 3/1/74 JGMS gig at GAMH, but I am now about 99.9% sure it was a phantom.

Second, never mind.

Third, re: Vassar he played with Skunk Cabbage 3/1 at the GAMH. I had noted in my post on the Skunk Cabbage set at the GSCBF that Vassar played around with them. Here are a few other dates I have managed to pick up for Skunk Cabbage, with and w/o Mr. Clements:

1. Sunday, 11/18/73: The Cashews, Skunk Cabbage; New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA; (note Rowan Brothers billed there on 11/20, FWIW)
2. Monday, 11/26/73: Juice, Jango, Skunk Cabbage, and others; Lion's Share, San Anselmo, CA.
3. Tuesday, December 11, 1973: Byron Berline, Country Gazzette, Vassar Clements, Skunk Cabbage; Great American Music Hall, SF, CA.
4. Friday, March 1, 1974: see above.
5. Sunday, March 3, 1974: Skunk Cabbage with Vassar Clements and Western Union; Keystone, Berkeley, CA.
6. Saturday, March 9, 1974: Richard Greene, David Grisman, Vassar Clements and Skunk Cabbage; Great American Music Hall, SF, CA; two shows.
7. Sunday, March 10, 1974: Richard Greene, David Grisman, Vassar Clements and Skunk Cabbage, Great American Music Hall, SF, CA (NB 6 p.m. to midnight)

Fourth, finally, and by way of preview, ladies and gentlemen, I believe the above March 9th listing was the birth of the Great American Music/String Band, with Jerry Garcia joining in on the 10th. I'll post soon, hopefully tonight, on why I think the GAM/SB was born on this night. update: done

OAITW: June 6, 1973, Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ

update 20230704: I can't go back and revise this post 13 years later. It'll show up in Fate Music, believe me. With a LOT more specifics on Tex Logan, Peter Rowan, Boston, John Scher, and so much more!

Old and in the Way did a small east coast tour in June of 1973, the band's only shows outside of California except for the May 8 show in Eugene and the May 9th show in Portland about which I know nothing. update 20230704: I know more now.

The tour looked like this:

June 5: Orpheum Theatre, Boston, MA
June 6: Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ
June 7: Palace Theatre, Waterbury, CT
June 8: Lake Whippoorwill, Warrenton, VA (festival)
June 11: Temple Festival Theater, Ambler, PA

updated 20230704: Here's the current Jerrybase OAITW June 1973 tour view

There are some interesting things to say about the other shows, too, but here let me just add two songs to the known setlist from the June 6th show: Lonesome L.A. Cowboy in the 2nd set (probably late); Blue Mule to end the show. These come from a review by John Swenson in the "Riffs" colum of the Village Voice, June 14, 1973, p. 60 (available from Google News). I am happy about this because I had noted on my latest copy of the recording of the show as follows: "Unless someone knows otherwise, it would seem that the show continued after Wild Horses.  This tape contains a full two minutes of tuning at the end, before cutting out on Grisman saying something ("I'd like to call on the Old and in the W//")." These two songs should be added to the end of the setlist at the Jerry Site.

As noted on the setlists and such, Tex Logan sits in on fiddle at the end of set I. Bonus Question: does anyone know this man's birthdate? I am quite desperate to know it (including year) for reasons that I'll make clear if I ever discover it.