RIP Bill Vitt

https://jambands.com/news/2019/07/19/drummer-bill-vitt-passes-away/

Friday Night at the Boarding House

edit: well, this is a first - turns out I had already posted a version of this. Heh heh. Presumably, this one is better.

April 13-16, 1973 saw Garcia "Four Nights at the Boarding House", two with Merl Saunders and The Group (JGMS), two with Old And In The Way (OAITW). So much about these shows tantalizes me – the legendary San Francisco venue, the only-in-the-Garciaverse blend of black and white, old and new, my love for the repertoires and performances of both bands, and the fact that of the four nights, and presumably at least nine sets/shows,[1] only one set circulates, the first set of the OAITW late show on Monday the 16^th (see shnid-100404 for the best copy, and my listening notes). We know a little about the other three nights from Rob Eaton: Friday the 13^th and Saturday the 14^th were represented among the Third Batch Betty Boards that he transcribed in 1996, and somewhere along the way (possibly also the Third Batch) he transcribed one of the Sunday night (4/15) bluegrass sets.

In this post I want to say just a bit more about Friday the 13^th, mostly triggered by a show review I found in the Stanford Daily.[2] I'll start with what we already knew, and then turn to what the review adds.

Metadata

The Soto-McNally-Arnold JG List, Garciaverse successor to the Soto List, had a listing for this show, which may have come from union contracts and/or the newspaper and other research of any of the named authors. I show a Barb "Scenedrome" listing (April 13-19, 1973, p. 18) and one in the Hayward Daily Review (April 6, 1973, p. 53) with scheduled 8 pm start.

Setlist

Rob Eaton contributed setlist details for the end of the show, updated by TJS staff:

--end set II--

Money Honey

Positively 4th Street

untitled-19730307

Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

Tape Archaeology

These details came from a sound recording, and I'd like to dig into a bit of tape archaeology.

When Betty Cantor-Jackson and Rex Jackson got together in 1972, they mixed and mingled their lives and their tape collections. The legendary Betty Boards could be more accurately, if less fetchingly, understood as the Cantor-Jackson Collection, the tapes they merged and then made (together and apart) during Rex's foreshortened life (d. September 5, 1976) and beyond it, Betty flying where it's wing-meltingly-hot to make some of the finest sound recordings in the long history of live music.

This gorgeous personal collection of professionaly-curated tape got washed away along with everything else in her life over a number of years, by the early '82 floods and by a spate of equally natural human disasters, muck that doesn't come off with a Q-Tip. The tape went from a box in Betty's San Anselmo basement to the world of storage units (somewhere in the world exist documents that could help us pin down details, I just haven't managed to uncover them yet), lost from memory until it wound up auctioned-off with a thousand or more of its companion Betty Boards around May 1986.[3]

For over nine years, this tape hid in a goat barn until, in late 1995, its possessor called Rob Eaton to investigate and, eventually, preserve it. Armed with wood-stemmed cotton swabs and rubbing alcohol, an oven to bake flaky oxide to a vinyl backing, sweating over an Otari 50/50 reel to reel->Apogee 500 A/D converter-> Panasonic SV3700 DAT setup, Eaton spent 700 of his 1996 hours annotating, cleaning, repairing, spinning, and presumably soaking in and enjoying some of the sweetest sounds ever captured live – a Third Batch of Betty Boards, including the last 40 minutes of the Garcia-Saunders group at the Boarding House on Friday, April 13, 1973.[4]

Now I will get even more arcane about this particular artifact.

Eaton's "Kingbee" List gave the following:

04/13/73 The Boarding House, San Francisco Ca - xcerpt
4.8, 039min, Sbd, A0D1, Reel Master->Dat 1, 44k,
10inch Master Reel@7.5ips 1/2trk->3700 x 0->3800 x 1

Though he's almost never mistaken, I thought Kingbee had tripped up on this one. I thought this must be reel #3 of a show recorded on 7" tape. I was wrong, KB was right as usual. Not that anyone cares, but let me run through my reasoning.

It has generally been my sense that Betty usually taped Garcia on 7" reels running at 7.5 ips or 10" reels running at 15 ips (about 48 minutes). Sometimes tape diameter and recording speed would cross to the other diagonal, but not that much. What we have here is a 10" reel running at 7.5 ips (96 minutes), just such an off-diagonal tape. And, I have finally come around to the idea that this could indeed be the last 40 minutes of a contemporary JGMS gig, on these parameters – this looks a lot like the 49 minute end-of-show tape that lived with 4/13/73, March 7, 1973. I also note that Lion's Share 7/5/73 gives 10-7.5 parameters, though that one is a 180 minute monster. So maybe this is how she was doing it at this time.

Show Review

Happily, recent gatherings give me a bit more to report. The Stanford Daily has been beautifully preserved and presented at http://stanforddailyarchive.com/. Thanks to all involved in making that happen. Among many other delights, it yielded a review by Jay Harlow of this Friday the 13th at the Boarding House. 

Garcia and Saunders "returned for a two-night stay" (following a three night run in January[5]), "joined by guitarist George Pichner [sic: George Tickner], ... an important enough part of the group to deserve equal billing." They were late in starting: "At 9:30 we got word that the band was still waiting for the bass player. Five minutes later he was outside looking for a parking space, and eventually came walking in through the audience, being occasionally booed and heckled." The show eventually kicked off just before ten with "That's A Touch I Like". Garcia's guitar plays like a good, dry white wine (it was already Palo Alto, after all).

A friend named Sarah helped with the vocals on some numbers, and particularly shone on "Honey Chile". Her voice ... blends very nicely with Garcia's guitar. .. In the middle of the set there was a long, beautiful instrumental number in which everyone had some solo space. ... Pichner [sic], who had been playing mostly rhythm guitar so far, did some good leads, à la Eric Clapton at times. His somewhat harsher tone sets off Garcia and Saunders very well.

Harlow namechecks Bill Vitt for us, and has high praise for the Mule: "bassist John Kahn was certainly worth waiting for. Both in backup and solo playing, he is a real stylist. At times the flair in his left-hand fingerings reminded me of a classical guitarist." He gives us a few more setlist details ("That's All Right", "Lonely Avenue" and "I Second That Emotion"), and it sounds like a good time, "first rate musicians really working together".

Beautiful.

Unfortunately, Harlow doesn't say anything about the electric violin player reported present at JGC (via TJS). I wonder if George Tickner did any fiddling?

In Sum

Armed with this new information, let me sum up in the form of a draft TJS-successor entry.

Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders

Boarding House

960 Bush Street

San Francisco, CA 94109

April 13, 1973 (Friday) - 10 PM

--unknown set and order status--

That's A Touch I Like

That's All Right

Lonely Avenue

I Second That Emotion

Honey Chile

--end set II--

Money Honey

Positively 4th Street

untitled-19730307

Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders

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

! lineup: Merl Saunders - keyboards;

! lineup: John Kahn - el-bass;

! lineup: George Tickner - el-g;

! lineup: Bill Vitt - drums;

! lineup: Sarah Fulcher - vocals.

! ?guest?: ?? – electric violin.

JGMF:

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19730413-01

! JGC: http://jerrygarcia.com/show/1973-04-13-boarding-house-san-francisco-ca/, noting "An unknown electric violinist sit in on this performance".

! db: none in circulation as of 8/11/2015.

! venue: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2011/09/boarding-house-960-bush-st-san.html

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/4JEC3

! ad: San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle Datebook 19730401p12

! listing: Hayward Daily Review, April 6, 1973, p. 53

! listing: San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle Datebook 19730408p04

! ad: San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle Datebook 19730408p11

! listing: "Scenedrome," Berkeley Barb, April 13-19, 1973, p. 18

! listing: Hayward Daily Review, April 13, 1973, p. 53

! listing: San Francisco Examiner, April 13, 1973, p. 35

! listing: San Francisco Examiner, April 13, 1973, p. 44

! review: [positive] Harlow, Jay. 1973. Garcia, Saunders 'Together' At Boarding House Theater In SF. Stanford Daily, April 17, p. 7. Accessed via http://stanforddailyarchive.com/, 7/2/2015

! personnel: Harlow (1973) namechecks the whole band (though, as a few weeks earlier at the Inn of the Beginning, Sarah is just Sarah). The author identifies "George Pichner", but it's George Tickner on second guitar.

! setlist: The show was scheduled for 8, but started closer to 10 (John Kahn was late arriving). The set structure is uncertain beyond that That's A Touch opens the proceedings Dixie closes them down. I hypothesize that one of the sets was truncated due to the late start. For example, the songs from RE's reel transcription, Money Honey through Dixie Down, could be the entirety of set II. The rest of the songs derive from a review in the Stanford Daily (Harlow 1973), and I place them in set I, though that's not certain.

! song: " untitled 19730307" is the beautiful unnamed thing Jerry and Sarah did together on the March 7, 1973 tape.

---

[1] Normally, I'd say eight sets/shows, two sets per night for JGMS and two shows per night for OAITW. But the circulating tape of 4/16/73b suggests that that show contained two sets, bringing our presumed set total to at least nine, and possibly as many as sixteen sets (2 for each JGMS date and 4 for each OAITW date).

[2] Harlow 1973.

[3] Budnick 2014.

[4] See Eaton 2015 for more detail.

[5] See my write-ups for 1/24/73 (http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2012/07/ln-jg1973-01-24jgmsearly-latesbd.html) and 1/25/73 (http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2012/07/ln-jg1973-01-25jgmsearly.html). Betty taped and Eaton transcribed 1/23, but it has never seen the wider light of day.

San Francisco Sessions, 1970

**updated 8/10/2015, especially under heading D**
**update2 8/11, more, especially, in section D**
**updated 8/12, re-ordered sections (now goes from more micro and Jerrycentric to more macro (and less so)), also reworked some of section D, though not really many new words.**

I have been processing information from contracts filed at the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) Local No. 6 in San Francisco.

• San Francisco Sessions, 1967-1968
• San Francisco Sessions, 1969
• This is the 1970 iteration, with bonus features. For this one, I include the Garcia events. They are formatted in blue. There is one GD entry, which is formatted orange.
• San Francisco Sessions, 1971
• San Francisco Sessions, 1972 

Let me speak to (A) Garcia sessions; (B) Dead-related stuff,(C) other Garciaverse echoes, and (D) an analysis of what these contracts tell us about San Francisco Rock on film in 1970.

A. Info on some of Jerry's prolific 1970 studio work:

1. Materials around the iconic Paul Kantner/Jefferson Starship Blows Against the Empire (RCA LSP 4448 [SF 8163], November 1970) tip the possibility of Garcia working on "Mau Mau" (July 17 and 22), not currently given at Deaddisc. This material may have ended up on the cutting room floor. They also us to date his credited contributions to "Starship" (July 15, August 10-11) (LIA corrected me on earlier error, saying this was previously uncredited.)
2. The song "Old Man" pops up July 15 and August 10. I am assuming this is Covington's execrable "Whatever The Old Man Does (Is Always Right)", unreleased from the Jeffersons' Bark (Grunt FTR 1001, September 1971) sessions.
3. Brewer & Shipley, Tarkio (Kama Sutra 2024, February 1971): Deaddisc shows Garcia only on "Oh Mommy". The session paperwork also lists "50 States Of Freedom", hard to know if Garcia played on that one and/or if any material was used. There is one contract for two sessions, so my hunch is that there was one session for each song, and Jerry probably only attended one of the two. Who knows. The sessions were Friday, August 21, 1970 at 5pm and 9pm. Work on the record picks up again in October, but Garcia, still/again at Heider's, makes no further appearances.
4. Lamb, Cross Between (Warner Brothers WS 1920, 1971): Deaddisc says "Jerry Garcia plays on Flying (banjo), Flotation (pedal steel) and Reach High (pedal steel)" and notes "Garcia's contribution to this LP is not documented on the LP cover. There is simply a note on the back cover that says 'special thanks to Jerry Garcia', which has been interpreted as meaning Garcia played on the album. It has subsequently been confirmed by Walter Rapaport, the co-producer of the album, that Garcia played on Flying, Flotation and Reach High. The contribution to Flotation is only 4 notes." For what it's worth, the contract gives us time: Monday, October 5, 1970, in the afternoon.
5. Thanks to commenter runonguinness, I see that RCA buys some "Soul Fever" on Tuesday, October 6, 1970, eventually to appear on Papa John Creach's self-named Grunt record (FTR 1003, December 1971). ROG notes "it is credited to Papa John, Garcia, Rolie, Brown and Covington and it does sound like just one guitar". Deaddisc does show a Garcia credit, listing Papa John Creach - electric violin, Dave Brown - bass, Joey Covington - drums, Jerry Garcia - guitar, Gregg Rolie - organ). So I guess the really tantalizing question is whether Carlos Santana showed up, and he and Jerry played together. It's interesting to me that there are just about no instance of that particular shared studio, and the Shared Stage only came about post-Garcia's 1986 coma. A few months later, in a near-miss (as far as we know), Carlos was billed playing with Merl Saunders at the Matrix). In the alternative, some Carlos licks hit the cutting room floor.

B. The Grateful Dead Node

1. I found no 1970 GD contracts in the union records, which is a tragic shame. Might such materials exist in the Grateful Dead Archive?
2. The Planet Eart Rock and Roll Orchestra (PERRO) sessions at Wally Heider's included some Dead guys, though Phil Lesh is curiously absent from any of the paperwork I have seen. Bill Kreutzmann has an appealing looking session on July 29th with Paul Kantner and David Crosby), Mickey Hart makes a less-appealing-to-me Joey Covington-led one on September 2, 1970. That session, BTW, also seems more reliably to put Spencer Dryden in the New Riders' drum chair at the Matrix this night, but for some weird reason I have listed Hart. I assume this is my error?
3. Bob Weir makes the James and the Good Brothers sessions in December, also with Mickey.
4. Note the new studio "Alembic, Inc.", address 320 Judah Street in SF, late in the year. These are the earliest references I have found to that particular dba configuration.
5. There's a Grateful Dead film contract dated 10/2, with no performance date listed. The location is given as “remote locations at Family Dog, PHR". It was contracted by KQED (Bay Area Educational Television Association), under the moniker "San Francisco Rock". Under heading D below you'll find that end up concluding that this session transmogrified into the live broadcast from Winterland on October 4, 1970. I have more to say about this in section D, below.

C. A few quickies more on the margins of the Garciaverse:

1. PERRO at Heider's. QED.
2. Paul Kantner spent a lot of time in the studio, and the amount of studio time at Heider's paid out of RCA monies speaks to just how lucrative the Jeffersons' contracts really were. Doug Sahm (Mercury) and Joe McDonald (Vanguard) get a lot of time in, as well.
3. An awful lot of the PERRO contracts are AWOL, based on the comparison of the union files with, e.g., the metadata attached to circulating recordings.
4. John Kahn at Heider's: January 15 with Steve Miller; April 16 (approx) with Butterfield; August 17-18-19 with Brewer and Shipley (also Bill Vitt), as well as October 5-6-7 and 14, 1970 with Brewer & Shipley but w/o Vitt.
5. Other Garciazens making appearances in the contracts include Ron Stallings and David Crosby, though not with Jerry in these materials.
6. Martin Fierro kept pretty busy, mostly with Sir Douglas and QMS.

D. "San Francisco Rock", 1970 film contracts

In this section, I use the 1970 Bay Area Educational Television Association (i.e., KQED) "San Francisco Rock" film sessions to shed some light on San Francisco Rock, 1970 - what was played, when, etc.
1. The Concept

Ralph J. Gleason (b. - d.) was brilliant enough to see the leading edge of a wave of musical, cultural, social effervescence gathering around San Francisco from 1965 forward, turbo-boosting his own transition from newspaper jazz man to hip capitalist (Kramer 2013's formulation). He had a hand in the creation of untold countless precious artifacts including newspaper columns, radio broadcasts, interviews, records and tapes, and of course films. In 1970 KQED apparently paid him to do a five-year introspective, arranging to have the three biggest Haight-Ashbury bands filmed in "San Francisco Rock", the Airplane the first week of August, Quicksilver the first week of September, and the Dead the first week of October.

1. ca. August 3, 1970 (contract date) Family Dog on the Great Highway (film S.F. Rock): Jefferson Airplane (Balin, Dryden, Casady, Kantner, Kaukonen, Slick)
2. ca. August 31, 1970 (contract date) Sonoma State College (film – S.F. Rock, Part I): QMS (John Cipollina, Gary Duncan, David Freiberg, Greg Elmore)
3. ca. October 2, 1970 (contract date) “remote locations at Family Dog, PHR", (film – S.F. Rock): GD (Lesh [leader], Garcia, Hart, McKernan, Weir, Kreutzmann)

"San Francisco Rock" was a Ralph Gleason joint at T+5, nearly to the day. What a great idea! But, as it happens, maybe it all didn't quite work out as planned. Whatever does? So Gleason looks typically prescient in seeing the promise of marketing something at the 5 year totem, but the end results skew a little, as artifacts must.

2. The State of the Bands in/and the Broader Time Period

a. The Bands

The Jeffersons are still huge, but the peak has been passed in terms of the Airplane's live act, which I date rather precisely to 4/15/70. May brings the low swamp of Grace's "shrimp rap", the tape that turned me against live recordings of the Airplane from later in that year - I just can't get the taste of that local low off my aural palate - and by 10/4/70, or maybe it was 10/5, Marty expresses his need for a new band not just to the assembled mourners, but over howevermany watts on KPFA.

The Quick has a lot of energy in this period, but more of the kind that the the fractious Jeffersons always wallowed in, and less of the relatively --relatively!!-- interpersonally harmonious Grateful Dead scene. (I just came across a quote of Garcia saying in 1970 how well the Dead guys got along on the road - that must have been chez LIA somewhere?) There's a reason David Freiberg could jump from the Quick to the Jeffersons, besides his bad-ass bass playing, his vocal strength, song chops, and all the rest of it - he seems not to have suffered much from the burn of working with difficult, brilliant people.

The band peaked hard November 7-11, 1968 at the Fillmore West, spun the electric circle Happy Trails, and then crashed to Dino Valente's unambiguous re-entry into the band, his subsequent departure with Duncan in tow, the east coast motorcycle trip, aresulting relatively fallow first half of 1969, toodling around a little bit with Nick the Greek and then welcoming Nicky Hopkins into the fold. There is much more hot music to be played throughout the spring, but by summer 1970 Quicksilver, as it happens, is in the process of breaking apart. Nicky leaves the live act in August, Cip sort of quits after --again? 10/4/70?-- the horns come in 10/4/70 and 10/5/70 and the radio broadcast is painful to listen to. Nothing can survive the onslaught of Dino Valente --his "Long Haired Lady", which includes the line "uni-corns pran-cing, in my mind" should have earned him a lifetime ban from the commissioner-- and by 1971 they have Whodat playing the bass and would never make meaningful music again.

That said, Gleason didn't entirely miss with Quicksilver - the performance that ended up happening, being filmed, and the film eventually released is a fine one, indeed, in many respects. I say more below.

The Dead's cards showed loss, recovery and some mighty fine music, and unlike the other two bands the arrow is pointing up after 1970 - a strong buy, and go ahead and go long. The spring and fall records Workingman's Dead and American Beauty were, respectively, strong on the charts and just-released, the first a weary tune and the latter a wreath of the titular bloom. Darkness swirled around them, who took refuge in each other, sharing lives with all of their music. The last quarter of 1970 is its weakest one, by far, anchored not least by the shambolic performance that I think we have contracted here, Winterland 10/4/70.

 b. San Francisco Rock, ca. 10/4/70

Indeed, Winterland 10/4/70, the night that Janis died, the manic, brain-blasting qualities of the various broadcasts (which really were never gotten together, technically -- all of the tapes pretty much suck), the Airplane and Quicksilver falling apart at the seams, and the less well-known to me show the next night in many ways stand as an epitaph to the whole idea of getting up close and personal with "San Francisco Rock" five years along. All three "S.F. Rock" bands performed, revealing that five years will take a toll on people and the groups they comprise, living under the spotlight and fueled by all kinds of drives will bring out some really good and some, well, less so. I think it's no coincidence that the three bands contracted for "San Francisco Rock" would be playing together.
(see also LIA | cryptdev | Corry on the broadcast angle )

c. Art and Commerce

In short, I think Gleason succeeded in capturing some clear truths about "San Francisco Rock" in 1970, and I find the footage that we have to be artistically successful on a lot of levels. I don't think they worked out all that well commercially, but then again this is public television we're talking about here. The fact that Gleason gets to release this material under his own name (see just below) is interesting ...

3. The "Ralph J. Gleason Presents" DVD releases in Light of the Contracts

When I first saw the contracts, I assumed that they gave rise to film already released under the banner of "Ralph J. Gleason Presents" DVDs:

A Night at the Family Dog (EV 30122-9, 2007, IMDB)
Go Ride the Music & West Pole (Eagle Vision EV30181-9, February 2008).

I have been able to parse things a little more closely, to fine tune against the baseline of my starting assumptions. After you read this section, I want you to believe that a) the metadata around these releases contain errors, b) I can correct some of these errors using these contracts, b) none of these contracts refers to material appearing on Night at the Family Dog or West Pole; c) the Airplane and QMS contracts refer to material found on Go Ride the Music, and thus recorded in August and September 1970, respectively; and d) the 10/4/70 gig at Winterland probably constituted the Dead's  "S.F. Rock" contribution, but none of this material has never appeared in the Gleason films.

The release metadata are a little all over the place. The contracts bring clarity. Let me move from simplest to most complicated by going in the order West Pole, A Night at the Family Dog, and Go Ride the Music.

a West Pole

West Pole is the easiest to deal with. Toby Gleason says the film was made in 1968, the back cover says it aired in 1969, and the front cover says it was previously unreleased. The overall WP&GRTM release has copyrights of 1969 and 2008.

It is wonderful to see. The Airplane and Dead material on West Pole is not from discrete sessions, but colles some pastiches some rather amazing sound and image from various times and places, different kinds of sources (live and studio), and different people into primal music videos. There's great tape of legendary venues and groups such as the Ace of Cups, some street scenes from a dingy Haight, and lots of other cool stuff.

The whole thing's a hoot to watch, but it has nothing to do with  the 1970 "San Francisco Rock" sessions.

b. A Night at the Family Dog 

Filmed on 2/4/70 (update: maybe also 2/3/70) and first released in 1970, Corry has a great writeup. The metadata are very solid, two small flies in the ointment.

First, I have always supposed a "4/2/70" Airplane session  (Abbott 2007) to be spurious, probably stems from a European orthography somewhere in the script. Tape attributed this way has crossed six or seven media, and every copy I ever heard was, IIRC, the same material known to be from 2/4/70. But I note below that it is not impossible...

Second, ihor's irreplaceable The Complete Grateful Dead Discography (TCGDD) entry lists a June 28, 2005 release of the Night DVD, with otherwise identical catalog information (Eagle Rock 2030122-9), but calling it San Francisco Rock: A Night At The Family Dog. That's the sort of coincidence some of us are paid not to believe in. On my 2007 imprint of that release, that formulation ("San Francisco Rock, A Night at the Family Dog") appears as the title of Toby Gleason's brief missive. But I'd give a full title of Ralph J. Gleason Rock Classic: A Night at the Family Dog, if forced to.

I am confident out a number of decimal places that none of the material contracted during 1970 under the heading "San Francisco Rock" has anything to do with the Night at the Dog. We should be keeping these two things separate, IMO, except insofar as Toby Gleason titled an essay that way.

Overall, here, I conclude with memory rule: 2/4/70 is the Night at the Family Dog, and A Night at the Family Dog derives from only 2/4/70. (Update: except for maybe some or all of it being from 2/3/70? Heh heh.) None of this material appears to have been contracted through the papers described below.

c. Go Ride The Music

The back cover of the release says "Go Ride the Music was recorded in 1969" gives 1969 and 2008 copyrights. But 1969 is flat out incorrect. The JA and QMS tracks derive from 1970, from material contracted by KQED under the film title "San Francisco Rock".

i. Airplane

The cover reads that "the seven Airplane clips [on Ride the Music] were shot at Pacific High Recording and feature their new drummer, Joey Covington". 

The venue is a contraindication, since the contract said Family Dog. But note the wording on the Dead contract: "remote locations at Family Dog, PHR". So PHR was certainly on the script for "San Francisco Rock", and what's more --and tremendously ironically, given the story that I plan to narrate in "Jerry and the Jeffersons", parts I and II-- the Dog was busy giving birth to The Common in early August 1969, though it sure could have used the paycheck. For whatever reason, it seems very plausible to me that they contracted the Dog and ended up at PHR.

In terms of personnel, erstwhile drummer Spencer Dryden flew out of the Jeffersons' orbit by April 1970. Depending on how literally we take the word "new", this could give oxygen to the notion that there was an Airplane ssession at Family Dog on 4/2/70, despite the strikes agsinst that idea (noted above). That said, August 1970 still consists in Joey being "new" to the Airplane, I'd say, with five years (or thereabouts) already under their belts (8/13/65 is as good a starting point as any), the guy who had been in that particular seat for only three months --though around for longer-- was still "new" to a first approximation. Either way, Covington's presence as the Airplane's drummer, rather than a guy hanging out with Jack and Jorma, speaks unequivocally in favor of 1970. 

Sealing the case for 1970 for me is Jeff Swenson's liner notes. which put Garcia in the Jeffersons' studio striking Blows Against The Empire. The contracts are all over that stuff, of course, and things could not be clearer: this is summer 1970.

All in all, I am about 95% sure that work contracted for "San Francisco Rock" begat the Airplane material featured on Go Ride the Music, which therefore dates to sometime in the first third of August 1970. 

ii. Quicksilver

This QMS material completely knocks me out, Dino doing his Full Narcissist, the band tearing the shit out of things, the material very uneven. Remember this rule of thumb: "Subway" good, "Long-Haired Lady" bad. Further, any song that includes the phrase "uni-corns pran-cing in my mind" must not be. It must not be. Nicky's fingers appear a time or two, and he is clearly audible Freiburg looks like he's rocking, but he's buried in the mix, I guess that's Greg Elmore hitting the skins. It went downhill fast from here, but in September 1970 (which I'll conclude this is) these guys were at a local peak not seen since late 1968 and Happy Trails. The scenery is incredible, what looks to me like a fall day in Sonoma County, not too many people dancing out in ticklish sunshine, on a little bit of a breeze.

The "San Francisco Rock" contract fits the bill most precisely with the location  (Sonoma State College) and the season (fall). 

Personnelwise, Nicky is not on the contract, but one senses that his contractual status might have been a little bit fluid (hence the disembodied fingers on the film?). Alsoa  strike against is that, as I recalled, he had stopped gigging with the Quick in August. This certainly doesn't rule out a September 1970 QMS gig for film, which remains extremely likely given the balance of all of the evidence, but it does raise small question..

The fact that Dino Valente and Gary Duncan are in town strikes me as strongly confirmatory of 1970, since as I recall they spent all of 1969 out east riding and running around, not returning until about New Year's Eve. I'd like to consult Shelley Duncan's book again to feel more confident about that, but that's my strong sense.

All told, the balance of the evidence favors the QMS material from Go Ride the Music having been contracted as "San Francisco Rock" and performed in early September 1970.

iii. implication

Go Ride the Music comprises an early August 1970 Jefferson Airplane set from Pacific High Recorders and an early September 1970 Quicksilver Messenger set from Sonoma State College, both contracted under the planned Bay Area Educational Televation Association's planned KQED film "San Francisco Rock".

d. The Dead: All Contract, No Release

Based on all of the above, here's what I think happened with the GD session. If the Jeffersons played a different room than contracted, the Dead could have, too. And having taken that step, why not get some really live material for the film, with the people who do it best, and knock out a simulcast on KQED? In short, I now believe that the 10/2/70 contract was fulfilled by the Dead through the 10/4/70 television and radio broadcast from Winterland. Why didn't the Gleason folks use some of this footage in Go Ride the Music? My best guess is that it would have been a rights and money thing. Earlier I had entertained a few other possibilities. Maybe there really was a separate Dead session filmed during this timeframe, per the terms of the contract, which has remained hidden. This seems unlikely, to say the least. Or maybe it was never consummated (i.e., the 10/4/70 had nothing to do with the "Rock in S.F." project. Maybe the Dead bailed out after 10/4/70, Janis dead and darkness, darkness all around. But I think all of that is less likely than my preferred alternative.

Note: as far as I can tell, no video of the Dead's 10/4/70 set has been seen. Is that correct?

4. "San Francisco Rock", 1970 and San Francisco Rock, 1970

[with more time, here I would close the loop on the idea that what we get on the film is pretty much what we get in the real world. I sketched this out preliminarily above.]

Barebones session listing follows. Note that, in a pure breach of common sense, I have added a fifth line to some of the most interesting entries, to identify the songs. If I ever try to parse these into real data I'll have to remember that.

Contradictions Are Fun

The human spirit ... is the favorite home of contradictions, indeed they do not seem to prosper or even find viable living conditions outside it.

José Saramago, All the Names, p. 228

Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders were advertised to play the Matrix at 3138 Fillmore on Wednesday, March 3, 1971. But as far as I know, GD played a benefit that night at the corner of Van Ness and Market.

Indeed, the same-day SFC listed both, which is a neat reminder that maybe whoever was taking the calls for the "Something Else" listings under Wasserman's byline might not have known that Garcia was in the Grateful Dead. Occam's Razor suggests just a basic mistake, but the former idea tickles me more.

I wonder if Merl played the Matrix anyway? He had played there a week and a half prior with Carlos Santana, but Carlos was already in Ghana for the big gig in Africa. I wouldn't have minded hearing what Saunders-Kahn-Vitt would do as an organ trio, had I been down in the Marina this particular midweek. But there are lots of other interesting possibilities, which I invite you to speculate about in comments.

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.]

JGMS 19730114-19730115 Inn of the Beginning, Cotati, CA

We know of the Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders show at the Inn of the Beginning on Monday, January 15, 1973 from the circulating tapes (http://db.etree.org/shn/9573), which are Betty Boards rescued by Rob Eaton from the muck and filth of God-knows-what-or-where (listening notes). There are severe problems with the recording, especially with the start of the show, but once you get past them you get a great tape.

The Inn of the Beginning's January 1973 calendar does not advertise this show (nor anything for Monday, 1/15). The night before, Sunday, January 14, 1973 is listed as "to be announced".

What little experience I have with these tells me that from October 1970 through the end, "to be announced" shows often ended up having special guests or being otherwise notable.

As it turns out, the handwritten ledgers fill in the missing detail. For January 14-15, 1973, they list "Merle [sic] Saunders, Jerry Garcia, John Kahn, Tom Fogerty, Bill Vitt". As far as I know, January 14, 1973 is new to "The List".

No mention in the ledger of the most historically mystifying person on stage that night, Sarah Fulcher, who features on several lead vocals from the 1/15/73 tape. I am hoping to learn more about Sarah Fulcher and would gratefully receive any and all information that anyone might have. I know she was from San Antonio, spent some time in NYC, went back to San Antonio, and ended up in the Bay Area. I believe she was in the Bay Area ca. late 1972, and then the last trace I can find of her is in the credits of Wake of the Flood and then the October 2, 1973 Winterland Garcia/Saunders show. After that, basically nothing. Anyway, by my back of the napkin-reckoning I have her on the following shows:

• 1/14/73 Inn of the Beginning, Cotati
• 1/15/73 Inn of the Beginning, Cotati
• 1/19/73 Keystone, Berkeley (also NB Marty David, not John Kahn, on bass)
• 1/23/73 Boarding House, SF
• 1/24/73 Boarding House, SF
• 1/25/73 Boarding House, SF
• 3/7/73 Keystone, Berkeley
• 5/4/73 Homers Warehouse, Palo Alto
• 5/5/73 Homers Warehouse, Palo Alto
• 7/19/73 Great American Music Hall (also NB Martin's first appearance w/ JGMS; also NB guest harmonica player)
• 10/2/73 Winterland, SF (also NB Jellyroll, unknown trumpeter)

A seemingly-odd batch of shows, on the one hand. Lots of other personnel fluidity, and that apparent six-month gap ... no idea what to make of it. On the other hand, maybe that's just how fluid things really were, which is nice to remember! There were people coming and going and jamming and all of that. Good stuff.

I learned a bit more about Sarah from the IOTB materials. I found "Sarah & Friends" listings for March 30-31, 1973 at the Inn. Here's a page from the March 1973 IOTB flyer:

March 1973 Inn of the Beginning Flyer, "Entertainment" Notes". Courtesy of Mark Braunstein.

For those of you who didn’t catch her name before. Sarah is the lady who sang with Merle [sic] Saunders and Jerry Garcia last January. She and Bill Vitt, who played drums on the same show, and a few friends will give you more of the same. 

For whatever reason, Ms. Fulcher seems to have had a taste for the anonymous by this time in her life. Note that they don't ever give her last name.

(As an aside, these notes from the IOTB flyers are incredibly precious. There is tons of information in there about who was playing with whom, etc. I have a few other nuggets that I'll post about that come from these amazing contemporary observations and analyses. Thanks to Mark Braunstein for documenting this scene so thoroughly back then, and for sharing the data now!)

I reproduce this both to reproduce it (these things are gorgeous!) and because it sheds small light on a few other things. First, it tells us that Vitt was drumming at the January JGMS show that had Sarah singing. Maybe we knew that, but it's nice to know. Second, this makes me think that Bill Vitt was how Sarah Fulcher came to sing in these Garcia-Saunders shows. I had always assumed that the Texas angle meant Martin or Dough Sahm. I can't remember if Vitt has any Texas connections, but anyway I am guessing Bill was closest to Sarah, effectively "sponsoring" her to sing with the band. Wild speculation, I know, but there it is. Finally, this blurb provides some nice crossing evidence that Jerry, Merl, Vitt and Sarah played the Inn in January 1973. We have this information from tape, but now we also have contemporary text. Nice.

The whole point of this post was to say that the Inn of the Beginning "ledgers" (handwritten lists, compiled monthly, of artists who played) show Jerry Garcia/Merl Saunders shows on both Sunday, January 14 and Monday, January 15, 1973 at the Inn. Personnel was Merl Saunders, Jerry Garcia, John Kahn, Tom Fogerty and Bill Vitt, with Sarah Fulcher on vocals for at least 1/15/73.