Does anybody know how to reach Matt Kelly?

I am hoping to find dates for the 1973 Record Plant session work, with Jerry, that ended up on Wing And A Prayer. Email me if you have email for him, or point him here. TIA!

Jerry's New Year's Eve - LN jg1975-12-31.jgb.all.aud-Falanga-Menke-8664-retrack.noshnid.shn2flac

GarciaLive 5

GarciaLive, volume 5, December 31st 1975 Keystone Berkeley (2014) is out, available via jerrygarcia.com.

Let me start by expressing gratitude for these GarciaLive releases. Having been a massive outlier in my interest in Garcia on the side, having often expressed frustration at the paucity of Jerry shows released under the old regime, I am glad to see the music coming out and happy to buy these releases, not least because they are generally very, very well done.

The overall packaging is nice. I appreciate that the booklet picture of the Keystone is correctly placed from ca. 1981 - accuracy is important, and is very much appreciated by those of us who take our metadata like we take our coffee -- seriously. This is an improvement over the inclusion of a photo from 11/26/77, without identification, in a release of the show dated 3/22/78 (GarciaLive 4). I read David Gans's liner notes once quickly, and they look spot-on (more on that below), well-written, well-edited (I had complained about the editing on the killer 12/14-15/74 release), and informative. Good job, David. I haven't listened to it yet, but I have heard that it sounds nice and I fully expect the fat, full, Betty Cantor-Jackson sound. (I hope she is getting paid for these releases!)

Priors on this performance

But I have always disliked 12/31/75 as a Jerry Garcia Band performance and as a Jerry Garcia life event. The main billing for the show is that it's Jerry Band's only NYE show. That's true, but it doesn't go very far if the music isn't good.

I have known the performance from the tapes. I would have been listening to the very early shns of the soundboard (like this badboy) and, especially, the Louis Falanga-Bob Menke upfront (possibly onstage) ambient recording (shnid-8664), since these were fresh on the etree FTP sites. All told I probably listened to the Falanga-Menke tape a good 3 or 4 times through, the board once or twice. That's a lot for any single show.

People generally consider this a great one, but insofar as you'll indulge me in arguing about taste, I'll tell you that I think that's just flat wrong. My hypothesis here is that this is something like the "Cornell Effect" from Deaddom, in which great sounding tapes find mass-circulation relatively early, Patient Zero of the Betty Board contagion, and the show becomes legend. (Cornell is actually a great Dead show, but that doesn't preclude it being overrated.) JGB 12/31/75 at the Keystone has the added Dead appeal of guest shots by Bob Weir (very rare with JGB, only other times it happened were in June '82 and once on Broadway in '87, off the top of my head) and Mickey Hart. Nicky Hopkins draws lots of attention, it's New Year's Eve at the Keystone, and why shouldn't it be great?

But it isn't. As a musical performance, it has some OK moments, and it's rarely downright awful, but mostly it's just boring. That has always been my view.

Listening Preparation

But being a loyal customer, wanting to give the show a fair hearing, I decided to get the release, and to prepare my listen by revisiting the Falanga-Menke tape. Pin down the metadata if I could, just prepare the ground. Like a dog circling around a patch of lawn, if you know what I mean. And of course it became a rabbit hole, but I'll try to cover some ground and walk away from all the things that must be walked away from, conditional on the finity of our time here together. Anyway, I have some listening notes below the fold, but here are a few takeaways.

Players

Confusion bedeviled the sociometrics of this gig from the beginning. Les Kippel wrote in Dead Relix (1976) that

Contrary to advance rumors, the Grateful Dead did not play this past New Year’s Eve. However, Bob Weir and Chris Herold from Kingfish did show up to play at the Garcia Band’s show at the Berkeley Keystone that evening. Bob played rhythm guitar and sang backup vocals, and sang lead on “C.C. Rider.” Other material played at the show included “Catfish John,” “Road Runner,” and so forth. Rumor has it that that might have been the Garcia Band’s last performance.

A few issues later, attendee Jim Wasserman (1976) wrote a letter to the editor, correcting Kippel that the drummer was not Chris Herold, but, he thought, Bill Vitt. This is a great letter, which I reproduce in whole so Corry can read about Grayson Street (see Arnold 2009).

I was at the show, and some of the info you said about it was incorrect. Chris Herold of Kingfish was not there. Weir was there as you said, but I believe the drummer was Bill Vitt, sitting in for Ron Tut [sic]. Also, Mickey Hart showed with Weir for the second set - - and played a very primitive drumset used by the warm-up band (whom I didn't know).

The first band consisted of the drummer, (a bass, snare, tom tom, and two cymbals in the total set) and a slow blues slide guitarist who was pretty good, but generally a let-down for the opening of a New Year's show.

The Garcia Band was also joined by Matthew Kelly of Kingfish from very early in the show. The overall performance was quite good, once the boys got it underway, however. There was what seemed like hours of tuning up and the band took two very long breaks. The show was like a fine old' party, and I think that's just what Garcia was into -- partying on New Year's Eve.

So witness one says the non-Hart drummer was Chris Herold, witness two says it was Bill Vitt, and Corry (Arnold 2009) comes along and has it as Greg Errico. I become confused. (I knew it wasn't Tutt, who as drumming for  the Rainfall-besuited Elvis in the Pontiac Silverdome.)

But that's all over now, because now we have Official Documents, and it's Mr. Errico on the skins. (On the Falanga-Menke tape one can hear Nicky slurring "Thanks Greg" at note 3). Otherwise, it's as we have understood things: Matt Kelly on harmonica (throughout the show, as I hear it, should pin it all down), Bob Weir on guitar and Mickey Hart on drums (sets II and III).

Setlist

In putting together what I have around this show, I found a 5-minute fragment of tape that I remember some guy sending me some years ago, labeled 12/31/75 Nicky solo "Maple Leaf Rag", a tuneup from the start of the show. I had always vowed to give it some attention, and I did on this occasion. It is five minutes of tape from an alternative audience recording (i.e., not the Falanga-Menke tape). It's nowhere near as good as theirs, and it is degraded, but it is nevertheless revealing. First, the smaller point, I can hear taper talk where guy says "that looks like the guy from Kingfish". I wonder if Les Kippel was recording this, or if in some other way the taper's guess became Dead Relix's error?

Second, the tuning is not just Nicky, it's the whole band, as far as I can tell. And, it's not Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag", as advertised. It's Joplin's "The Entertainer". I can't tell you how much I love this little snippet. In terms of the American musical mosaic, it occupies the same part of the canon, just replacing one singleton, now a never-played (Maple Leaf Rag), with another (Entertainer). But I also love it because it's Nicky Hopkins playing "The Entertainer". He is so brilliant, and he can make even the most well-worn classic sound fresh as daylight; this is about as pure a piano tune as you can find, being played by about as pure a piano player as ever graced a bench.

Very cool. But also, tinged. Dawson's Hopkins biography (2011) shows clearly that Nicky was the ultimate sideman, lacking in any of the discernible talents and inclinations that might make one a successful front man, except his musical wizardry. He was shy and quiet and ill-suited to the role (see my "Bloody Hell"), and yet this seems to have been the role that the JGB (Garcia, Kahn and Tutt) and/or Nicky himself allowed to operate. There's just something desperately sad about Nicky playing "The Entertainer", with all of his (and its) beer hall authenticity, warming up for the big show. Later, sweetly optimistic about 1976: "It might even be good for me; you never know" (note 7). To your health, Nicky.

"Mother Nature's Son" is a Garcia singleton, part of the small, compact, tastefully curated set of Beatles material he played publicly.

Performance

You can see the listening notes, and I have already given my bottom line summary. It's OK in parts, it's bad in parts, but mostly it's just boring. It's a mehfest.

Other Context

Here is a little bit of color around this gig, which was contracted for the standard $500 JGB-at-Keystone rate (this would rise to $750 a night in 1977), but probably saw considerably more than that moving around.

1. Nicky is wasted. You knew this, but he's really, really wasted. He's at that horrible place (note 7), where he's both "pissed as a rat's nightmare" and "dry as a fuckin' boneyard". I believe him.
2. This is the last JGB #1 gig, as Nicky exits stage left. The conventional wisdom is that he was just too wasted and he had to go. I will argue in the book that he was never planned to last beyond the New Year. Either way, a few days later he'd be gigging a little with ol' pal John Cipollina, he never played with Garcia again, and he entered, from this night, perhaps the darkest period of a life too full of them.
3. Jerry and Mountain Girl are breaking up (Jackson 1999, 266-268). Right around this time Jerry deeds the Stinson house to MG and moves in with Deborah Koons in Belvedere.
4. Late 1975 has always been my guess for when the opiates become regularized. I don't know if the following refers to 1975 (it could be any year through 1975, really), but I have always thought it could have: "one Christmastime, on a whim, [Ron Rakow] took it upon himself to score some [China White] for himself and Garcia" (Jackson 1999, 289).
5. Money is tight, the Dead are going to have to start touring again, the Grateful Dead Movie is already an albatross that would hang around Garcia's neck until mid-1977, etc. etc.

I guess my point is that this is a pretty dark time in the Garciaverse. I would hate to extrapolate from that to this particular performance (the Winterland shows from a week and a half prior are actually quite good). And it's possible I am letting that darkness shade my listening, though I don't think so.

The Show as a Release

So, I find this release a little problematic insofar as it's not a great performance, and it's got all kinds of darkness around it. I understand the marketing appeal of the Dead guys' presence and the fact that it's Garcia's only New Year's Eve with the JGB. I also understand that quality tape is probably in sparer supply than one might wish. I am not going to be too hard on The Powers That Be, but would certainly argue for "great performance" as the first criterion of interest to this particular paying customer.

Anyway, references below, then listening notes below the fold.

REFERENCES

Arnold, Corry. 2009. December 31, 1975 Keystone Berkeley Jerry Garcia Band. Lost Live Dead, December 13, 2009, URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2009/12/december-31-1975-keystone-berkeley.html, consulted 12/31/2013.

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, accessed 7/23/2012.

Dawson, Julian. 2011. And On Piano ... Nicky Hopkins: The Extraordinary Life of Rock's Greatest Session Man. Foreword by Klaus Voormann. San Francisco: Backstage Press.

Jackson, Blair. 1999. Garcia: An American Life. New York: Penguin Books.

JGMF. 2010. JGB: December 31, 1975, Keystone, Berkeley: who was drumming?.

JGMF. 2014. "Bloody Hell".

JGMF. 2014. Nicky after JGB.

JGMF. 2014. Grateful Dead Three Ways: December 20, 1975.

Kippel, Les. 1976. Bits. Dead Relix 3, 2 (March-April), p. 19.

Wasserman, Jim. 1976. [Letter to the editor.] Dead Relix 3, 4 (July-August), p. 2.

Grateful Dead Three Ways: December 20, 1975

Selvin (1975c) reviewed the December 19, 1975 Winterland show billing Keith and Donna Godchaux, Kingfish, and the Jerry Garcia Band as "Grateful Dead Divided Three Ways". Hence, my title, even though I am working the crossings through the next night.

Since I have fallen down the rabbit hole of a long post on 10/17/75, and at the risk of dispersing comments and my own thoughts, I thought I could cut and run on a post on 12/20/75. Here are a few takeaways.

First, I don't recall many people talking much about these threeway shows as part of the GD's 1975 revenue model. The first one, 6/17/75, was a benefit, but 10/17/75 and these Winterland shows were intended to be fully paying gigs. I think the results on that score were mixed. For example, here's how it coulda looked for this big weekend:

Grateful Dead Three Ways: JGMF scenario for 12/19-20/75

Friday night would have been significantly undersold, and even Saturday not a sellout, on this scenario. And that notwithstanding the event being a cool happening for teens.

Second, contrary to my expectations, Nicky sounds pretty good, not too slurry. He plays Randy Newman's "Birmingham" for the only known time [JB], does a little "Jingle Bells" for the season, and generally plays well, IMO.

Third, this version of Let's Spend The Night Together -> Edward is top-shelf, grade A JGB #1. Check it out.

More notes, including stuff I didn't bring up top here, below the fold.

Reasonably Good Voice and Superb Guitar: JGB on the Russian River, May 31, 1982

jg1982-05-31.jgb.all.aud-GEMS.95427.flac1644

So, this show came up a few days ago as one at which Liz Stires and Julie Stafford were probably singing backing vocals. Part of an interesting occasional discussion on personnel issues in which the early 80s JGB backup singers and drummers have been the matter of some focus (see also here on the late '83 JGB tour).

The only copy I know of is shnid 95427, which derives from an unlineaged audience recording preserved by the GEMS folks at Lossless Legs. It's basically a nice, upfront audience tape. Not even too much crowd noise. You get the limitations of being up so close (low vocals), but the recordist did a nice job and everything is present. A few cuts here and there, but, hey, we all have a few blemishes, don't we?

The show is quite nice. I am sometimes surprised by the things I find, despite lots and lots of listening. (I guess that capacity to surprise is always there, else why are we doing it? Anyway ...) I would have expected a rather sloppy show, given that they are off the beaten path, Monday night, and all that. Just another gig. But, in fact, Jerry is in reasonably good voice and his guitar playing is absolutely superb. He isn't quite as fast here as he is in other first-semester 1982 shows, which is to the good. He is hitting nice clean notes, elaborating pretty lengthy thoughts, and so forth. Standouts for me are the Valerie, Roadrunner and especially Dear Prudence. I almost never give a fig for DP but this one has some shimmering guitar work for a couple of minutes around 7 minutes in. Overall, then, not in a big coke-fueled rush that finishes with one of those coke-blast-45-minute-just-pay-me-so-I-can-score-lets-play-Midnight-Moonlight sets that would become so common in the Bay Area in 1984-1985. Just working methodically through some really neat progressions, taking care, feeling it. Do y'thing, mang.

So everything has just a little extra something to it after a rough start to How Sweet It Is. There is a harmonica player identified as Matthew Kelly during "Mystery Train," which benefits from the harp. They take some time to really get the old engine a-chugging at the start. Part of me thinks this does not sound like Matthew Kelly, but I am really not in a position to have any confidence about that. Guest shots were very rare during this period --I have long maintained they relate inversely to Jerry's opiate intake-- and overall things have a little extra something on this night..

Anyway, various and sundry notes below.

Jerry Garcia Band
River Theatre
16135 Main Street
Guerneville, CA 95446-8301
May 31, 1982 (Monday)
GEMS aud shnid-95427

--set I (6 tracks, 55:08)--

s1t01. introduction, tuning [0:19], How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You [9:09] [0:06]
s1t02. % [0:15] Catfish John [10:18] [0:09] % [0:08]
s1t03. Valerie [6:36] [0:04] % [0:27]
s1t04. I Second That Emotion [12:46] [0:04] % [0:07]
s1t05. Love In The Afternoon [9:56] ->
s1t06. Run For The Roses [4:37] [0:07]

--set II (6 tracks, 66:44)--
s2t01. crowd and tuning [0:23], (I'm A) Road Runner [9:50]
s2t02. /Knockin' On Heavens Door [14:#22] [0:05]
s2t03. //Mystery Train [10:#25] [0:09] % [0:09]
s2t04. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down [7:56] ->
s2t05. Dear Prudence// [13:#27]
s2t06. //Tangled Up In Blue [#9:46] [0:06]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-bass;
! lineup: Bill Kreutzmann - drums;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - keyboards (organ);
! lineup: Jimmy Warren - keyboards (electric piano);
! lineup: Liz Stires - backing vocals;
! lineup: Julie Stafford - backing vocals.
! guest: Matt Kelly - harmonica (s2t03).

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/19820531-01

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/06/river-theatre-16135-main-street.html

! Personnel. This show takes place during a period of some fluidity (and certainly ex post uncertainty) about personnel in the JGB. Here is what I think we have here. There are definitely two keyboardists, Melvin on organ (probably a Hammond B3) and Jimmy Warren on electric piano (probably a Fender Rhodes). There are two female backing vocalists. I am not qualified to judge who they are, but various discussion on JGMF, LLD and elsewhere leads me to conclude that this is Julie Stafford and Liz Stires.  Julie Anzaldo recalls "Liz and Julie" singing at an '82 River Theater JGB show which included Roadrunner. Since there are no backing vocals on 10/24/82 (same venue, also including Roadrunner), it would seem this is the Liz & Julie show that Julie A. recalls. Oh yeah, we also cannot be 100% sure that this is Kreutzmann drumming.  BK is the conventional listing, and since I can't discern who's drumming I follow convention here.

! R: Source: Unknown Audience recording > ? > cdr > eac > wav > Gems Edit Station > flac.Edited and Mastered by Jamie Waddell on the GEMS Edit Station. A GEMS production -+-+- www.shnflac.net -+-+- Trac'ed Cdwave Flac'ed level 8 TLH.

! R: GEMS Notes: - Big Thanks to Katfish John for sharing his cd's - Numerous mic bumps were fixed, some artifacts may remain - Beginning of Tangled Up In Blue cuts in - End of Dear Prudence Cuts out - Mystery Train cuts in - Recorder was turned off between some songs

! s1t01 enters on emcee introduction.

! Recording. What a lovely little FOB audience tape. Imperfect, but aren't we all! Vocals are low and there is some considerable phasing in the beginning. It seems a nice representation of the JGB at a freaky little theater on the Russian River. Oh yeah, no Russian Lullaby? C'mon, man.

! s1t01 They are a little lost to start of HSII.

! s1t03 JG takes a nice cookin' solo in Valerie. He is playing pretty well.

! s1t05 LITA some audible mic issues @ 2:20 ish

! s2t01 This is a pretty peppy RR.

! s2t02 KOHD clips in.

! s2t03 Mystery Train special @ start, Jerry pulling off a little bit to let it settle in. Nice!

! s2t05 Dear Prudence splice @ 3:24, 12:49

! s2t05 Dear Prudence @ 8-min mark, a minute or two before and after, JG is playing really nice, long lines ... very thoughtful and clean. Gorgeous.

! d2t06 TUIB cuts in, anomalies @ 0:10, 0:50; muffling 1:22-1:26, anomaly @ 1:29

The River Theatre (Guerneville, CA) 1982 Liz and Julie Conundrum, Resolved

In my previous post on the JGB's early 1980s drummers and backup singers, I grappled with the puzzle of the backup singers on 10/24/82 at the River Theater, 16135 Main Street, Guerneville, CA, 95446-8301:

an eyewitness to the 10/24/82 River Theater (Guerneville, CA) show, which we know featured the return of female vocalists after the brief four-show interregnum of 10/13 and 10/21-23, thought that "Julie" was one of the singers. This was how Julie Stafford first came to my attention as someone who might have sung onstage with JGB ...

I then noted in comments the following:

The eyewitness to the River Theater (Guerneville, 10/24/82) show is Julie A., and she is exceptionally credible. She and John saw a great fraction of Bay Area Jerry shows from '79-90s or so, and taped many of them. She may come post here, but in any case she says she is 100% sure that the backup singers on 10/24/82 were two white women, Julie and Liz ... And if Jacklyn and DeeDee didn't start on 10/24/82, then we have their debut date wrong, too.

I believe I have this little conundrum solved: JGB also played the River Theater, Guerneville, CA, on May 31, 1982, and I believe that this is the Guerneville show with Liz and Julie singing. It would have been in the "Liz and Julie" period. Julie Anzaldo avers that the "Liz and Julie" show could have been 5/31. She remembers Roadrunner being played, but it was played at both Guerneville shows. There weren't any other particular rarities that might have set the two shows apart in memory, except perhaps for the guest shot by Matt Kelly on harmonica at the May 31 show (for "Mystery Train").

This may help to resolve two things in particular that had confused me. First, it restores the longstanding update: MISTAKEN understanding that Jacklyn LaBranch and DeeDee Dickerson debuted on 10/24/82. Second, it reconciles with the Liz Stires chronology, which has her leaving after the 6/22/82 Mosque Show in Richmond, VA.

Update: I have posted listening notes on 5/31/82.

On the theater, I would love to learn more! Seems like my kind of place

Here are the Garcia dates I have for it:

Reconstruction, June 23, 1979 (Wednesday)
Jerry Garcia Band, May 31, 1982 (Monday)
Jerry Garcia Band, October 24, 1982 (Sunday)
Jerry Garcia and John Kahn, September 28, 1984 (Friday)
Jerry Garcia and John Kahn, August 17, 1985 (Saturday)
Jerry Garcia and John Kahn, October 11, 1985 (Friday)

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/2VFWg. And here is the Google Street View from ca. now: