Slowly Unraveled Over You: JGB 3c at Keystone Palo Alto, April 9, 1977

Obviously I am catching up on posting some listening notes. Quality will be even more variable than usual.

LN jg1977-04-09.jgb.all.aud-bunjes.13361.shn2flac

Some tapes travel unlikely paths to our ears. Here's an unattributed aud tape, the only one circulating, which went to Germany before coming out into the broader world. I really love the feel of it. It's not amazing, but it's got character.

The show features what I presently list as JGB 3c. JGB 3 is the basic Keith and Donna version with Tutt, starting in '76. Not least because the JGB was relatively uninstitutionalized at this point, many variations popped up around the invariant Jerry, John and Keith core. I have proposed cataloguing them as follows:

3b: #3 + Maria - e.g., 9/12/76

3c: #3 + second guitarist - e.g., 11/20/76

3d: #3 + John Rich - e.g., 12/21/76

3e: #3 + Maria + second guitarist - e.g., 2/5/77

3f: #3 - Tutt + Errico - e.g., 6/23/77

3g: #3 - Donna + Maria (e.g., 7/3/77)

3h: #3 - Donna (e.g., 7/8/77)

3i: #3 - Tutt + Kreutzmann - e.g., 8/12/77

I know that's a little bit ridiculous, but it has the nice taxonomic quality of the categories being mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive.

So, I say I say I say, 4/9/77 features variant 3c, the basic group plus the second guitarist. He is pretty far in the background most of the night, as he was on every night he played. He plays tastefully throughout, though, seems to eschew a feature opportunity in "Stir It Up" and steps forward a little more, seemingly because everyone else in the band was insisting that he take the space that they were giving him, during "Tore Up". This is his last known appearance with Jerry, though we can't really be sure. At the setbreak announcement, Jerry says something about getting things straightened out, which might be nothing, might be equipment related, or might indeed be about attempting to find alignment with the visitor.

The post title speaks to this version of "Tore Up Over You", which doesn't involve Hank Ballard's sudden rending so much as a soft disentegument. Clocking in at almost 20 minutes (!), this has to be the longest version of this tune ever played by anyone. It finds some nice quiet and open spaces, and Jerry even bends some strings for a bit, but to me it stands as a cautionary tale and monument to the excesses of JGB #3 - whatever the suffix.

Set II is short for the period, 3 songs and 47 minutes (heh heh). I wouldn't be surprised if a tune or two preceded Midnight Moonlight, or happened in between the songs presented here. We can't tell, since there are tape discontinuities after every song. We do know that Tangled Up bumped up against closing time in Palo Alto. (No, not 9 PM, you Weisenheimers.)

All told, very glad this tape made its way into the world, though it does nothing to dissuade me from the view that JGB #3 was most often kind of a snooze.

Jerry Garcia Band

Keystone Palo Alto

260 S. California Avenue

Palo Alto, CA 94306 

April 9, 1977 (Saturday)

aud shnid-13361 shn2flac

--set I (6 tracks, 72:43)--

s1t01. They Love Each Other [8:08] % [0:11]

s1t02. That's What Love Will Make You Do [11:06] [0:05] %

s1t03. Stir It Up [15:40] [0:06] %

s1t04. [0:05] Simple Twist Of Fate [14:02][0:09] %

s1t05. [0:06] Mystery Train [10:22] [0:03] % [0:05]

s1t06. The Way You Do The Things You Do [12:13] (1) [0:20]

--set II (3 tracks, possibly incomplete, 47:17)--

s2t01. [0:08] Midnight Moonlight [14:59] [0:02] %

s2t02. [0:16] Tore Up Over You [19:48] [0:08] %

s2t03. Tangled Up In Blue [11:30] (2) [0:13] % dead air [0:11]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #3c

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

! lineup: Keith Godchaux - keyboards, vocals;

! lineup: John Kahn - el-b;

! lineup: Ron Tutt - drums, vocals;

! lineup: Donna Jean Godchaux - vocals;

! guest: [redacted] - el-g.

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/19770409-01

! db: shnid-13361 (this fileset)

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/6U9QR2V8UV4YwBDh9

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/11/keystone-sophies-260-s-california-ave.html

! band: JGB #3c (http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html). This band features second guitarist XXX, who was also around on 1/29-30, 2/5-6, and 4/10, at least. This might even be considered a separate band, since that's most of the shows from the first part of '77, and possibly some in late '76 as well.

! setlist: Jerrybase lists starting time, presumably from the contract, as 9:30. If we allow for starting very late and for a very long setbreak, and in view of that fact that TUIB definitely lands on closing time, it's possible this set II is complete. But in the absence of other information, we can't really know. I would not be shocked if another song or two preceded Mid Moon.

! historical: Keystone $750 contract

! ad: San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle Datebook, April 3, 1977, p. 43

! R: MAC (unknown taper, equipment, location) > reel > playback on Uher reel-to-reel machine > Marantz standalone CD recorder master CD > Plextor CD extraction using EAC (high, secure, offset-corrected) > .shn encoding using mkwACT. Reel > CD by Thomas Donhauser, EAC > SHN and seeding by Hanno.

! R: s1t01-02 needs retracking

! P: s1t02 TWLWMYD I hear the second guitar now, hadn't heard it in TLEO

! P: s1t03 SIU Keith on electric keys. Second guitarist some very gentle stuff 12ish, as if it were his feature.

! s1t06 (1) JG: "We're gonna take a break for a little while. We'll be back a little bit -- later, see if we can get things straight."

! P: s2t01 Mid Moon should have ended it around 13, Jerry was sort of trying to, but it just kept choogling, so he took another spin with it.

! P: s2t02 TUOY guest takes a feature late 11 over 12. He sounds pretty good! The tune enters an extremely quiet section in 16. I can't believe they will end up playing this song for almost 20 minutes? Jerry bending some strings 17:20.

! s2t03 (2) Emcee: "Thank you, thank you very much. Folks, it's 2 o'clock. [inaudible, maybe 'we've got to go']"

! s1t06 (1) JG: "We'll take a break for a little while. We'll be back a little ... later ... soon as we can get things straight."

The December '85 Garcia Band Shows

LN jg1985-12-14.jgb.all.aud-CC.137723.flac1644

LN jg1985-12-15.jgb.all-1.aud-CC.137724.flac1644

LN jg1985-12-21.jgb.all.aud-gale.14980.shn2flac

LN jg1985-12-22.jgb.all.aud-gale.14981.shn2flac

seealso: LN jg1985-10-14.jgb.all.aud.138028.flac1644

Earlier this year I posted listening notes on four JGB shows from August 1985, and here I do the same for December of the same year. It's relatively feasible to do this for Rock Bottom shows because they are fun sized, with sets regularly clocking in below 45 minutes.

The shows make for nice comparison pieces in this regard.

Recall these set lengths from August:

DATE      s1      s2           TT      
8/4/85    46:03   31:04      77:07
8/5/85    49:31   48:37      88:08
8/9/85    42:26   38:32      80:58
8/10/85  37:08   34:14      81:22

Here are the December equivalents:

DATE         s1        s2            TT      
12/14/85    47:22   39:24       86:46
12/15/85    42:31   29:02*     71:33 *missing Cats, probably about 8-9 minutes
12/21/85    50:11   34:09       84:20
12/22/85    40:03   44:03       84:06

So, things are not very much different four months on. More than half the sets fit on a tape side (5 of 8 and 6 of 8, respectively). In the case of the December tapes, this is not due to tape discontinuities: Jerry runs from one song to the next with very little time between, and the taper kept things rolling. That sub-35 minute 12/21 II, looks mighty short, but it probably doesn't enter the bottom five for shortest electric sets.

The big difference, then, is in personnel: the August shows involve THE Jerry Garcia Band, #21b, which ran with only a single interruption from ca. July 10, 1984 to November 19, 1993, Jerry's longest-running aggregation. The interruption happened October 1985 - February 1986 when, for reasons unknown, David Kemper was not drumming, replaced by the legendary Oakland funk master Gaylord Birch. Clean inference would really require blind listening, of course. Here I know Gaylord is in the the house, I am listening for distinctive style, and boy do I hear it. Lots more snare and hi-hat, generally busier, not as much in either respect as Kool-Aid Chemist Paul Humphrey, who played with Jerry and Merl in '74, but closer in style to him than, say, the 50-caliber Greg Errico.

This is Birch's third Garciaverse appearance. He played a few gigs in early '75 (January 21-22) with the Saunders-Garcia aggregation, certainly the funkiest and some of the most challenging gigs Garcia ever did. He next manned the chair from January-September 1979 with Reconstruction, again, an outfit that pushed Garcia out of his comfort zone, the last "challenge band" outside the Dead he ever regulalrly played with. (Not coincidentally, also the last band he'd regularly play with that didn't bear his name.) Finally, we find this little interregnum, nine gigs in six months subbing for David Kemper in the Garcia Band.

Table xxx. Gaylord Birch in the Garcia Band, 1985-1986

(Hopefully that gets a little bigger if you click on it! Otherwise, just click the link above the table.)

(Note that Mid Moon ended every show except the first one. The great Walter Keenan has pointed this regularity out to me before, and here we see it plain as day. The Jerry Band setlists never varied as much as GD setlists did, but this is ... striking even for JGB.)

Anyway, Birch simply amazes me at ever turn here. He had played four gigs in October (7th-8th not in circulation, 13th and 14th), then nothing for two months, then returns for these four in December. I doubt there was an awful lot of practicting going on in the interim, though I don't know anything about that for certain. And, yeah, some of these tunes, like "How Sweet It Is", are going to be straightforward enough, even as the Garcia Band's loose-to-unraveling arrangements, gas-brake tempo fluctuations, and general approach to things would have defied a lesser drummer. But then there are the Garcia originals and tunes played in so many different genres that it's hard to imagine Gaylord had thought much about over the years, less still played. Maybe they threw some charts at him or something, but whatever the preparation they provided him, the '85 Garcia Band would certainly have been pretty darn hard to drum for, I'd imagine. Yet Birch seems to have no trouble at all, with anything. He plays most every tune like he's been playing it for years. It's not perfect, but man is it great, and man oh man is it impressive.

I will paste listening notes below the fold. Nothing will really surprise you here, so let me just sketch some moments I dug. Thanks to the legendary Erik VanO for the ticket stub scans!

12/14

s1t01-GOOMLW great way to kick things off. Melvin sounds great, Jerry finds some liquidy goodness midway through.

s1t02-Garcia steps in the Mutron with a big click and a wahh and the crowd hoots appreciatively, knowing that Catfish John is about to happen.

s1t04-Love In The Afternoon, a song he would never have played outside the GD, Gaylord just shines. He does some stuff 6:50-7 that knocks me out.

s1t06-Deal: there will be no surprises here. "The voice during Deal is horrifying. Big scrubba dubba doo later on 6:49, though. Yow! Go to 7 and hear the Great Barcia wail."

Overall, I had more to say about set I than about set II.

12/15

It's getting toward the holidays, and the crowd sounds drunk and ready to party. Elmer Fudd is definitely in the house vocally. But one of the things to note is that Garcia is figuring out, on the fly, how to sing with his now powerfully limited vocal range. He can't just numb up and try to power through. He has to dial back the force and dial in a little bit of singing nuance. This is really the beginning of the rounding, softening of his style over all. In '83-'84, he'd just BLAST. Here, we see the start of a little more circumspection, more befitting a man of his age.

s1t03 my love of pre-coma 80s JGB Knockin's is well known (to myself). This one is just wonderful. From the notes: "Right at 4:01 or so he hits a terrific guitar combo, and a crowd member yelps at it. 4:45 I love the feel of this - it's like the sound of recovery. Oh my, at 8:35 you hear a thing only Gaylord Birch could ever have done with JGB. Trust me, and check it out. What a drummer."

s1t04 a characteristically shreddy balls-to-the-wall wailing guitar Deal

s2t04 I find him doing some interesting picking in Midnight Moonlight, which is really uncommon at this stage.

12/21

Looks like the weakest show of the run on this set of listens - almost no notes.

Interesting to note the following recollection at Jerrybase: "I stood five feet from him the whole night. He didn't open his eyes once. He also stood at the mike, or one step back or at his amp. Not much movement. The show was great." Those observations and that assessment are, of course, not mutually exlcusive when it comes to Rock Bottom Jerry.

12/22

s1t01 CUTS man, yeah, listen to Gaylord! Yowwww!!! And they don't circle aroud too much at the end. Nice.

s1t04 after a nice salty Think (s1t03), Deal is big, as it was wont to be in this period. Gaylord double-timing some 6:15, crazy high-neck Jerry tone 6:30, even higher 6:49, doesn't sound possible. Big raging Deal here for sure. I can't imagine how loud this must have been in situ.

s2t01 Kahn does some neat stuff in HTC. Attaboy, John. Chin up.

s2t05 somehow my silly mind coins another silly acronym: MAMMM: a mile-a-minute Midnight Moonlight. Gaylord's going to need a cortisone shot after this one.

In Sum

All in all, I don't really have many complaints about these. There's lots of good stuff happening. If you need a haircut, go to Deal on any given night. But, generally, I do think there's something to be said for the effect of fresh blood on ol Jer. Looking back at my August notes, I summarized "Overall, I guess I'd say totally characteristic. Some really good guitar work, some lyrical fumbles, vocals getting rougher by the minute." I think these shows are stronger. I would certainly not play these for the unitiated - the vocals are still pretty terrible. (The tapes have the featurebug that the vocals are buried.) But I hear many interesting moments, and a higher average level, here than I did in August. Some of the credit, I think, has to go to Gaylord. This is no knock on Kemper, whom I love. But it's the same way that people sometimes let themselves go after marriage - no need to impress. But if you are looking to get with someone new, or with someone new, you want to sharpen up a little bit. So you're maybe a little more together ex ante. And, then, the new person brings new stuff - surprises. So you need to listen a little more carefully, and you  have some new stuff to respond to. That's all to the good.

This could all, of course, reflect the narrative fallacy. I know Gaylord is here, and I dream up some story that could plausibly flow from that kind of situation. You should certainly go back and check my work, if you are so inclined. But this idea that the fresh blood brought forth better from our guy is my story here, and for now I am sticking to it.

Listening notes below.

Valerie Needs a Bath, 'cause she is GRUNGY: JGB at Keystone Palo Alto, February 26, 1983

I have a stack of listening notes that don't really say much, but I do like to post them just to keep track.

2/26/83: nice tape, good performance, nothing that absolutely slays me, except that "Valerie" absolutely KILLED in this period. I know the esteemed David Minches favors the 3/5/83 version, which I have revisited and do think is very strong. They all are. Otherwise, Jerry sounds pretty ragged vocally, but plays well and does his thing in the South Bay.

Jerry Garcia Band
Keystone Palo Alto
260 S. California Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94306
February 26, 1983 (Saturday)
all-1 aud shnid-102505

--set I (5 tracks, 43:40)--
s1t01. //How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [#8:46] [0:04] %
s1t02. [0:19] (1) Catfish John [10:49] [0:04] %
s1t03. [0:21] Valerie [8:31] [0:05] %
s1t04. [0:20] Run For The Roses [5:23] ->
s1t05. Deal [7:44] (2) [0:10]

--set II (4 tracks, missing 1 track, 40:21)--
s2t01. /Sugaree [#13:29] [0:08] %
s2t02. /They Love Each Other [#7:51] [0:07] %
s2t03. /Let It Rock [#7:41] [0:08] %
[MISING: Dear Prudence]
s2t05. /Tangled Up In Blue [#10:50] (3) [0:08]

! ACT1: JERRY GARCIA BAND #15c (First show- January 13, 1983 Keystone, Berkeley, CA | Last show-June 5, 1983 Tower Theater, Upper Darby, PA)
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-guitar, vocals;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - organ;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-bass;
! lineup: DeeDee Dickerson - vocals;
! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch - vocals;
! lineup: Greg Errico - drums.

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/19830226-01

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/32137 (s2 aud shnf); https://etreedb.org/shn/102505 (this fileset)

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/6U9QR2V8UV4YwBDh9

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/11/keystone-sophies-260-s-california-ave.html

! band: JGB #15c (http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html).

ads: San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle Datebook, February 13, 1983, p. 19; San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle Datebook, February 20, 1983, p. 24.

! source: low gen cassette; Nakamichi DR-1 playback > Tascam 5000 > CDR > wav > flac, uploaded by brad tenner

! R: seeder notes: I can't tell you why the dear prudence is missing i have no notes on how or why i really don't think i missed it on the transfer so who knows but since the 1st set was uncirculated here it is. tracks renamed per etree standard.

! R: s1t01 HSII cuts in, static @ 0:30

! P: s1t02 HSII JG bungles first verse, starting with "open my eyes at night". But then he picks it up by getting back to "needed the shelter" at the start. He sounds rough vocally, for sure.

! s1t02 (1) Taper recognizes CJ, so decides to emcee a little bit: "Friends of the devil bring you 'Catfish John'."

! P: s1t03 Valerie KILLER GRUNGY version.

! P: s1t04 RFTR JG forgets to start singing the tune.

! R: s1t05 Deal sizeable level jump about a minute in

! s1t05 (2) JG: "We'll be back a little while later. Thank you."

! R: s2t01 Sugaree clips in

! P: s2t01 Sugaree kind of a wonky start vocally, like he starts off the beat. Errico sounds so great on this tape. Coming back to this a week or two later, and hear how rough he sounds vocally. 7 he starts doing some fanning, more flirtatious and allusive at this point, suggestive. More to come, I imagine. A little 10:47ff, but it doesn't get huge.

! R: s2t02 TLEO clips in

! P: s2t02 TLEO John sounds nicely, thickly engaged here.

! P: s2t03 LIR great tone, nice and scrubby first part of 6.

! P: s2t05 TUIB never really achieves escape velocity to my ears.

! s2t05 (3) JG: "Thanks a lot. See ya later."

Positively Killer: JGB at Keystone Palo Alto, December 21, 1979

I was recently surprised when I listened to JGB 12/17/79 and found the show totally lackluster. Jerry sounds listless, indifferent, tired, and he and Johnny D, the 21 year old Marin kid drumming live with Jerry for only the seventh time, seemed badly out of sync. So, I listened to the next show, 12/20, and found it to represent a considerable improvement. Deciding to carry on, I spun 12/21/79 here on its 41st anniversary. This was a relatively rare soundboard tape in early circulation back in the day, was widely traded (insofar as Garcia Band tapes were), and has long been a fan favorite for the arc'ing, soaring "Sugaree" and, especially, for the long version of a relative rarity, Dylan's "Positively 4th Street".

I am here to say that 40 years of crowds have been wise to revere this show. It kills. Let me just mark a few points, but urge you to check it out yourself, perhaps especially from shnid-138677, which sparkles.

First, I guess Johnny D and Jerry just needed a little work together --they hadn't played since 11/18, and I doubt they had practiced between time. Yes, I'm talkin' 'bout practice. So we see monotonic improvement in how these two are sync'd, and that makes everything else work. By 12/21, I do not notice any problems at all - not a one. And I hear Johnny D doing some killer stuff, e.g., in Sugaree, that validates why Garcia wanted him in the band. He's really, really good.

Second, Ozzie Ahlers plays masterfully here, going toe to toe with Garcia with tremendous confidence. This would be less and less the case over the years of Garcia's side bands - Melvin Seals was wonderful, a perfect complementary player who could take sparkling features when it was his turn, but was certainly very submissive vis a vis Garcia. Here, Ozzie occasionally steps forward over Jerry, Jerry keeps playing loudly, and, rather than backing down, Ozzie ups his attack and amplitude. They really feed off each other wonderfully this night. Nick pointed out to me that there is no synth here, just electric piano, so maybe that gives his playing a little more oomph or something, I dunno. Or, like Johnny D, having played a few gigs has him feeling warmed up. Or, it's just a great night. Whatever the case, a great night for Ozzie Ahlers, the best I can recall having heard.

Third, Garcia plays very mathematically throughout, and alternates between loud, grungy rock and roll lead guitar on the one hand and some much more gentle, patient plucking on the other. I can't explain why it feels mathematical except that it's both arithmetic (like an expanding cycle) and geometric (lots of loop and circles). He also comps as well this night for Ozzie as he ever did. See especially "After Midnight", which rocks hard.

Fourth this "Positively 4th Street" more than earns its reputation as the BOAT version. Checking in at 17 minutes, it starts with some beautiful instrumental work, as Jerry patiently sets everything up. I wasn't following along with the lyrics or anything, but I think he gets all of the verses almost entirely right, and sometimes he just barely remembers a line in time but offers it up off the beat and a little faster, providing some really nice syncopated texture. I think he even has the verse order mostly right. His guitar tone works throughout, and he comps aggressively for Ozzie, including some fanning that would normally just be him but here serves the whole unit. By the end I just wrote "I am actually pretty speechless at this point. WOW." Check it out.

Fifth, I seriously doubt that HTC was really an encore. In this period, a 35 minute second set would only have happened if they were running up on closing time. But then they would not have been able to play an encore. So I suspect it's just a four-song, 50-minute second set.

Sixth, I also seriously doubt that this comes from master reels. Maybe I shouldn't - the tape sounds absolutely fabulous, and it sounds even better, on a quick comparison, via shnid-138677, than the "Bertha" version I got with. It sounds light years better than the cassette master of the next night, which doesn't circulate but which I have heard. But all of that said, I am just not aware of anyone running reels at this point. The last Garcia Band reels I know about date from summer 1978. Betty ran reels for Reconstruction at least into July 1979, but the Garcia Band tapes from after that were limited to cassette. I dunno. It seems pretty certain there is a cassette gen here, based on cuts in After Midnight and Harder They Come. Older circulating versions have also tended to be a little bit hissy. But, I dunno. Happy to be proven wrong!

So let me just close this fun little exploration that I do think 12/17/79 was quite weak, but the band gets better each night of the three I have engaged over the last few days. The 12/21/79 show is absolutely outstanding, holding its own next to anything JGB did plus or minus a few years. I have seen folks say that they use it to introduce novices to the Garcia Band, and I can see why - the tape sounds great and the performance is outstanding. True, I can hear the limitations creeping in to Jerry's voice, which is still sweetly high but which is starting to bump into tighter range and volume constraints. It ain't perfect, but it is excellent.

Listening notes below the fold.

Checking Myself: JGB at Keystone Palo Alto, December 20, 1979

I just listened to JGB 12/17/79 and found it to be ... off. Out of sync. Low energy.

Since I don't trust how my own frame of mind can color my listening experience, I decided to turn directly to a contemporary show, in this case 12/20/79. The big degree to which these are apples and oranges have to do with recording sources, 17th being a good aud and 20th being a hissy and maybe fast sbd.

It's a night and day difference. The most recently circulated version of 12/20/79 comes out like a bat outta hell, and I mean HARD - That's Alright, Mama screams, How Sweet cooks, Catfish John and After Midnight both bring the juice. Hypothesis 1 is that tape quality is driving this. 12/20 has more high end for sure and, even more problematically, may run fast. It'd be great if someone with good pitch could check it out, though the seeder, AF, has great ears and I suspect things are OK. Hypothesis 2 is that, indeed, 12/17 was just not as good - Jerry more recently off the road, a case of the Mondays, I dunno.

I am considering spinning 12/21 as well to complete this little study, another board which I remember being flat as a pancake, so it might give a third distinct vantage.

When I saw this clipping, I remembered that I remembered this strip comic strip Momma from this period. (I was ten.) We were a Chronicle and Contra Costa Times family, my parents being morning paper readers and us being in the east bay. It was a good combo, back in the times when two such papers would cover a good gamut from global to local news.

LN jg1979-12-20.jgb.all.sbd-AF.91965.flac1644

JERRY GARCIA BAND 

Keystone Palo Alto

260 S. California Avenue

Palo Alto, CA 94306

December 20, 1979 (Thursday)

sbd shnid-91965

--complete show (8 tracks, 79:56)--

t01. That's Alright Mama [6:51] [0:19]

t02. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [9:56] [0:08] %

t03. Catfish John [9:04] [0:08] %

t04. After Midnight [12:24] [0:04] %

t05. Love In The Afternoon [9:25] [0:10] %

t06. Let It Rock [9:46] [0:10]

t07. Simple Twist Of Fate [12:15] [0:03] %

t08. Tore Up Over You [9:06] [0:08] %

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #11a

! lineup: Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals;

! lineup: Ozzie Ahlers - keyboards, synthesizers;

! lineup: John d'Fonseca - drums;

! lineup: John Kahn - bass.

JGMF:

! R: 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/19791220-01

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/22889 (same ultimate source tape, deprecated); https://etreedb.org/shn/91965 (this fileset).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/7AzlG

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/11/keystone-sophies-260-s-california-ave.html

! band: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html

! seealso: JGMF, "Sunday, Monday, What's the Difference? JGB #11a at Keystone, December 17, 1979 (Monday)"

! ad: San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle Datebook, December 9, 1979, p. 24

! listing: San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle Datebook, December 16, 1979, p. 18

! ad: San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle Datebook, December 16, 1979, p. 30

! mention: San Francisco Examiner, December 20, 1979, p. 27

! setlist: It is claimed that this was a complete, single set show, which would be very anomalous.

! historical: Bill Belcher opened.

! R: Source: SBD > ? > Cassette. 

! R: Transfer: Maxell XL-II > Nakamichi DR-8 (Dolby off) > Audiophile 2496 > Soundforge > CD-Wave > TLH > FLAC, by Andrew F. (May 2008) 

! R: Notes: This source is an improvement in sound quality over the currently circulating source (shnID-22889), with brighter sound and more consistent levels, although there is still some hiss. Both this and 22889 have the same eight songs, but in a different order. This version presents the songs as they appeared on the cassette that was transferred (four per side). The fades heard between the songs (tracks 2 thru 8) were there on the cassette. It is not clear if the cassette has the songs in the correct order as they were performed, or if this is the entire show, or possibly a compilation ... With my THANKS to Ted Gidley for providing the tape to transfer!

! P: t01 TAM is blazing a mile a minute. My goodness. Johnny D doesn't know when it's ending, but Jerry just forces the issue.

! P: t02 HSII Ozzie is soloing 4 and Garcia is comping grungily, really good. Then 4:40 or so Jerry steps up and starts wailing, Ozzie recedes, Jerry breaking off big ol shards of glass. Very good.

! P: t03 CJ late 6 over 7 just some great fanny guitar work.

! P: t04 AM as with 12/17/79 I don't think Johnny D is supplying the beat that it needs. Jerry goes around a few times rather than jumping right into the lyrics. Good high energy later in the tune.

! P: t07 STOF I don't think John had a feature here.

Makes Up In Enthusiasm What It Lacks In Precision: JGB at Keystone Palo Alto, November 12, 1983

 LN jg1983-11-12.jgb.all.mtx.141451.flac1644

update: d'oh! Already posted this one.

Crispy clean but flat and unbalanced sbd meets in-your-face but unbalanced Menke aud to make for a sweet matrix. Thank you Andrew F. for your work!

The show? It's late '83. The sets are getting shorter. The DLG is fucking killer, and the Deal makes up in enthusiasm what it lacks in precision, which summarizes the show as anything else I might say.

The ad is a great illustration that Garcia, alone among the GD guys, systematically refused to leverage his GD ties to sell tickets to his side projects. Here, we see Mickey showing no such reluctance. Of course, by this time Garcia didn't need leverage to sell tickets. He just needed a pulse and a guitar.

JERRY GARCIA BAND
Keystone Palo Alto
260 S. California Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94306
November 12, 1983 (Saturday)
*Matrix* shnid-141451

--set I (5 tracks, 42:18)--
s1t01. [0:21] How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [7:06] [0:25]
s1t02. Catfish John [10:07] [0:07] %
s1t03. [0:08] Simple Twist Of Fate [11:11] [0:15] %
s1t04. [0:05] Cats Under The Stars [7:24] ->
s1t05. Run For The Roses [4:59] (1) [0:08]

--set II (4 tracks, 47:36)--
s2t01. Rhapsody In Red [9:08] [0:13] %
s2t02. [0:13] Knockin' On Heaven's Door [13:20] [0:11] %
s2t03. Don't Let Go [16:03] ->
s2t04. Deal [8:12] [0:16]

! ACT1: JERRY GARCIA BAND #21a
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - organ;
! lineup: John Kahn - bass;
! lineup: David Kemper - drums;
! lineup: DeeDee Dickerson - vocals;
! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch - vocals.

JGMF:

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

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19831112-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/20746 (Corley MAC, shnf, not in circulation); http://etreedb.org/shn/22512 (4th gen sbd, shnf); http://etreedb.org/shn/25629 (MSC flac); http://etreedb.org/shn/141450 (unattributed* MAC flac); http://etreedb.org/shn/141668 (Corley 4th gen flac); etreedb.org/shn/142118 (MSC flac1644); http://etreedb.org/shn/141450 (Menke MAC); http://etreedb.org/shn/141451 (this fileset).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/7AzlG

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/11/keystone-sophies-260-s-california-ave.html

! band: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html

! P: overall: two relatively short sets. I have been engaging the 90s a bunch lately, and sets were typically running 60-80 minutes. We aren't into Jerry's Rock Bottom period just yet, IMO, but short sets were a leading indicator. That said, while I didn't note anything particular from set I, the Don't Let Go in set II is outstanding, with all kinds of modal jazzy spacey goodness, and overall, as I say of Deal, the show makes up in enthusiasm what it sometimes lacks in precision.

! R: Sources: Matrix of SBD ID-25629 & AUD ID-141450.

! R: Transfer: WAV > Wavelab > CD-Wave > TLH > FLAC 1644 tagged, Andrew F 03/2018

! R: Note: Gaps in the SBD source back-filled with Corley AUD portions taken from ID-22512; How Sweet It Is 0:00 > 4:22, and Rhapsody in Red 8:34 > 8:49.

! R: What a great matrix. The sbd is flat as a pancake, all vocals no guitar, the aud is all guitar and drums, no vocals.

! s1t05 (1) JG: "We're gonna take a break for a few minutes, we'll be right back."

! P: s2t01 RIR is energetic.

! P: s2t03 DLG this is really good. I can't pinpoint many specifics, but it's very jazzy and nicely spaced out. Late 15 again, but all throughout, this DLG spilled over with great ideas, then a true segue into Deal. Nice

! P: s2t04 Deal the Elmer Fudd vocals out of the gate are not great. He seems to skip a turn at a verse in the 3 minute mark, gets right to the guitar playing, which is strong. It's a little sloppy here and there, with Jerry just charging ahead and forcing various and sundry drummers and vocalists to adjust on the fly, but what it lacks in precision it makes up in enthusiasm.

Gloria NON Advenit! JGB at Keystone Palo Alto, Saturday, July 10, 1984

update 1: Jeez ... I now think Gloria must have arrived 7/10/84-7/11/84, a Tuesday-Wednesday in Palo Alto. Working backward: she is mentioned in reviews of August 1984 east coast shows. It is an iron law that the band played local warmups before leaving on tour, which would be these birthday shows. And it is just about an iron law that new members broke in on off-nights, off-the-beaten path, or both. Tues-Weds in Palo Alto fits the pattern better than a Saturday (7/28) in Berkeley the weekend of Jerry's birthday.

Having spent some time with it, I am prepared to declare that I hold that the titular show, JGB at Keystone Palo Alto on Saturday, July 28, 1984 Tuesday, July 10, 1984 represents Gloria Jones's public debut with the outfit. It thus also marks the birth of JGB #21b, THE Jerry Garcia Band, which would play together through November 1993, making it Garcia's longest-running aggregation outside the Brent Mydland-era Grateful Dead.

I have been circling around this conclusion for almost a decade now. Let me reconstruct. Older reckonings had Gloria starting on 7/21/83, or 9/30/83. In late 2010, I found an ad for 11/27/83 naming DeeDee Dickerson and not Gloria alongside Jackie LaBranch, which got me to thinking those earlier understandings were wrong. Five years later, I went through band itineraries for the November-December 1983 tour, which included DeeDee's flight arrangements and so on. So far, this has DDD present through '83, consistent with Corry's current reckoning (as JGB #21a, b. 7/20/83, d. 12/13/83).

I did a bunch of stuff in 2014. First, I conjectured that 1/8/84 was Gloria's first gig, which probably led to Corry's current dating for JGB #21b. I am now pretty sure that was wrong because, second, I found a show review from Santa Barbara (5/19/84) which namechecks the band, including DDD. This is no guarantee, of course, since JGB member names were not always  correctly rendered by local journos, but it was suggestive. And, third, I found pictures from 8/11/84 which show Gloria onstage. So, the bookends have now moved forward quite a bit - DDD was in the house 5/19/84, and almost certainly the last night of the little mini SoCal jaunt it was a part of, 5/20/84 at Wolf & Rissmiller's in Reseda. The next show was 7/28/84, part of a four-night birthday run for Garcia, warming up for the East Coast tour.

So I did some listening around those bookends, the May shows now presumed to be with DeeDee, and the July-August shows now presumed to be with Gloria. Despite obviously strong priors (and probably other bias in favor of finding a difference), I hear differences in the backing vocals. I couldn't characterize them beyond saying they are different. Basic methodology was to find clean tapes (sbd preferred) that have clear backing vocals. I ended up focusing on the first chorus of "Cats Under The Stars" on 5/18/84 (an FM-SBD tape, shnid-32156) and on 7/28/84 (sbd, shnid-14428). Again, the backing vocalists sound different. There aren't a lot of board tapes in these frames, so then I compared the opening stanza of "Catfish John" on the same 5/18/84 and the next known version, 8/10/84. Again, I detect a difference.

update 2: the original version of this post had Gloria arriving July 28th. But I now think it must have been July 10th.

On this basis and on the basis of earlier sniffing around 10/82 and 7/83, I am prepared to "call" the following:

• DeeDee Dickerson's tenure with the Garcia Band ran from 10/24/82 1/13/83 (with JGB #15b) through 5/20/84 (with JGB #21a)
• Jacklyn LaBranch's tenure with the Garcia Band ran from 1/13/83 to the end (4/23/95).
• Gloria Jones's tenure with the Garcia Band ran from 7/10/84 (with JGB #21b) to the end.

My only concern is that I thought there was a new member on 1/8/84 based on audience chatter. That, combined with the fact that journos didn't always have the most up-to-date information about who was in the Garcia Band, gives me some pause. I hope the listening analysis I did holds up!

Now, how about 7/28/84, listening notes for which I post below?

The setlist novelty here is Allen Toussaint's "Get Out Of My Life, Woman", which came in strong and stuck around pretty much to the end of the Garcia Band. The JGB never varied its setlists that much (certainly not relative to the GD), and I don't really have the data I'd need to map song debuts, but this is just about the only new-to-the-repertoire tune I can think of between, say, 1981 and 1985. Are there any others, like, is there a single other cover tune that JGB added to the repertoire between, say, "Eleanor Rigby" in 1980 (sort of) and "It Stoned Me" in 1986? Anyway, great tune, done well, and at points "hot-hot-hot", per my notes.

The show, overall, offers plenty of sloppy pep. I hated when he couldn't figure out how to end "Cats Under The Stars", and this version suffers from that. There's plenty of mumblyverse, slop, and hot energy in tunes like "Tore Up Over You". Not bad, all told.

Listening notes below the fold.

GD Frost '85 matrix

Man, this recording from TDIH sounds nice to these ol' ears.

Triple-Booked Vassar: October 6, 1973

My post on Old And In The Way in Santa Cruz on Friday, October 5, 1973 referenced some of the band's contemporaneous gigs. One of these was a gig the next night in Berkeley.

In comments, I then noted that Vassar was advertised with Tut Taylor that same Saturday at the Exit/In in Nashville, whereupon commenter extraordinaire runonguiness pointed me to Andrew Bernstein's California Slim (2013, p. 139), which published a handbill showing Jerry, Vassar and the OAITW crew at Homer's Warehouse that same night.

So, ex ante, Vassar was triple-booked this night.

While I haven't checked for the Tut Taylor record that was being recorded this night, there is no tape of any OAITW, alas. But, thanks to various miraculous institutions (the concert review) and technologies (microfilm), I happen to know he and Jerry and the rest played the Berkeley gig, because Len Lyons (1973b) evaluated it in the next week's Berkeley Barb. He loved Asleep At The Wheel, which opened, and he admired Vassar, but he had little but contempt for Jerry's banjo playing and OAITW's whole style. I paste the review below.

Mr. Lyons was no Garcia fan. A few months earlier, he had excoriated the recorded-for-Fantasy July 10, 1973 JGMS gig (see, among others, here, here, here and here), urging readers, "Don't bother buying the record. Five years from now, you may be hearing it for free over Safeway's MUZAK system" (Lyons 1973a). He was, as I say, not a fan.

Insert Pithy Title Here: JGB at Keystone Palo Alto, November 12, 1983

Killer "Don't Let Go", and two short sets that foreshadow darker days ahead. Great job on the matrix by AF!

update: d'oh! posted a second time about this one. DLG so nice, I had to post it twice.

JERRY GARCIA BAND
Keystone Palo Alto
260 S. California Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94306
November 12, 1983 (Saturday)
*Matrix* shnid-141451

--set I (5 tracks, 42:18)--
s1t01. [0:21] How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [7:06] [0:25]
s1t02. Catfish John [10:07] [0:07] %
s1t03. [0:08] Simple Twist Of Fate [11:11] [0:15] %
s1t04. [0:05] Cats Under The Stars [7:24] ->
s1t05. Run For The Roses [4:59] (1) [0:08]

--set II (4 tracks, 47:36)--
s2t01. Rhapsody In Red [9:08] [0:13] %
s2t02. [0:13] Knockin' On Heaven's Door [13:20] [0:11] %
s2t03. Don't Let Go [16:03] ->
s2t04. Deal [8:12] [0:16]

! ACT1: JERRY GARCIA BAND #21a
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - organ;
! lineup: John Kahn - bass;
! lineup: David Kemper - drums;
! lineup: DeeDee Dickerson - vocals;
! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch - vocals.

JGMF:

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

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19831112-01

! db:http://etreedb.org/shn/20746 (Corley MAC, shnf, not in circulation); http://etreedb.org/shn/22512 (4th gen sbd, shnf); http://etreedb.org/shn/25629 (MSC flac); http://etreedb.org/shn/141450 (unattributed* MAC flac); http://etreedb.org/shn/141668 (Corley 4th gen flac); http://etreedb.org/shn/141451 (this fileset).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/7AzlG

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/11/keystone-sophies-260-s-california-ave.html

! band: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html.

! P: overall: two relatively short sets. I have been engaging the 90s a bunch lately, and sets were typically running 60-80 minutes. We aren't into Jerry's Rock Bottom period just yet, IMO, but short sets were a leading indicator. That said, while I didn't note anything particular from set I, the Don't Let Go in set II is outstanding, with all kinds of modal jazzy spacey goodness, and overall, as I say of Deal, the show makes up in enthusiasm what it sometimes lacks in precision.

! R: Sources: Matrix of SBD ID-25629 & AUD ID-141450.

! R: Transfer: WAV > Wavelab > CD-Wave > TLH > FLAC 1644 tagged, Andrew F 03/2018

! R: Note: Gaps in the SBD source back-filled with Corley AUD portions taken from ID-22512; How Sweet It Is 0:00 > 4:22, and Rhapsody in Red 8:34 > 8:49.

! R: What a great matrix. The sbd is flat as a pancake, all vocals no guitar, the aud is all guitar and drums, no vocals.

! s1t05 (1) JG: "We're gonna take a break for a fe minutes, we'll be right back."

! P: s2t01 RIR is energetic.

! P: s2t03 DLG this is really good. I can't pinpoint many specifics, but it's very jazzy and nicely spaced out. Late 15 again, but all throughout, this DLG spilled over with great ideas, then a true segue into Deal. Nice

! P: s2t04 Deal the Elmer Fudd vocals out of the gate are not great. He seems to skip a turn at a verse in the 3 minute mark, gets right to the guitar playing, which is strong. It's a little sloppy here and there, with Jerry just charging ahead and forcing various and sundry drummers and vocalists to adjust on the fly, but what it lacks in precision it makes up in enthusiasm.

Catholics listing the Legion

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

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

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

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

h/t Yellow Shark

nothing wrong with this 8/21/83 tape

https://archive.org/details/gd1983-08-21.fob.sonyECM220t.kirschner.miller.95687.flac24

Source (FOB) Sony ECM-220T -> Cassette Master (Sony TC-D5M/FujiMetal Tape/Dolby B)
Lineage Cassette Master (Nakamichi DR-1/Dolby B) -> Sound Devices 744T (24bit/96k) -> Samplitude Professional v10.1 -> FLAC/24
Taped by Michael Kirschner
Transferred by Charlie Miller

There is not a freaking thing wrong with this tape. If you ever saw a show at the Frost, you know the sound and feel of it. It's the sam mics Rango used in October '82, I see.

Band is hot as shit and sloppy as hell. Two thumbs up for an August day.

GarciaLive 7: JGB from Sophie's, 11/8/76

Fresh tape.

Tracklist, via Nick: http://www.jambase.com/article/donna-jean-godchaux-find-leads-garcialive-volume-seven
Sneak preview of one track via David Browne: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/premieres/hear-jerry-garcia-bands-jubliant-live-mighty-high-from-1976-w431440.

At dead.net. a commenter says

In today's Relix magazine they interview Donna Jean who found some more tapes in a box in one of the Godchaux houses. It's a Betty board. This is November 8th 1976 at Sophie's in Palo Alto. Band was Jerry, Keith & Donna, John Kahn and Ron Tutt. Comes out August 19th. Not seeing it on www.jerrygarcia.com or amazon as advertised. Songs include 'Ride Mighty High' and 'Mission In The Rain'

http://www.dead.net/store/1970s/daves-picks-volume-19#comment-851376

Very cool - looking forward to it.

more Garcia summer 1991 cancellations

Jerry Garcia Band (electric) was scheduled to play Frost Amphitheatre at Stanford University on July 14, 1991, but July 11th announced that

Citing "mounting health problems," Jerry Garcia has postponed his upcoming tour dates, including his show scheduled for Sunday at Frost Amphitheater.

This ended up being canceled.

I had earlier noted that that summer's Eel River show had been moved from 7/13/91 to 8/10/91, speculating that Jerry was rehabbing his latest fall from the wagon on the heels of yet another GD intervention after the Denver Dead show (6/28/91). The rare candor of the Stanford cancellation announcement feels to me like strong confirmation of rehab as the reason.

I also found a ticket stub at Wolfgang's Vault showing JGB at The Telluride Mid-Summer Music Festival, in beautiful Telluride, CO, Friday, July 19, 1991. (Also billed that day: Jackson Browne / Joe Cocker / Allman Brothers Band.)  This performance was also canceled.

So Gar is off the road a little bit, giving up some paydays trying to get himself clean again.

REFERENCE:
"No Jerry Garcia concert Sunday," Stanford Daily, July 11, 1991, p. 18.

Junco Partners - LN jg1976-01-10.jgb.all.aud-cook.8077.shn2flac

Down the road, came a junco partner (right now, wow-oh-wow)
He was loaded, he was loaded, he was loaded, as loaded as can be
Lord, he was knocked-out, knocked-out, knocked-out and loaded
And he was singing, he was singing, he was singing this song for me

Some great American music in this set, including several Garciaverse singletons and other rarities, but things never really achieve escape velocity to my ears. James sounds generally rather subdued, though the tape isn't picking him up well for whatever reason, and though he sounds open and hopeful toward the end:

I came way out here to California to tell you all how much I love ya. I'm gonna show ya how much I love ya. All the things that I looked forward to last year, for kicks, is just a thing of the past. All for you. So you can - slowly but surely - get it back together. Will you promise me that you'll do that? And love me? Do I hear 'Yeah'!?

Mostly posted as raw materials.

Jerry Garcia Band
Sophie's
260 S. California Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94306
January 10, 1976 (Saturday)
David Cook aud shnid-8077 shn2flac

--set I (8 tracks, 62:47)--
s1t01. //All By Myself [#7:54] [0:09]
s1t02. (1)  Classified [2:08] ->
s1t03. Right Place Wrong Time [5:20] ->
s1t04. United Our Thing Will Stand [15:15] ->
s1t05. You Are My Sunshine [11:38] [0:02]
s1t06. Junco Partner [4:42] [0:02]
s1t07. Drown In My Own Tears [4:40] [0:05]
s1t08. Tore Up Over You [10:45] [0:06]

--set II (5 tracks, 61:27)--
s2t01. //It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry [8:34#] [0:24]
s2t02. //Goodnight Irene [9:35#] [0:04]
s2t03. Let It Rock [11:11] [0:07]
s2t04. //Slowly But Surely [17:27#] [0:27]
s2t05. (I'm A) Roadrunner [13:22] [0:14]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #2
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: James Booker - piano, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-b;
! lineup: Ron Tutt - drums.

JGMF:

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

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19760110-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/8077 (this fileset); https://etreedb.org/shn/151418 (s2p horrifying sbd, deprecated); http://etreedb.org/shn/155518 (MSC).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/A20r6

! venue: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/11/keystone-sophies-260-s-california-ave.html

! band: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html

! seealso: For more around this period, see JGMF, "Jerry's January 1976" (on 1/76 as *the* pivotal moment in Garcia's side projects), "James Booker, Classified" (general on Booker), "'Gimme Some Chords, Jerry Garcia, Gimme Some Chords!'" (1/7/76 rehearsal tape), "Flight Of The Bumblebee" (on the 1/9/76 gig tape), as well as Corry's "January 9-10, 1976: Sophie's, Palo Alto, CA: The Jerry Garcia Band with James Booker".

! R: field recordist: David Cook

! R: field recording gear: unknown mics > Sony TC-110 cassette?

! R: I used to call this a terrible tape, but it's not a terrible tape. It's a flawed tape, for sure, though how much is PA and how much is the challenge of encoding sound on oxide as it comes at you is an open question. All the vocals, Booker's and Jerry's, are too low, the piano is a little buried in the mix, and the crowd is superchatty around the mic. But the guitar, drums and bass sound clear, and good within the ample room feel the tape provides. We are lucky to have this tape to study.

! R: s1t01 All By Myself cuts in, not much missing

! P: s1t01 ABM of course it's nice to hear Jerry play ABM with the guy who, if he didn't lay down its original boogie-woogie Nawlins swing piano (he might have), ended up perfecting it.

! s1t02 (1) JG introduces James Booker, though I can't really make out what he says.

! s1t04 UOTWS "I wrote this song in the New Orleans Parish Prison".

! song: "You Are My Sunshine" (s1t05): #singleton, an American classic, associated especially with former Louisiana governor Jimmie Hood.

1 song: "Junco Partner" (s2t06): a classic American road, drug and prison song.

! song: "Drown In My Own Tears" (s1t07): This was previously unidentified, and it's true that the lyrics are devilishly hard to make out on this tape. But this is definitely what it is. Ray Charles made a Billboard R&B #1 hit out of it for Atlantic in 1956. #singleton

! R: s2t01 ITALTL, ITATTC cuts in, not much missing

! R: s2t02 Goodnight Irene cuts in, not much missing

! P: s2t03 LIR is somnambulent, I am 4 minutes in and I want it to end.

! R: s2t04 Slowly But Surely cuts in, not much missing

! P: s2t04 SBS 4 Jerry playing some nice stuff. James sounds really subdued this night. 9 Jerry is going minor key, and we are entering a stickier, deeper space, the improvisational room in the JGB-Booker show structure. These people chatting near the taper need to STFU and listen to what Booker is playing, as a few other audience members were doing; they yelp, fittingly, in 11 as Booker's strike-and-rebound fingering, finely tuned percussion, sounds through the space - wow. Around 11:30 he quotes "Flight Of The Bumblebee", and Garcia responds with some low, swarming, unmistakeably beelike buzzing notes - excellent. @ 14 James works the crowd: "All right. I know it might be kind of late to say it, but it come from the bottom of my heart: Happy New Year! Aww yeah! Swinging first. Frantic first and all that jazz. I came way out here to California to tell you all how much I love ya. I'm gonna show ya how much I love ya. All the things that I looked forward to last year, for kicks, is just a thing of the past. All for you. So you can - slowly but surely - get it back together. Will you promise me that you'll do that? And love me? Do I hear 'Yeah'!? Will you do it for me? Yeah! Everybody say yeah!"

Flight Of The Bumblebee

LN jg1976-01-09.jgb.all.sbd-tjs.8386.shn2flac

More Booker raw materials.

Jerry Garcia Band
Sophie's
260 S. California Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94306
January 9, 1976 (Friday)
112 minute sbd Kahn Shriver shnid-8386 shn2flac

--set I (7 tracks, 54:05)--
s1t01. //All By Myself [#7:47] (1) [0:54]
s1t02. Goodnight Irene [10:35] ->
s1t03. Für Elise [0:51] ->
s1t04. Slowly But Surely [11:41] ->
s1t05. Please Send Me Someone To Love [10:31] (2) [1:01]
s1t06. It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry// [4:31#]
s1t07. //Tore Up Over You [#5:24] (3) [0:40] % dead air [0:09]

--set II (7 tracks, 67:22)--
s2t01. //Neighbor Neighbor [#2:05] [1:20]
s2t02. United Our Thing Will Stand [11:40] ->
s2t03. Classified [8:35] ->
s2t04. Baby Won't You Please Come Home [10:16] [0:39]
s2t05. Tico // Tico [6:22#] [0:14] % [0:07]
s2t06. Let It Rock [12:18] [1:59]
s2t07. (I’m A) Road Runner [11:29] (4) [0:16]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #2
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: James Booker - piano, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-b;
! lineup: Ron Tutt - drums.

JGMF:

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

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19760109-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/8386 (this fileset)

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/A20r6

! venue: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/11/keystone-sophies-260-s-california-ave.html

! band: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html

! ref: Arnold, Corry. 2012. January 9-10, 1976: Sophie's, Palo Alto, CA: The Jerry Garcia Band with James Booker. Lost Live Dead, May 24, 2012, URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/05/january-9-10-1976-sophies-palo-alto-ca.html, consulted 12/31/2013. 

! seealso: JGMF, "'Gimme Some Chords, Jerry Garcia, Gimme Some Chords!'" (1/7/76 rehearsal)

! seealso: JGMF, "Junco Partners" (1/10/76)

! seealso: JGMF, "Jerry's January 1976" (discussing 1/76 as *the* GOTS pivot)

! R: MSR > ? > 1C > 1D > 1CD > EAC > SHN. This version, via Ryan Shriver, is more complete than the previously circulating version. Extraction using EAC, tracking using CD Wave, .shn encoding using mkwACT, and proper sector boundary verification using shntool.

! R: shn2flac JGMF 1/10/2015

! R: seeder note: "A very light, intermittent clicking reoccurs throughout the recording, though it is primarily audible during tuning breaks." The mix is all over the place.

! R: s1t01 All By Myself fades in, not much missing; light pops @ 0:02, 0:05, 0:07; mix/level fluctuations first 0:20.

! P: s1t01 ABM @ 5 James starts singing, but his mic is out. 5:35 Garcia was going to solo, but Booker does the equivalent of another verse. More singing, but no mic, over 6. I wish I could hear these vocals. Garcia just playing the basics, while Booker is grooving, switching keys, etc. 6:35 Jerry provides some good guitar, James vocalizes with him for half a measure, and then it's Garcia leading. The mix is super wonky, only guitar, drums and Garcia vocals, very little piano, no bass or Booker vocals. So Jerry pulls the rip cord at 7:31.

! s1t01 (1) JG: "This is James Booker playing the piano. [inaudible]" Some joker calls out "White Rabbit" at 8:22.

! R: s1t02 Goodnight Irene painful static and mix fluctuations, ca. 1:30, but this is the mix starting to settle in with Mr. James Booker, the mix settling in.

! P: s1t02 "This song was written by a dude called Leadbelly - whoop-whoop!" Continued monologuing by James, steps up to the song 1:18. By 2:45 Booker is swangin' and sangin', he sounds great.

! P: s1t04 SBS what a great song. James is playing something that sounds more like a Wurlitzer at 4. 4:53-5:07 "Flight Of The Bumblebee" (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8alxBofd_eQ). 9 Garcia is playing some great, soaring guitar. The recording buries it (bass is badly overloading now). John is playing some interesting stuff right around 11, he tries to tie on a knot in it, Tutt hears him, but it takes awhile, and 25 seconds later Booker calls a close to it.

! s1t05 (2) JB: "Thank you very much. This is my first appearance here, and I must say I feel flattered in being so well rec-- --accepted. I love you all from A to Z - I love you that much, and further beyond. As a matter of fact, I'd like to do a song I wrote, that contains those lyrics, named 'So Swell When You're Well' This song was recorded by Aretha Franklin and Fats Domino." Stage talk. Booker: "Oh, we'll come back to that [laughs sheepishly]." Sounds to me like they've got a setlist written out, maybe? They roll into Train To Cry.

! R: s1t06 Train to Cry cuts out

! R: s1t07 Tore Up cuts in; static

! s1t07 (3) JG: "Thank you. It's great to have everybody dancing - it's nice - real nice. I think we're gonna take a break and try to figure out what else to play. We'll be back in a little while. Thank you."

! R: s2t01 Neighbor Neighbor fades in

! P: s2t01 NN enters on James Booker playing this one real, real blue - doesn't sound like they are totally together on the arrangement, but Booker has this way down deep in the "House Of The Rising Sun" groove, as it should be. Man prolly knew him some nosy neighbors. Jerry trying to end it, James just playing real loud for a bit, he notices and then shut it down. Can't wait to hear more Booker coming up!

! R: s2t02 UOTWS vocals low in the mix.

! P: s2t02 UOTWS no real comments.

! P: s2t03 My God, at late 7 things melts into dissonance, led by James Booker and Jerry Garcia, melts into Booker doing lounge blues.

! s2t04 BWYPCH: "I'd like to dedicate this whole set to one of my stronger influences, Mr. Ray Charles." After the song, can hear Jerry call "Hey Booker!" and say something.

! setlist: s2t05 was labeled "Fandango", but "Tico Tico" is how it is labeled in the rehearsals, and it certainly sounds a good deal like TT (though I am not 100% about this).

! R: s2t05 Tico Tico cut/splice @ 0:35, unknown missing. I note a tape discontinuity later in the track, after the song, but I don't think there's anything really missing there, very nearly a real-time little splice.

! P: s2t06 LIR no comment.

! s2t07 (4) JG: "Thank you. See y'all later on."

The vocals are as bad as Garcia ever inflicted on a paying audience: August 26, 1984

LN jg1984-08-26.jgb.all.aud-dearth.84568.flac1644

OK, turns out I was most of the way through a listen to this, so I finished it.

On the one hand, that wasn't so bad. I don't feel too unclean. On the other hand, as Jimmy Fallon's teenaged character Sara might say -- "Ew".

First, tip o' the cap to Mr. Don Dearth for heading down to Palo Alto, fresh tape and batteries, the mics and the deck, and walking out into the early summer morning with a fine aural commemorative. And thanks to John Moses for getting this tape into the world.

Second, my prior opinion of this show, that it may be the single worst Garcia performance in the canon, is based in a 2007 listen, only tersely noted. I now think that's an overstatement, but my main position now is just that it's hard to verbalize summary judgments of multidimensional phenomena. In brief, my assessment is that one aspect of the show is just so bad that it cannot help but color assessment of the whole show. I'll elaborate.

"Ew"

The vocals are as bad as Garcia ever inflicted on a paying audience. To my taste, late 1984 (this period through December) is Jerry's vocal nadir - he is just absolutely, fundamentally shredded up. Under the overall heading "Jerry sounds absolutely awful", I note the following specifics.

• ! P: s2t01 MITR starts off as one of Garcia's worst recorded performances. In 2007, more terse than I seem to be now, I wrote simply "MITR is a mess". Even though it's not quite as badly off-key as some other versions --he really had trouble arranging this song to suit his ever changing vocal abilities-- he botches the words and just sounds rather lost at the start. I think he was *this close* to asking for a mulligan. He finds his footing a little bit, "tonight I would be thankful for any dream at all". Indeed.
• ! P: s2t02 LITA Jerry again clams up the beginning, this time with some ill-plucked strings.
• ! P: s2t04 DLG Garcia has completely lost his voice.

On the Other Hand ...

There is some excellent guitarwork, including in sometimes-throwaway "They Love Each Other" and the new-to-the-repertoire hottie, Allen Toussaint's "Get Out Of My Life, Woman" (GOOMLW) -- "there is absolutely nothing wrong with this." Even 2007 me, even after the pooch-screwing that starts "Love In The Afternoon", conceded that "LITA has some pretty nice playing." Oh, and "Don't Let Go", as ever, is a treat that could bear repeat engagements. (That said, I think the next night's version outdoes this one.) If you had paid your however-much-it-is to get it, you would have seen some world class music being performed.

... and the servings are so small

What about quantity? Later, especially after getting busted in Golden Gate Park in January 1985, Jerry regularly crossed the entertainment industry's version of baseball's Mendoza line (a .200 batting average, honoring a light-hitting Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop) - the Minelli Line: 45 minutes of big show per paid admission, and that's it. Cabaret economics is like Manchester Capitalism, without the morals. You want more? Pony up for the next show, and pass me my drink and cigarettes. The most egregious example of Garcia doing this is probably an acoustic duet gig with John Kahn in Kahn's Beverly Hills hometown, May 31, 1985, when Garcia's often-fawning (and, at this point, regularly-suffering) fans brought a chant of "bullshit! bullshit!" down around him and forced him to cough out a few extra numbers before turning them out.

This first set dangerously skirts the Minelli Line, while set II is about an hour, a decent quantity that's more like batting .250. The show is not as long as the next night. But more importantly, this Saturday show just isn't as good as the next night. The weekend's pair of "Don't Let Go"s provides an easy contrast: 16 minutes versus 22, especially at the relatively brisk pace they were playing it with at this time (nearly optimal to my ears, BTW), is the difference between Jerry striking the fly or mostly just swaggering around it, seeing it, knowing he could reach for it if he tried, but the moment never quite culminates, for whatever reason. Interesting that I noted this on the Sunday version: "go-for-it' continuation early in 13 by Jerry. Very long and interesting DLG" - that's the difference between the two versions - on 8/26 he passes up the opportunity to stretch the song out, while on 8/27, at just the same point, he seizes it.

One way to think of this is the linear-and-additive-effects model - take the average. The guitar playing can be good, but there aren't enough of them. The vocals are horrible. DLG interesting. Below average show for the period (compare next night) but, as I said from the show two days earlier (8/24),

if this is rock bottom, it's not that bad.

But I just can't escape those bloody vocals. I want to suggest that there's something so qualitatively bad about these vocals that we must condemn this show as an affront to the professionalism that Garcia, for all of his travails, almost never failed to strive to achieve. (This is not weasel language. He failed to achieve a standard of professionalism many times, as anyone who's trying hard to do something hard to do must. The key is in being conscious of the standard, and in the trying to uphold it.) Those short sets in 1985 can define the show, to my satisfaction, as a ripoff, and thus a professional violation, a violation of the should-be-inviolable pact with your paying customers. And I might have to rule similarly about these late August '84 vocals, and say that keeping yourself in such a state that you can't, y'know, sing, and charging people to hear you try to do so anyway, to general icky embarrassment, doing all of that violates some standard of professionalism that Garcia professed to uphold, which he almost always did - except for during this period, 1984-1985.

And you know that on some level, for as extensively as he bandaged all those frayed endings in a poppy gauze, dulled the annoying sensibilities, he knew - he knew, and he was mortified. This is pure speculation on my part, of course. But Garcia's a smart guy. He knows the vocals are rough to such an extent, on some nights, that no amount of compensatory guitar wizardry can really make it OK. He's thought very consciously over a two-decade professional career about his relationship with fans, with customers, their respective rights and responsibilities to each other. He's violating that, in this window. He's violating that with 30-something minute sets (generally the next year), and he's violating that with cringeworthy vocals here. And I am sure that somewhere and somehow he regrets it. But, of course, sometimes it's as if one's hands were tied.

So, no, while I am not interested in blame, I am interested in evaluating Garcia as a professional musician, and, here, I don't want to give this guy a pass. I want to hold him to his own standards, to which he almost always held himself. But not in this period. For Garcia, a professional musician to the core of his being, that's Rock Bottom.

Listening notes below the fold for this Sunday night show during the busy and interesting month of August 1984 (see also 8/11/84, 8/12/84, 8/24/84, 8/27/74).