JGB at the Auditorium Music Hall, Memphis, TN, November 18, 1975 (CXL)

Here's an ad from the Memphis Commercial Appeal billing Jerry Garcia Band (JGB) at the Auditorium Music Hall in Memphis, TN, November 18, 1975.

Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN), November 2, 1975, p. 5

The show must have been canceled, because I have never seen other record of this *and* the Garcia Band played the Keystone Berkeley this night.

I have a question about the venue, for which no address is given.

For his only Memphis gig outside the Dead on March 28, 1976, Garcia played what we list as South Hall, Ellis Auditorium, Memphis, TN. (see also JGBP). Is this the same room? I think so, as we give capacity for that space at 2,200 and the ad says 2,000 tickets available.

Would just love to hear any thoughts. In the meantime, I think I am going to list this with the same venue.

Notes from Dawson 2011 re Nicky Hopkins

 

Unidentified Nicky Hopkins Instrumentals

update: Mark Mattson has identified the number as "Lucky Old Sun" - wow!

There may be others, but I am right now pondering two distinct instrumentals that Nicky does out of "Lady Sleeps" with the JGB in the last month or so of his run with the band.

11/23/75: about 1:38:30ff here --> https://ia600902.us.archive.org/9/items/jgb1975-11-23MackeyAuditoriumBoulderCO/jgb1975-11-23MackeyAuditoriumBoulderCO.mp3

He announces that one before as one of his originals, I think.

12/19/75: about 51:30ff here--> http://www.archive.org/serve/jgb1975-12-19WinterlandArenaSanFranciscoCA/jgb1975-12-19WinterlandArenaSanFranciscoCA.mp3 a little peppier, sounds kind of Beatles-ish to me (though it's not "Mother Nature's Son")

Help!

All By Myself: Legion of Mary, April 5, 1975 late show at the Cap, Passaic, NJ

LN jg1975-04-05.lom.late.aud-SC.147761.flac1644

Ticket stub for Legion of Mary, April 5, 1975, Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ - 11:30 PM late show
NB misspelling of "Capital". Image courtesy of gdsets.com

Very listenable audience tape with everything present. Nice show - I like everything here, even "Sitting In Limbo", which I don't always love. "Wicked Messenger" - my goodness, what a great cover. Great energy throughout, including for the public debut of Fats Domino's "All By Myself", which might think would require the boogie-woogie piano, but does just fine here with the organ.

LEGION OF MARY

Capitol Theatre

326 Monroe Street

Passaic, NJ 07055

April 5, 1975 (Saturday) - Late Show

aud shnid-147761

--late show (8 tracks, 93:49)--

t01. /Let It Rock [12:30] [0:09] %

t02. /You Can Leave Your Hat On [14:56] [0:03] %

t03. /All By Myself [6:50] [0:12] %

t04. /Last Train From Poor Valley [8:20] [0:07] %

t05. Boogie On Reggae Woman [15:50] [0:08] %

t06. /Sitting In Limbo [15:12] [0:14]

t07. /Wicked Messenger [7:12] [0:07]

t08. Talkin' 'Bout You [11:44] [0:16]

! ACT1: Legion Of Mary:

! lineup: Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals;

! lineup: Merl Saunders - keyboards, vocals;

! lineup: John Kahn - bass;

! lineup: Martin Fierro - saxophone, flute;

! lineup: Ron Tutt - drums.

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: https://jerrybase.com/events/19750405-02

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/147646 (same source, deprecated); https://etreedb.org/shn/147761 (this fileset)

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2011/09/capitol-theater-monroe-st-and-central.html

! historic: For the two shows, LOM gets $10,000 guarantee, plus 60% over $25,000. This show 3,201 sellout for gross of $19,125.75. For the night the band earned $16,708.

! ad: Village Voice, March 31, 1975, p. 110

! ad: Village Voice, April 7, 1975, p. 104

! seealso: JGMF, "LN jg1975-04-05.lom.early.aud-CC.xxxxxx.flac2448"

! R: Source: Unknown AUD > 7" Reel @ 3 3/4 ips.

! R: Original Transfer: Teac A-2300S playback > Tascam DA-3000 (96k/24bit) > Samplitude Pro X3 > Flac24 (@ 96k) > ID-147646.

! R: Remaster: ID-147646 > TLH > WAV 2496 > Wavelab > R8Brain > CD-Wave > TLH FLAC 1644.

! R: seeder notes: The following changes have been made to the original files from ID-147646: - Tape speed adjustments - Aligned channels & merged to mono - Small edits around crowd noise, song transitions, & tape pauses - SRC to 16bit/44.1kHz. Most songs cut-in slightly. Thanks to everyone at LL for making this available!

! P: t01 LIR in the 6 range Garcia's guitar work is fantastic. Some years later, listening again, I still hear it. Yeah!!!! Check out the peak at 6:29. Again, ca. 6:55.

! P: t03 ABM great energy

! song: All By Myself (t03): This is understood to be the debut of this song in the Garciaverse, and it pops! It seems like such a piano song, but the organ does just fine.

! P: t05 BORW also raging. Great energy!

! R: t05 BORW cut at 10:46

! P: t06 SIL played at a langorous pace, Tutt singing harmonies. Gorgeous run early 5 gets a cheer. This is beautiful stuff.

! P: t07 Wicked Messenger my goodness do I love this. The tone and glassine picking late 4 over 5 just about kill me - daggers.

! P: t08 TBY hear Jerry come in 6:35 with great energy!

Little Legal Matters: JGB #1 at Keystone, November 8, 1975

LN jg1975-11-08.jgb.all.aud-castelli-motb-0151.109001.flac1644

ad for JGB 11/8/75 at Keystone, SFSECDB-19751102-p31

Not going to do long listening notes, so a few random bits from this one.

First, "Micky" [sic] Hopkins. Heh heh. We are easily amused here. Also @Corry: the ad says advance tickets at BASS, but that was absolutely not the case for any Jerry show at the Keystone in this period that I can recall - no stubs at all. Did they just not have room to say "except for Jerry" in the BASS notice at the bottom? :) (I suspect the absence of tickets relates to the little legal matter referenced in point 3 below.) Also again, who the heck is opener Bobbie Kosser (billed on the monthly Keystone calendar)?

Second, in early CD trading days I had gotten a copy of this show listed as "sbd", and it took me a minute to figure out it was an aud. When I mentioned it to Bob Menke one time, inquiring whether it was his, he said he didn't tape it but knew who did. Then, some years later, the Robert Castelli aud comes out via Menke and the MOTB crew. I haven't cross-checked them, but I'd be shocked if they weren't the very same tape. How a copy ended up on CD before the MOTB release is not clear to me.

Third, the first set ends earlier than expected as the fire marshal stops by. Jerry is "more grin than beard", as Weir once said, in bemusedly noting the issue, which I am sure Corry will recognize is flowing from the material facts of the Keystone Berkeley's commercial strategy:

Seems the fire marshal is outside, so we have to take a break while everything cools out before we all get busted. Sorry, that's the way it goes. We'll be back in a few minutes, no sweat. Y'know, it's just one of those little legal matters.

Fourth, in a burst of enthusiasm, Nicky riffs like this is a BBC Live presentation, doing a little piano thing that I imagine was theme music, though it might be something else. Anita O'Day features in this little scenario. I looked her up, and she sounds incredible! As ever, I am grateful to Jerry and Co. for broadening my cultural horizons, because I was quite unaware of her. Sounds like she had a few "little legal matters" of her own, to deal with, and did so with panache and without regret.

Fifth, Nicky sounds pretty together this night and plays some wonderful, beautiful stuff.

Sixth, fast FOTD FTW. Don't @ me.

Seventh, how about the big beautiful showstopper of LSTNT -> Edward, the greatest setpiece of any Jerry Band, which shows what JGB #1 with Nicky might have been, in conception if not always in execution? This one is good, not amazing. For my taste it hews a little too closely to the root songs to be an all-timer. Jerry returns a few times to LSTNT instead of taking it out, and Edward, too, keeps close to  home. There's some really interesting stuff, no doubt, including a little theme around 15 minute mark of LSTNT that might have a name, but it's not the version I'd play for a novitiate to show off what this band could do. I think the version on Let It Rock (LSTNT from 11/17/75, Edward from 11/18/75) is really good, but I also absolutely love the monster version from 12/20/75, which offers up top-shelf, grade A JGB #1.

Listening notes after the jump.

The still-unidentified funky instrumental from 8/20 and 8/30/75

UPDATE: researcher David Kramer-Smyth spoke with Hadi al-Saadoon, who identified David Kessner as the composer. David Kessner confirms he wrote it, but is not sure if it had a name.

At Jerrybase, we are now calling this "David's Tune (Gm)"

On August 20, 1975 at the Great American Music Hall, and again on August 30, 1975 at the Orphanage, both times with Garcia, the Keith and Donna Band played a funky instrumental number the title of which has eluded me for well over ten years.

Looks like I asked about it five years ago.

Someone must be able to identify this tune.

I post mp3s of the two versions here to aid in that identification.

Please help!

untitled-19750820 from 8/20/75

untitled-19750820 from 8/30/75

First JGB at the Keystone: October 11-12, 1975

The JERRY GARCIA Band

Prior to fall of 1975, Garcia's side bands had mostly a) been relatively loose aggregations and/or b) not had his name on the marquee. All of this preserved a kind of informal quality, maybe some plausible deniability, a little bit little less spotlight to go with his insatiable appetite for gigging. "More music [than the Dead afforded him the opportunity to play], less bullshit [than naturally went along with the Dead, and especially with being Jerry Garcia Of The Grateful Dead]" summarizes the Garcia On The Side formula.

Putting his name on the band may have been necessary to sell more tickets, but it implied some kind of ownership / leadership / responsibility, which can all be a hassle, and also killed any shot at anonymity. With the advent of the JGB, every regular band he would ever play in again would bear his name, with the sole exception of 1979's Reconstruction. Now, Garcia being Garcia, he attenuated his ownership by forming JGB as a DBA partnership with bassist and old pal John Kahn and drummer Ronnie Tutt, eschewed leadership by making piano man Nicky Hopkins talk to the audience, and presumably shirked as much "responsibility" as possible by, well, being Jerry.

The Jerry Garcia Band existed in many permutations from 1975-1995, but just about all of them played their first live gigs off the beaten path, on non-weekend nights, or both. JGB #1 established the pattern, debuting Thursday September 18, 1975 in Palo Alto, repeatedly playing tiny River City in Fairfax (including a Sunday and Thursday, as well as a Saturday), and hitting Crabshaw Corner in distant Sacramento, and snagging one bigger payday at a local community college on Friday, October 10th before a Saturday-Sunday debut at homebase, Fred Herrera's Keystone Berkeley. It wasn't big, official capacity of 476, but the audience was the core one that'd keep Garcia in Camels for almost another decade. JGB would play Keystone Berkeley 100 times, according to Jerrybase, which through m0thra's programming wizardry now lets you create a short URL for this kind of search result. (As currently configured, we cannot filter out cancellations. So there are 106 results, and I hand-counted six cancellations. A nice, perfect, pleasing, round 100 results.)

Personnel

This being JGB #1, Nicky Hopkins forms a special point of focus, but of additional interest about October 11-12, 1975 (about which Corry has written) is the presence of a second keyboard player, with Muscle Shoals session man Tim Henson on electric. Henson had already broken in on October 8th for two shows [early | late] in Santa Cruz and played another show on the 9th in Fairfax, skipping Friday the 10th for reasons unknown, so these Berkeley gigs represent his fourth and fifth (and, it seems final) appearances with the Garcia Band, ending what Selvin referred to as a tryout. At times he produces organ sounds, I think I also hear some synth (10/11/75 "No Time", about 1:30 in), but others with better ears should weigh in. Further information is patchy (see here, here, and here for some), but I think Henson would return to Alabama before either ending his own life or being murdered on Christmas Eve, 1977.

A second guest shows up a Saturday night, a guitarist whom Nicky introduces as Mike Godman. I can't really hear him distinctly, and it's possible I am not hearing him at all, as the electric keys deliver a range of sounds. And we can't even be sure that Mike Godman is his name, recalling that Nicky misnamed Tim as "Hensley". I have worked my Google-fu around various permutations of Mikes and Michaels with a variety of proximate family names such as Godwin, Goodwin, Goodman, but I have come up completely dry.

Update: "Mike Godman" probably ends up as a mis-hearing of Nicky saying "My God, man!" I 

RoG gets the credit for figuring that out.

So, on these guests, one request of my faithful readers.

1. Can you please tell me what Tim Henson is playing? Is there electric piano, organ and synth?

2. If you learn anything about Mike Godman, please post in comments.

Randomalia

The band noodles around a few interesting nuggets, such as "Teddy Bear's Picnic" and "Waltzing Matilda".

Introducing "Crazy Arms" on the first night, Nicky credits some of his boogie-woogie piano influences: Albert Ammons, Meade Lux Lewis, Pete Johnson, and Big Maceo Merriweather.

"Edward" is an awesome tune. It would stretch out more over the next few months, and often segue into "Let's Spend The Night Together", but here it stands alone as the show-closer.

Nicky is slurring some here, though not as much as he would in November and December. I have noted that the Garcia Band contract rider included a pint of Cuervo Especial dark tequila in this timeframe, snarking that it probably lasted him through soundcheck.

Nicky mentions his giant mirror, about which Corry has written.

Nicky is a stone-cold piano virtuoso, laying down golden licks all weekend. His composition "Pig's Boogie", written for his orange tabby and which on 10/11 features some awesome boogy bass walking by John Kahn, is a keeper, as is the solo instrumental ballad "Lady Sleeps". His other original, "No Time", suffers from Hopkins's vocal limitations and maudlin lyrics, which nevertheless combine to affect me, actually. Nicky was enduring a difficult period here - not only with his overall health and his heavy drinking and drugging, but also financially. His record label (Mercury) was hassling him, something which he mentions from stage with JGB at Concord Pavilion on October 17, 1975, and perhaps not unrelated, the night before this Saturday gig, on Friday October 10th, he and Dolly went into default on their Mill Valley home. So hearing the man earnestly sing these lyrics (credited to Dolly) with his fragile voice, in a kind of session man's lament, actually really works for me.

No Time

Lyrics: Dolly Hopkins

Music: Nicky Hopkins

Got no time to waste my life

Got no time to play the game

Life can be such a tragedy

And to you all players are the same

Got no time to live in dreams

That's all you've left me with it seems

Wasted too much time in doing things for you

I don't believe you know lies from truth

Now that it's gone

Just how long

Until I find

A place in life

Where I can find myself

And rest my weary mind

You know that music says it all

Some hasty climbers have to fall

In admiring greatness we can rise again

The world can't see its greatest man

Can't play alone

Been too long

Now I must find

Another key

To help me say the things I feel

And hope it helps someone to see

This time the band should get it on

We've played in shadows far too long

It's time for us to believe in what we do

If we want anyone else to

Consider every day as [bluest] day of life

Admiring greatness there's the chance to rise

Anyway, below the fold, you will find raw listening notes for several filesets, with lots more tiny bits and pieces.

LN jg1975-10-11.jgb.all.sbd-minches.31213.flac1644

LN jg1975-10-11.jgb.all.mtx-motb-0113.105413.flac1644

LN jg1975-10-12.jgb.all.aud-menke-falanga.7669.shn2flac

LN jg1975-10-12.jgb.s1-1.sbd-menke-smith.134658.flac1644

They Really Are a Scree-um: Legion of Mary at Keystone, Thursday, May 22, 1975

LN jg1975-05-22.lom.all.aud-menke-falanga-motb-0044.87156.flac2496

I just revisited 5/21/75, and it left me a little bit ... whelmed.

By contrast, at some point between downloading the files in 2011 and today, I listened to and noted the next night, and I *loved* it.

The Bob Menke - Louis Falanga aud belongs in the freaking Smithsonian. This stands as one of the finest audience recordings in the Garcia canon, and there are a lot. Gorgeous. The vocals are very low, so it is "flawed" from the perspective of releasability. But the instrumentation is finely captured, Jerry's guitar far forward and everything else nicely balanced. Reportedly, on this night they actually placed the mics on stage near Jerry's feet, with one pointed into Jerry's stage monitor and the other pointed to the rest of the band, Bob and Louis on the rail at center stage. If you want to hear Jerry Garcia's guitar playing ca. May 22, 1975, check this out.

Song highlights for me were "Little Sunflower" and, especially, "He Ain't Give You None". Garcia once described having this fantasy of being a Mission Street blues guy. It's not clear how much such a creature ever really existed, but we know exactly what he looks like (and he looks different to each of us). We also know what he sounds like: listening to Garcia play HAGYN, I am put in mind of just a smoky little R&B bar. This is Keystone --certainly smoky, and funky in its own way-- but Jerry is just so drenched in this vibe, I'm almost surprised he's not seated and doing the B.B. King thing. "Boogie On Reggae Woman" is hot: the way Merl just jumps onto this, and everyone falls into line, is just wonderful. Merl is ready to boogie, ladies and gentlemen.

It looks like TPTB have released four tracks from this night from Betty's tapes, though none of the tunes that especially lit me up. The Garcia Vault seems to hold reels 1-3 and 5-7, and I now see that the Betty Board material in circulation is not really "snippets", as labeled, but is reel #4. So it seems likely that the whole show exists as Betty tape, if only the 6+1 pieces could be brought together.

Legion of Mary
Keystone
2119 University Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704
May 22, 1975 (Thursday)
Menke-Falanga MAC MOTB 0044 flac 2496 shnid-87156

--set I (6 tracks, 69:32)--
s1t01. [0:04] Tore Up Over You [11:42] [0:29]
s1t02. Little Sunflower [16:23] [0:19] %
s1t03. tuning and crowd ]0:50] % [0:19]
s1t04. I Feel Like Dynamite [12:12] [0:16] % [0:05]
s1t05. [0:14] % [0:26] Every Word You Say [10:49][0:24]
s1t06. % [0:44] Mystery Train [14:02] (1) [0:13]

--set II (5 tracks, 72:55)--
s2t01. /He Ain't Give You None [12:27] [0:16] % [0:22]
s2t02. [0:11] Boogie On Reggae Woman [14:33] [0:17] % [0:02]
s2t03. % When I Die [11:50] [0:09] % [0:05]
s2t04. [0:48] Going, Going, Gone [18:52] [0:30] % [0:09]
s2t05. (I'm A) Road Runner [12:05] (2) [0:18]

! ACT1: Legion Of Mary:
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals;
! lineup: Merl Saunders - keyboards, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - bass;
! lineup: Martin Fierro - saxophone, flute;
! 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/19750522-01

! JGC: https://jerrygarcia.com/show/1975-05-22

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/89046 ("Betty Cantor snippets"); http://etreedb.org/shn/87091 (this recording, flac1644); http://etreedb.org/shn/87156 (this fileset, flac2496).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/LDc43

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/02/keystone-2119-university-avenue.html

! venue: URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2010/12/2119-university-avenue-berkeley-ca.html

! venue: URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2011/01/jerry-garcia-and-keystone-shows.html

! official: Legion of Mary, vol. 1  (Rhino, R2 74692, 2005) (d1t04-When I Die [mislabeled "Since I Lost My Baby"]; d1t05-Tore Up Over You) - URL http://www.deaddisc.com/disc/Jerry_Garcia_Collection_1_Legion_Of_Mary.htm

! official: Legion of Mary, Absolute Mary (t02-Every Word You Say) - URL http://www.deaddisc.com/disc/Absolute_Mary.htm

! official: Jerry Garcia - Garcia Plays Dylan Again (t03-Going, Going, Gone) - URL http://www. deaddisc.com/disc/Garcia_Plays_Dylan.htm

! listing: "Country Joe McDonald Back In Area," Independent-Journal [San Rafael, CA], May 16, 1975, p. 21

! mention: San Francisco Examiner, May 16, 1975, p. 39.

! R: MOTB Release: 0044 24bit/96Khz

! R: Release Date: 09/09/2007

! R: field recordists: Bob Menke and Louis Falanga

! R: field recording gear: Sony ECM-270 and ECM-250 [Positioned Onstage] > Sony TC-152 > MAC

! R: field recording media: Maxell UD90

! R: Transfer: MAC > Nak Dragon > LynxTWO Model B > WaveLab 5.0 > HD 24/96 WAV

! R: Transfer: Bob Menke

! R: Mastering: Jamie Waddell

! R: This is one of the finest audience recordings in the Garcia canon, and there are a lot. Gorgeous. The vocals are very low, so it is "flawed" from the perspective of releasability. But the instrumentation is finely captured, Jerry's guitar far forward and everything else nicely balanced. Reportedly, on this night they actually placed the mics on stage near Jerry's feet, with one pointed into Jerry's stage monitor and the other pointed to the rest of the band, Bob and Louis seated at the front table right there on the rail at center stage. If you want to hear Jerry Garcia's guitar playing ca. May 22, 1975, check this out :).

! P: s1t02 Little Sunflower is simply wonderful.

! P: s1t03 Addams Family tuning by Jerry @ start.

! s1t06 (1) JG: "We're gonna take a break for a little while, we'll be back a little bit later on."

! R: s2t01 HAGYN clips in

! R: s2t01 HAGYN, listen to fingers on steel strings around 6 seconds in.

! P: s2t01 Garcia once described having this fantasy of being a Mission Street blues guy. It's not clear how much such a creature ever really existed, but we know exactly what he looks like (and he looks different to each of us). Anyway, listening to Garcia play HAGYN, I am put in mind of just a smoky little R&B bar. This is Keystone --certainly smoky, and funky in its own way-- but Jerry is just so drenched in this vibe, I'm almost surprised he's not seated and doing the B.B. King thing.

! P: s2t02 BORW: Man, the way Merl just jumps onto this, and everyone falls into line, is just wonderful. Merl is ready to boogie, ladies and gentlemen.

! song: "When I Die" (s2t03): This is an instrumental rendition of the title track from an album that Motherlode released in 1969 on the Kama Sutra label. Written by band members William "Smitty" Smith and Steve Kennedy, it was a hit single and spent some time in the Top 20.

! P: s2t03 WID is a novelty, but it doesn't really go anywhere special.

! P: s2t04 @ 0:32 JG strums GGG, the song could be tracked to start here. This song is where this recording (and its cousins similarly taped) is so precious. You can hear Garcia's guitar so clearly, and the vibe is just so resonant. The performance doesn't knock me out on this listen, but maybe I am just not in the patient, contemplative mood required to really get it. It's very, very good.

! s2t05 (2) JG: "So long."

! R: Special Note: These are recordings done by Bob Menke and Louis Falanga at the Berkeley Keystone, made in May and June of 1975, that MOTB will be turning out, the subsequent Grateful Dead and related recordings are dedicated to Bob Menke's mom, Connie, who is suffering from pancreatic cancer. As you listen to what are certainly the most unique - if possibly not some of the best - audience recordings of Jerry Garcia in his prime, please send out healing vibes and prayers to Connie any way you see fit. We are all pulling for her, so please keep her in your hearts and prayers. The MOTB Team.

Take the Road Before Us and Sing a Chorus or Two: Legion of Mary at Keystone, May 21, 1975

jg1975-05-21.lom.all.mtx-tobin-motb-0050.87219.flac1644

I recently gave 6/16/82 a listen to evaluate whether it merited its lofty reputation, or whether it might be exhibiting a case of the Cornells. I decided it was as good as its reputation.

Staying with that démarche, a week ago I spun 5/21/75, Legion of Mary at the Keystone, which has long circulated from low-gen soundboard reels the provenance of which I do not know. (These are not "Betty Boards".) I have been moving through the world for the last week with the feeling that this one, too, deserved the esteem in which it is held. But now, looking back at my notes, I can't really see the basis for that feeling. I spun a lovely matrix done by Matt Vernon of the soundboard tape (MSR > 1R) and the killer Menke-Falanga aud under the auspices of the Mouth of the Beast (MOTB) project. The tapes are awesome, the music comes through, the room is very present even on $10 ca. 2005 computer speakers, and one can hear the band relaxed, tuning, chatting, etc.

Figure xxx. Extract from contract, dated 5/19/75, for Legion of Mary engagement at Keystone Berkeley, May 21-22, 1975.

I only really noted one musical highlight in Garcia's work on "You Can Leave Your Hat On". He finds some chukka-chukkas that put me a little in mind of the Dead's "Caution", and It Is Good. I found two sort of problematic parts. First, "Finders Keepers" just didn't survive the transition to 1975 intact. It dragged in all of the Legion versions that come to mind, and it just sounds like the band lost interest in it, whereas a year earlier it crackled. Second, "Harder They Come" is done here more slowly than any other version I can recall, and not to good effect (IMO, YMMV). It lacks urgency.

So, where does that leave me? Sounds great. Certainly provides a great listen. But it didn't destroy me. So, I'd say the esteem in which it is held surpasses the esteem it deserves. Still lovely 1975 Jerry, just not the crème de la crème.

Oh yeah, the post title arises because, for reasons that aren't clear to me --maybe it was snowing in May in Berkeley, wink-wink?-- Jerry noodles "Sleigh Ride" at the start of set II.

Legion of Mary
Keystone
2119 University Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704
May 21, 1975 (Wednesday)
MTX MOTB-0050 shnid-87219

--set I (6 tracks, 74:14)--
s1t01. That's A Touch I Like [10:12] (1) [2:22]
s1t02. I Feel Like Dynamite [12:29] (2)
s1t03. Last Train From Poor Valley [10:57] [0:14] % dead air [0:06] % [0:27]
s1t04. Finders Keepers [12:30] [0:48]
s1t05. Tough Mama [8:05] [1:41]
s1t06. That's What Love Will Make You Do [12:00] (3)

--set II (6 tracks, 81:11)--
s2t01. (4) [0:23] I'll Take A Melody [9:09] [0:54]
s2t02. You Can Leave Your Hat On [15:52] [1:17]
s2t03. Mississippi Moon [8:38] [0:53]
d3t01. Harder They Come [20:32] [1:04]
d3t02. Creepin' [13:36] [0:28]
d3t03. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [8:12] (5) [0:12]

! ACT1: Legion of Mary
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: Merl Saunders - keyboards, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-b;
! lineup: Martin Fierro - saxophone, flute (s2t03);
! lineup: Ron Tutt - drums.

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [mm:ss] = recorded event time. The recorded event time immediately after the song or item name is an attempt at getting the "real" time of the event. So, a timing of [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/19750521-01

! JGC: https://jerrygarcia.com/show/1975-05-21

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/4478 (sbd shnf); https://etreedb.org/shn/4479 (sbd shnf); https://etreedb.org/shn/87086 (Menke-Falanga MOTB0043 flac1644); https://etreedb.org/shn/87133 (Menke-Falanga MOTB0043 flac2496); https://etreedb.org/shn/87149 (sbd pitch-patch); https://etreedb.org/shn/87219 (this fileset); https://etreedb.org/shn/87526 (MOTB0050 DTS5.1); https://etreedb.org/shn/87573 (DVD-A); https://etreedb.org/shn/138651 (sbd); https://etreedb.org/shn/141905 (sbd).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/LDc43

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/02/keystone-2119-university-avenue.html

! venue: URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2010/12/2119-university-avenue-berkeley-ca.html

! venue: URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2011/01/jerry-garcia-and-keystone-shows.html

! official: More of the Best [3 track bonus CD that was distributed with pre-ordered copies of  The Very Best Of Jerry Garcia] (Rhino, 2006) (t01-TWLWMYD)

! ref: URL http://www. deaddisc.com/disc/More_Of_The_Best.htm

! listing: "Country Joe McDonald Back In Area," Indepdent-Journal [San Rafael, CA], May 16, 1975, p. 21

! mention: San Francisco Examiner, May 16, 1975, p. 39

! R: MOTB Release: 0050 16bit/44.1Khz; Release Date: 09/12/2007

! R: Matrix of 2 sources; 1--Lineage: SBD > 15ips reel > 15ips reel > DAT; Transfer 1: DAT > Sony R500 > Genesis Digital Lens > Fostex CR200 > CD; transfer 2: CD > EAC > WAV > SHN. 2--Audience FOB Recording; Media: Maxell UD90; Lineage: Sony ECM-270 and ECM-250 Blended [Positioned Onstage] > Sony TC-152 > MAC; Transfer: MAC > Nak Dragon > LynxTWO Model B > WaveLab 5.0 > HD 24/96 WAV; Taper: Bob Menke and Louis Falanga; Transfer: Bob Menke, Mastering: Jamie Waddell. Matrix Mastering: Kevin Tobin

! R: match and patch notes: I matched the speed of this recording to the MAC - it was slightly faster overall (about 1/2 a second per minute) and more consistent than the sbd recording. Audio Patches: 1) Between The Touch I Like I Like and I Feel Like Dynamite, 48.033 seconds were missing from the Audience recording and were filled in from the Soundboard recording. Missing audio was normalized to fit better. 2) Aprox 4 minutes into I Feel Like Dynamite, 19.564 were missing from the Soundboard recording and were filled in from the Audience recording. Missing audio was normalized to fit better. 3) Between I Feel Like Dynamite and Last Train From Poor Valley, 27.500 seconds were missing from the Audience recording and were filled in from the Soundboard recording. Missing audio was normalized to fit better. 4) Between I Feel Like Dynamite and Last Train From Poor Valley, another 35.900 seconds were missing from the Audience recording and were filled in from the Soundboard recording. Missing audio was normalized to fit better. Note: This includes the first few notes of Last Train From Poor Valley. 5) Aprox 7 minutes into Last Train From Poor Vallery, 21.273 were missing from the Soundboard recording and were filled in from the Audience recording. Missing audio was normalized to fit better. 6) Between Last Train From Poor Valley and Finders Keepers, 33.900 seconds were missing from the Audience recording and were filled in from the Soundboard recording. Missing audio was normalized to fit better. 7) Between Finders Keepers and Tough Mama, 12.007 were missing from the Soundboard recording and were filled in from the Audience recording. Missing audio was normalized to fit better. 8) Aprox 7 minutes into That's What Love Will Make You Do, 36.803 were missing from the Soundboard recording and were filled in from the Audience recording. Missing audio was normalized to fit better. 9) At the end of That's What Love Will Make You Do, 11.116 were missing from the Soundboard recording and were filled in from the Audience recording. Missing audio was normalized to fit better. 10) Before I'll Take A Melody, 17.000 seconds were missing from the Audience recording and were filled in from the Soundboard recording. Missing audio was normalized to fit better. 11) Between I'll Take A Melody and You Can Leave Your Hat On, 21.423 were missing from the Soundboard recording and were filled in from the Audience recording. Missing audio was normalized to fit better. 12) Aprox 4 minutes into You Can Leave Your Hat On, 22.372 were missing from the Soundboard recording and were filled in from the Audience recording. Missing audio was normalized to fit better. 13) Between You Can Leave Your Hat On and Mississippi Moon, 18.883 seconds were missing from the Audience recording and were filled in from the Soundboard recording. Missing audio was normalized to fit better. 14) Aprox 4 minutes into Mississippi Moon, 24.773 were missing from the Soundboard recording and were filled in from the Audience recording. Missing audio was normalized to fit better. 15) Between Mississippi Moon and Harder They Come, 16.966 seconds were missing from the Soundboard recording and were filled in from the Audience recording. Missing audio was normalized to fit better. 16) Between Mississippi Moon and Harder They Come, another 1.593 seconds were missing from the Soundboard recording and were filled in from the Audience recording. Missing audio was normalized to fit better. 17) Aprox 8 minutes into Harder They Come, 02.139 were missing from the Soundboard recording and were filled in from the Audience recording. Missing audio was normalized to fit better. 18) Aprox 11 minutes into Harder They Come, 20.807 were missing from the Soundboard recording and were filled in from the Audience recording. Missing audio was normalized to fit better. 19) Between Harder They Come and Creepin', 18.339 seconds were missing from the Soundboard recording and were filled in from the Audience recording. Missing audio was normalized to fit better. 20) Aprox 4 minutes into Creepin', 22.035 were missing from the Soundboard recording and were filled in from the Audience recording. Missing audio was normalized to fit better. 21) Between Creepin' and How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You), 15.893 seconds were missing from the Soundboard recording and were filled in from the Audience recording. Missing audio was normalized to fit better. 22) Aprox 3 minutes into How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You), 5 minutes and 36.666 were missing from the Soundboard recording and were filled in from the Audience recording. Missing audio was normalized to fit better.

! s1t01 (1) Several members of the band repeat Merl's request to have his vocal mic turned on.

! P: s1t02 IFLD "you might not agree with me .. betcha" repeatedly (4x) 11:20-11:40, then he messes up the feelin' hittin' him, back on track 11:48.

! s1t02 (2) Martin: "Hey, could you send some water up here?"

! P: s1t04 FK lost some zip as it aged - the 1974 versions bring tons more pop than the Legion ones do. This might be just about the last version?

! s1t06 (3) JG: "Thank you. We're gonna take a break for a little while. We'll be back a little bit later. Thank you."

! s2t01 (4) Garcia is noodling "Sleigh Ride" and someone, maybe John, says "Merry Christmas."

! P: s2t02 YCLYHO Garcia proliferates the notes in 9, and it is good. Around 12:40 and forward, he puts out some "Caution" style chukka-chukka, and it, too, is good.

! P: s2t04 HTC starts off normally paced, then drops into a very slow iteration, the slowest I can recall.

! s2t06 (5) JG: "Thanks a lot. We'll see y'all later on."

Legion of Mary at the Arie Crown Theatre, Chicago, April 18, 1975

LN jg1975-04-18.lom.all.composite-proctor-droncit.124466.flac1644

Thought I'd spin this one on its 45 anniversary yesterday. The only moment of the show that made me sit up some was the meltiness at the end of La-La, which could have gone anywhere and ended up going nowhere. After mostly getting through the show yesterday, I thought to myself "It's no wonder Garcia pulled the plug on this band within three months". But it's amazing how little of interest can happen in any given 15 minute song. Chicago Trib reviewer Lynn van Matre, who saw the Dead and Garcia many, many times, was thinking along similar lines: "Laid back and enjoyable, ... though ...it went on far too long."

Let me blaspheme even further: all of the Ronnie Tutt aggregations, the Legion of Mary from December '74 to July '75, then the Jerry Garcia Bands through summer '77, suffer from languid pacing. I am not blaming Tutt so much as Jerry. I get wanting to get into a deep groove, but at some point I need a little more zing.

Maybe I am just grouchy, what with Covid and all. Thanks, Obama.

The band got $5k for this gig plus $1,250 for sound and lights, which was a little low for the tour. Show did not sell out, and the band didn't even get any of its percentage topper (60% of gross over $20k). They moved 2,700 of 2,916 top-price ($6.50) tickets, and only 277 of the 1,403 cheaper seats ($5.50)., for 2,977 sold on capacity of 4,319. Jerry would return to Chicago in November with first Jerry Garcia Band, featuring Nicky Hopkins on piano, playing the Auditorium Theatre (capacity about 4,000), nearly selling out and earning $6,000 guarantee plus $1,500 for sound and lights.

Legion of Mary

Arie Crown Theatre

2301 Lake Shore Drive

Chicago IL 60616

April 18, 1975 (Friday) - 8:30 PM

aud + sbd proctor-droncit composite shnid-124466

--set I (7 tracks, 79:48)--

101. Let It Rock [11:50] [2:09]

102. La-La [13:46] [1:52]

103. Feel Like Dynamite [9:32] [1:35]

104. Last Train // To Poor Valley [8:#20] [1:08]

105. Tough Mama [8:13] [0:40]

106. Sitting In Limbo [14:48] [1:50]

107. (I'm A) Road Runner// [4:06#]

--set II (7 tracks, 93:05)--

201. Tore Up [12:54] [0:42] %

202. You Can Leave Your Hat On [13:07] [0:08] %

203. Mississippi Moon [8:50] [0:09] % [1:14]

204. I'll Take A Melody [10:28]

205. //Harder They Come [18:02] %

206. Boogie On Reggae Women [13:24] [0:29] %

207. Talkin' About You [13:26] (1) [0:12]

! ACT1: Legion of Mary

! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;

! lineup: Merl Saunders - keyboards;

! lineup: Martin Fierro - flute (102, 203, maybe others), saxophone, percussion;

! 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.

! JGC: jerrygarcia.com/show/1975-04-18

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/4482 (start set II, sbd, shnf, deprecated); https://etreedb.org/shn/138626 (start set II, flacf); https://etreedb.org/shn/124315 (set II sbd composite); https://etreedb.org/shn/124466 (this fileset).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/zYiTXGFDfc42

! JGBP: https://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2011/09/arie-crown-theater-2301-s-lake-shore.html.

! listing: Chicago Tribune, April 18, 1975, section 3, p. 4. This says tickets are $6.50 and $7.50, but that's not right.

! expost: Van Matre 1975. "Laid back and enjoyable, ... though like the Dead's shows it went on far too long." Lynn Van Matre reviewed the Dead and Garcia dozens of times, and was always pretty even-handed.

! historical: Tickets $5.50 and $6.50. Band $5,000 guarantee plus 60% on gross over $20,000, plus $1,250 for lights and sound. Since gross was just over $19 grand, no percentage topper. Looks like they were relatively underpaid for this gig. Show did not sell out, moving 2,700 of 2,916 top-price tickets, and only 277 of the 1,403 cheaper seats. So, 2,977 sold on capacity of 4,319. (A different reckoning has 2,449 sold at remote locations and 671 at the box office, for a total of 3,120, producing an improbably round $20,000.00 in receipts, on capacity 4,389.)

! seealso: JGMF, "The April 1975 Legion of Mary Tour" for a bit more on the tour and listening notes for 4/10/75 early. I like that show and 4/5/75 more than this one, and 4/12/75 about as much, it seems from my notes.

! R: source 1: MAC (Unknown taper & equipment) > C > c > C > CDR > EAC > flac (mono) supplies 1st set & "The Harder They Come" & alternate "Boogie On Reggae Woman" of 2nd set

! R: source 2: shnid-4482, MSR > 1R > 1PCM > 3DAT > CD > EAC > SHN supplies first four songs of the 2nd set.

! R: source 3: shnid-124315, sbd > ?? > cass > flac supplies last two songs of 2nd set.

! R: seeder notes: I received a CD of this show several years back. The quality was poor and I put it on the self and forgot about it. It was only recently I ran across the CD and realized much of the show did not circulate. Somewhere in the lineage, someone substituted a degraded copy of the circulating soundboard source (4482) for the first four songs of the second set and probably tossed the audience copy of those songs. The audience source picked back up with "The Harder They Come" and the CD finished with "Boogie On Reggae Woman". The Jerry site lists the tracks to end the show (206 & 207) as "Boogie on Reggae Woman" & "Talkin' About You" and does not list "Harder They Come" as being played on the 18th. Who knows, about all we can tell is that this Harder They Come does not match the song from surrounding shows. I decided to leave it in for your enjoyment. Recently taperchuck3 & Kevin Tobin released a soundboard copy of the two final songs of the second set (124315). I have added these to my copy to make a complete show. Not wanting to toss the audience copy of "Boogie On Reggae Woman", I have labeled it as alt206 and left in the show folder. I handed everything over to Droncit to see if his wizardry could make something out of almost nothing. What you will hear is significantly better than what's on my CD. Bill Proctor aka germain 4/25/2013.

! R: Droncit Notes: I used a paragraphic equalizer to lower some of the boominess in the bass. I added a little clarity to the bass with a virtual valve simulator, but most of the change from the original was to get rid of some of the bassiness and loss of high frequencies through equalization.  That left a very noisey tape. The tape was mono, and the left channel appeared to be slightly better than the right, so this is just the left sidespread over both channels. It sounds clearer this way. There may be multiple sources involved (besides the soundboard). I decided to not use noise reduction because there was so much noise and so little signal that it would have cut into the music too much.  Instead, I used a spectral filter to bring down the noisiest areas by a few dB. The last thing I did was to gain-normalize each track (including the soundboard tracks, after interpolating the pop in one track) to -1.5 dB, and then to autolevel so that they all sound somewhat similar.

! R: tagging notes: Show information is embedded within the headerof each flac file. It will display on any player capable of directly playing flac files. If converted to wav during processing, all tags will be stripped, however audio data will remain unaffected. If you must transcode to a lossy format, do so directly Flac > Lossy. Use ffp to validate audio integrity. Md5 values will change if tagging is altered. B. Proctor 4-25-2013.

! R: JGMF: not a great aud tape to start, but your ears adjust. It was recorded from quite close to the stage, as one can pick up the countoff to La-La (for example) directly from stage.

! P: 102 La-La ends with some meltiness, which could have become something

! R: 104 LTFPV splice @ 6:04

! R: 107 IARR cuts out

! P: 204 ITAM John is playing a Motown-style bassline. The tune had debuted on 4/4/75.

! R: 205 HTC cuts in

! 207 (1) JG: "Thank you. We'll see you all later on."

Garcia Interview by Ben Fong-Torres, ca. fall 1975

jg1975-xx-xx.interview.ben-fong-torres.gdao-379555

Garcia, Jerry, 1942-1995, "Ben Fong-Torres interviews Jerry Garcia. Interview recorded circa 1975 for the documentary radio program "What was that?" broadcast on KSAN-FM in San Francisco [radio broadcast]," Grateful Dead Archive Online, accessed November 10, 2013, http://www.gdao.org/items/show/379555.

The interview is given as 1975, at least some of it takes place at His Master's Wheels, and there's a snippet with Nicky Hopkins. I have Jerry and Nicky et al. there working on what would become Reflections mostly in September-October 1975, so this seems the most likely timeframe.

Sketchy notes below the fold.

Garcia-Hunter Originals

Somehow, I had never pinned down in my mind that Jerry played none of his original tunes before the advent of the Jerry Garcia Band in 1975. Pure covers before then. Hm.

You all probably knew this. And at some level I did, too. But it has come into sharper focus for me with this morning's cup of coffee.

Big Gigs, Little Ex Post Trace

Garcia and Saunders mostly played Bay Area clubs. But every now and then, usually in connection with multiact benefit concerts, they played larger theaters, auditoriums and arenas. Examples include BCT for the United Farmworkers on 9/22/72, Winterland for unspecified Hells Angels on 10/2/73, and BCT again for Ethiopian famine relief (8/23/74) and, on 10/12/74, for Padma Jong, a performing arts center on the Eel River.

Two that seem likely to have happened, but which have yielded zero expost trace took place on June 2, 1973 at the Marin Civic and on June 15, 1975 at the SF Civic. The first, especially, has always drawn me, because JGMS shared the bill with the brand-new Pointer Sisters and a Herbie Hancock aggregation transitioning from its Mwandishi to its Headhunter periods. Given the chance, I'd be awfully tempted to set my time machine back to this night to check out the action.

Let me just briefly drop some breadcrumbs on each.

June 2, 1973: Marin Civic Auditorium

An organization called Sausalito Is Spring organized three shows June 1-3, landing some major talent. The Saturday, June 2 gig was a benefit for the autistic classroom of the Henry C. Hall Elementary School in Larkspur, with the killer bill identified above. I have gathered up the following ex ante materials:

! preview: "Concerts Will Aid Autistic Children Class," Independent-Journal [San Rafael, CA], May 29, 1973, p. 11;
! ad: San Francisco Examiner, May 31, 1973, p. 25;
! listing: "Scenedrome," Berkeley Barb, June 1-7, 1973, p. 22;
! listing: San Francisco Chronicle, June 1, 1973, p. 48;
! listing: San Francisco Examiner, June 2, 1973, p. 10;
! ref: handbill.

 The 5/31 ad in the Examiners bills "Jerry Garcia & Merle [sic] Saunders," with Pamela Polland following in the same font, and then the Pointers and Herbie Hancock in smaller print.

Did this gig happen? Was anybody there? Was Gaylord Birch drumming for the Pointer Sisters? Did the Headhunters do what I imagine they must have, which would be drop down some deep, thick, funky fusion?

June 15, 1975: SF Civic Auditorium

This was a marathon, all-day boogie billing the following: JGMS / Country Joe McDonald and The Energy Crisis / Van Morrison / Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show / Larry Coryell / Chi Coltrane / Barefoot Jerry / Brother Mouse Band / Hoodoo Rhythm Devils / Soundhole / Brotherly Love / Pegasus / Caesar's Band / Lyons & Clark.

! ad: SFSECDB19750525p11;
! preview: "Marathon of Boogie," San Francisco Examiner, May 27, 1975, p. 30;
! preview: "The All-Day Boogie," San Francisco Examiner, June 13, 1975, p. 25;
! listing: SFSECDB19750615p07;
! ref: Wasserman 19750817.

It was a benefit for the Community Fairs Broadcast Foundation. Wasserman 19750817 doesn't mention JGMS, leading with CJ, and says the whole event was put on by amateurs and was an unmitigated disaster - BASS sold only 227 tickets. Since JLW didn't mention JGMS, I have some doubt as to whether they played. update: Selvin 19750622 gives a similar ex post analysis: 800-1200 "customers rambled about in the 7,000-plus seat hall" and the charitable beneficiary lost a ton of money. He doesn't exactly say he saw Garcia and Saunders playing, but if they hadn't shown I think he or JLW would have said so.

I reproduce my extremely low-res scan of a flier below.

Good Old Boys at Margarita's Cantina!

https://homegrownmusic.net/store/cd/good-old-boys-live-2cd

John Cutler taped these shows from February 20-21, 1975, and they are now up for official release. Wow!

Cryptdev saw one of these shows.

See also: Corry, "The Good Old Boys: Jerry Garcia, Producer (and some banjo)"

My goodness, can't wait to hear these.

The Group Probably Will Be Short-Lived, Because Hopkins Has Other Contractual Obligations

The titular line comes from an interview Garcia gave ca. November 22, 1975 to a Twin Cities journalist, Jon Bream, and references JGB #1. It could be that this was true all along, and the plan was just to monetize the Jerry Garcia name in the new Band, as well as Nicky's name, for the couple of tours the band did in October and November 1975, and then to call it quits in the new year. That's not how the conventional narrative, deriving from Blair Jackson's interviews with John Kahn, has it. The conventional narrative has it that Nicky was just too much of a wreck and was cut loose, the implication being that the band ended before John and Jerry had initially planned.

The quote is consistent with either story. It could be that this was always the plan, but no earlier interviews elicit the information. But it's also possible that by Thanksgiving Jerry had had enough with Nicky, and the "contractual obligations" were the musical equivalent of "irreconcilable differences" in marriage settings and "spending more time with the family" in political ones.

Anyway, the November 22, 1975 show at the St. Paul Civic Center Theatre was a very long one, something like three hours of music, and was mostly captured in a totally beautiful recording by Greg Overlid which especially picks, without much beyond air in the way of mediation, the play of Jerry's fingers and strings. The "Let It Rock" shows off Nicky's virtuosity, "Russian Lullaby" benefits from a peppy tempo, and there's a singleton goof with "Blackbird" as well as either a single or rarity, noted in one of the reviews, of "Old Man River", composed by Jerry's namesake Jerome Kern.

But the show, on this listen, doesn't slay me. The closing medley of "Let's Spend the Night Together -> Edward the Mad Shirt Grinder" was the band's big, huge jam vehicle, and as it goes, usually so goes my assessment of a JGB #1 gig. In this case, it never really achieves escape velocity, so I find myself a little disappointed, overall.

LN jg1975-11-22.jgb.161mins.aud-overlid.141918.flac2448

Jerry Garcia Band
Civic Center Theatre
143 W. Fourth Street
Saint Paul, MN 55102
November 22, 1975 (Saturday)
Greg Overlid aud, unlineaged cassette copy flac2448 shnid-141918

--set I (8 tracks, 81:43)--
s1t01. //Let it Rock// [taper moves seats]
s1t02. Blackbird tuning jam -> Positively 4th Street [11:55] [0:07] %
s1t03. tuning [1:02], All By Myself [8:45] % [0:02]
s1t04. [0:09] They Love Each Other :10-
s1t05. Pig's Boogie
s1t06. tuning and Nicky Hopkins intro (1), Mississippi Moon
s1t07. Sugaree
s1t08. [0:17] Roadrunner [11:44] (2) [0:11]

--set II (7 tracks, 91:28)--
s2t09. tuning [1:30], How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [6:19] [0:09] %
s2t10. Catfish John [11:07] [0:07] %
s2t11. Russian Lullaby [8:35] [0:40]
s2t12. Friend Of The Devil
[MISSING: Lady Sleeps > Ol' Man River {suspected setlist location}]
s2t13. Mystery Train
s2t14. I'll Take A Melody
s2t15. tuning -> Let's Spend The Night Together ->
s2t16. Edward The Mad Shirt Grinder [11:15] [0:18]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #1
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: Nicky Hopkins - piano, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-b;
! lineup: Ron Tutt - drums, vocals.

JGMF:

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

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19751122-04

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/nYdwPE5yV8J2

! JGBP: https://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/05/st-paul-civic-center-143-west-fourth.html

! venue: Band itinerary calls it "St. Paul Civic Center Theatre". Contract cover page also says that, as does contract p. 1. That satisfies me: I am changing the last word of the venue from "Arena" to "Theatre".

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/20552 (s1p aud shnf); http://etreedb.org/shn/138733 (3 source compilation); http://etreedb.org/shn/141929 (this source, flac1648); http://etreedb.org/shn/141918 (this fileset).

! band: Jerry Garcia Band #1 (http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html).

! preview: Minneapolis Star, November 7, 1975, p. 9B

! listing: Minneapolis Star, November 18, 1975, p. 4C

! preview: Minneapolis Star, November 20, 1975, p. 6C

! review: Bream 1975, Anthony 1975

! historical: Price $5.50 pre-show/ $6.00 day of show. Cloudy day, high temperature of 37 degrees. JGB guarantee of $5,000 plus $1,250 for lights and sound. Anthony identifies capacity crowd, ca. 2,900, but boxoffice says 2,628, a sellout, gross of $14,454. I had a larger capacity for the room, over 4k, but no source for that info. Promoter John Ballard/Edgewood Agency had taken a bath on the 4/75 Legion gig in Milwaukee, I think, asked for good terms; Zippy didn't want him to cry over spilled milk.

! R: field recordist: Greg Overlid

! R: field recording gear: 2x Shure 545 microphones > Nakamichi 550 cassette deck

! R: field recording location: front row

! R: first digital circulation of 3 songs from set2- CFJ, RL and ITAM (27 mins of new music)

! R: missing first notes of Mystery Train patched with SHNID-138733

! R: taper notes: "The Jerry Garcia Band / Garcia / Hopkins / Kahn / Tutt / St. Paul Civic Theatre / Saturday, November 22, 1975 / Nakamichi 550 w/Shure 545's / Sandy / "Tex" / Joey / Greg / Rhesa  / Dikel / S & Ggg get stage passes / get in before general admission crowd /  get us front row seats / not 10-15th / pulled out at end of first number by usher / talked to John Ballard, prom. / missed 1 to 1-1/2 min. Let It Rock / 1 to 1-1/2 limbo / Nicky Drunk!! /  DUBS: Buddy & Nancy / Stu K. / Rhesa / Jeff S./ Russ F./ Dave P. / Jeff C./ Joe S. / Steve B."

! R: lineage: From the collection of Jeff Knudsen. Recorded by Greg Overlid. Archived & Transferred by Tom Markson. Critical Assistance by John Wenzel, Andrew F. and Joe Jupille. Speed Correction by Jason Chastain. Edited and Mastered by Jamie Waddell, 24 bit 48 kHz.

! R: provenance: Jeff Knudsen has been an avid Jerry Garcia, Grateful Dead and San Francisco Sound music fan for over 40 years. From a letter to Dead Relix Magazine asking for help cultivating a tape collection, Jeff developed a relationship with Dick Latvala and many other tapers, building an enormous music collection.  He also taped many Jerry Garcia shows at venerable institutions like the various Keystones. Jeff loved to share tapes in a twinkle of an eye.  He was a key player in leaking the Betty Boards back in the day.  A few years ago, he decided he should pass his collection on to someone who could properly archive and transfer.  After a few years of offering it publicly, there were no takers. In 2008,  Arizona LL members Jamie and Tom felt the Knudsen collection was too valuable to let go.  After a flight so bumpy that we almost cried, and a great visit, albeit too short, with Jeff... 1200 lbs of tapes, gear and cds were lovingly packed at his Florida homestead.  The next era of his beloved collection summer camp for the tapes in the desert... an ongoing process of cataloging and transferring the contents to share.  Born from decades of Jeff's passion for live music collecting and the archival efforts of many, it's an honor and a privilege to share the Knudsen Tapes with you.  Enjoy! originally shared at www.shnflac.net"

! R: this is a really pretty tape. The finger-string interplay is directly audible, and it sounds sweet! Over and over again, strings directly recorded, nothing between them and the mics but air.

! R: s1t01 LIR clips in, cuts out; taper moves seats after the tune. Nicky very prominent - love it! The end cut is a COD.

! P: s1t01 LIR comes in amazing, Nicky truly doing the virtuoso thing right out of the gate. Jerry is filligreeing a lot, matching Nicky who continues to just play some beautiful stuff.

! s1t06 (1) JG: "Nicky Hopkins on piano".

! s1t08 (2) JG "...take a break"

! P: s2t10 CJ some great glassy picking by ol Jer.

! P: s2t11 RL I love this peppy tempo.

! P: s2t15-16 LSTNT > Edward never really achieves escape velocity. Tutt does a little drum feature late 7 of Edward, which is uncommon and neat.

Legion of Mary at 8162 Melrose, March 7, 1975

LN jg1975-03-07.lom.early.aud-ladner.23338.shn2flac

I wanted to hear "The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game", the only circulating version from this time period, so I revisited the whole show. Nothing else jumped out at me, but man is that a great song.

Legion Of Mary
Pitschell Players Cabaret
8162 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90048
March 7, 1975 (Friday) - early? show
aud misSHN shnid-23338 shn2flac and retrack

--(8 tracks, 7 tunes, 90:52)--
t01. tuning (1) [0:26]
t02. That's The Touch I Like [10:09] [1:34]
t03. Favela [16:02] [1:11]
t04. Last Train From Poor Valley [8:16] % [0:40]
t05. Mystery //Train [13:#14] [0:19] % [0:40]
t06. You Can Leave Your Hat On [15:23] [0:36]
t07. The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game [11:23] % [0:05]
t08. Let It Rock

! ACT1: Legion of Mary
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: Merl Saunders - keyboards, vocals;
! lineup: Martin Fierro - flute (t02, t05), saxophone, percussion;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-bass;
! lineup: Ron Tutt - drums.

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: https://jerrybase.com/events/19750307-01

! JGC: jerrygarcia.com/show/1975-03-07, giving this as the early show. 

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/23338 (this fileset).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/s4EY6L4V6e82.

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/07/ash-grove-pitchell-players-cabaret-8162.html. I guess this was the Ash Grove building, which was being leased for various performances, and eventually became the Improv. JGBP gives capacity as 250.

! ad: Los Angeles Times, February 16, 1975, p. Z45.

! ad: Los Angeles Times, March 2, 1975, p. U45.

! listing: Los Angeles Free Press, March 7, 1975, p. 27.

! metadata: Not clear if this is really the 8:30 PM early show (as per JGC), the 11:30 PM late show (as I have had it at some point), or some combo thereof. The LAFP listing on the day-of only gives an 8:30 show, from which I infer that the late show was already sold out.

! historical: band got $1,500 flat guarantee each night, so $750 per show.

! R: source: AUD (mics and taper unknown) > ? > C > DAT > WAV > SHN; cassette > DAT transfer:  Nakamichi DR-2 cassette deck > Tascam DA-30 Mk II by J. Powell; DAT > SHN transfer: Sony PCM-R500 > coaxial S/PIDF > M Audio Audiophile 2496/P4 2.0 GHz > WAV recording/editing (Soundforge 6.0) > tracking (CDWave editor) > sector boundaries confirmed (shntool) > SHN (mkwact) by C. Ladner. misSHN in the rain, 4/04. shn2flac by jgmf 20091122, retrack 20171203.

! R: seeder note: "decent amount of hiss - you've been warned."

! t01 (1) JG, talking to sound man: "That's much nicer."

! R: t04 MT tape flip @ 7:52, speed warbling after the cut.

Catholics listing the Legion

The very Catholic USF Foghorn mentioning the LOM gig 3/14/75: "yes, that's the Legion of Mary".

http://digitalcollections.usfca.edu/cdm/ref/collection/p15129coll8/id/7748

! mention: San Francisco Foghorn (University of San Francisco), March 14, 1975, p. 8.

! seealso: "By the Grace of the Lord: Legion of Mary at the Masonic Temple, Scranton, April 12, 1975"

h/t Yellow Shark

Dating the Legion’s Demise: A Revisionist Account

The demise of the Legion of Mary, Garcia’s principal side band from Ronnie Tutt’s arrival on December 6, 1974 until mid-1975, remains one of the enduring mysteries of the Garciaverse.

The “why” is the biggest mystery of all. After almost five years of steady gigging and recording Garcia is said to have walked away. I don’t have time to go to Sources, but there is verbiage from Martin Fierro about a “star trip” and a sense of hurt from Merl Saunders, implying that shadowy forces were at work to short-circuit the magical Jerry-and-Merl trip in favor of the Grateful Dead. A big part of the conventional psychology of Garcia, ascribing to him personal cowardice in saying hard things to loved ones, derives from the Saunders account of what went down with the Legion in 1975 and Reconstruction in 1979.

In this post, I want to say less about the “why” and more about the “when”, though I think a revised understanding of the temporal piece may raise new questions about the causal one. I will conclude that we should extend the known Legion timeline to the end, rather than the beginning, of July 1975. My best guess is that there were additional gigs at least on July 23-24, 1975 at the Lion’s Share and July 30, 1975 at the Great American Music Hall. Sometime between late July and early August, Jerry and Merl went their separate ways.

update: I am probably conflating two separate things here. First is the end of the actual Legion, and second is the Merl-Jerry 1975 parting-of-ways. /update

Conventional Datings

The canonical List is clear: according to Dennis McNally’s research, preserved and extended by Corry Arnold, Independence Day 1975 tolled the bell for the Legion of Mary. It’s all pretty symbolic, of course. The Great American Music Hall, site of Jerry and Merl’s final 4^th of July engagement, was a favorite of Garcia’s since they had first played it July 19, 1973. That gig, in turn, was not only with Merl, but was something of a Fantasy party to celebrate the canning of the July ’73 Keystone tapes, which would become the GSKV Live at Keystone, the fullest commercial expression of the Garcia-Saunders collaboration. Garcia suggested the Music Hall for the Dead’s highest-stakes gig of 1975, for FM radio executives on 8/13/75, in collaboration with new-boss-same-as-the-old-boss (since 6/11/75) United Artists (Selvin 197508xx). Oh yeah, one more thing – 7/19/73 was also Martin’s first known gig (update: since 1971) with these guys, and when Legion ended in the same room he’d wait 13 years to play again with Garcia (with Zero, 7/16/88 in Golden Gate Park). It all makes for a great story.

However poetic, the notion of a sudden rupture after the Fourth of July is incorrect. We now know of both a July 5^th Saturday night at the Music Hall (listed in the Oakland Tribune and the Marin Independent-Journal) and an anticlimactic Sunday night show at Jerry and Merl’s chasse gardée, the Keystone Berkeley, now documented by the house calendar, listings in the Chronicle and the Datebook, and, even better, tape by the ever-timely Robert Castelli (shnid-108018). The show has always struck me as a little lethargic, and I imagined in my mind not a sudden rupture but a cartoonish putt-putt-putt and plonk, out-of-gas kind of finish for the band.

So, as of now, I have considered that Legion of Mary ran from December 6, 1974, through July 6, 1975. But I want to suggest the addition of at least three new dates to the end of the band’s run.

Closing of the Lion’s Share: July 24-25, 1975

With the release of the Garcia-Saunders 7/5/73 Lion’s Share show as GarciaLive 6, the venue looms large in our immediate imaginations. And why not? It was a legendary little Marin room. But lost to history has been an apparent Saunders-Garcia gig (or two) two years later, as the Share was ending its run on the Miracle Mile in San Anselmo. In comments to a post which I’ll mention more below, JGBP quotes a public posting by ‘cabdriver’ at Deadnetcentral recounting such gigs:

This Lion's Share gig (their closing week) was the first week of July, 1975 [sic: incorrect – see below]. The Garcia-Saunders Band played two consecutive nights during closing week … There were not very many people there, that's the funny part. And I can't find any reference to them doing those gigs anywhere. But it did really happen!

Cabdriver expressed uncertainty about the week the Share went dark. The Lion’s Share’s closing week was July 23-29, 1975, and the schedule ran as follows:

• Wednesday 7/23 Commander Cody
• Thursday 7/24 Merl Saunders and Friends / Aunt Monk / Sweetmeat
• Friday 7/25 Merl Saunders and Friends / Sweetmeat
• Saturday 7/26 ???
• Sunday 7/27 Kathi McDonald
• Monday 7/28 Michael Bloomfield, Mark Naftalin, Roger “Jellyroll” Troy, Nick Gravenites / Allair and Mitchell
• Tuesday 7/29 Sons of Champlin / Michael Hunt

(Sources: Selvin 19750720 has the whole schedule. Listing in SFC19750723p47 supplies 7/23 and 7/24. Listing in Fremont Argus, July 25, 1975, p. 38 and “Lion’s Share Out With Flair,” Independent-Journal (San Rafael, CA), July 25, 1975, p. 20, both provide 7/25 and following.)

Those Thursday and Friday “Merl Saunders and Friends” gigs, which I took in my own notes to be Merl playing out quickly post-Jerry, certainly fit cabdriver’s description of back to back gigs during closing week at the Share. Somehow the fact that 7/24 bills Aunt Monk separately seems to make it more likely that Jerry was one of Merl’s Friends in a different configuration.

Summing here, we seem to have an eyewitness account of Jerry and Merl playing during the closing week at the Share, and this lines up with independent evidence from newspaper listings. I think those gigs happened and would propose adding them to the List.

update: To be clear, those gigs don't necessarily extend the LOM timeline. They only would if the band that played were Garcia-Saunders-Fierro-Kahn-Tutt. It doesn't sound necessarily like that's what these were. But ...

... July 30, 1975 at the GAMH

Remember when I found the “Latest Legion Listing”, for July 30, 1975 at the Great American Music Hall? I treated it as spurious because it didn’t fit my preconceived narrative. I even found a way to suggest that the very real professionalism of the GAMH made it more likely to find such a spurious listing. But beyond the idea that gigs to shut down the Share might extend the known timeline, I have found an additional piece of information that leads me to revise my earlier view. My first encounter with this possible gig came through the July 25 I-J, and I surmised that a lot could have changed in five days. But I have found a second listing for the gig, and this one is in the July 30^th Chronicle.

This makes the first-discovered listing feel less spurious, because the Datebook listings would be very up-to-date, I think, based on information not more than a few days old. The fact that the GAMH was professionally run only reinforces the idea that there really was, as of approximately the day before, a planned Legion of Mary gig at the Music Hall on Wednesday, July 30, 1975.

Did it really happen? I don’t know. It’s less certain than the Share shows. But this last piece makes it feel a bit more likely …

... August 5, 1975?

The McNally-Arnold list historically gave this as the Jerry Garcia Band’s first show. This is almost certainly incorrect, as gigs only got going with Nicky Hopkins and JGB #1 from September 18, to the best of our current reckoning. Corry now considers this a Keith and Donna show with Jerry, which is how I currently list it. But, check out this series:

Keystone Berkeley ad from the pink section, 7/27/75, billing Jerry Garcia & Merl Saunders 8/5/75

Keystone Berkeley August 1975 calendar, scan courtesy of Ed Perlstein

See that big blank spot over Merl’s name in the 8/5/75 box? “Jerry Garcia and” would fit perfectly in that spot. I raise this for two reasons. First, *this* looks to be where the rupture between Jerry and Merl could have happened, insofar as that’s the right conception of things. Gigs were advertised, nothing unusual about that, but then something changes. I think Corry’s reasoning that this was Keith and Donna is pretty sound, but that would mean Merl would have been bumped for it, potentially part of the story of Merl having the rug pulled out from under him. Second, whatever the deal with 8/5, the fact that there had been a JGMS billing this late in the game lends more credence to the idea of late-July gigs.

So, in summing up on this one, I am not prepared to say there was a JGMS/Legion gig on August 5, 1975. I am prepared to say that it was planned as JGMS, and then morphed into something else (either Merl without Jerry, or Keith and Donna). In that sense, it arguably sets the new outer limit to our understanding of the tenure of the Jerry-Merl and Legion of Mary aggregations.

Conclusion

Putting this all together might merely push the end of Legion back to the end of July, rather than to the beginning. In that sense, it’s a purely quantitative addition to our understanding. But, I don’t know, somehow the boys jamming together at the Share (as they did so well on 7/5/73, GarciaLive 6), casts a whole new light on the demise of the Legion, making it feel less like an opiated Sunday-night anticlimax and more like a couple of good gigs to wrap things up. It may still be the case that Jerry ducked out after 7/30 with just as much cowardice as we have always thought, but this is softened in my mental palette just a little bit if there was good, joyful gigging for a little longer than has previously been recognized.