Expressway Day: Garcia-Saunders at the Golden Bear, Huntington Beach, December 29, 1974

I woke up this morning with "Expressway (To Your Heart)" playing in my head.

Not just any Expressway, mind you. But the one played by Jerry and Merl and crew (possibly calling themselves Legion of Mary backstage and such) at the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach on December 29, 1974, to end (or just about) the late show. And not just any generic representation of it, but the one  captured by "Flashback" Charlie DiSalvo using 2x Shure Unidyne IVs (spaced ca. 15') > into his Uher 4400, little 5" reels @ 3.75ips.

You see, way back when my digital home was DeadNetCentral (DNC), and especially the Garcia folder there (shocker). And someone with whom I have just been reconnected, but whose name is eluding my brain right now, either encouraged or brought over legendary East Coast taper Jerry Moore, who brought over his ol show-going pal Flashback Charlie. Or something like that. We also had the great Jimmy Warburton over there at times as I recall, Harvey Lubar maybe on occasion, and other folks. Again, I am foggy on the details, but somehow I got connected with all of those guys. Jerry and I got quite close, and I was lucky to work up the info files for the systematic state-of-the-art digital transfers a group was doing under the "Moore's Masters" moniker.

Charlie had made a tape that made a huge impact on me, and that was this 12/29/74b. Someone, maybe Jerry but not sure, had transferred the tape to DAT, from there it went to CD, from there it came to me, maybe via Sean Cribbs. (At some point Charlie sent me a sweet print of Bob Minkin's pic of the Jerry Band at the Cap, 11/26/77, and a print of his picture of Jerry Garcia and Friends from the Music Hall, 3/25/72, which IIRC Charlie got into by climbing up a fire escape), and I extracted the audio (using EAC with offsets corrected, etc., natch), tracked it using WavMerge and CDWav (guaranteed to cut on sector boundaries, important to us back then), and losslessly compressed it to .shn format using mkwACT. Looks like I forget to make the shn files seekable, which is a major blunder, and someone came along and re-encoded them to make them more usable. I submitted the fileset to the etree database on May 7, 2002 (I presume semester had just ended), where it still lives today as shnid-8643. I assume I circulated it in various ways, and certainly at some point uploaded it to the tol.etree.org FTP server, from where it became forever part of the arcHIVE, the brilliant, massively redundant decentralized repository of bit-perfect clones comprised by all of our collections.

Charlie became unwell, and as far as I know he is still alive, but is not reachable for me. I hope he is OK, because he was a sweet wonderful guy in my experience with him. Jimmy has told me that Charlie's tapes ended up with an ex in a divorce, may still exist, but it's not known how to get a hold of them. If anyone here has any notion of that, please drop me a line!

Charlie said this about taping these shows (DNC Garcia folder post by Sean Cribbs, April 3, 2002):

That machine was a bitch to run! ... I placed one mic in front of Jerry and the other one was passed down to total strangers in front of Martin Fierro. The stereo effect was amazing, almost like setting up in a studio. You can hear the drums go from the left to the right.

Anyway, that tape BLEW MY MIND. It is burned into my DNA. Especially the 16+ minute version of "Expressway (To Your Heart)", which is a great Philly soul number in its own right, but which Garcia and Saunders made into a soul-jazz-funk extravagaganza (typo, but I'll keep the extra syllable in there for fun) that burns, drives, hops and grooves, and makes me want to boogie. I had listened to it a few more times over the years, then in January 2021 the GEMS crew polished it up a little bit, put it together with the early show, and circulated it anew as shnid-151373. This invited --no, practically obligated-- me to revisit the ol' favorite and I did so over a few different sessions earlier this year. 

And man does it stand up.

I lack the understanding and vocabulary to do it justice, beyond "jeepers, mister, this is really strong" and whatnot. Here are my real-time listening notes:

I really hear the bassist SHREDDING, e.g., in the 4-minute range and I ask myself if this is really John. Not that he couldn't shred in this period - he could. But man is he on fire here. Martin has been laying pretty low this version so far. There he is, stepping up at 6:25. Tutt is hammering, BTW. Man, this is so good. Revisiting some months later: 4:39 it's just hot hot hot, and this is John all right. Man is this hot. 4:57 inpsired little slide. Hangs a big pull 5:18. John is *feelin' it* to 5:29!!! Listen to Tutt in the 9 min mark! MAN. Martin doing "Red Clay" 10:56, Kahn giant response 11:10, Tutt KILLING, all behind Garcia absolutely tearing it up. Down low and quiet 12:37, such a nice contrast with the preceding insanity. More "Red Clay" over 15.

Anyway, here on the show's 47th anniversary, I invite you to get a killer audio setup to enjoy the big stereo separation from the spread mics, settle in with your cuppa coffee or whatever, listen to Jerry and Merl and KAHN and TUTT and Martin absolutely tear it up. Kahn is especially unbelievable here, but I also find Tutt just slaying over and over again. I am not saying this would be the first 16 minutes of Jerry and Merl I would bring to the proverbial desert island, but if I got 5 such chunks it'd be in the running. Two big snaps up.

Let's all give a big shoutout to Flashback Charlie for pulling a masterpiece out of the fog. As self-appointed mayor of my imaginary Garciaville, I hereby decree December 29th to be Expressway Day in his honor. Turn it up!

Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
Golden Bear
306 Ocean Avenue
Huntingon Beach, CA 90740
December 29, 1974 (Sunday) Early and Late Shows
shnid-151373 GEMS Remaster and Packaging of SHNIDs 8643 and 93978

 --early show (7 tracks, 5 tunes, 83:41)--
e-t01. [0:03] That's A Touch I Like [10:54] [0:07] % [0:16]
e-t02. Favela [16:22] [0:22]
e-t03. ambience [1:35]
e-t04. You Can Leave Your Hat On [16:58] [0:35]
e-t05. Sitting In Limbo [16:26] [0:14] %
e-t06. ambience [1:07]
e-t07. I Second That Emotion [18:32] (1)

--late show (9 tracks, 6 tunes, 93:54)--
l-t08. Mystery Train [14:20] %
l-t09. ambience [1:14]
l-t10. La-La [16:47] ->
l-t11. People Make The World Go Round [428] [0:10] %
l-t12. (I'm A) Roadrunner [15:14] [0:11] %
l-t13. ambience [1:17]
l-t14. Going, Going, Gone [22:07] [0:20] %
l-t15. ambience (2) [1:15]
l-t16. Expressway (To Your Heart)// [16:32#]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - electric guitar, vocals;
! lineup: Merl Saunders - keyboards, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - electric bass;
! lineup: Martin Fierro - saxophone, flute, percussion;
! lineup: Ron Tutt - drums;
! guest: Maria Muldaur - vocals (e-t05).

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [x:xx] = 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/19741229-01 (early); https://jerrybase.com/events/19741229-02 (late)

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/8643 (late show, same source tape, shnf); http://etreedb.org/shn/17019 (same as shnid-8643, seekable shn); http://etreedb.org/shn/93978 (early show, same source tape, but via taperpat's 1st gen reel); http://etreedb.org/shn/151373 (this fileset).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/1bJXKA6b1Kv

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2011/12/golden-bear-306-ocean-avenue-huntington.html

! listing: Los Angeles Free Press, December 20, 1974, p. 19;

! personnel: the female singer was long identified (e.g., in "Odds and Ends," Dead Relix 2, 1 [January-February 1975], p. 21) as Donna Jean Godchaux, but in seeding this years back I thought it sounded more like Maria. Listening to this again, definitely Maria.

! R: field recordist: [early show] Charlie Disalvo

! R: field recording gear: [early show] 2x Shure Unidyne IVs (spaced ca. 15') > Uher 4400, 3.75ips master reels

! R: source tape: [early show] taperpat's 3.75ips 1st gen reel

! R: transfer: [early show] A > D by Matt Smith: Akai GX 625 playback > Apogee Mini ME (@24/96) > Apogee Mini DAC (monitoring) > Wavelab 5.0 (dithered to 20/44) > CD

! R: lineage 1 (ca. 2003): [early show] Track & FLAC (jj): EAC > CD Wave > Sony Sound Forge Studio 7.0 (d1t01 fade-in, d2t01-d2t02 fade-out/in, d2t03 fade-out) > Trader's Little Helper (FLAC8 encoding).

! R: lineage 2 (2020): [early show] speed corrections by Jason Chastain per request of JGMF. Mastering by Jamie Waddell. Track FLAC and Pack by Steve Gravel. Note - Multiple moments of digistatic repaired, most are undetectable but a few major spots were damaged beyond invisible repair, but are much more listenable now. seeded to www.shnflac.net January 4, 2021 16 bit 44.1 kHz FLAC8

! R: recollex: Taper "Flashback" Charlie Disalvo says this about taping these shows (DNC Garcia folder post by Sean Cribbs, April 3, 2002): "That machine was a bitch to run! ... I placed one mic in front of Jerry and the other one was passed down to total strangers in front of Martin Fierro. The stereo effect was amazing, almost like setting up in a studio. You can hear the drums go from the left to the right."

! P: e-t02 Favela Martin takes the first feature, good. Jerry steps in around 6:15 and it's his turn, Martin now shaking some percussion. JG only goes three minutes, now Merl 9:15ff. Merl didn't really do much with his turn. 11:46 some muddle as to who's doing what.

! P: e-t05 SIL Garcia plucks ethereally 10.

! P: e-t07 ISTE I am not a big fan of this tune, and this version captures why, at least up to the 11 minute mark. Garcia just doesn't have much place to go with it. Martin quotes "The Entertainer" at 11:10, a second time. Silly.

! e-t07 (1) JG: "Thanks a lot. See y'all later on."

! metadata: Late show was previously believed to be set II of a two set show, but the taper confirms that this is the late show.

! R: field recordist: [late show] Charlie Disalvo

! R: field recording gear: [late show] 2x Shure Unidyne IVs (spaced ca. 15') > Uher 4400, 3.75ips master reels

! lineage 1 (ca. 2003): [late show] MAR > ? > D > CD. Extraction using EAC, slight re-tracking using WavMerge and CD Wave, and .shn compression using mkwACT.  Proper sector boundaries verified using shntool. Seeded by jjoops@attbi.com.

! R: lineage 2 (2020): [late show] speed corrections by Jason Chastain per request of JGMF. Mastering by Jamie Waddell. Track FLAC and Pack by Steve Gravel. Note - Multiple moments of digistatic repaired, most are undetectable but a few major spots were damaged beyond invisible repair, but are much more listenable now. seeded to www.shnflac.net January 4, 2021 16 bit 44.1 kHz FLAC8

! R: The late show tape sounds much smoother than the early show.

! P: l-t10 La-La JG steps up 6:40 or so.

! l-t15 (2) Member of the crowd is asking "Who's on the bass?" And at least a few people recognize Expressway as it starts.

! P: l-t16 ETYH of course, having been primed by the question in note #2, I really hear the bassist SHREDDING, e.g., in the 4-minute range and I ask myself if this is really John. Not that he couldn't shred in this period - he could. But man is he on fire here. Martin has been laying pretty low this version so far. There he is, stepping up at 6:25. Tutt is hammering, BTW. Man, this is so good. Revisiting some months later: 4:39 it's just hot hot hot, and this is John all right. Man is this hot. 4:57 inpsired little slide. Hangs a big pull 5:18. John is *feelin' it* to 5:29!!! Listen to Tutt in the 9 min mark! MAN. Martin doing "Red Clay" 10:56, Kahn giant response 11:10, Tutt KILLING, all behind Garcia absolutely tearing it up. Down low and quiet 12:37, such a nice contrary with the preceding insanity. More "Red Clay" over 15.

! R: l-t16 ETYH cuts out, probably not too much missing, though knowing Jerry I might imagine it dropping into a sweet little How Sweet to wrap up the evening's proceedings.

Two Sax Attack? JGMS at the GAMH, February 5, 1974

LN jg1974-02-05.jgms.all.sbd-ladner.32088.flac1644

I won't elaborate much. I have always held early '74 Garcia-Saunders in rather low esteem, despite my early familiarity with, place-based affinity toward --I attended Campolindo High School, just down the road-- and resulting inordinate love for the 2/9/74 Rheem Theater show. I was prompted to check-in with 2/5/74 by valued commenter runonguinness's observation that there appears to be a second sax present in set II, and esteemed fellow blogger nick's engagement with the issue, raising the possibility that it's Martin doing his best Rahsaan Roland Kirk and playing two horns at once. I was rather gobsmacked at either notion, having produced an earlier lossless fileset many years back from the same Ed Perlstein board patch (shnid-11254), and apparently not having noticed the second saxophone appearing throughout set II. What else have I been missing? God only knows.

Anyway, as you will see from my listening notes below, my method was to try to track moments where the saxes appear to diverge, and I find a number of them. I have posted my basic conclusions as comment at deadthinking, and if you have thoughts or comments on the key question please consider posting them over there, so we don't fragment "the literature" too much. I just have to post my own notes when I have them, because that's how I roll.

I enjoyed the show, a Tuesday at the amazing GAMH, very much. It's LONG, and quite good. I hated the overwrought vocals on Road Runner here in early '74, but there's a lot of good stuff here, including some nice melty stuff at the end of My Funny Valentine.

Listening notes below the jump.

Shades of Joy

Anyone know if Martin Fierro would have been performing with the band Shades of Joy in May of 1973?

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.

San Francisco Sessions, 1967-1968

updated title 20160319

San Francisco Sessions Series

• San Francisco Sessions, 1967-1968
• San Francisco Sessions, 1969
• San Francisco Sessions, 1970
• San Francisco Sessions, 1971
• San Francisco Sessions, 1972 

In the course of my research into Jerry Garcia’s musical life outside the Grateful Dead, I have gathered up, well, an awful lot of stuff. Sometimes I can’t resist, especially if I find myself in amongst papers that others might not get around to, but that might contain good information.

The following is just a rough list of some of the union contracts I came across. You’ll see that this is biased toward names that I know from the Side Trips Social Network – that has been my research purpose. But sometimes there’s stuff that’s very peripheral that just catches my eye.

 I am trying not to transcribe too much information, since it’s so peripheral to my interests. I am putting it out here for other researchers who might be interested. The documents of course contain all kinds of other information I am just listing date/venue, artist/project/names, employer, and a six-digit number that will help me find the document in question. If you are curious about a particular document, drop me a line.

update: I have now posted a similar list for 1969.

1967

May 4, 1967 Golden State Recorders, 655 Harrison Street (TV)

Steve Miller (SM, Jim Cooke, Tim Davis, Lonnie Turner)

(illegible)

110942

May 12, 1967 KQED Studios, SF (TV - Replay of May 10 program)

BBHC

110231

May 12-13, 1967 Fillmore Auditorium (live)

Jefferson Airplane

RCA Victor

110309

June 28, 1967 Fillmore Auditorium (live)

Steve Miller (SM, Jim Cooke, Tim Davis, Lonnie Turner, James Peterman)

Mercury Records

110919

June 29, 1967 Fillmore Auditorium (live)

Steve Miller (SM, Jim Cooke, Tim Davis, Lonnie Turner, James Peterman)

Mercury Records

110900

June 30, 1967 Fillmore Auditorium (live)

Steve Miller (SM, Jim Cooke, Tim Davis, Lonnie Turner, James Peterman)

Mercury Records

110813

July 7, 1967 KQED Studios, SF (TV)

Country Joe and the Fish

KQED

111717

July 26, 1967 The Cheetah, Santa Monica (live)

Steve Miller (SM, James Cooke, Tim Davis, Lonnie Turner, James Peterman)

Pacific Radio – KPFK

111407

July 31, 1967 Golden Gate Park (live)

Mimi Farina

Bay Area Educational Television Association (KQED)

111114

July 31, 1967 Golden Gate Park (live)

Steve Miller (SM, Jim Cooke, Tim Davis, Lonnie Turner, James Peterman)

Bay Area Educational Television Association (KQED)

111133

September 18, 1967 unknown location (but see QMS for this date) (live)

Dino Valente

Epic Records

111501

September 18, 1967 New Committee Theater, 836 Montgomery St., SF (live)

QMS (John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan)

Columbia Record Company

111520

November 8, 1967 Commercial Recorders, 149 Natoma, SF

QMS (John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan, Greg Elmore, Nick Gravenites, Harvey Brooks)

Capitol Records

113510

November 10, 1967 Commercial Recorders, 149 Natoma, SF

QMS (John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan, Greg Elmore, Nick Gravenites, Harvey Brooks)

Capitol Records

113544

1968

March 18-19, 1968 Coast Recorders, 960 Bush Street, SF

James Cotton (JC, Edward Adams, James Patrick Cooke, Raphael Martin Fierro, Larry Wayne Talbert, Jose Emilio Rodriguez

Vanguard

113426

May 7, 1968 Coast Recorders, 960 Bush Street, SF

Wayne Talbert and the Melting Pot (Wayne Talbert [leader], Dough Sahm, Mack Rebbenack, Martin Fierro, Joe Rodriguez, Eddie Adams, Bill Atwood, Mel Martin, Lee Charlton)

Mercury Records

120715

May 8, 1968 Coast Recorders, 960 Bush Street, SF

“Joyce Dunn” (Dough Sahm [leader], Wayne Talbert, Martin Fierro, Frank Morin, Bill Atwood, Whitney Freeman, Mack Rebbenack)

Mercury Records

120654

May 9, 1968 Coast Recorders, 960 Bush Street, SF

Wayne Talbert and the Melting Pot (Wayne Talbert [leader], Martin Fierro, Joe Rodriguez, Eddie Adams, Bill Atwood, Mel Martin, Lee Charlton)

Mercury Records

120654

May 11, 1968 Coast Recorders, 960 Bush Street, SF

Sir Douglas Quintet “Honky Blues” (Dough Sahm [leader], Hewlett Crist, Frank Morin, George Rains, Whitney Freeman, Martin Fierro, Wayne Talbert, Bill Atwood, Mel Martin)

Mercury Records

120645

May 18, 1968 Sierra Sound Laboratories, 1741 Alcatraz Ave., Berkeley

Blues Project (Andy Kulberg, Roy Blumenfeld, John Gregory, Richard Greene, Norman Bellas)

MGM

113624

May 19, 1968 Sierra Sound Laboratories, 1741 Alcatraz Ave., Berkeley

Blues Project (Andy Kulberg, Roy Blumenfeld, John Gregory, Richard Greene, Norman Bellas)

MGM

113643

May 21, 1968 Sierra Sound Laboratories, 1741 Alcatraz Ave., Berkeley

Blues Project (Andy Kulberg, Roy Blumenfeld, John Gregory, Richard Greene)

MGM

113653

May 22, 1968 Sierra Sound Laboratories, 1741 Alcatraz Ave., Berkeley

Blues Project (Andy Kulberg, Roy Blumenfeld, John Gregory, Richard Greene)

MGM

113702

May 23, 1968 Sierra Sound Laboratories, 1741 Alcatraz Ave., Berkeley

Blues Project (Andy Kulberg, Roy Blumenfeld, John Gregory, Richard Greene, Harvey Brooks)

MGM

113715

May 28, 1968 Sierra Sound Laboratories, 1741 Alcatraz Ave., Berkeley

Blues Project (Andy Kulberg, Roy Blumenfeld, John Gregory, Richard Greene)

MGM

113715

May 29, 1968 Sierra Sound Laboratories, 1741 Alcatraz Ave., Berkeley

Blues Project (Andy Kulberg, Roy Blumenfeld, John Gregory, Richard Greene)

MGM

113735

June 4, 1968 Sierra Sound Laboratories, 1741 Alcatraz Ave., Berkeley

Blues Project (Andy Kulberg, Roy Blumenfeld, John Gregory, Richard Greene)

MGM

113806

June 8, 1968 Sierra Sound Laboratories, 1741 Alcatraz Ave., Berkeley

Blues Project (Andy Kulberg, Roy Blumenfeld, John Gregory, Richard Greene)

MGM

113756

June 10, 1968 Sierra Sound Laboratories, 1741 Alcatraz Ave., Berkeley

Blues Project (Andy Kulberg, Roy Blumenfeld, John Gregory, Richard Greene)

MGM

113747

June 11, 1968 Avalon Ballroom 1:30 pm

Harvey Mandel (HM [leader], Armando Peraza, Frank [Lalo] Varela, Edward F. Hoh, Arthur Stavro)

Mercury Records

120548

June 24, 1968 Commercial Recorders, 149 Natoma Street, SF

Wayne Talbert and the Melting Pot (Wayne Talbert, Mack Rebbenack, Edward Adams, Jose Rodriguez, Martin Fierro)

Mercury Records

120737

June 25, 1968 Commercial Recorders, 149 Natoma Street, SF

Wayne Talbert and the Melting Pot (Wayne Talbert, Mack Rebbenack, Edward Adams, Jose Rodriguez, Martin Fierro)

Mercury Records

120119, 120130

June 27, 1968 Columbus Recorders, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Wayne Talbert and the Melting Pot (Martin Fierro [leader], Bill Atwood, Mike Ropec, Melvyin Martin, Richard T. Washington

Mercury Records

120027, 120309

June 28, 1968 Columbus Recorders, 916 Kearny Street, SF

“Wayne Talbert” (Martin Fierro [leader], Mike Ropec, Mel Martin, Frank Morin, Richard Washington, Wilfred Sache, Lewis Davis, Bennie Harris)

Mercury Records

120042

June 29, 1968 Columbus Recorders, 916 Kearny Street, SF

“Wayne Talbert” (Martin Fierro [leader], Mike Ropec, Bill Atwood, Mel Martin, Frank Morin, Richard Washington)

Mercury Records

115239, 120257

July 1, 1968 Columbus Recorders, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Wayne Talbert and the Melting Pot (Martin Fierro [leader], Wilfred Sache, Melvyn Martin, Mike Ropec, Lewis Link Davis, Frank Morin)

Mercury Records

120620, 120631

July 3, 1968 Columbus Recorders, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Wayne Talbert and the Melting Pot (Martin Fierro [leader], Wilfred Sache, Melvyn Martin, Lewis Link Davis, Alfonso Molino Jr.)

Mercury Records

120017, 120319

July 9, 1968 Columbus Recorders, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Wayne Talbert and the Melting Pot (Martin Fierro [leader, address is c/o Brian Rohan], Wilfred Sache, Melvyn Martin, Lewis Link Davis, Alfonso Molino Jr.)

Mercury Records

120058, 120610

July 12, 1968 Columbus Recording, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Mother Earth (Powell St. John [leader], Martin Fierro)

Mercury Records

120522

July 15, 1968 Columbus Recording, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Mother Earth (Powell St. John [leader], Martin Fierro, Bob Arthur, John Andrew, George Rains, Mark Naftalin)

Mercury Records

120511

July 16, 1968 Columbus Recording, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Mother Earth (Martin Fierro [leader], L. Link Davis, Bob Salisbury)

Mercury Records

120500

July 17, 1968 Coast Recorders, 960 Bush Street, SF

Roy Head (Doug Sahm [leader], Martin Fierro)

Mercury Records

120340

July 19, 1968 Coast Recorders, 960 Bush Street, SF

Roy Head (Frank Morin [leader], Martin Fierro)

Mercury Records

120359

July 31, 1968 Columbus Recorders, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Mother Earth (John Andrews [leader], Link Davis Jr., Martin Fierro, Robert Salisbury, Spenser Perskin)

Mercury Records

114118

August 1 (?), 1968 Coast Recorders, 960 Bush Street, SF

Mother Earth (John Andrews, George Rains, Robert Arthur, Mark Naftalin, Link Davis Jr., Frank Morin, Ronald Tourmina, Tracy Nelson [leader], Martin Fierro, Robert Salisbury)

Mercury Records

114100

August 4, 1968 Frost Amphitheater, Palo Alto, CA (live)

Don Ellis (too many other people to list, no names familiar to me)

Columbia Records

114300

August 5, 1968 Coast Recorders, 960 Bush Street, SF

Mother Earth (John Andrews [leader], George Rains, Robert Arthur, Mark Naftalin, Link Davis Jr., Frank Morin, Ronald Tourmina, Tracy Nelson, Martin Fierro)

Mercury Records

114050

August 8, 1968 Columbus Recorders, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Mother Earth (Martin Fierro [leader], James Cooke, Frank Morin, Lewis Link Davis, Ronald Tourmina, Louis Gasca, Spenser Perskin)

Mercury Records

114031

August 9, 1968 Columbus Recorders, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Mother Earth (Martin Fierro, Frank Morin [leader], Lewis Link Davis, Ronald Tourmina, Louis Gasca)

Mercury Records

114217

August 14, 1968 Coast Recorders, 960 Bush Street, SF

Mother Earth (Powell St. John [leader], John Andrews, Terry Anderson, Robert Arthur, Mark Naftalin, Frank Morin, Ronald Tourmina, Martin Fierro, Luis Gasca, Cox [?] Rodriguez)

Mercury Records

114138

August 15, 1968 Columbus Recorders, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Mother Earth (Powell St. John [leader], Martin Fierro, Luis Gasca)

Mercury Records

114207

August 16, 1968 Columbus Recorders, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Mother Earth (John Andrews [leader], Martin Fierro, Luis Gasca)

Mercury Records

114157

August ??, 1968 Korty Films Inc., Stinson Beach, CA (film “Riverrun”)

Richard Greene (leader), Peter Berg

Korty Films, Inc.

114413

August 27, 1968 Coast Recorders, 960 Bush Street, SF

“Junior Parker” (Frank Morin [leader], George Rains, Link Davis, Ron Tourmina, Martin Fierro, Terry Hensley, Henry Angeli Jr., Whitney Freeman, Charles Pritchard, Doug Sahm, Hewlett Cris)

Mercury Records

120843

September 14, 1968 Coast Recorders, SF

QMS (John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan, Greg Elmore)

Capitol Records

115733

September 16, 1968 Coast Recorders, SF

QMS (John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan, Greg Elmore)

Capitol Records

115743

September 17, 1968 Coast Recorders, SF

QMS (John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan, Greg Elmore)

Capitol Records

115752

September 23, 1968 Coast Recorders, SF

QMS (John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan, Greg Elmore)

Capitol Records

115004

September 24, 1968 Coast Recorders, SF

QMS (John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan, Greg Elmore)

Capitol Records

114951

September 26-27-28, 1968 Fillmore West, SF (live)

Al Kooper [leader], Mike Bloomfield, Skip Prokop, John Kahn

Columbia Records

120756

October 5, 1968 Coast Recorders, 960 Bush Street, SF

Amigos de Musica Band (Doug Sahm [leader], Whitney Freeman, Terry Alan Hensley, Ron Taormina, Jose Rodriguez, George Rains, Martin Fierro, Frank Morin)

Mercury Records

120414

October 10-11-12, 1968 Winterland (remote session)

Dino Valente

Epic Records

115900

October 24-25-26, 1968 Fillmore West (live)

Jefferson Airplane

RCA

114750, 114800, 114810

November 4, 1968 Columbus Recording, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Shades of Joy (Martin Fierro [leader], Edward Adams, Jose Rodriguez, Jackie King)

Mercury Records

1145354

November 5, 1968 Columbus Recording, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Shades of Joy (Martin Fierro [leader], Edward Adams, Jose Rodriguez, Jackie King, Jymm Young)

Mercury Records

1145544

November 6, 1968 Columbus Recording, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Shades of Joy (Martin Fierro [leader], Edward Adams, Jose Rodriguez, Jackie King, Jymm Young)

Mercury Records

1145601

November 7, 1968 Columbus Recording, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Mitch Greenhill (Richard Greene [leader], Peter Kleinow)

Mercury Records

114641

November 7, 1968 Columbus Recording, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Shades of Joy (Martin Fierro [leader], Edward Adams, Jose Rodriguez, Jackie King, Jymm Young)

Mercury Records

1145552

November 7, 1968 Fillmore West (live)

QMS (John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan, Greg Elmore)

Capitol Records

115818

November 8, 1968 Columbus Recording, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Shades of Joy (Martin Fierro [leader], Edward Adams, Jose Rodriguez, Jackie King, Jymm Young)

Mercury Records

1145612

November 8, 1968 Fillmore West (live)

QMS (John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan, Greg Elmore)

Capitol Records

115843

November 9, 1968 Fillmore West (live)

QMS (John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan, Greg Elmore)

Capitol Records

115828

November [between ca. 6 and 12], 1968 KQED-TV studios (TV: West Pole II)

It’s a Beautiful Day (David LaFlamme [leader], Mike Holman, Patricia Santos, Linda LaFlamme, Val Fuentes, Harold Wagenet)

Bay Area Educational TV Association

114515

November 10, 1968 Fillmore West (live)

QMS (John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan, Greg Elmore)

Capitol Records

115807

November 23, 1968 Pacific Recording Studios, San Mateo, CA

Wayne Ceballos (WC, Kenneth Newell, Larry Martin)

Sire Records

114905

Expressway to Homer's: JGMS in Palo Alto, May 4, 1973

LN jg1973-05-04.jgms.all.sbd-alligator.31283.flac1644

I. Introduction

Acquisitiveness is a real affliction. Not only is it unattractive in its own right, but the pursuit of the “unhad” oftentimes crowds out other, periodically more productive activities. Consider my own pursuit of Garcia recordings. While I imagine what could be on a tape (real or imagined) that I don’t have, I could be listening to the great cornucopia that already populates my many hard drives, analyzing it. Hell, just enjoying it. I am sure it’s true for any music collector.

Case in point: the Jerry Garcia – Merl Saunders (JGMS) shows at Homer’s Warehouse, 79 Homer Avenue, Palo Alto, CA, 94301 on Friday-Saturday, May 4-5, 1973. We, the collecting community, are blessed with gorgeous Betty Cantor-Jackson live recordings of these shows. One of the great, unsung benefactors of the Bit Torrent era, Alligator, dropped a handful of these Third Batch Betties into the world between 2005 and 2008. (I have described this a little in my post on 3/9/74.) These included 5/4/73 (shnid-31283; previously wholly uncirculated) and 5/5/73 (shnid-32030; previously only partially circulated, as part of “Dick’s Gift”, e.g., shnid-4502). I have listened to each tape probably on the order of a half-dozen times, but I have never annotated them. Preoccupied with all kinds of other things, I can’t sniff out the jewels that are right under my nose.

Well, I have finally gotten around to annotating these shows, and boy are they interesting. In guise of a an entry in my Listening Notes series on the first show (5/4/73), I’ll try to write some of it up here. After this introduction, I’ll proceed (II) with the easy stuff: the show metadata (date, location). Then I’ll (III) insert this into Corry’s narrative about the commercialization of Garcia on the Side (GOTS). Finally (IV), I’ll talk about the recording and the show before just dropping a brief summary, references, and the raw listening notes (V).

II. Metadata

Jerry Garcia – Merl Saunders [JGMS], Homer’s Warehouse, 79 Homer Avenue, Palo Alto, CA, 94301, Friday, May 4, 1973 and Saturday, May 5, 1973.

There’s no doubt about the metadata. In addition to Betty’s tapes (and Rob Eaton’s transcriptions of her tape box notations) we now have a handbill shared on the Merl Saunders Facebook page and-reposted by Corry, me, and, in its time, at TJS. In terms of the precise location of the building then known as Homer’s Warehouse, Corry says it’s correctly (contemporaneously) addressed and mapped on the handbill: “Homer's Warehouse was located at 79 Homer Avenue, across the train tracks, as the inset map accurately depicts” (from handbill picture caption in his “Old And In The Way FM Broadcasts, 1973” post).

Corry has looked at this building as The Outfit in connection with the New Delhi River Band and, as Homer’s Warehouse in connection with Old And In The Way (OAITW). I’ll just add to his summary of the OAITW interface with what I have about Garcia, in general.

YYYYMMDD	DOW	VENUE	STREET	CITY	STATE	ACT1	NOTE
19730304	Sunday	Homer's Warehouse	79 Homer Avenue	Palo Alto	CA	OAITW	JGMF
19730504	Friday	Homer's Warehouse	79 Homer Avenue	Palo Alto	CA	JGMS
19730505	Saturday	Homer's Warehouse	79 Homer Avenue	Palo Alto	CA	JGMS
19730518	Friday	Homer's Warehouse	79 Homer Avenue	Palo Alto	CA	OAITW
19730724	Tuesday	Homer's Warehouse	79 Homer Avenue	Palo Alto	CA	OAITW	LLD; JGMF
19731003	Wednesday	Homer's Warehouse	79 Homer Avenue	Palo Alto	CA	OAITW

 Jerry Garcia at Homer’s Warehouse, 79 Homer Avenue, Palo Alto, CA, 94301

I am given to understand that one Andrew Bernstein was like a younger brother to the GD folks during their time in Palo Alto in the early 60s, took banjo lessons from Garcia and all that. He also ran Homer’s Warehouse during the early 70s, and wrote a good book, California Slim, about it. At some point, someone needs to find a steady supply of listings from Palo Alto (e.g., the Stanford Daily?) and chronicle the shows at Homer’s, because I only have a handful of non-Garcia related dates from the venue based on scattered mentions in, e.g., the Hayward Daily Review. I have found references from 1971-1972, but very few. I’d certainly be curious if Garcia played there during this earlier period. Anyway, from the GOTS perspective nothing jumps out at me in terms of patterns (or non-patterns) in the above data – just a room that he played a few times in 1973, including, with Merl, the May 4-5 weekend.

III. May 1973 and the Commercialization of Garcia on the Side (GOTS)

By late 1972, Jerry Garcia has founded the Grateful Dead and has just or nearly made the monumental decision to take the band “independent” from conventional record labels. He helped found the New Riders of the Purple Sage (NRPS), which was, by this time, a Columbia recording artist working on a lucrative album deal. He probably helped establish Howard Wales’s lifetime financial security with Hooteroll? It looks as if Garcia leveraged his own commercial appeal to finance a home studio at Mickey Hart’s barn (and maybe the land and barn themselves) in Novato, which gave rise to a whole series of albums and associated paydays for a wide range of folks (see, e.g., Corry on solo contracts). His own solo album, Garcia (1972), sold well and bought Mountain Girl the house she wanted for their young family, at Sans Souci in Stinson Beach. I am guessing Kreutzmann, who was the only other player credited on that album, also got a nice payday and maybe a chunk of Marin County land out of the proceeds.

There is lots of success and money sloshing around this scene. And, in ca. late 1972 – early 1973, Jerry Garcia, thirty years old, is looking to act substantially, at least in his professional dealings, like a grown-up. The days of just riding the tiger are over. That’s a young man’s kind of vocation, anyway. From the rearview mirror, 1972-1975 represent a sustained effort at stabilizing Garcia’s various musical dealings, an attempt to construct the equilibrium which would govern Garcia’s musical life from roughly 1976 until his death. The key to this, as to any of our dreams of establishing and sustaining a fulfilling adult life, is cash flow. “Gotta have enough to make it all work. Then you can pursue your dreams.” Or so goes the Siren’s Song.

Corry Arnold has mapped this key element in the evolution of Jerry Garcia’s musical life outside the Grateful Dead, with his analysis of “Jerry Garcia Album Economics, 1973-1974”. Garcia’s overriding musical imperative, in the GOTS context of 1972-1973, was to have good local bands that would be around for him to play with when the GD was off the road. The time when he could just drop in at the Matrix and pickup a jam session had mostly passed (not least since the Matrix had been shuttered for a couple of years at this point). He was too busy and too ambitious to play with random hackers, taking the chance of a deeply subpar musical/performing experience. It’s like busy people choosing which book to read: some of us try to read “classics” because the opportunity cost of wasting time on a bad book, on a lemon, is just too high. So it was with Jerry. He needed guys to be around, but he needed them to be good. But good guys wouldn’t just wait around for the Grateful Dead to come home. Garcia needed to offer them “financial rewards beyond the occasional nightclub payout” (Arnold, “Album Economics”). For that, in turn, and finally, he needed to make records with them. I still think this is a case of a musical/artistic/creative imperative driving an economic imperative, which would not always be the case.

Such was the lesson Garcia drew, Corry tells us, from temporarily “losing” John Kahn and Merl Saunders to Michael Bloomfield in mid-1972. Corry mostly focuses on the Garcia-Saunders aggregation (JGMS) in working through this logic. John Kahn, Corry has laid out, is the linchpin. Induced through steady gigging income, performing credits and, over the years, producer credits, John

took care of the musical business of the Jerry Garcia Band. Kahn hired and fired musicians, organized rehearsals and often helped choose material. Although Jerry approved every move, of course, without Kahn's oversight Garcia could not have participated in the Jerry Garcia Band. In many respects, the Jerry Garcia Band (under various names) was to some extent the Jerry Garcia and John Kahn Band; if Garcia had not met Kahn he would have had to be invented.

The same logic applies to Merl Saunders. Jerry clearly thinks very highly of him as a player, and he likes what Merl does. Merl has outside options, as his diverse musical career indicates, and as the summer 1972 Bloomfield interregnum pointed out much, Corry plausibly suggests, to Garcia’s consternation. Merl also has a recording relationship with Fantasy, and so access to some cash and other resources that can facilitate record making on the input side (studio time, tape stock) and on the output side (i.e., a label on which to release stuff, promotions, etc.). They had already pre-flighted all of this with a series of albums recorded and released between 1971 and early 1973:

• Merl Saunders, Heavy Turbulence, Fantasy 8421, recorded ??1971-1972??, released 1972 (re-released as Merl Saunders and Friends, Fire Up Plus, Fantasy FCD 7711-2, 1992).
• Tom Fogerty, Excalibur, Fantasy 9413, recorded ??1971-1972??, released October 1972; see Corry’s post on this record.
• Merl Saunders, Fire Up, Fantasy 9421, released ca. April 1973 (Kelly 1973).

At the small price of recording and sharing proceeds from the Garcia/Saunders/Kahn/Vitt double album Live at the Keystone (Fantasy F-790002, 1973), with equal performing and producer credits for the titular players, and paying John Kahn to produce Garcia [a.k.a. Compliments of Garcia] on Jerry’s own co-owned label (Round RX 102, June 1974), Garcia’s felt need for steady band in which to play contemporary black R&B, soul, jazz and funk would be satisfied, and grounded in newfound financial stability augured by steady album releases.

But it’s a lesson that travels. As Corry pointed out in his comments, the fact that OAITW recorded a studio album in March 1973 (Tolces 1973) (unreleased and publicly unheard to this day) probably relates to this same insight. If you want to play rural white music (bluegrass, country and traditionals) with hot players, if you want them around when you get the itch to pick some banjo, then you had better for a revenue stream for Old And In The Way (OAITW). David Grisman and Peter Rowan gotta eat, pay Stinson Beach rent/mortgage, and get high, too. It didn’t work out that way –the OAITW album wasn’t released until 1975, and then was based on live and not studio tapes—but it was a sensible plan. And, oh yeah, if you want a good songwriter to be around when the Song Muse visits (or the collector comes knocking), continue making it worth his while, and put out Robert Hunter’s Tales of the Great Rum Runners on Round (RX 101, June 1974). A good songwriting partner is a rare and valuable commodity, after all. Round Records itself is part of the narrative, of course (need to develop). Finally, you need a place to play, and all of this rationalization, regularization, commercialization, etc. found expression in a dense symbiotic relationship between Garcia and Fred Herrera, whose Keystone, Berkeley may be the venue most played by Garcia, in any band.

In my subheading, I have referred to this as the “Commercialization of GOTS”. This has no negative connotation in my usage. We could refer to “Monetization” just as easily, which I would also use neutrally. Either way, or alternatively formulated, it’s just in the nature of things that we need to find ways to place pursuit of our dreams on whatever financial (and other real-world) footing they require (and no more!). We need to use whatever we’ve got in this connection, bearing in mind, as always, that life involves tradeoffs. It looks as if Garcia dreamed of (or had settled on, or would soon settle on) being 1) Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, and 2) having a steady, musically/creatively competent (if not challenging) band for working out contemporary black music in clubs, and 3) having a steady, musically/creatively challenging band in which to play "hippie bluegrass" half-traditional half-stoned rural white music.

I have always held the view that he wished these latter opportunities to be relatively low-key, less focused on Garcia and more Romanesque where the Dead were nothing if not Baroque. So he needed them to be successful enough to be self-sustaining, but not so successful that they became a hassle. This is the tightrope we all try to walk, I'd guess.

This wouldn’t all resolve right away, and certainly, as ever, not costlessly. In fact, the equilibrium wouldn’t really find full expression until something like 1976, and that only after massive additional concessions to reality. Not least, institutionalization and all the rest meant that some of the dream had to die. Or maybe it was just too much for one guy, maybe the GD piece was just too big to handle with all of the others. Or maybe he lost interest in the concept. Who knows. But, as it happened, the Jerry Garcia Band (JGB) would not only, eventually, merge the musical concerns of parts II (black) and III (white) of The Dream, but because it bore his name, it would, albeit at minor scale, reproduce some of the pathologies and Burden of Being Jerry (Garcia Of The Grateful Dead) (Gans and Greenfield 1996). What we find in early 1973 is still a less compromised synthesis, in which the dream remains that all good things might well be able to go together.

All of this is the context for the Friday, May 4, 1973 JGMS show at Homer’s Warehouse. Garcia was right in the midst of a moment in which he was trying to figure out not only what was artistically satisfying (which had always driven his non-GD musical pursuits), but also what would start paying some bills (which he had not much considered prior).

Personnel was a big part of that, of course. This show features the “core quartet” that we should associate with 1973 JGMS (Garcia, Saunders, Kahn and Vitt), as well as the elusive vocalist Sarah Fulcher and almost equally-mysterious George Tickner playing second guitar. (This guitarist traditionally been listed as Tom Fogerty, but it’s definitely not, based on my own listen, prompted by Heckstall’s careful analysis posted at Workingman’s Tracker.)

As Corry points out (“Album Economics”), these personnel variations “were not casual exercises”. We don’t know whether there was already a Fantasy contract for what would become Live at Keystone. What we do know, I think, is that the idea was close to fruition and that decisions about personnel and other factors were probably made with a live record in mind. It is hard to arrive at anything other than what Corry concludes: “Garcia, Saunders, Kahn and Vitt seem to have been trying out various band members to see how they wanted to constitute the band, but by June they seem to have decided on a quartet.”

Sarah Fulcher had been around for a few months (at least January, see my 1/14/73 IOTB post) and I get the sense that she was "in the mix" in terms of the group's thinking around a record. She would continue to appear with JGMS at least into October 1973, and would lay down some vocals for the GD's Wake of the Flood (Grateful Dead Records GD-01, October 15, 1973). How that all went down, with her not being around for the Live at the Keystone dates (July 10, 1973 and July 11, 1973) remains obscure and puzzling. It's one thing if she dropped out before the record. But her time performing live with the band straddles the record, on which she is absent. Curious.

George Tickner, seems, in some sense, more straightforward. He enters and exits the Garciaverse in the span of something like eight weeks in March-May 1973. He seems to have gotten a tryout to be part of the recording band, and it seems not to have worked out. It’s not clear where this came from or what the impetus for that decision might have been. It could be that Tickner decided not to opt-in. Jerry's World could be a weird, intense place, and it’s not for everyone. He did help found Journey within a year of leaving, and apparently went on to medical school, so maybe he liked his outside options better. Or maybe it was G/S/K/V who made the decision because of musical or personality fit or because, if I have my math right, payday/4 > payday/5. We don’t know. What we know is that the May 4-5 Homer’s tapes gives us a chance to hear him, at length, playing with the band. While he was billed for JGMS gigs at the end of the month at the legendary Ash Grove (May 29-30, 1973), the existing piece of tape and a contemporary review from those shows reveal no trace of him. It seems that there were plans (or thoughts) for him to be there, but that the Tickner-Garcia connection shorted out before June rolled around.

Though they recorded the albums in July as a spare (unfortunately so, from my perspective) quartet, JGMS was still seemingly trying to add another player to the mix  There's the chronologically-interesting case of July 5, 1973 at the Lion's Share (five days before the shows that were recorded for the album), which features a mystery trumpet player.  Eight days after the Keystone shows, we'd see the arrival of Martin Fierro on 7/19/73. In that Lion's Share post I said the following, which still makes sense to me:

It’s probably worth noting that Garcia (I presume – could also have been Merl and/or John) was looking for something more than what he got out of the guitar-bass-keys-drums quartet setup. Of course there had been second guitarists, from Tom Fogerty (ca. 1971-early 1973) to George Tickner (ca. spring 1973). Sarah Fulcher had been around in the first part of ’73 and would appear with Garcia/Saunders at least as late as October, singing in her very distinctive scatting style. Martin Fierro would come in two weeks to the day from the performance being noted here (7/19/73, Great American Music Hall) and would be more or less around for two solid years, seemingly giving the band the fill and color that they (or someone) wanted.

IV. Recording, Performance

Thank goodness, Betty Cantor-Jackson took it upon herself to record Garcia-Saunders, and we collectors are extremely fortunate to be able to listen to her sonic craftsmanship. These are Third Batch Betty tapes, 2x 10" reels @ 7.5ips ½ track, which fell into private hands in the 1980s, which were brought into the light in 1995-1996, which Rob Eaton digitized and annotated, and DAT copies of which reside in the Garcia tape vault. They came to the outside world via the great Alligator, whom I have discussed in connection with 3/9/74. There are lots of gremlins, including bad static on Sarah Fulcher’s vocal mic. Some of these may have been on the masters (they could well have been amplified over the PA), and others could very well result from the wretched state of the tapes. What’s especially nice about the recording is how clearly the two guitars are separated (Tickner in the left channel, Garcia in the right) and how high up in the mix Tickner is. These features really allow us to hear him, one of the relatively small handful of guitarists to share a stage with Garcia.

The show runs about 147 minutes across two sets (77 and 70 minutes, respectively). We have so little JGMS material from this period –one has to go all the way back two months, to March 7, 1973, for the next-earlier JGMS recording, and that is only a partial set—that it’s hard to say whether this is representative or not. It seems pretty typical for the period, as best as can be determined, which is to say that, relative to Garcia’s long musical career outside the Grateful Dead, there are some nice rarities here. The performance is a little uneven, though where it’s good I find it fantastic.

“That’s A Touch I Like” [Allan | Scofield | JB]: Allan and Scofield conflict on the name of the song, but since Scofield mentions the incorrectness of the definite article for “touch” (i.e., The Touch), and uses the indefinite, I follow his usage. He also notes that “That's A Touch I Like was one of three Jesse Winchester songs covered by Jerry Garcia, the others being Biloxi and Every Word You Say.” This version is fine, and while Tickner’s rhythm playing gets a little repetitive, I like his jazz guitar tone here.

I’ll say more about Expressway, which is a real highlight for me, below. The half-hour piece that starts with Merl’s “She’s Got Charisma” and runs into J.J. Cale’s “After Midnight” looks great on paper, and at least one reviewer finds it to be top-shelf material. According to SteveSw at Workingman’s, things start off

with a flute-like synth solo from Merl, whose playing is great there at the beginning: Jerry howls a bit, but mostly the early vibe is verry smooth and slow. [Tickner’s] solo raises the energy, and then Jerry plays a beautiful, peaceful solo that brings the vibe back down. Jerry's longer solo towards the end of the instrumental is fascinating, well worth repeated listening, and then BANG the song walks right off the gang-plank and into a loud raucous space. Jerry takes us far out into cosmos with questioning atonal screaming notes, then quickly back to earth for a very strange entry into "After Midnight" (what is that bass line doing there?). This is quite well played, Merl and Jerry each contributing great solos.

Heckstall, same thread, thinks this version of After Midnight is just a trainwreck. I am somewhere in between. First, I like “Charisma” a little less than some of the other Merl instrumentals (such as “Merl’s Tune” or “Little Bit Of Righteousness”), and nothing in this version jumped out at me. Second, yes, it does take them a long time to figure out that they are playing After Midnight. Indeed, I re-tracked my copy because the first three and a half minutes, as tracked, just seemed halfway there to my ears. But I think we have to judge this in the context of JGMS, and of trying on a new player. JGMS rarely did full-on (“true”) segues, and this is one. They’re hard, and this ain’t the GD. Second, they’ve got a new guy on board. Even if After Midnight is familiar, it’s partly so because it’s so like so many other songs. Things could have gone a number of directions. I think it's the next night when half the band is playing one song and half is playing another, 50s rock n rollers all based on the same chord progressions, of course.

For me, things don’t really pick up again until the Sarah-sung “Honey Chile” [Allan | Scofield | JB], which is just an awesome driving tune that stays close –fruitfully so—to the Martha Reeves and the Vandellas version, a 1967 Motown hit (Gordy 7067). I had written more about this song, but seem to have lost some material here. I especially like how Ms. Fulcher stays within the parameters of the song, and knows and mostly sticks to the words. She is not over-singing, sounds great, and conveys just the right man-done-me-wrong-but-I-still-need-him burn from the original. Very nice.

“Lonely Avenue” [Allan | Scofield | JB], a late 1950s hit for Ray Charles, is played here by JGMS for the last time until August 1974. This version really features the dissonant (good!) buzzsaw guitar of George Tickner, and is certainly the raunchiest version done by this group. Tickner’s solo @ 6-mins in is great. The tone is distorted, intentionally ... lots of fuzz and reverb, and well-played. Intense. Some hard fanning at 7:01-7:10 ... loud, wild shit. Very nice, solo runs from around 6-7:45. Then Jerry steps in with a much softer tone, strikingly contrasted with Tickner's. He's letting it fuzz and prickle a little bit in the very highest parts of the register. Then at 8:38 he drops down an octave and starts playing some faster Jerry Garcia leads. Mr. Vitt is keeping the '1' just perfectly here, really providing the bedrock for Jerry. Kahn starts doing some really nice rumbling around in the 9-minute mark, great. Vitt is a rock. Jerry starts doing some fanning @ 10:12, fast fanning down low ... Wow! Very uncommon guitar playing for GOTS. Much raunchier than anything they'd do in, e.g., July. I think Tickner's grungy guitar is forcing or inspiring Garcia to play around with these different textures. Loud and reverby again at the end: the most dissonant Lonely Avenue ever played.

“Soul Roach” never really does much for me, and the last two songs (Dixie Down and How Sweet It Is) strike me as pretty uneventful. In between there’s a rare version of “Georgia On My Mind”, which is distinguished especially by a nice bass-led interlude (~solo) from 7:20-9:33. Nice job, John! The song also ends quite cacophonously, which is just nice as a palate cleanser.

All of that said, for me the absolute highlight of the show, and of most any show in which it appears, is “Expressway (To Your Heart)” [Allan | Scofield | JB]. This was great jam vehicle for the Garcia-Saunders band for a number of years. So little is known about the early JGMS repertoire that it’s hard to say when they started playing it. The earliest reported version dates to October 3, 1971 at the Frost Ampitheatre (Grushkin 1971; JGMF). I doubt it appeared much earlier than that: the material dated “May 1971” (e.g., 5/11/71, 5/20/71) tends to be more ambitiously spacey, too astructural to engage this upbeat chunk of street struttin’. The song was the first big hit for the songwriting team of [Kenny] Gamble and [Leon] Huff, the founding fathers of the Philadelphia Soul sound, reaching #3 on Billboard’s R&B charts for the Soul Survivors in late 1967 (Crimson 1010). Gamble and Huff would go on to pen countless hits (including “Love Train”, still iconic thanks not least to a Coors Light advertising campaign). The Soul Survivors, for their part, would never have such a smash again, though it seems they gigged for many years. There is some indication online (e.g., here, here) that the band came together as the result of a car accident, which would seem to have had some special emotional resonance with Garcia, who survived but lost his friend Paul Speegle in a fatal crash near Stanford in 1961.

“Expressway” is sometimes represented as a cultural watershed, pairing the “blue-eyed soul” of some white boy toughs from New York City with two of the hottest black producers outside of Motown, and resulting in a national crossover hit from Philly’s black soul stations to the white airwaves (inter alia!) of Spokane, Washington. The 1967 LP When The Whistle Blows Anything Goes (Crimson Records LP-501, 1967) (wiki) features psychedelic lettering over a racially ambiguous group of hip-looking young men (see also Lassen 1968). The tune itself has some urban heat, opening with blaring car horns, an homage to I-76 in Philadelphia, with the swelter of an east coast summer.

Garcia-Saunders (JGMS), of course was a mixed-race band with tons of crossovers from black soul/R&B to white country and everything in between. Not unheard of, of course, but not entirely typical, and rarer still in bringing together guys with backgrounds as diverse as Merl (piano bar jazz) and Jerry (bluegrass). Indeed, the JGMS billings at the Ash Grove in Santa Monica in late May (29-30) 1973 was part of a “long, ambitious series spotlighting the vitality and influence of black music in America” (Hilburn 1973), and this with Merl as the only African American in the band! The band’s racial and cultural cross-pollination, of course, went beyond the mere demographics, and went to the experiences, influences and interests of the members. Drummer Bill Vitt had cut his teeth playing the multihued soul/R&B clubs of Sacramento, Kahn knew his way around the blues, and so forth.

I have no idea who brought “Expressway” into the band’s repertoire, but it was a great choice. Over three-plus years and some three dozen performances, it would evolve from a tight 8-12 minutes in early 1972 (tight for this band!) to an often 15-22 minute monster, complete with meltdown spaces, by late 1974. This version is fuckin' smokin' from the start. George Tickner, especially, really shines. He has a jangly, buzzsaw kind of style (a tone he shared with Tom Fogerty, in my estimation), but he has a lot more reverb when he wants it. During the chorus parts here, the high melody that he is playing, he is just soaring above beautifully. Both Garcia and Merl launch really tight solos (Jerry-Merl-Jerry), pinning down what Tickner is stretching and pulling. Sarah does some singing @ late 3-min mark for only about 30 seconds. It's nice, she sounds good. Bill Vitt sets a hard floor late in the 4-min mark, perfect foundation for Sarah from 4:45 ff. She sounds really good. 5:10 or so George Tickner makes himself heard, giving some edge and melancholy, a nice timbre which Sarah picks up on ... "I can't dance with you! I can't dance with you!" Tickner ignites early 6-minute mark, solos until about 7:15, fucking hot. The guitar solo in the 6:30 range is absolutely filthy. Wow. George Tickner is the real deal, this upside is so much above what Tom Fogerty was able to provide, and Sarah is also a real contributor. Excellent. This version of @@ Expressway is lighting me up, big time. Wow. Great interplay as they stretch out with it. Jerry with a fanning flourish, Sarah channeling some deep soul, a nice little melodic vocalization a few times through at late 9-min mark, early 10th. Jerry wailing but mixed too low 10-minute mark. I'd like to have this solo, fanning at 10:45, 10:58, tear my ears apart. Jerry wailing, Sarah wailing. Wailing and burning.

They'd play it more, of course. There are some super-long and super-freaky from '74 that I look forward to analyzing. So I'll have more to say. As a postscript here, I'd just add that when Merl and Jerry got back together at one of Merl’s gigs in October 1978 (which I’ll write up in the context of Reconstruction), the only tune from the known setlist that they had played together before was none other than “Expressway”. As far as I can recall, Garcia would never play it publicly again.

V. Summary, References, Listening Notes

No grand finale here. Nice tape, interesting time period, a fun listen. The next night’s tape is the last known date with this same lineup, and I’ll hope to listen to it closely before too long.

REFERENCES:

• Arnold, Corry. 2010. 2119 University Avenue, Berkeley, CA: The Keystone Berkeley. Lost Live Dead, December 31, 2010, URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2010/12/2119-university-avenue-berkeley-ca.html, consulted 4/22/2012.
• Arnold, Corry. 2011. Jerry Garcia and Keystone Shows Overview. Lost Live Dead, January 2, 2011, URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2011/01/jerry-garcia-and-keystone-shows.html, consulted 4/22/2012.
• Arnold, Corry. 2011. Sarah Fulcher-Vocals. Lost Live Dead, September 9, 2011, URL http://hooterollin.blogspot.com/2011/09/sarah-fulcher-vocals.html, accessed 4/22/2012.
• Arnold, Corry. 2011. George Tickner-Guitar (Garcia/Saunders Group-Spring 1973). Lost Live Dead, September 24, 2011, URL http://hooterollin.blogspot.com/2011/09/george-tickner-guitar-garciasaunders.html, accessed 4/22/2012.
• Arnold, Corry. 2011. Jerry Garcia Album Economics, 1973-74 (John Kahn XIII). Lost Live Dead, November 3, 2011, URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2011/11/jerry-garcia-album-economics-1973-74.html, consulted 4/22/2012.
• Arnold, Corry. 2012. Excalibur-Tom Fogerty (Jerry Garcia-guitar). Hooterollin’ Around, March 2, 2012, URL http://hooterollin.blogspot.com/2012/03/excalibur-tom-fogerty-jerry-garcia.html, accessed 4/22/2012.
• Arnold, Corry. 2012. Old And In The Way FM Broadcasts, 1973 (FM VI). Lost Live Dead, April 12, 2012, URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/04/old-and-in-way-fm-broadcasts-1973-fm-vi.html, consulted 4/22/2012.
• ! ref: Bernstein 2013, 123-129, "A Weekend with Jerry and Merl"
  Callahan, Mike, Patrice Eyries, and Dave Edwards. 2007. Crimson Album Discography Album Discographies, updated June 24, 2007, URL http://www.bsnpubs.com/philadelphia/lostnite/crimson.html, consulted 4/16/2012.
• Grushkin, Paul D. 1971. Garcia, Saunders Impressive at Frost. Stanford Daily, October 5, 1971, unknown page.
• Hilburn, Robert. 1973. Rock ‘$’ Rollers … to Coin a Phrase. New York Times, May 19, 1973, p. B7.
• Jackson, John A. 2004. A House On Fire: The Rise And Fall Of Philadelphia Soul. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Kelly, Geoff. 1973. Highs & Lows. Pasadena Star-News, April 8, 1973, p. A7.
• Lassen, Kurt. 1968. The Soul Survivors Are On The Way. Telegraph (Nashua, NH), April 27, 1968, p. 3.
• Tolces, Todd. 1973. Jerry’s Bluegrass Boys. Melody Maker 48 (April 28): 35.

LISTENING NOTES:

Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders [JGMS]

Homer's Warehouse

79 Homer Avenue

Palo Alto, CA 94301

May 4, 1973 (Friday)

147 min Betty Cantor-Jackson sbd recording

--Set I (6 tracks, 76:58)--

s1t01. That's A Touch I Like [8:32] [1:29]

s1t02. Expressway (To Your Heart) [12:47] [1:26]

s1t03. She’s Got Charisma [18:23] ->

s1t04. After Midnight [11:07] [2:50]

s1t05. It Ain't No Use [9:45] [0:49]

s1t06. That's Alright, Mama [9:36] (1) [0:13] % (2)

--Set II (8 tracks, 69:46)--

s2t01. tuning [0:46]

s2t02. It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry [7:10] [0:44]

s2t03. Honey Chile [10:25] [0:54]

s2t04. Lonely Avenue [14:38] [1:23]

s2t05. Soul Roach [6:19] [0:03]

s2t06. Georgia On My Mind [12:30] [0:56]

s2t07. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down [5:33] [0:11]

s2t08. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [7:12] (3) [0:38] % dead air [0:10]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-guitar, vocals;

! lineup: Merl Saunders - keyboards;

! lineup: John Kahn - el-bass;

! lineup: George Tickner - el-guitar;

! lineup: Bill Vitt - drums;

! lineup: Sarah Fulcher - vocals (s1t02 Expressway, s1t06 TAM, s2t04 Honey Chile, s2t06 GOMM, s2t07 TNTDODD [harmonies])

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/19730504-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/31283 (this fileset).

! R: Lineage: 2x 10" reels @ 7.5ips ½ trk > Otari 50/50 reel to reel playback > Apogee 500 A/D converter > Panasonic SV3700 DAT master (Eaton); given lineage: "MSR > DAT x3 > Delta DIO 2496 > Soundforge > wav > flac", the accuracy of which cannot be determined.

! R: Seeded to Lossless Legs by alligator.

! R: Seeder note: "There are some imperfections that seem to be from the master reels. No adjustments made."

! R: s1t01 Vocal mic out at start of TATIL

! R: s1t01 Levels rise up a minute in, Betty is just dialing things in beautifully.

! personnel: George Tickner, second guitar.

! R: The second guitar player, George Tickner, is really nicely high up in the mix in the 3-minute mark. He sounds great. Way better than Tom Fogerty (RIP). Garcia's guitar, by contrast, is buried. So this mixing anomaly, with the second guitarist way up and Jerry way low is actually useful to hear what would be distinctive. Maybe he's turned up so Jerry can really hear him (though Betty's mixes for tapes should have been different than the stage mix). Whatever, it's cool!

! P: s1t02 ETYH holy shit does Tickner hit some stuff in the 1-minute mark. Dude can tear it up. Jerry's first little solo @ 1:45 shows that he has heard, and is responding in kind. This Expressway is fucking burning from the get-go, my friends. Betty's got the mixed locked in, and drums-bass-keyboards-guitars are syncd up beautifully.

! song: s1t02 “Expressway (To Your Heart)” was great jam vehicle for this band for a number of years.  It was the first big hit for the songwriting team of [Kenny] Gamble and [Leon] Huff, the two key “founding fathers” of the Philadelphia Soul sound, when it reached #3 on Billboard’s R&B charts for the Soul Survivors in late 1967 (Crimson 1010). Gamble and Huff would go on to pen countless hits (including “Love Train”, still iconic thanks not least to a Coors Light advertising campaign). The Soul Survivors would never have such a smash again, though it seems they gigged for many years. Culturally, “Expressway” was a watershed: so-called “blue-eyed soul”, sung by white boy toughs from New York City, meets two of the hottest black producers outside of Motown, and they get a national crossover hit from Philly’s black soul stations to the white airwaves (inter alia!) of Spokane, Washington. Garcia-Saunders (JGMS), of course was a mixed-race band with tons of crossovers from black soul/R&B to white country and everything in between. Not unheard of, of course, but not entirely typical, and rarer still in bringing together guys with backgrounds as diverse as Merl (piano bar jazz) and Jerry (bluegrass).

! personnel: s1t02 Sarah Fulcher comes in on vocals @ 3:48

! P: s1t02 the guitar solo in the 6:30 range is absolutely filthy. Wow.

! P: s1t05 IANU Jerry loses track of the vocals more or less entirely.

! s1t06 (1) JG: "We're gonna take a break for a little while. We'll be back pretty soon."

! R: (2) s1t06 does not correspond to d1t6 as originally seeded. After the song ends add the stage announcement is made, the tape runs for 13 seconds, then splices. The next [0:53] was pre-set II material. I have thus split the original "d1t6" into s1t06 (TAM >> set break to tape splice) and s2t01 (the pre-set II tuning). I cut the tracks with CD Wave. I have maintained the original version of d1t6 in the fileset folder. If anyone were ever to try to verify the original fileset against the one I have, you'd find, first, that the folder is larger, since I basically have an extra ORIGINAL version of d1t6 in there. Once the other ORIGINAL files were re-named (in the ffps, for example), they'd verify. Another way to check is just visual comparison of the two ffp fingerprints, the original one and the one based on my re-naming. That said, the two newly-created tracks would obviously not have ffps in the original fingerprint file. Anyway, I have just tried to make this process traceable For The Record.

! P: s2t01 @ the very start of this tuning, the note Merl is playing (what is it, someone?) sounds like the one that starts "Merl's Tune". I would have loved to hear that tune here. Instead, we get a ITALTL, ITATTC. Too bad (ducking).

! R: s2t02 IALTL, ITATTC static

! R: s2t02 static @ 3:40-end.

! R: s2t03 static seems under control, then comes in harsh and heavy @ 3:15- I think there's a loose chord on Sarah's vocal mic. This could be speaker-shredding stuff if one were blasting the volume ... caveat auditor.

! P: s2t03 @ 8:57-9:05 Honey Chile Jerry (I think!) does some fanning that I find uncommon for this GOTS era, and follows up with some really nice lead runs behind Sarah in the 9-minute mark. She seems to step back from the vocal mic, which lessens (though doesn't eliminate) the static which plagues the song, and allows us to hear Jerry a little more, too. They gotta fix that mic!

! P: s2t04 Lonely Avenue George Tickner's solo @ 6-mins in is great. The tone is distorted, partly intentionally ... lots of fuzz and reverb, and well-played. Intense. Some hard fanning at 7:01-7:10 ... loud, wild shit. Very nice, solo ran from around 6-7:45. Then Jerry steps in with a much softer tone, strikingly contrasted with Tickner's. He's letting it fuzz and prickle a little bit in the very highest parts of the register. Then at 8:38 he drops down an octave and starts playing some faster Jerry Garcia leads. Mr. Vitt is keeping the '1' just perfectly here, really providing the bedrock for Jerry. Kahn starts doing some really nice rumbling around in the 9-minute mark, great. Vitt is a rock. Jerry starts doing some fanning @ 10:12, fast fanning down low ... Wow! Very uncommon guitar playing for GOTS. Much raunchier than anything they'd do in, e.g., July. I think Tickner's grungy guitar is forcing or inspiring Garcia to play around with these different textures. Loud and reverby again at the end: the most dissonant Lonely Avenue ever played.

! s2t06 GOMM static @ 2:15, 3:33, 3:51- end, more or less

! s2t06 GOMM John Kahn takes a lead piece (~solo) from 7:20-9:33. Nice job, John! Jerry steps in with next solo. Haven't heard much Merl soloing this night. GOMM ends quite cacophonously.

! R: s2t08 horrible static. This, again, seems associated with Sarah's vocal mic, but I am not sure - it's bad through the whole song.

! s2t08 (3) JG: "Thanks a lot, g'night everybody. See y'all later."