Thursday, August 31, 2017

E72 post 18 (final)

5/26/72 was quite good, but I don't feel like I have that much to say. Maybe outta gas, like Poor Pig, after the whole tour.

I noticed late in the tour that Weir was using more vibrato, sometimes so much as to sound like the Little Onion (the great John Cipollina) himself.

I'll just say again how sad it was to see Pig withdraw over the course of the tour. The short tunes are good, the organ playing remains good, but the big stuff disappears.

Randomly selected 11/21/73 Denver for my first post-E72 commute, and man had this band come a long way in a year and a half. They were great during E72. They were even greater in late '73. This show has a truly amazing big jam woven out of, through and around PITB. Stellar.

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

E72 post 17

The big jam of 5/24/72 didn't slay me, but I have to apply the normal caveats. I may not have been paying a ton of attention.

The Lovelight didn't go anywhere or do anything. Pig is totally out of gas. He never even tells us 'bout his baby, how come she make him feel so good.

5/25/72 struck me as kind of a mess, with lots of lyrical issues for Bob and Jerry in the first set. Bob can't remember Promised Land, Jerry turns China Cat around.

Good Lovin' again lacks any Pig rap. *sigh*

Uncle John's sounds sweet, Wharf Rat wants to be Dark Star at first (I think Denver '73 is another example of how those songs could have been brothers from another mother, in some ways), and, after it Dark Star indeed emerges. This one struck me as average for the tour, some good upbeat bits, so maybe a bit above average (high bar, though). SOTOTW is always good, and I loves me some standalone GDTRFB.

5/26, last night of the tour, sounds peppy out of the gate, as the horse starts smelling the barn. Set I ends with a wonderful moment, the London crowd clapping the NFA beat (before it would become a Deadhead cliché), and the band responding with a very enthusiastic NFA > GDTRFB > NFA.

The big jam is queued up for this morning's commute. The next number, famously, "rose straight to the top of the charts in Turlock, California", and Bob continues, "They love us in Turlock, and we love them for that."

By today's commute home, I'll be done with the tour. It's been a great ride.

Wednesday, August 09, 2017

Scotty's Jam

Does anybody have the state-of-the-art understanding of what the "Scotty's Music Store 5/14/70" / "Jetty's Music Theater 12/7/71" NRPS jam session really is? TIA.

update

Looks pretty certain to have been 12/9/71 at Scotty's Music Store. Here is some info from JGBP (thanks!).
Jerry plays a Zane Beck D-10 pedal steel and also Lloyd Green's old double neck Sho Bud with the yellow streak on the front owned by Scotty, a flat top guitar [6] and a brand new 1972 Micro Frets Spacetone guitar.
"The next time that the Dead came to St. Louis and the New Riders were with them and both bands came to the store and we had a kind off the wall jam session. Sometimes Buddy Cage would play the steel and then I would play. I owned Lloyd Green's old double neck Sho Bud with the yellow streak on the front and that is the guitar we played on. They came to the store one more time and anytime they would get within 200 miles of St. Louis they would call me and I would take my reel to reel tape recorder to the motel and took several tapes of the Steel Guitar Convention with me and after their concert we would listen to them the rest of the night. I took pictures and even put up a mike and recorded that jam session. I sold Jerry a double neck MSA and when it came time to pay for it the manager said to me, "What's our price"? Jerry put his hand on his shoulder and said, You pay this man full price!" Wow! Jerry and I corresponded for awhile and we exchanged LP's with each other. It's odd - a guy devoted to pure country and one of the most respected guys in rock and roll getting together and being so friendly with each other. Jerry Garcia and DeWitt "Scotty" Scott, Bob Weir and the rest of the band were very friendly too!" [4]
"That jam at Scotty's was interesting, and Scotty remembers a few details. Most interestingly is the smoking' hot lead guitar player. Scotty remembers his name I think. He was a Gibson rep out doing his midwest rounds and happened to be stopping thru St. Louis that day. He was there for the jam, and was totally unrelated to NRPS or Jerry. It really wasn't a performance as much as an impromptu jam. The Dead/NRPS were in town, and at that time Jerry no longer played steel with them, hence Cage's presence. A bunch of local hippie/deadheads found their way and crammed into Scotty's for the little jam. Rick Rhamberg was there and recalls this Nashville Gibson rep guitarist all duded out in his country getup and they didn't know who he was, but he sure could rip.” [5]
"My store is small but both bands were here and they sat on the floor and we were crowded but everyone enjoyed it. What they liked about meeting at my store is that I did not take advantage of their being here by letting everyone know that they were coming. Jerry, especially, liked that. All this is packed in boxes and stored away. I did not even mark on the boxes what was in them back in those days. I would have to search many, many boxes to find any thing that I have on those guys. About the recording. I only made one. Buddy Cage played steel guitar for awhile and I played steel guitar for awhile. Everyone had their go at singing and playing the flat top guitars.” [4
"And that was the night of the jam session. Even if I didn’t partake, there was a big enough cloud for everyone.”[1]
"Buddy Cage, Chuck Berry and many others have been here several times. There have been many jam sessions at this store and the one with Jerry Garcia is in the top ten.” [3]
The Grateful Dead performed at the Fox Theater, St. Louis, MO later on this date.
3.) Scott, Michael, comments, 2013-06-07, email to author.
4.) Scot, DeWitt, robthewordsmith, comments, 2010-10-12, http://archive.org/post/329204/scottys-music-store-jam.
6.) Scott, Michael, photographer, 1971-12-09.

E72 post 16

Started 5/24/72 today, got through set I and into set II.

Neat song selection - opening with oldies Cold Rain and Snow and BIODTL, a rare "Dire Wolf", a very good China > Rider (not too adorned, but tight and successful), good Playin. Oh yeah, Bob strums the WRS Prelude before MAMU.

Set II starts off well with Rockin' Pneumonia and another rarity for the tour, "Black Peter".

Looking forward to the remainder on tomorrow's ride!
Truckin' > Drums > The Other One > Sing Me Back Home > Sugar Magnolia, Turn On Your Lovelight

Tuesday, August 08, 2017

E72 post 15

"Promised Land" is fitting for the home stretch. Most of the rest of the first set is a blur because I heard it two weeks ago, an eternity for these kinds of recollections.

PITB clocks in at twelve and a half minutes, and I recall liking it very much.

SOTOTW is exciting. I have some tickle like maybe it was a game effort but flawed, I dunno.

"Rockin' Pneumonia" is a rarity that swings pretty well. It always reminds me of Big Boy Pete.

Mexicali is still fresh enough to be interesting - that feeling would fade.

The huge, crushing disappointment of this show, to me, is that there is no Pig rap in Good Lovin'. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. Niente. Man, E72 captures a last, bright burn for Pig, but also its snuffing out. I have been feeling it for several shows --it's possible I wouldn't "feel" it if I didn't know the outcome, but what are you gonna do?-- and this GL seals it for me. In Paris at the start of the month he did one of the great Good Lovin's, and I had considered going back and transcribing his raps, they were so distinctively well-crafted. By the end of the month, he's got nothing.

The best backing band in the world rages through a smoking version of "Good Lovin'", but, at this point, they've got no one to back. I don't hear much organ during the instrumental middle, either, which was generally something I'd been taking note of during the tour. Keith is playing very well. By the late 5 minute mark this thing is *cooking*, what a band. Philip Lesh absolutely assaults the reprise to the GL theme, man oh man, he sounds mad.

Ramble on Rose is great the whole tour. Then we get the big half-hour Star (appropriately yipped and clapped for by the savvy Londoners), which I wasn't able to give the attention it probably deserves. The Dew is interesting, coming from Jerry and then Bob, no big Phil hit to start it off; Garcia starts on the wrong verse and the whole version feels passionate but kind of jacked up. I haven't checked the timing, but it's quite short. I don't think there have been more than one or two played previously on the tour, opening one night IIRC, but I'd have to double-check.

After Dark Star > Dew is one of the best post-big jam pieces of the tour. The amazing thing about this band of talented and peaking young men is that they'd just play for hours. They'd often do a half dozen or more tunes *after* blowing an hour on a Truckin' > Other One or most of one on a Dark Star > anything, to say nothing of some minds. But instead of a ballad to ease them home, the crowd would get another 45 minutes of musicianship.

He's Gone has matured immeasurably over the course of the tour - probably the tune that grew the most. This one has a more developed break to "going where the wind don't blow so strange", as I heard it. I imagined that they worked on it during their days off. Anyway, it's good. There still are not enough harmony vocals, and a few other things are wonky, but it's getting there. Garcia even takes it for a little spin on the back end, something I had noted from earlier in the tour, which will form the germ of many an excursion in the years to come.

What can I say - I love "Sugar Magnolia" in its album version, and I *hate* it as it was played after about this year, 1972. This is a good one. [Aside: if the Dead had played FOTD on the E72 tour, they would have done it fast, the way it was meant to be.] "Comes A Time" is fantastic, my only quibble that his first guitar turn was nothing but the same notes he had sung on the first verse. He has tamed the vocal, though, no longer trying the falsetto, and he delivers this one with a lot of feeling.

Not done yet!

GDTRFB ambles out of the gate very promisingly, stumbles a little bit, but then does its thing, which I love. Kreutzmann leads to NFA, Garcia scrubs into "Hey Bo Diddley" -- totally awesome, but man did I long for a "Caution" out of that scrubbing!-- and it's great. NFA reprises, drops neatly into the Workingman's classic, "Uncle John's Band", which hadn't gotten much play on the tour. I imagined somehow that Garcia did especially well with the Garcia-Hunters this night, something about Hunter and London and all that.

Anyway, there is an awful lot to like from this show, perhaps more if I get a chance to revisit the first set and the Star.

Sunday, August 06, 2017

Grass Valley Grateful Dead


Why? Don't ask why, just listen (if you care to).

Patched out of Yamaguchi/Poris and a set of modded Nak 700s. Someone speculates in notes whether a 3rd mic is operating, because Phil. And, yes, Straw ambling out, and - Phil. And, drums.

Here are the notes, some classic stuff in here:
- tapes pauses/flips touched up
- Phil - the low end on this capture makes me wonder if a 3rd mic was employed
- A sheep was in attendance. (with black leather chrome spiked suspenders??)
- Bob, Brent & the Rhythm Devils jam it out after Terrapin.
- How do you like your TOO?? Shaken or stirred??
- The Joint… round & round. After all we are in Grass Valley.
Happy random listening to whatever you might randomly listen to this day.

edit

Sweet Lord, this Jack Straw -- Mamma mia-- burning off both of my ears!

Wednesday, August 02, 2017