Tuesday, March 29, 2022

Did You Ever Notice the 9/18/81 JGB Rehearsal Has Jerry Playing Acoustic?

The spine of Betty's 9/18/81 JGB rehearsal tape box

A beautiful piece of tape: Betty's reel from the 9/18/81 JGB rehearsal

I just revisited this little 20+ minute rehearsal fragment. Thank you Betty! This is the latest piece of Betty Board of interest to me: some of the abortive Brent solo album material came from later in '81 and into '82, but this is the last scrap of tape with ol' Jer on it.

 A few things to note.

First, Jerry is playing acoustic throughout, and doing so tastily.

Second, this is Ron Tutt drumming. Right before "Dear Prudence", as the reel winds up, Jerry comes in with a "hello?" while beautifully strumming Prudence on his acoustic. Tutt asks "Is that the right tempo, or should that be a little slower than the other'n?" Jerry replies "it should be a little slower than the other one."

Third, Melvin Seals sounds simply wonderful here. 

That's all I've got.

Jerry Garcia Band - Studio Rehearsal
Club Front
20 Front Street
San Rafael, CA 94901
September 18, 1981 (Friday)
MSR -> P -> D shnid-13881 shn2flac

--partial rehearsal (3 tracks, 21:38)--
t01. Tangled Up In Blue [7:36]
t02. Dear Prudence (1) [6:28] (2) [0:49] %
t03. //Tangled Up In Blue// [#6:45#]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band
! lineup: Jerry Garcia – acoustic guitar, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn – electric bass;
! lineup: Jimmy Warren – electric piano;
! lineup: Melvin Seals – organ;
! lineup: Ron Tutt – drums.

2 comments:

  1. I assume this is early work for Run For the Roses, right? JG plays acoustic on a few tracks on the album as well. I wonder if these aren't early takes with JG lightly playing along and singing a scratch vocal track to as a guide for the rest of the band (but not meant to be kept). Also, the two takes of Tangled are the same performance: t03 is missing the first 50 seconds, and the mixes are slightly different. It's not the same take as the RFTR outtake on the All Good Things boxset.

    ReplyDelete

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