Second Night Out for Liz and Essra: JGB, Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, June 25, 1981

update: the original title of this was "First Night Out", but I have discovered a warmup gig on 6/24/81 at the Keystone Palo Alto (not in Salinas, as I had elaborately laid out).

Liz Stires and Essra Mohawk appear to debut as backing vocalists on the night before this show. There are no singers on the late May shows, then there are here and the next night. One presumes that the 6/24/81 Palo Alto gig was a warmup: off-night, if not quite off the beaten path.

Phil Lesh sits in while John Kahn travels Europe with his mom. Merle [sic] Saunders sits in for the first two tunes - his last sit-in with Garcia On The Side, I do believe.

The only other non-musical thing I'd note was the GD-centric billing in the preview entitled "Night of the Dead". This was uncommon, and for years the standard Garcia Band contract rider prohibited any trading on the name Grateful Dead or on Garcia's association with that band. With Mickey Hart a key principal in the opening band, High Noon, and Phil joining Jerry, this night seems to have permitted of an exception. It's almost like the "Grateful Dead Three Ways" framing around the December 1975 Kingfish, JGB and Keith and Donna Band gigs.

Musically, I like it. Phil sounds good, I really liked "I'll Take A Melody" and "Simple Twist Of Fate".

Jerry Garcia Band
Civic Auditorium
307 Church Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
June 25, 1981 (Thursday)
Senicola-Poris MAC shnid-89567

--set I (7 tracks, 6 tunes, 59:29)--
s1t01. crowd and tuning [1:46]
s1t02. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [7:36] [0:24]
s1t03. Catfish John [8:15] (1) [0:36]
s1t04. Sitting In Limbo [10:10] [0:28]
s1t05. That's What Love Will Make You Do [8:33] [0:40]
s1t06. Mississippi Moon [11:12] ->
s1t07. Tangled Up In Blue [9:41] (2) [0:09] %

--set II (6 tracks, 5 tunes, 56:27)--
s2t01. crowd (3) and tuning [1:28]
s2t02. I'll Take A Melody [12:20] % [0:03]
s2t03. Simple Twist Of Fate [12:14] [0:08] %
s2t04. Knockin' On Heaven's Door [13:22] [0:05] % [0:09]
s2t05. Dear Prudence [9:14] ->
s2t06. Midnight Moonlight [7:00] [0:21]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #13a
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - keyboards;
! lineup: Jimmy Warren - keyboards;
! lineup: Daoud Shaw - drums;
! lineup: Essra Mohawk - backing vocals;
! lineup: Liz Stires - backing vocals.
! guest: Merl Saunders - keyboards (s1t01-s1t03).
! guest: Phil Lesh - el-bass (whole show).

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/19810625-01

! JGC: http://jerrygarcia.com/show/1981-06-25

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/9302 (aud shnf); https://etreedb.org/shn/89567 (this fileset).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/kkDtK

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2011/09/civic-auditorium-307-church-st-santa.html
 

! venue: http://www.cityofsantacruz.com/departments/parks-recreation/civic-auditorium

! band: JGB #13a (http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html)

! historical: High Noon opened. Lesh replaces Kahn on bass; Saunders sits in on first two numbers, almost sounds like Melvin was late. Very interesting use of Grateful Dead marketing. This is almost like a "GD Three Ways" kind of feel. See preview title. The listing has a picture of Jerry with caption about "Jerry Garcia and friends", and listing identifies Hart. Clearly planned and sold around Garcia, Lesh, etc.

! seealso: Arnold, Corry. 20160804. June 26, 1981 Fox-Warfield Theatre, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia Band with Phil Lesh/High Noon/Mike Henderson (The Truth Is Out There). Lost Live Dead, August 4, URL https://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2016/08/june-26-1981-fox-warfield-theatre-san.html, consulted 7/28/2019. That's where Corry reports that John Kahn was touring Europe with his mom during this timeframe.

! preview: "Night of The Dead," Good Times, June 25, 1981, p. 5

! ad: Good Times, June 25, 1981, p. 12

! listing: Good Times, June 25, 1981, p. 20

! R: field recordists: Richard Senicola and Jaime Poris

! R: field recording gear: 2x Nakamichi 300 + 1x Nakamichi 700 > (Nak 550) > Sony TC-D5M (Mark Severson's equipment)

! R: field recording media: 2x Maxell MX cassette

! R: field recording location: 35 feet back from right center of stage

! R: Transfer and FLAC encoding by David Minches: Master played back on Nak Dragon > Grace Lunatec V3 (24/96) > Digital Audio Labs Card Deluxe > Adobe Audition 2.0 > (dither/downsample) > FLAC encoding.

! R: this is a great pull! Drums are super-punchy. What a tape!

! personnel: Definitely two keys plus two backup singers. I presume that Merl was playing Melvin's Hammond on the tunes that list him, and that Melvin was sitting out. I probably wouldn't be able to hear three keyboards at once, anyway.

! s1t03 (1) JG: "We'd like to thank Merl Saunders for sittin' in with us for a couple of tunes."

! P: Phil is pretty hot and heavy for Miss Moon and TUIB. BTW, earlier in the set an audience member mentions him by name, lest there be any doubt that Lesh is in the house.

! s1t07 (2) JG: "We're gonna take a lil short break, we'll be back in a [inaudible] minutes."

! s2t01 (3) @ 0:18 crowd member starts singing "Elvira" ... now there's a time capsule for you.

! P: s2t02 ITAM @ 2:01-2:04, you hear Philip Lesh playing the freaking bass. Wow. Great backing vocals @ 5:48. Rare to hear them this clearly ... great stuff! @ 11:19 JG is doing some ridiculous running around the chords.

! P: s2t03 STOF is incredible, careful, deliberate, beautiful! This tape captures it really, really nicely. STOF without the bass solo is interesting

! P: s2t04 KOHD @ 6-min mark, Jimmy Warren's little solo is not great.

! R: s2t06 Midnight Moonlight [00:01 - 00:07] patched with SHNID-9302

The Fat Man Is Back - LN jg1987-02-24.jgb.all.aud-pinney-gems.82610.flac1644

Poster for JGB 2/24/87 at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium on Tuesday, February 24, 1987, image courtesy of Wolfgang's Vault.

Since I gathered an ad and a few listings in Santa Cruz, I gave the 2/24/87 JGB show at the Civic Aud a spin and discovered a great tape (a single one in circulation, thanks to taper Tom Pinney and all involved in getting his tape into the Official Record) of a Garcia Band sounding really good and band leader who sounds cogent, focused, engaged, and increasingly frisky. I'd need to listen to more of the surrounding shows to get a really clean sense, but I if I draw a straight line between some of the Rock Bottom shows (and even some of the early 1986 shows) to the great 18 months that would begin on 8/29/87 and end on 5/19/89, I pass right through this show on the way up. (I do now see that I wasn't doing backflips over 3/14/87.)

I cannot believe Bill Graham Presents ran this with what we might render today as #thefatmanisback, nor that the Garcia people allowed it to run. But here we are! That Lucky Old Sun is a stunningly improbable highlight for me. I never thought I'd hear of it highlighting, less still writing of it. I usually find it a bore. But of this version, on this listen, I have nothing but love. Let's use TLOS as a window on the show.

! song: That Lucky Old Sun [Allan | deaddisc]: The great Tin Pan Alley songwriter Haven Gillespie wrote this reverie with the lesser-known Beasley Smith, a glimpsed-thought-turns-philosophical-truism solar daydream, which makes a really good point. Americana? How about Frankie Laine, Sarah Vaughan, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan and Louis Armstrong covering your song -- in 1949 alone! Tony Bennett, Pat Boone, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Bing Crosby, Bobby Darin, Aretha Franklin, Jerry Lee Lewis, Willie Nelson, the Righteous Brothers, and too many others to name would follow.

Jerry put it in his repertoire immediately after the coma, draping it in mournful hopefulness, the man who six months earlier lay at death's door, three weeks in the hospital coming back to something like life, thinking "Man, if I get out of here, I'm gonna play every chance I get" (Vaughn 1987, 80), now coming back to health, regaining strength, maybe the coma wrung the junk-sickness out of him, too, because he's clear-headed for the first time in forever, like more than a decade depending on how you reckon it, and he's playing a neat little gig at the Santa Cruz Civic, the breathtaking little Civic Aud, and he's working his craft. Check out the Jerry Band on a Tuesday night, a worknight, February 24, 1987, and hear him right where he belongs, in a sweet little room working up a slice of Americana for an appreciative listener. It's not perfect, but it's careful, attentive arranging, singing and guitar playing. The song is perfect for JGB #21b because Melvin can swirl up a sweet, colorful Sunday garland right around your ears, drape it around you a little, the ladies supply the backing diaphragm that lets Jerry focus on articulation, phrasing, breath management, and the band simmers it just right, so there's room for the same guitar feel, well plucked and articulate rather than face-melting (though Jerry still plays LOUD!). You don't have to love Garcia to concede him his place, doing this song – see 2/24/87 for what I hope is the open and shut argument.

The whole show and tape have this sweet feel. Garcia sounds great, the band sounds great, the tape sounds great, and I wish I had been able to sit in deco splendor on this night, maybe drink some club soda and commune with the Jerry Band. "The Fat Man Is Back," indeed!

Jerry Garcia Band
Civic Auditorium
307 Church Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
February 24, 1987 (Tuesday)
Pinney shnid-82610

--set I (7 tracks, 50:09)--
s1t01. //Cats Under The Stars [#7:52] [1:34]
s1t02. Forever Young [8:48] [0:17]
s1t03. [0:20] Stop That Train [7:49] ->
s1t04. Run For The Roses [5:22] [0:11]
s1t05. And It Stoned Me [6:45] ->
s1t06. My Sisters And Brothers [4:10] ->
s1t07. D//eal [6:#53] (1) [0:08]

--set II (6 tracks, 57:29)--
s2t01. [0:47] Harder They Come [9:49] [0:17]
s2t02. I Shall Be Released [7:23] [0:09]
s2t03. [0:10] Think [7:49] [0:07] % [0:16]
s2t04. Dear Prudence [10:55] [0:06]
s2t05. That Lucky Old Sun [9:53] ->
s2t06. Tangled Up In Blue [9:38] (2) [0:09]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #21b
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - bass;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - keyboards;
! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch - backing vocals;
! lineup: Gloria Jones - backing vocals;
! lineup: David Kemper - 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/19870224-01

! JGC: https://jerrygarcia.com/show/1987-02-24-civic-auditorium-santa-cruz-ca/

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/82610 (Tom Pinney MAC, this fileset, only known source!).

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

! venue: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2011/09/civic-auditorium-307-church-st-santa.html

! handbill: http://images.wolfgangsvault.com/jerry-garcia-band/poster/memorabilia/SCC870224-PO.jpg

! ad: Good Times, February 19, 1987, p. 21;

! listing: Good Times, February 19, 1987, p. 30;

! historical: Rather remarkably, the WV handbill has the tagline "The Fat Man Is Back". Jerry must have been in a sporting mood about it, I guess. Tuesday night gig, Garcia sounds amazingly clear and focused. This show is a delight to hear, after the darkness of the Rock Bottom series. This is a man working his craft with newfound enthusiasm. He is still regaining strength and stamina - the sets are about an hour. But he definitely sounds like he's getting stronger. Two snaps up on this vintage 1987 JGB.

! R: field recordist: Tom Pinney;

! R: field recording equipment: 2x Beyer M88 (XY 90 degrees) > Sony D5 MAC;

! R: field recording location: FOB Center - 20' from stage;

! R: lineage: cassette (1), Tape from the collection of: Russ Cansler;

! R: Cassette Transfer: By Todd Evans: Cassette (1) > JVC TD-V1050 cassette deck -> Lynx Two A/D (24-bit, 44.1kHz) -> Wavelab 6.0. Transferred February 15, 2007. Edited and Remastered:  Wavelab 6.0 with Waves Plugins and Ozone. Dithered L2,type2,ultra 16/44.1  SBE FREE by Jamie Waddell. a www.shnflac.net **GEMS** production  February 16, 2007.

! R: seeder notes: "a very solid recording"; "first circulating source of this show, 20 years later";
"very strong version of Think"; "tape flip at the start of Deal"; "seamless transition between the discs"

! R: seeder notes: "Big Thanks To Todd Evans for the Transfer! And Sincere Gratitude to Tom Pinney for Taping and Russ Cansler for the generosity and insight to share this missing show with GEMS and the community as a whole!"

! P: Jerry sounds in great voice this night. Very nice. This is an excellent all around show, not a weak spot in it.

! R: s1t07 Deal tape flip at start

! s1t07 (1) JG: "We'll be back in a few minutes."

! P: s2t05 TLOS is a great example of Garcia being attentive and careful in his vocal delivery. He's locked in. This version has some deliberate guitar playing, but nothing super-incendiary, which he could sometimes achieve in the unlikely setting of this song. Hits something cheeky at 6, again 6:25, reminding you he's playing rock, big downward thing 6:33, Melvin comes in big, on cue, scrubbing 6:59. This is an excellent version of a song that I normally don't pay much attention to. Melvin' swirly thing across 7:30. He always plays it the same, but it works; i.e., this is a good arrangement. Nice careful singing 9:15ff, nicely done. Very, very nice. Sounds gorgeous.

! song: That Lucky Old Sun (s2t05): The great Tin Pan Alley songwriter Haven Gillespie wrote this reverie with the lesser-known Beasley Smith, a glimpsed-thought-turns-philosophical-truism solar daydream, which makes a really good point. Americana? How about Frankie Laine, Sarah Vaughan, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan and Louis Armstrong covering your song -- in 1949 alone! Tony Bennett, Pat Boone, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Bing Crosby, Bobby Darin, Aretha Franklin, Jerry Lee Lewis, Willie Nelson, the Righteous Brothers, and too many others to name would follow. Jerry put it in his repertoire immediately after the coma, draping it in mournful hopefulness, the man who six months earlier lay at death's door, three weeks in the hospital coming back to something like life, thinking "Man, if I get out of here, I'm gonna play every chance I get" (Vaughn 1987, 80), now coming back to health, regaining strength, maybe the coma wrung the junk-sickness out of him, too, because he's clear-headed for the first time in forever, like more than a decade depending on how you reckon it, and he's playing a neat little gig at the Santa Cruz Civic, the breathtaking little Civic Aud, and he's working his craft. Check out the Jerry Band on a Tuesday night, a worknight, February 24, 1987, and hear him right where he belongs, in a sweet little room working up a slice of Americana for an appreciative listener. It's not perfect, but it's careful, attentive arranging, singing and guitar playing. The song is perfect for JGB #21b because Melvin can swirl up a sweet, colorful Sunday garland right around your ears, drape it around you a little, the ladies supply the backing diaphragm that lets Jerry focus on articulation, phrasing, breath management, and the band simmers it just right, so there's room for the same guitar feel, well plucked and articulate rather than face-melting (though Jerry still plays LOUD!). You don't have to love Garcia to concede him his place, doing this song – see 2/24/87 for what I hope is the open and shut argument.

! s2t06 (2) JG: "Thanks a lot. See ya later."

REFERENCE:

Vaughan, Chris. 1987. (Grateful) Dead Fingers Talk. Spin 3, 4 (July): 74-76, 80.

OAITW - October 5, 1973, Civic Auditorium, Santa Cruz, CA

Ahhh, beautiful, beautiful libraries.

Below is the stuff I found around the Old And In The Way gig played Friday, October 5, 1973 at the Civic Auditorium, 307 Church Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95060 [map | Jerrybase | JGC | JGBP]. cryptdev was in attendance!

Let me first note, because I can't resist the pretty colors, that this is the third-to-last regularly-scheduled OAITW gig. They played Saturday, October 6 at Keystone and were supposed to play Sunday in the football stadium at California State College Sonoma, in Cotati. Great art for that gig, "Bluegrass on an Autumn Afternoon", a White Cloud Production to benefit A World Peace [illegible].

Advertisement for OAITW at Cal State Sonoma, October 7, 1973 (rained out and rescheduled to 11/4/73), courtesy IM. I see something toward the bottom that I can't quite make out, something will happen on October 15th in case of rainout, but in any case this was rained out and eventually played (and available for our listening pleasure thanks to a soundboard patch tape by the legendary Ed Perlstein) on November 4th. So they do Friday in Santa Cruz, Saturday in Berkeley, and then play the legendary Boarding House show of Monday, October 8, 1973, which is now available complete from Acoustic Oasis (along with the 10/1 show) and which has supplied the lion's share of all of the officially released OAITW stuff, as the last regularly scheduled OAITW show. There's nothing else. Think about that. They quit, it ended, more or less right after getting all the tracks they'd need, for more or less a lifetime. The Sonoma State makeup happened on 11/4 and then, five months later, a cursory reunion set to close the Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival. That's it. Long story short, I say, long story short, the Santa Cruz Civic show was the third to last regularly scheduled one. Here's the handbill.

I found two previews, an ad, and a review.

First, from the UCSC paper, a preview that understands the fine musicianship underpinning OAITW, and I don't (nor does she) mean Garcia. "If you dig good acoustic country boogie, don't miss this one." (Note the El Topo ad for some AHATT color.)

A second preview, in Sundaz, focuses on the gig's beneficiary. Jelly Roll Community Media (formerly Productions) has set itself up as a non-profit, putting on some righteous sounding programming at the intersection of empowering indigenous and other communities, on the one hand, and the media and communication arts, on the other. Sounds like they were trying to give people some skills that they could use to make a living, form deliberative, civic and other community spaces, and so forth. The outfit was $4,000 in the red and the Civic Center shindig would hopefully wipe that clean. (Since the review implies the gig was not only a sellout, but oversold, one hopes that was indeed the case.)

So, like the Sonoma State gig scheduled for the same weekend, this was a benefit. Right on, gents.

Then an ad in Sundaz:

Finally, a fine black and white picture of Garcia picking the banjo accompanies the review:

 

Reviewer Michael Goldberg reports 1,600 satisfied customers, and some number of folks with tickets disallowed entry by order of the fire marshal. We get a little glimpse of the scene backstage, with Garcia, Wavy Gravy, Ramblin' Jack, the OAITW folks, and various locals being weird, Paul Krassner "wandering through dark hallways with slender women," andMr. Romney opining on the deployment of jello moats, instead of Hell's Angels, as event security perimeters. 

Frye is identified as an ex-member of Santa Cruz mountains legends Oganookie, Ramblin' Jack played his usual set, and Grisman can play the shit out of the mandolin. Cryptdev discusses the show some. Reviewer Goldberg, for his part, "is getting a little bored with Jerry Garcia and his country/rock groups," playing well-arranged and technically proficient music that is "just not exciting". There's no accounting for taste, of course, but what makes me wonder is when Garcia's white working class side stuff was ever either well arranged or technically proficient! :)

Corry has this to say about the Civic Center:

The Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium ... is an excellent Art Deco style building that was completed in 1940. As Santa Cruz rose in importance, more and more performers started using the friendly little 2,000 capacity hall for warm up shows, or shows on off nights ... Garcia played the venue several times in later years. The Civic is just 2.1 miles to the UCSC Campus Entrance, as close as Garcia got to campus.

REFERENCES

"Garcia Headlines Friday Concert," City on a Hill Press, October 4, 1973, p. 5.

"Jelly Roll Rolls Again," Sundaz, October 5, 1973, p. 12.

Arnold, Corry. 2009. The Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia in Santa Cruz County 1965-1987. Lost Live Dead, November 4, URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2009/11/grateful-dead-and-jerry-garcia-in-santa.html, consulted 8/14/2014.

Goldberg, Michael. 1973. Garcia, Elliot, Frye. Sundaz, October 11, 1973, p. 1.

Parrish, Michael. 2012. Jerry Garcia and his banjo in Santa Cruz 1973-75. Cryptical Developments, June 9, 2012, URL http://cryptdev.blogspot.com/2012/06/jerry-garcia-and-his-banjo-in-santa.html, consulted 7/30/2012.