Wales/Hooteroll influence on GD?

All Hooteroll All The Time (AHATT) is an interesting idea that could be elevable to a core principle, i.e., to the effect that Hooteroll is "Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last" (Revelations 22:13, King James Bible version). :) I won't go into that here.

I will just reproduce what I just came across in a late 1972 discussion of the Grateful Dead, probably by a college undergraduate music major, who had seen all of two Dead shows. I post it on AHATT principles.

Perhaps the best recorded example of what may yet be another turn in style, and one which was embryonically apparent in at least two of the Dead's latest concerts (Philedelphia [9/21/72] and Washington [9/20/72]) can be found in a largely undiscovered album Garcia recorded with Howard Wales called Hooteroll?. Without a doubt, Garcia's collaboration with the superb blues/jazz organist, Wales, will continue to produce dramatically important results.

To a large extent, the Dead's recent dream-like style of playing, characterized by slowly evolving, minutely subtle melodies which at times are intentionally shattered ... by powerfully syncopated chords and notes, by Lesh's imitation and by a general accelerando, can be attributed to Garcia's experiences with Wales on Hooteroll? It seems likely, too that the increased influence and often outright performance of jazz preeiminently displayed throughout much of their latter concerts can be developmentally traced to Hooteroll? as well.

Now, this guy could just happen to have listened to Hooteroll? in writing up his review (or preparing for the show, or whatever) and could be following the law of the hammer. He might not know what he is talking about. Maybe Jerry had an underlying interest in jazz which led him to play it with the GD and Howard (spurious correlation, plausible). Maybe Jerry's jazzy work with the Dead influenced his style with Howard (reverse causation, highly doubtful). I don't endorse Rob Pritchard's sentiment. Because I find GD-GOTS crossovers to be really useful to parameterize, I merely note it with interest and pass it along.

AHATT.

REFERENCE:
Pritchard, Rob. 1972. Grateful Dead Resurrect Country, Blues, Jazz. Cavalier Daily (University of Virginia), October 6, 1972, p. 2. Accessed via Google New, though I can no longer find it there. The Cavalier Daily appears to be archived on line, if incompletely. A google search turns up this issue, but I can't seem to access the content.

Hooteroll? Next Part

Corry's original post on LLD: "Hooteroll?--When Was It Recorded?", with lots of great comments.
My response: "Response to LLD's Hooteroll--When Was It Recorded?"

A number of commenters to these posts, including sraile and LIA, as well as more from Corry, have added valuable thoughts and information. Thank you all!

The purpose of this post is to give a bit more information, based on a post from Blair Jackson at Deadnetcentral, reflecting tapes in the Garcia vault. This information disconfirms my speculation that Hooteroll? was completed by the end of 1970. It seems to have been recorded ca. October 1970 - ca. June 1971.

Here's what Blair so generously reports:

10/29/70
There are a couple of 2" reels with this date, which need not have been a session but could have been mixing or copying or whatever. On these tapes: two "unnamed" songs, "Up from the Desert," "A Trip to What Next" and "South Side Strut." "Personnel is definitely Jerry and Howard, plus unnamed bass, drums and flute."

What interests me here is a 10/26/70 "Jerry Garcia & Friends" listing at the Matrix (Good Times, v.3 n. 42, 10/23/70, p. 14). In years past I would have thought that GD would have just gone east from St. Louis after 10/24/70 en route to Stony Brook on 10/30. But I no longer believe this. It seems to have been Jerry's habit to come home even in 2-3 day windows, even if it meant flying twice over lots of the same terrain. This seems to have been especially the case when there are sessions back home. So I have little doubt but that he was in the Bay Area on 10/26 and even 10/29.

Was this a gig with Wales? Dunno. If so, that would obviously fall after the date on which I have speculated things started up with Merl Saunders, i.e., September 7th. (Not that it matters, but it's amazing how hard it is for me to shed the assumption of linearity in my thinking about all this.) Anyway, all of this stuff leads me to see that there was considerable overlap between Merl and Howard -- almost 17 months, by my present reckoning. It's just that (with the exception of the Hooteroll? tour in early '72), Wales & Garcia took it from the stage to the studio. Why not? There are nubby Doris Dynamites and blow o'plenty there!
 
3/31/71
Next date that appears on tape boxes. Again, need not have been a session date, though so far as I can tell Jerry seems to have been in town. Blair: "There are some reels with no titles, and also full reels with multiple false starts and a few takes of "South Side Strut" and "Up From the Desert" that were probably referenced for the mixing of the album."

6/21/71
Blair: "By 6/21/71 the full album mastering has been completed, and the 2-track masters (or are they copies?) are in the vault with that date on them."

8/1/71?
Blair: "Then the next tape entry in the vault is four live multitrack reels from Boston, dated 8/1."
 
Whoa. Is it possible that Wales & Garcia played in Boston on Jerry's 29th birthday, August 1, 1971? Well, the GD did play Yale University (New Haven, CT) on 7/31 ... anyone ever wonder what was up with that? JG's first solo album, Garcia, was said to have been recorded in three weeks in July 1971, and then the GD go out east for a one-off. So JG almost certainly began 8/1 within easy reach of Boston ... is it possible that a Boston gig happened this late in the game, with no contemporary record or memory of it?

Anyway, this is a really interesting rabbit hole we find ourselves in, I think. I still have a million questions about all this. For now, I'll just aver that I was wrong in speculating that Hooteroll? was in the can by the end of 1970.
 
So I answer Corry's titular question as follows: so far as we can tell, between October 1970 and June 1971.

Response to LLD's Hooteroll--When Was It Recorded?

Corry has an important and rich post over at LLD on the mystery that shrouds the recording of Howard Wales / Jerry Garcia, Hooteroll [deaddisc entry]. I started to reply in comments over there, but began to write more than I thought suitable for that little sub-medium (a minimum?), so I thought I'd just let myself go a little over here. Not sure what blogger etiquette dictates in such a situation, but anyway. This will be a little bit of a sloppy mess, so brace yourselves.

Hooteroll? is obviously very important for Garcia scholars as Garcia's first real "side trip" (insofar as "trip" implies travel [excluding the Hartbeats], and "side" implies separate from the Grateful Dead [excluding the JG-era NRPS]). (Whoever named the one live Wales/Garcia release was freaking smart ... I mean, Side Trips really is a genius title ... but I digress.) And Corry is absolutely right that there's a lot of seemingly-deliberate obscurity surrounding this album. Howard Wales is a generally obscure guy, and seems to prefer things that way, but there is a lot of weirdness even in the contemporary record about this album. Corry has laid out a number of elements that strike me as important, but I still can't quite see how they fit together.

Let me throw out a bunch more, and conclude that the album was recorded in late 1970, with its release delayed a year due to record company squabbles. This won't be well organized, but I'll do my best.

I was initially prepared to pin down at least the end date of the sessions, based on an item in Billboard from Nov. 7, 1970 (1), including this: "Recording of the Garcia-Wales LP was completed last week in San Francisco at Wally Heider Studios". That pins the location and would pin the date pretty clearly. Remember the discussion about a possible Garcia return to the Bay Area for a ca. Nov. 1, 1970 NRPS gig? And Janis's wake at the Lion's Share ca. Nov. 1-2, 1970? I have found that some or many of Garcia's odder movements (such as traveling back to the Bay Area from Stony Brook after 10/31 only to return to Port Chester for an 11/5 show -- why not hang in NYC??) had to do with recording obligations. Oh yeah, and let's not forget that there are PERRO tapes (Heider's!) dated 11/3/70. All of this fits together so perfectly, dating at least the completion of Hooteroll? to ca. November 1-4, 1970, and providing another piece of evidence that Garcia was in the Bay Area on those dates.

One more tidbit: Billboard had a little item on Douglas the day before this (2), as well, suggesting that there was a record-company promotional effort underway, also suggesting that word of the sessions' status would have been coming from the horse (Douglas)'s mouth. This is also a good read, totally confirming what Corry says about Douglas's uncompromising approach.

And yet ... and yet ... here are a few spanners for the works.

November 7, 1970: presumed wire report (2): "Former Grateful Dead members Jerry Garcia and Howard Wales have signed a contract with Douglas Records and are expected to start work on their own material in the near future." Given the number of mistakes (the error-to-word ratio is pretty striking), I would discount this, maybe as a bastardization of the contemporary Billboard material. Until I see a ...

... December 19, 1970, report from San Francisco in Billboard (3), with these consecutive items: "Howard Wales has begun working for a new album on Douglas ... The New Riders of the Purple Sage are recording at Wally Heider's ... David Crosby has booked time there through the end of January ... Jefferson Airplane is at work on a new LP ..." This is obviously PERRO incarnate, with what would become Crosby's If I Could Only Remember My Name and Kantner/Slick's Blows Against the Empire, though I had never, ever realized there might be a Wales connection to PERRO. It doesn't explicitly say that Wales was working at Heider's, but the context (looks like they got a call from Barncard or someone!) is suggestive. So is the fact, pointed out by LIA, that Wales came into the studio to lay down some stuff for the GD's American Beauty, which would have been around August 1970 at Heider's.

So the last two items suggest that recording might have started around November-December 1970, rather than finishing then. The November 7 report that things were done by early November seems like the anomaly here ... maybe there was just a miscommunication?

There's also this little tidbit in support of more of a December timeframe. I had forgotten about it, and it is odd, defying otherwise clean break between Howard and Merl as GOTS keyboardists ca. September 7, 1970:

Can't recall if I owe h/t to Ross. Probably, so, thanks, Ross!

Grateful Dead, the Brotherhood, and "Howard Wales and Friends" billed at Pepperland in San Rafael on December 21, 1970. Interesting. We also know that David Crosby was around Pepperland right in this moment because of the David and the Dorks gigs, which would tie back into Heider's in November. We don't know whether Howard and Jerry played together at all, but I do think the billing is instructive. I don't know that Garcia and Wales would ever share a billing again, but for the January 1972 Hooteroll? promotional tour.

One final reflection on late 1970 recording timeframe. Corry mentioned The Music of El Topo. According to deaddisc, this is Douglas Records #6, released in 1970. Hooteroll? is Douglas Records #5, released in December 1971. Not sure this odd sequencing says anything about recording dates (it may reflect contract dates, or expected release order, or whatever), but it might. It might imply that Hooteroll? was in the can by the time El Topo was released ... let's say ca. Christmas 1970? This strikes me as an independent piece of evidence, tenuous on its own but suggestive in the context of everything else, for recording in November-December 1970, probably not much thereafter.

Anyway, I am pretty persuaded that the album was recorded in late 1970. I am hoping to learn more about whether this took place at Heider's -- I have records for other sessions around this time, but nothing for Wales -- but that's my operating assumption for now.

So, why doesn't the album come out until December 1971, with a brief promotional tour in January 1972? I agree with Corry that this had to do with record industry stuff.

Consider this tidbit, from the Nov. 7th Billboard item (1), which I remind you was headlined "Douglas To Record 2 LP's By Grateful Dead Artists":

Joe Smith, Warner Bros. executive, said that the Douglas recordings will be beneficial to Warners in terms of artist exposure as well as enhancing the climate of artistic freedom which is so necessary among serious musicians who want to work with artists from other labels.

As Corry points out, the record was eventually manufactured and distributed by Columbia Records. And the above quote sounds like a bunch of CYA from Joe Smith, who was confronted with a story that leads with the GD working with another label and probably wanted to put a positive gloss on what was actually a turf battle. The fact that it is mentioned also supports the idea of some "industry" tension surrounding the whole thing.

Wild conjecture time. The Nov. 7th Billboard piece (1) informs us that, in addition to Wales and Garcia, there are plans for a Kreutzmann-Hart percussion album.

The Kreitzmann[sic]-Hart LP will be recorded at a fully-equipped 16-track studio Douglas has installed in Hart's barn in Navato [sic], Calif. The studio, designed by Kreitzmann [sic], Hart and Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead under the supervision of engineer Dan Healy, will be completed within the month.

I would need to go back to look at the history of Mickey's Barn studio, but I do not recall having known that Alan Douglas had paid for it. That would not have been a cheap item in 1970-1971. The Grateful Dead cancel their Port Chester shows in December 1970 with an abject public apology, get back there in February 1971, and Hart abruptly leaves the band after the first of six nights, in connection with his father Lenny's perfidy. Rolling Thunder ends up being released ... on Warner Brothers ... in September of 1972. I note that Kreutzmann is not credited.

What a freaking mess. The bustup with Hart involves a divorce with Kreutzmann and, to a lesser extent, with the rest of the GD. Joe Smith and Warners are pissed that the GD are seeing other people, and lean on them to extract some kind of concession. Douglas has paid for a home studio for one of his artists. Dénoument: the GD/Hart and Warners/Douglas seem to engage in some odd, multifaceted exchange whereby Douglas gets the Wales/Garcia album (a score!), maybe with some weird sweetening by/for Columbia (how the hell did they get involved, anyway?). Hart gets a 16-track studio (score!) and his album. Warners/Joe Smith get Rolling Thunder (d'oh!), maybe save some face? Working all that out delays the release of Hooteroll? by about a year. That's my story.

So I conclude my saga with an answer to Corry's question: Hooteroll? was recorded in November-December 1970, probably at Heider's, and its release was delayed by disputes that ultimately have to do with the recording/music industry.

I have a few broader points, but I am out of gas. Let me just bullet them for now:

• Wales/Garcia timeline
• centrality of Heider's
• Recording industry angle

REFERENCES:

1. "Douglas To Record 2 LP's By Grateful Dead Artists," Billboard, November 7, 1970, p. 4. Accessible via Google Books.
2. "Alan Douglas's Market: People in a State of Consciousness," Billboard, November 6, 1970, p. 40. Accessible via Google Books.
3. Corpus-Christi Caller-Times, November 7, 1970, p. 3D.
4. Billboard, December 19, 1970, p. 37. Accessible via Google Books.

HWJG19710801 question

A little while back we had a whole series of things related to Howard Wales / Jerry Garcia Hooteroll?

1. Hooteroll?--When Was It Recorded?  -- LLD, Jan. 6, 2011
2. Response to LLD's Hooteroll--When Was It Recorded? -- JGMF, Jan. 7, 2011
3. Hooteroll? Next Part -- JGMF, 1/13/2011

In that last one, I mentioned Blair Jackson's information that the JG vault holds "four live multitrack reels from Boston, dated 8/1," which I infer to be August 1, 1971. I had this to say:

Whoa. Is it possible that Wales & Garcia played in Boston on Jerry's 29th birthday, August 1, 1971? Well, the GD did play Yale University (New Haven, CT) on 7/31 ... anyone ever wonder what was up with that? JG's first solo album, Garcia, was said to have been recorded in three weeks in July 1971, and then the GD go out east for a one-off. So JG almost certainly began 8/1 within easy reach of Boston ... is it possible that a Boston gig happened this late in the game, with no contemporary record or memory of it?

Well, I still don't know the answer. But I can report that I scoured several Boston microfilm sources (Boston Globe, Boston Phoenix, maybe Boston After Dark, etc.) from the 8/1/71 timeframe turned up nothing. My thinking has been maybe that there was some studio aspect to this, not sure why. I smell a record company or that type of person around this, though I doubt that hunch is worth much. If it were a record company thing, maybe there wouldn't have been any advertising. If anyone from the standard underground press (Phoenix, B.A.D.) had gone, I'd have to think it would have showed up as a  mention, at least. But nothing.

Anyway, as of now, consider me mystified as to what "live multitrack reels from Boston, dated 8/1" might hold ...

James and the Good Brothers (Courtesy of the Grateful Dead)

Found this interesting. The New Orleans House ad from the Berkeley Tribe v.3 n.15 (issue 67) (October 16-23, 1970), p. 21 lists "James & The Good Brothers (Courtesy of the Grateful Dead)" for Friday-Saturday, October 13-14, 1970.


Corry has said this about the connection between the bands:

James and The Good Brothers were a Canadian trio (James Ackroyd and twins Bruce and Brian Good). They made contact with the Dead on the infamous “Festival Express” train trip, and were invited to San Francisco. They recorded an album for Columbia (NRPS’s label), produced by Betty Cantor-Jackson, with Bill Kreutzmann on drums, and possibly an uncredited Jerry Garcia.

He has mentioned them again in the context of a post on the Festival Express, while the post quoted above is primarily about a Garcia guest shot with them in February 1971 at the Fillmore West.

This ad interests me for a few reasons. First, I don't recall seeing much stuff like this in pawing through old ads and the like. How common was this, and what did the "courtesy of" really mean? Was this just advertising, or would the GD somehow have contributed financially?

Second, Matt Scofield's deaddisc entry for the JATGB album contains contradictory information, with the story quoted from Corry above alongside the claim that "After moving to California to play some gigs they were 'spotted' by Jack Casady and Bill Kreutzmann - attention that eventually led to a recording deal. This LP was the result." So the one version has them hooking up with the GD on the train and then coming to CA, while the other says they were already in CA when Jack and Billy "spotted" them. Not a big deal, but I do wonder which one is closer to the truth.

Third, maybe most importantly to me, I wonder how the various record deals floating around relate to this, if at all. In our various Hooteroll? discussions (I guess this one was the last post that I did), there was lots of talk of how the pieces of the puzzle --Garcia, Hooteroll?, NRPS, Rolling Thunder, the GD's contracts, etc. etc.-- all fit together (and not). I wonder when JATGB signed with Columbia (and precisely when NRPS) did, and how it is that the GD were "promoting" them, as it were.

Anyway, really just a "hmmmm...", from my perspective.

GD19710903-4: Harding Theater, SF, CA

Here's another one that puzzles me. This scan from the Berkeley Tribe v.6 n.4 (issue #110) (September 3-9, 1971), p. 13 advertises a benefit for Marin County Head Start featuring Grateful Dead, Howard Wales and Shades of Joy on Friday-Saturday, September 3-4, 1971 at the Harding Theater in San Francisco.

Why post? A few reasons.

First, this is not a Grateful Dead date that's known to me, so it's interesting in that regard. I don't have anything else going on for Jerry on this weekend, so it fits in the schedule. I have an unknown NRPS gig listed for September 5 (Sunday), no venue or other info ... no idea where that comes from. I show Garcia and Saunders at the Harding Theater on September 10 and the NRPS there on September 23. This is an odd little cluster of shows at this venue which begs an explanation, I think, but in any case another couple of gigs fit this little pattern.

Second, last year I had posted on a listing in the (San Rafael) Pacific Sun for a Grateful Dead gig at Marin Vets on 11/28/71 to benefit, you guessed it, Head Start. Nothing more ever turned up and, as Corry said in comments, it seems unlikely that the event happened. But it's weird to find another Head Start connection from just a few months before.

Third, the presence of Howard Wales on the bill is especially interesting. LIA has been writing some incredibly rich posts on the Hartbeats, the surface of which I have barely scratched. In his post on the July 1970 "Hartbeats" gigs, he a) mentions the story that Wales once had an audition with the Grateful Dead; b) notes McNally's timeframe for this of September 1971; but c) speculates that, instead, the Wales audition took place around July 1970 instead. Now here we have a Grateful Dead/Wales co-billing, in September 1971, in the same month during which we know the Grateful Dead were rehearsing their new keyboard player, who turned out to be Keith Godchaux.

The listing that forms the object of this post makes me return to the September 1971 time frame for Howard's GD "audition". Let me go a step further ... the story of Keith becoming a member of the GD is well known. Here's how Donna relates it, from Blair Jackson's fantastic cutting room floor, once she and Keith had flashed on him playing with the GD.

"We went home, looked in the paper and saw that Garcia's band was playing at the Keystone, so we went down, of course. At the break, Garcia walked by going backstage, so I grabbed him and said, 'Jerry, my husband and I have something very important to talk to you about.' And he said, 'Sure.' I didn't realize that everyone does that to him. So Garcia told us to come backstage, but we were both too scared, so we didn't. A few minutes later, Garcia came up and sat next to Keith, and I said, 'Honey, I think Garcia wants to talk to you. He's sitting right next to you.' He looked over at Jerry and looked back at me and dropped his head on the table and said, 'You're going to have to talk to my wife. I can't talk to you right now.' He was just too shy. He was very strong but he couldn't handle that sort of thing. So I said to Jerry, 'Well, Keith's your piano player, so I want your home telephone number so I can call you up and come to the next Grateful Dead practice.' And he believed me! He gave me his number."

(Actually, Keith was not completely unknown in the Grateful Dead world. Betty Cantor had used him on a studio session for a record by James & the Good Brothers and thought very highly of him.)

(That last bit isn't especially germane, but I wanted to note the James & The Good Brothers connection, having just posted on it, and note further that, per Matt Scofield's deaddisc, Keith is not credited on that album. FYI, FWIW, etc.)

Why do I quote that at such length? Well, I observe that Garcia and Saunders played the Keystone Korner on September 16, 1971 (listing in Hayward Daily Review, September 16, 1971, p. 25). I note that circulating recordings of Keith's GD rehearsals are dated from September 27. So, wild speculation time, friends and neighbors: I suggest that September 3-4 at the Harding were the tryouts with Wales, that it didn't go especially well, that Keith and Donna buttonholed Jerry on September 16, and that Keith started in not more than 11 days later with the Grateful Dead. How's that for an extrapolation?!?

I also wonder, compounding speculation with speculation, if all of this might not tie into all of the record company backing and forthing and the relatively long gestation period of Hooteroll? (remember -- All Hooteroll?, All The Time!), which wasn't released until December. Again, I know I am going way beyond the evidence, but isn't it also interesting that Shades of Joy is on this bill, another Douglas Records client?

Sorry to throw so much out there with this. Anyway, here's an attempt at a summary of what this post does:

• identifies previously unknown GD gig
• may well pin down the date of Howard Wales's "audition" with the GD
• may well pin down the "when Keith & Donna met Jerry" date at Keystone Korner
• may well identify some connections between all of this and the record company scramble around this whole group of people around this time.

OK, 'nuff for now, I guess. The Berkeley Tribe is a masterpiece!

The April 1975 Legion of Mary Tour

LN jg1975-04-10.lom.early.aud-moore.117250.flac2496

In April 1975, Legion of Mary (Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders, Martin Fierro, John Kahn and Ronnie Tutt) went on its only tour, performing, by my count, twenty-five shows in the seventeen days between April 4^th and April 20^th (inclusive). They started in Brooklyn, spent a bunch of time in the core Northeast (New York, Boston, Philly), down a bit further south (Washington, Atlanta) and up to the upper Midwest (Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison), mostly playing mid-size clubs and theaters.

There is a great deal to say about this tour, and I’ll only be able to scratch the surface here. My overarching point would be to remark on the degree of institutionalization represented by this tour by this band. Not only is there a set tour (which the innominate Garcia-Saunders aggregation had test-flown in November 1974), but it’s with a band with a name and fixed membership. It’s not really that surprising – the GD was on hiatus, and there was space for a formalized alternative Garcia outlet—but it is noteworthy. Remember that Garcia had only toured outside the Grateful Dead three times prior to this: January 1972 behind Hooteroll?, briefly (and I think abortively) with Old and In the Way in June 1973, and the November 1974 Garcia-Saunders tour. Looking through the other end of the telescope, this would be the final time Garcia would tour behind a non-GD band that wasn’t eponymous --$5 word … “bearing his name”. When next he returned to the Northeast, he’d be in front of the newly-christened Jerry Garcia Band, which, with tiny variations (e.g., Jerry Garcia and John Kahn) is the name under which he’d cross time zones for the rest of his too-short life when not playing with the Grateful Dead.

The core of the tour, to my reckoning, was a three-night, six-show run (April 8-10) spent at the Bottom Line, 15 West Fourth Street, New York, NY, 10012. I should certainly say more about this venue, but Corry has said more than I could, anyway. [see also Jerry's Brokendown Palaces entry for the Bottom Line.] The shows were promoted by Allan Pepper and Stanley Snadowsky, as indicated by this ticket for the Thursday (April 10) late show, which I believe has been shared at the Merl Saunders Facebook page.

Jerry and Merl had played the Bottom Line twice before, with the July 1-3, 1974 standalone shows (i.e., not part of a tour), and the full November 1974 tour, which had featured the great Paul Humphrey on drums. Somewhere I came across something that said the July shows were envisaged as a dry run for the November tour, but now I can’t find the source. I have more to say about the November tour as well, which features some naming and billing variations that interest me (to say nothing of some pretty decent music). I have already discussed it once in terms of when it ended, but there’s lots, lots more to say.

What fascinates me about the April Bottom Line shows, for whatever reason, is that, as far as I can tell, they went totally unadvertised. If the Grateful Dead have come to be seen as pioneers for what we would now call viral marketing, it’s worth noting that the first extensions beyond that group may have been to Garcia’s side projects. The Bottom Line’s standing ads in the Village Voice just sort of skipped over these three nights (see the issues of March 31, 1975, p. 114, and April 7, 1975, p. 106). Yet the shows quickly sold out (can’t find a cite for that, but I think there is one) and one of them, the Tuesday (April 8) late show, was even reviewed in the New York Times (John Rockwell, “Legion of Mary Fans Cheer Band’s Winning Music,” New York Times, April 10, 1975, p. 47). Again, it’s no big deal, but it just fascinates me as a slight deviation from the otherwise pretty straight institutionalization of the whole affair.

My own judgment has long been that these April 1975 shows are not that great, and revisiting this April 10^th early show as taped by the late, great Jerry Moore does little to dissuade me from that view. Stevie Wonder’s “Creepin’” [Allan] is an interesting novelty, and this version shows some promise, but it never really takes off. Two of the Garcia selections on this night, “It Ain’t No Use” and Jesse Winchester’s “Every Word You Say” [Allan | Schofield], are among my least favorite tunes from the period and just don’t do much for me. The Merl Saunders vocals, “My Problems Got Problems” [Allan | Schofield] (credited on Fire Up+ to Saunders and Carrier) and another great Stevie song, “Boogie On Reggae Woman” [Allan | Schofield] are both a little off, especially the former. It starts off with all kinds of whacked out tempos, way too fast for Merl to keep up with lyrically, and it never really settles in. It ends with kind of a thud after Merl tries, unsuccessfully, to improvise some lyrics to fit the unfamiliar tempo. They pull BORW together a little bit better, albeit after a rough start.

(Aside: I love how Merl got Jerry to play Stevie Wonder tunes. Both “Creepin’” and “Boogie On Reggae Woman” appeared on Fulfillingness’ First Finale [1974]. A propos of nothing, that album also has a track titled “It Ain’t No Use”, but it’s not the same as the Jerry Williams / Gary U.S. Bonds / Don Hollinger track played by Garcia and figuring in the present show’s setlist.)

The only real standout, to my ears – and it is a standout—is Dylan’s “The Wicked Messenger” [Allan | Schofield]. I have no idea where Garcia got the idea to turn this song into a raunchy, grinding, wailing electric guitar dysphony … had someone else covered it this way before? If Dylan’s album version featured a country lilt to contrast the grim lyrics, Garcia’s version met darkness with darkness. It’s a biting, metallic display of anger and virtuosity, not quite the equal of the version from the Great American Music Hall on May 15, 1975 (featured on the bonus disc Absolute Mary), but still a show-stealer and well worth ten minutes of anybody’s time.

All right, listening notes follow. Thanks again to Jerry Moore (RIP, STW), Rob Berger and David Minches for getting this great recording into the ears of the masses.

Legion of Mary

Bottom Line
15 West Fourth Street
New York, NY, 10012

April 10, 1975 (Thursday) Early Show

Moore Minches shnid-117250

(7 tracks, 85:29)

t01. ambience [1:08]

t02. It Ain't No Use [12:20] [1:38]

t03. Creepin' [13:36] [1:07] % [0:33]

t04. My Problems Got Problems [14:42] [2:06]

t05. Every Word You Say [7:24] [0:11] % [2:37]

t06. The Wicked Messenger [10:10] [1:44]
t07. Boogie On Reggae Woman [15:45] [0:24]

! ACT1: Legion of Mary
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;

! lineup: Merl Saunders - keyboards, vocals;

! lineup: Martin Fierro - saxophone;

! lineup: John Kahn - el-bass;

! lineup: Ron Tutt - 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/19750410-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/14209 (earlier transfer of same tape).

! R: field recordist: Jerry Moore

! R: field recording gear: 2x AKG D1000E > Sony TC-152

! R: Transfer and FLAC encoding by David Minches: Master played back on Nakamichi Dragon > Korg MR-1000 (DSF [1-bit 5.6448 MHz Stereo]) Korg AudioGate > WAV [24/96] > Adobe Audition 3.0 > FLAC encoding. Speed/pitch Correction by Joe B. Jones. Thanks to Rob Berger for supplying the master cassettes.

! R: this is the only known recording of this show as of 11/2011. It's a characteristically excellent Jerry Moore tape.

! t03 Creepin' they find a nice little groove from 4:53 around Garcia's solo. This has real promise. It's better than the 2/14/75version I just listened to. It even swings a little bit.

! t04 PGP they have the tempo way too fast for Merl, and generally. Around the 12-minute mark they are completely lost, Merl trying to improvise through a tempo that he just doesn't have a handle on, not that successfully.

! P: t06 WM I love the raunchy tone Jerry gets on this during his first solo, late 1-min to early 2-min mark. And he is still shredding in the early 3-min mark. Wow, this is very heavy stuff.

! P: t07 BORW starts off a little rough again, things just out of sync.

! R: t07 some bumping of the microphone early in BORW.

"the world’s most recorded musician in the world’s most famous arena"

Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19911115-01

The Red Light folks tagged GarciaLive 16 (MSG 11/15/91) with the subject line, and I have to say that it's badass. That crew does a good job, IMO. I am not kissing up. It's a hard job and they have released some amazing stuff. And that's just a good line. Tip o' the cap.

I wanted to post my review of this release from Grateful Dead Studies.

It contains some pretty good distillations about which you will read again in Fate Music.

The performance by the ... JGB at Madison Square Garden on November 15, 1991, represents the acme of Garcia’s solo career, the culmination of a nearly quarter-century name-claiming journey by which he established his identity as an individual American musician, Jerry-Garcia-full-stop, beyond and distinct from his wider fame as Jerry-Garcia-of-the-Grateful-Dead.

...

Jerry Garcia never planned a solo career; it just sort of happened as he sought more and different avenues for expression than the Dead allowed. Inchoate jams at the Carousel Ballroom became tempo études (“Mickey and the Hartbeats”) at the Matrix, which became regular but musically formless Monday night jams with Howard Wales, which morphed into ongoing and more musically grounded gigs with Merl Saunders. Even after four years, the amorphous aggregation resisted naming itself, going by “The Group” in the Bay Area, or just listing members’ names, before coalescing into “Legion of Mary” for its last eight months. The meantime saw numerous aggregations under other (and others’) names, playing diverse musics, cutting some records, running some drive-by tours, and banking an increasingly sizeable pile of accomplishments, including the country New Riders of the Purple Sage, the space-jazz Hooteroll? proj- ect with Wales, and the incandescent bluegrass all-stars Old and In The Way. Otherwise off-nights found Garcia making a singular solo record, engaging protean Dawg Music (David Grisman’s Great American Music/ String Band), renewing bluegrass ties with the Good Old Boys, vibrating electrons with Ned Lagin, and making time for a vast array of sessions, sit-ins, dalliances, and one- and few-offs.

But the Jerry Garcia Band (1975–1995) bore his name, and it played the music its eponym liked, the way he wanted to play it. Over the years the JGB, always featuring Garcia’s friend bassist John Kahn but with an evolving array of other musicians, grooved to soul, R&B, Motown, contemporary gospel, reggae, and other Black idioms that fit the band’s changing personnel, especially after the arrival of church organist Melvin Seals in 1981 and his handpicked backing vocalists starting the next year. A second tranche of cover tunes drew from the contemporary White Anglosphere, both the British Isles and North American settler colonies, heavy on the Americana. Garcia-Hunter originals, some shared with the Dead and others exclusive to the JGB, rounded out the repertoire. The six players integrate seamlessly. This is the canonical Jerry Garcia Band, a lineup that lasted 1984–1993, the core three plus steady David Kemper on drums and harmony vocals by Jackie LaBranch and Gloria Jones, Oakland church singers with day jobs who took to calling themselves the Jerryettes.

Read the whole thing as they say. I dig this show, and I dig imagining how this son of an immigrant musician might have felt seeing that family name in lights at the Garden.

I am listening to Hooteroll? again

Something is definitely wrong with me.

Hooteroll? with Howard Wales and Jerry Garcia - Crouse Auditorium, Syracuse University, January 22, 1972

Previously unknown gig. Thanks to carville for sharing!

Garcia first solo album, tidbit

Not sure whatever became of this ... am I missing something? The only Douglas Records release with Jerry that I know of is Hooteroll? I don't recall any direct Commander Cody involvement with Jerry, on-stage or in-studio. File under "maybe was" or something like that, I guess.

Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders at the Matrix - A Dialogue

[ed: Corry sent me an email about Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders at the Matrix, which turned into a rather elaborate exchange on the subject. One piece of our correspondence involved the tape traveling as 5/20/71. This is some of Garcia's finest playing on tape in any context. I highly recommend that you check it out. I have done a little metadata analysis of the tape and reckon that there's no reason to doubt the David Lemieux-inspired conclusion that it is what it purports to be, and plenty of reason to concur in it.

Corry was stunned at how "out" this material is, sounding more like Howard Wales than Merl Saunders on keys, unmooring totally, in quasi-free jazz style, from the songs. I agreed with him, but, if my metadata analysis is right --and we both think it is-- then it is indeed Merl, and we may need, in my words (pace Bayes), to update our priors.

With Corry's permission, I am posting it more or less as we have it in email, with a few tweaks here and there. I originally planned that Corry would be in black and I would be in blue ("Tasty hemlock!"), but the quoting arrangement seems to work all right. Don't want too much formatting else Blogger will up and walk away on me.

Dialogue below the fold.]

JG: December 21, 1970 (Monday), Pepperland, San Rafael, CA

At some point I need to figure out Pepperland. I see from a Rock Prosopography post on Sons of Champlin setlists that the venue was the Bermuda Palms ca. 1967, then became Euphoria Ballroom, then became Pepperland. Nothing turns up on Rock Archaeology.

COAU has a little bit. With an address of 737 Francisco Blvd. E, San Rafael, CA 94901, it is apparently recently known as Litchfield's Zebra ?Restaurant?:


View Larger Map

But my purpose here is not to dig into Pepperland, but to follow up on the gig on December 21, 1970. I had mentioned it in one of the recent Hooteroll? posts, and I reproduce an ad from the Pacific Sun that I had also posted there. (What can I say, I like this image?)

In comments, cryptdev confirmed that Howard Wales was not present, so the billing in the ad is wrong.

We have good eyewitness information on this at Deadlists, however. This from MP:

I attended part of this show. It was indeed the Jerry Hahn Brotherhood opening, with a spectacular set. Next up was a blues band (not Howard Wales) that I can't recall the name, but John Kahn was their bass player. The New Riders played next. Around 2 AM, Garcia, Lesh, Hart, and David Crosby came out. They opened with "Drop Down Mama," and also played "Alabama Bound," "Triad" and "Deep Elem Blues" before I was dragged kicking and screaming from the hall by my ride, who needed to work the next morning. The ads billed the show as "Acoustic Dead" but this segment, at least, was electric. At one point, Garcia introduced the group as "David and the Ding-A-Lings" (not Dorks!) and Crosby countered with the name "Jerry and the Jets." Weir and Pigpen were visible wandering around backstage, so it is entirely possible, even likely, that the entire Dead played even later, as curfew clearly was not an issue.

So I'll just extract and reformat. On this night, we have the following:

1. Jerry Hahn And The Brotherhood 
2. blues band, with John Kahn on bass: Comment: LLD, take note!
3. New Riders of the Purple Sage (NRPS). Comment: Mickey is in the house. Wonder if he played drums, or if Spencer did?  First documented show with Spencer was in Cleveland on 11/29/70, but as I am learning it might have switched back and forth for awhile, so with Mickey here it's possible he played.
4. David And The Dorks. Comment: Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, David Crosby. Name is utterly fluid, so this DATD listing is purely conventional. Much to say, eventually, about David and the Dorks. Not sure what more there is to be learned ... hopefully more!
5. possibly the GD, acoustic or electric possible

A few thoughts..

If the GD did play, this would have been a rare "threefer" day for Garcia. The only other days I can think of him playing live with three different bands, off the top of my head, were the closing of the Fillmore West run (July 2, 1971) and, you guessed it, the Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival on April 28, 1974. (He played three separate shows on 6/5/82, but all as the Garcia-Kahn acoustic duet.)

With Weir and Pigpen in the house, I'd wager the GD were at least slated to play. I'd even say there might be better than even odds that the GD played in some configuration.

Wonder where Mickey Hart's head was at, given how things would shake out in regards to Perfidious Lennie over the next few months? I also wonder whether his barn studio was being planned or built yet?

Would JG ever play at Pepperland again?

A Second Hooteroll?

In reporting that Epic/Columbia Custom Records and Douglas Records had re-upped on their distribution deal in spring 1972, Cash Box noted that one expected piece of product was "an encore of the collaboration between Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia and keyboard man Howard Wales". News to me.

! ref: "Col, Douglas Dist. Renewal," Cash Box, April 1, 1972, p. 9.

Positively Garcia and the East Coast Deadhead

I. Howard Weiner's Positively Garcia

Howard Weiner's very enjoyable Positively Garcia (Weiner 2014) is like a better-written, more musical, less arcane version of my listening notes, great flashing insights on the same issues that occupy Corry, without the depth. That's not a criticism, by the way: it is light in the sense of being quick and fun to read (if you are seeing these words, I think you'll feel the same), not lightweight. Positively Garcia is the first book on the Jerry Garcia Band, as he would have it (see e.g., p. 3), or, as a stickler would have it, since a couple of the shows are from 1972 and hence predate the JGB, Garcia On The Side. Tip o' the cap to Mr. Weiner for kicking off a print discussion that I really look forward to advancing.

The book is chock full of good stuff, and I decided to engage a piece that caught my eye and drew my ear, its treatment of JGB 11/4/81 at the Palace in Albany, which I guess checks in at #6 of Weiner's list of must-hear Garcia shows. I'll take two slices across his piece, roughly speaking a more meta take focused on the economy of this gig at its particular points in space and time, and then a more micro listening engagement, comparing notes and thoughts on the performance.

II. "Rise of the East Coast Deadhead"

Weiner frames JGB 11/4/81 Albany around this theme, and it works wonders.

Quibbling, I'd say that Arnold (ongoing at Lost Live Dead and Hooterollin Around), Jackson (1999), LIA (ongoing at Grateful Dead Essays and Grateful Dead Sources), McNally (2002), Lesh (2005), Richardson (2014), and all the rest have amply elaborated the phenomenal rise of the East Coast Deadhead, and it's of much older vintage than the 1977 root Weiner taps. (What East Coast Deadhead of this vintage doesn't mention Englishtown?) If, In The Beginning there were Sue Swanson and whatshername, by about the third day He made the East Coast Deadhead, probably via a solid black phone with a rotary dial. The birth year of the East Coast Deadhead sports a '6' in the tens column. In the Garciaverse, the curve first kinks at An Evening With The Grateful Dead and the May 1970 East Coast tour, then again in January 1972 on the Wales-Garcia Hooteroll? tour, the first time Garcia had his name on an East Coast marquee since the birth of the Grateful Dead. A more accurate chapter heading would have been "a slope-change in East Coast Deadheaddom proximally preceding late 1981", but he writes too well for that.

Quibbles aside, Weiner does a great job of colorfully narrating and analyzing a particular, for lack of a better word, economy. The JGB and its East Coast fans sustained, extended, substantially constituted not only the Garciaverse, but also, or rather thereby, the world of the Grateful Dead. Let me start with the GOTS perspective. "More music" catalyzed the Garciaverse, but the money certainly didn't hurt, and naturally the East Coast was a huge part of that, the modal part of that I'd say. That's where the relevant people were in the 1970s and into the 80s. Monetizing his name helped him make his life of music and women and children and men and meetings and highs and hoots and lonely nights in strange rooms and all the rest. It made his life, as he lived it, possible. If Garcia's name-claiming journey began in the comfort of the Bay Area, it really started paying the bills once it followed the silk road, to the east.

"No Jerry = no Grateful Dead" should be emblazoned into the Dead Canon, the band quite impossible without him as long as he breathed (except for 8/1/69 at the Family Dog and, for an hour or so, 6/8/69 at the Fillmore West, of course), and for a long time after he stopped. From the advent of Jerry Garcia as a commodity/man alongside the Dead, and hence, by a kind of natural market gravity, Jerry Garcia as an East Coast phenomenon, the pieces almost always acted as complements, working together and strengthening each other. I can think of one exception, summer 1992, when a hard/hot/rough JGB jaunt to Southern California wrecked Garcia to the tune of several cancelled Dead shows and probably a few hundred thousand dollars. But mostly, they worked together.

After a time, GOTS made "Jerry Garcia" possible. To that extent, it set the conditions of possibility for the Grateful Dead as Garcia aged.

In the making of this Jerry Garcia, the institution of the East Coast tour was a cornerstone social technology, the essence of creative destruction from 1975 until his death. JGB and its acoustic brethren took reasonably long jaunts that year (e.g., October 22 - November 2), and then in the following biggish pieces:

spring 1976: 
fall 1977,
spring 1978,
early 1980,
early and late 1981,
mid-1982,
mid-1983,
late 1983,
mid-1984

[work in progress]

The Dead had assiduously monetized itself amongst this set of fan-consumers from the beginning. Having built that, in 1975 Garcia claimed his name, in that wonderful modern Western sense of property rights, of packaging it up, dba Jerry Garcia Band, and selling it to willing customers, exercising an entitlement to the residual claim (which is the definition of property rights) on a very valuable asset: his name. Weiner does a great service by Polaroiding the East Coast Deadhead as a key ingredient in the alchemy by which Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead also became Jerry Garcia, full stop.

East Coast Deadheads loved Garcia, and he played them some great shows. As Weiner describes it, they are "rabid" fans who

attend college at SUNY Albany, or one of the plethora of upstanding schools in the area. One day they’ll be the doctors, lawyers, scientists, and politicians of America. But on this night they are boisterous, stoned, Garcialoving sycophants, escaping the cultural doldrums of the times—new wave, punk, Jordache Jeans, and The Dukes of Hazzard-- ... East Coast Deadheads inspired Garcia by raising a ruckus—hooting and hollering at exactly the right moments. These rowdy cats appreciated the intricacies of improvisation, and Garcia would respond by dialing up the jam—impassioned fret work. Garcia was the embodiment of California culture, yet his creativity thrived in the chaotic environments hovering around New York City, New Haven, Boston, and Philadelphia (Weiner 2014, 68).

This is a standard analysis, supported by statements made by Garcia and other GD members over the years - the East Coast was more intense and often produced diamonds, while the West Coast typically got a more laid-back, home town vibe. Either way, commerce abetted some outstanding art, and it was win-win all around. That's certainly Weiner's claim about 11/4/81, since he places the show in his top twelve. I'll go through the show alongside Weiner, see how our subjective assessments compare. Bottom line of this is that Weiner puts it in his top 6, and I might put it as average for the tour (which was, admittedly, a very good one).

III. Listening Comparison

--set I--

How Sweet It Is

Weiner calls it lackluster, I find nothing of note. Our assessments converge.

Catfish John

Weiner lumps it with HSII (lackluster), but then narrates as follows:" As Garcia strums the climactic finale of the “Catfish John” jam, the Palace Theatre erupts. These overly eager fans are cuckoo for Jerry from the first note" (Weiner 2014, 68).

I note: "@ 2 John's bass sounds great, not sure how much is PA/tape and how much is just that he sounds strong, some combination of both. 7:06 JG symphonic." So I am with the crowd here. Again, I'd say Weiner's sense and my own sense are pretty close.

I Second That Emotion

Weiner likes it.

I systematically dislike this as a Garcia-Kahn tune, which is unfortunate since they played it hundreds of times in just about every band. Songs that stood the test of time in that particular way --start early, stay consistent, never very far from being at hand -- songs Garcia really liked and really liked playing, weren't that common, and if it was good enough for him who am I to say? And here at 3:25 ish I hear why he feels enthusiastic about playing this song, he's is right on it, Mr. Tutt is right on it. Another run 'round the bases for Jerry late 3 over 4, cruising into second on the double, safely ahead of the throw. Garcia sounds great, the whole band sounds great."

So, against my priors (I thought Weiner would be more positive than me), we both converge on liking it.

Simple Twist Of Fate

Weiner does not mention this song. I don't have that much to say, pace a little draggy for me, but nice inflection on "waterfront docks | where the sailors all come in," a classic Dylan palabragraph of Garcia's sailor- and salt air-San Francisco early childhood. It doesn't feel like Weiner and I diverge much on this one.

Mystery Train

Weiner calls it "the transformative performance, the one that really hurtles [it] towards immortality".

I don't make one note. So here I'd say we diverge substantially.

Deal

Weiner: "Once upon a time, this was a onejam pony with a tight instrumental tucked in the middle; but now there's an outrageous ending jam, one that Garcia has been cultivating for the past year" (Weiner 2014, 69). Here's an example of Weiner's really wonderful musical insight: he's absolutely right, I bet, that if we trace back to the handful of summer 1980 East Coast shows (with –ex Family Stone Greg Errico on drums), but especially in the February '81 tour, we'd find the big, hugely layered runs he stacks on the back of little Deal, really making it a rip-snorter all the way through his last good playing late in life.

I have to quote Weiner at length here:

I recommend the final solo from the Albany "Deal." Garcia opens swiftly with screeching twangs that'll burn your brain right out. The crowd is overwhelmed, and the crazed shouting begins …  The music thunders. Kahn and Tutt are the sound and the fury-the Palace walls are shaking. A crazed outburst from Garcia draws a tumultuous roar … Garcia restates the riff, louder, and with more authority. A wave of approval reverberates through the faithful, and the crowd barks for more … An obliging Garcia drops the hammer--same melody line in a higher register, and incrementally quicker, 85 mph ... 90 mph ... 95 mph. Feeding off the loudest roar of the night, Garcia invents exclamation notes born out of the heat of the moment. It's an inspired collaboration, an emotional give and take between a performer and an audience in peak states. … Garcia would play many longer versions of "Deal" featuring mind-bending jams executed with brilliant technique; but few are as stunning as 11-4-81. There's virtuosity within this solo, but the real thrill is hearing how Garcia works the crowd, and how he lets the crowd work him. It's a time out of mind moment, aural transcendence captured on an audience recording (Weiner 2014, 70).

These were the kinds of experiences, a night of world class American music for your $7.50, smokin' hot guitar playing in front of a great band churning out some great rock n roll, by dint of which Garcia earned his audience-for-life.

My notes give it a very good review, but then I conclude a little contradictorily:

You can start to hear Garcia's voice really thinning out in this period. Nevertheless, as I hear him doing some chorus 3:30, I hear him nodding his head to the ladies and signaling that he wants to dig in a little. They step up, and he does step up nicely second half of 3, now stacking and building 4:15 to a nice full peak 4:24, crowd into it 4:32, great notes everywhere, mixing and blending times, scales and excursions trading off at random, then decaying intervals, a nice extension 5:20 when he could have done something else, building it up 5:31, not in the key I want, but he's building it up 5:45, ethereal peaks 5:45, trotting down a scale right over 6. Puts a pedal on it 6:20, Melvin right where he needs to be, Jerry and the ladies rejoin the vocals on cue 6:30ish. He didn't blow the roof off with that Deal, but it was very good, as it often was during this period.

--intermission--

--set II--

Roadrunner

Weiner nicely narrates the hard traveling of 1981, with this particular Jerry Garcia Band tour (October 31 – November 19, 1981, 18 shows in 14 cities) coming less than two weeks after coming back from a European Dead tour for the second time that year, followed by ten days off and then seven more Midwest Dead shows. "Roadrunner", indeed.

I am a little grumpier about things: "Again I notice Garcia's thinning, increasingly nasal vocal delivery".

Mission In The Rain

Weiner loves it, loves it, loves it, drapes it in lots of hyperbole. I think he is mistaken when he says "'Mission in the Rain' is Hunter's portrait of Garcia when they both resided in the Mission District of San Francisco" (Weiner 2014, 73), though it is clearly bound up in the songsters' biographies. It also works well, for older Jerry, who "had lost a lot during the last decade. His bushy black mane and beard had grayed prematurely, and his addiction to smoking Persian had him by the balls" (Weiner 2014, 74).

With expressive and cascading guitar runs, Garcia evokes the pains and pleasures of the human experience as the band backs him in a dreamlike trance. … In the Albany "Mission," his Tiger guitar has the gift of gab as he scurries from scene to scene-everything's poignant and picturesque-brilliant brushstrokes galore. Garcia's phrasing is immaculate. Each riff is a clever idea, complete with its own zestful flavor and texture. There's a brief interlude from Seals, but Garcia's guitar won't be hushed. Just when you think the Bearded One has ended a phrase, he sneaks in a spine-tingling flurry, a little something for us elitists who think we've heard it all. And the way Garcia manipulates the silence is an art form within itself (Weiner 2014, 74).

Weiner notes a miscue that Garcia turns to gold, an extra measure on a Mission chorus compensated by some monstrous guitar work. At 14 and a half minutes, Weiner notes, this is the longest MITR on record (Weiner 2014, 75).

What did I think of the Mission? Heh heh, here's old Grumpy Gus now.

This Mission did absolutely nothing for me. Sounds draggy, and I notice vocal weakness. For a good part of 11 he is not really playing his guitar. 11:45 nice little run over 12. Some envelope late 12 and louder, now doing well over 13, talking himself into putting some oomph into some solos. Not bad, but he hasn't blow the roof off this night. Good picking here 13:36, but for some reason I am wanting more pure decibels and he's not delivering.

Subjectivity is funny, isn't it?

That's What Love Will Make You Do

Weiner: "After such an overwhelming display, on a another night, Garcia might have slowed things down with "Simple Twist of Fate" or "Russian Lullaby," but instead, he almost incites a riot by busting into "That's What Love Will Make You Do," an atypical pick for the third spot of the second set" (Weiner 2014, 75). But he doesn't spend much time on it.

Me: "TWLWMYD I am anxious because I think the one on 11/10/81 (early or late?) is supposed to be the best. This starts off nicely, yeah, in a good groove."

Night They Drove Old Dixie Down ->

Weiner talks about the song, but doesn't have much to say about the performance. I found nothing noteworthy.

Tangled Up In Blue

"Out of the final 'Dixie' chorus, JGB blasts into 'Tangled Up in Blue'. A classic Band anthem precedes a classic Dylan anthem. American history and culture rolls into one" (Weiner 2014, 76). Weiner doesn't like this TUIB as much as he likes the version from Cape Cod on 5/28/83, not as much as I do, apparently: "@ 4:29 Garcia lets loose some very fast and deft picking, very fluid, pulls back again 5:01 like he's got the horse to a good canter and you just keep on going, confident strumming mid-5 to the Montague Street verse. Over 10 this is some exceptionally inventive guitar work, all the way across the 10-minute mark, long cascading scales, digging in a little very end 10 to start bringing things home."

So, sounds like I liked this particular Dylan more than HW.

--encore—

Sugaree

Noting the relative rarity of a JGB encore, Weiner likes this version, which he calls intense and short. So funny. Here's what I said: "It's rather amazing this is the encore, because Garcia is not rushing this too much at all. Around 5:27 I found myself really liking what he was doing; it struck me as patient and inventive. Greatness 7:15 over 7:30 high searing peak." Sounds like we pretty much converge in liking it, though.

In summarizing this listening comparison, I certainly don't put this show anywhere near my top 10, as Weiner does. It's good, it has a lot of good moments, but it strikes me as representative of the tour, which was generally quite strong. I'd need to do more listening to really feel confident about that.

IV. Conclusion

I have been talking a lot about some of the recent and forthcoming books we get to enjoy here in the 50^th anniversary of the birth of the Dead and the 20^th anniversary year of Garcia's death. Weiner's will never be part of The Canon, but it's a good read and, naturally enough, I am thrilled to see Garcia On The Side getting some love. I recommend it.

Listening notes after the jump.

The end of the November 1974 Jerry Garcia - Merl Saunders (JGMS) east coast tour

There is so much to say about the November 1974 east coast tour undertaken by the Jerry Garcia / Merl Saunders group (the quintet of Garcia [el-g, vocals], Saunders [keyboards, vocals], John Kahn [el-bass], Martin Fierro [horns], and future Lawrence Welk drummer Paul Humphrey).

Garcia had done two national "tours" outside the Grateful Dead prior to this one.

• First, in January 1972, he went out with Howard Wales behind the Douglas Record Hooteroll? on something like a 10-date tour. I think we have barely scratched the surface with that tour.
• Second, in June 1973 Old And In The Way booked a midwest/east coast bluegrass festival tour which seems to have fallen apart after a scant 3-4 gigs. Again, we know next to nothing about this.
• Third, we have this tour. (The gigs at the Bottom Line, New York, NY, July 1-3, 1974 were one-offs, more like "scouting trips" for the tour, in my eyes. One helluva party, it seems like, and another barely documented episode.)

It began at the Bottom Line on Tuesday, November 5, 1974, and ended, I will argue, on Sunday, November 17, 1974 at the Auditorium Theatre in Rochester, NY. By my count the group played 22 shows in 12 days. I am not going to narrate the whole tour, just the end.

TJS currently has the tour running through a Monday night (November 18, 1974) show in The Dome at C.W. Post College in Greenvale, NY. Ryan's note says "All tapes I've seen with this date are really 11/08/74." Indeed. There was a show on Friday, November 8, 1974 in The Dome at C.W. Post College. There are several different tapes and lots of eyewitness accounts (though I'd love to gather more!). It seems pretty open and shut to me that the "11/18/74" dating is just a transcription error from "11/8/74". Not sure the point even needs belaboring, but I guess I'll go ahead and summarize all of the reasons this date is probably bogus:

• there is lots of evidence for 11/8, no evidence for 11/18 except mislabeled tape;
• easy to make "11/8" become "11/18".
• Why would they come back to the same venue ten days later?
• Why would they do so on a Monday night?

So this is what I think of as a "mere mislabel". The chances that it happened are tiny. How should these data be kept, and for example how should they be displayed at TJS?


In sum, I conclude that the current listing for Garcia and Saunder at C.W. Post College on November 18, 1974 is based on a mislabel of tapes from November 8th.

If "11/18/74" wasn't the last show of the tour, what was? For the night before (Sunday, November 17, 1974), TJS lists Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders at the Auditorium Theatre (*not* the Rochester War Memorial Auditorium) in Rochester, NY. It notes a 145 minute audience recording, which I do not believe I have heard. It also notes information from "Mark Wilkins", who presumably attended the show. There's a quite complete looking setlist as well. I would note, finally, that there is a listing in the (Canandaigua, NY) Daily Messenger, Thursday, November 14, 1974, section two, front page. So, lots of evidence that this show happened, and finishing on a Sunday makes a certain amount of sense.

So far I hope to have done the following:

• established that "11/18/74" is a "phantom gig";
• invite feedback on this is a type of phantom gig, and how TJS might represent such data;
• established that 11/17/74 did occur and was the final show of the 12-day, 22-show marathon (or is it a sprint?) northeast tour.

One last point I'd like to make is that John Kahn seems to have finished up with Garcia and Saunders and picked right up with Maria Muldaur's road band. Nice scheduling!

• The first Maria Muldaur gig from this tour that I have come across is, you guessed it, Monday, November 18, 1974 (Avery Fisher Hall in New York, NY). It was reviewed in Billboard (1). John Kahn is not mentioned.
• 
  
• The second one I came across was the same billing (Maria Muldaur, Livingston Taylor) at the Music Hall in Boston, MA on Friday, November 22, 1974. This was in an ad in the Boston Phoenix (November 12, 1974, p. 6, in the "Don Law Presents" space). 

Obviously I am not trying to narrate this Muldaur tour, though the Kahn story will eventually require all of that to be done. I am just noting the transition for John: finish with Jerry on the 17th, head back to the city for Maria on the 18th. Few more paying gigs (and maybe quite a few ... where were they until the 26th?), not too bad!

I suppose my point about this is that, in those days, Kahn was quite a busy musician. I don't think Garcia was carrying Kahn in 1974.


REFERENCE:
Stephen, Jim. Talent In Action: Maria Muldaur, Livingston Taylor, Avery Fisher Hall. Billboard, December 14, 1974, pp. 21, 31.

JGMS January 28-29, 1972 Keystone Korner - CANCELED

Interesting to see Jerry Garcia and Merle [sic] Saunders billed for Keystone Korner on Friday-Saturday, January 28-29, 1972. Suggests that, as of whenever the deadline for these listings might have been, a second weekend for the Hooteroll? tour had not yet been pinned down. #AHATT.

According to listing in the next day's HDR, Grootna filled the open spot. Hopefully The Fabulous Geoffrey didn't lose a payday when Garcia-Saunders empted him from that February 3-4 space, part of a 3-4-5 run, maybe to make it up to Freddie for having to cancel the weekend before. Maybe he opened for them.

AHATT

All Hooteroll?, All The Time

Image: http://www.matiklarweinart.com/artworkgallery.php. See also http://connecthook.wordpress.com/2011/09/05/pair-of-pentychs/ for a little bit more.

Jerry Garcia, January 17, 1972-January 29, 1972

Here's a visualization of the Garciaverse from January 17-29, 1972. This being blogger, I hope you can see it.

"Jerry Garcia, January 17, 1972-January 29, 1972"

Here is the Codebook as PDF.

There's no particular reason I am showing this slice, just wanted to give you all a look at how some of the cancellations fit in, and how I have my data visualizations currently configured.

Since we're here, though, we can see the Hooteroll? tour contemporaneous with canceled Dead and Jerry gigs. Which is the chicken and which the egg, which the cause and which the effect, I leave to your speculation.