"When you add a new member, it becomes a new band"

 LN jg1979-11-07.interview.26mins.fm.xxxxxx.flac1644

This is a nice little interview with Garcia after the 11/6/79 Philly Dead show. He talks about "Mission In The Rain" and "Reuben And Cérise", picks some gospel Dylan to spin, tells the story of the Rambler Room gig in '78, and drops the titular line, which I like a lot.

JERRY GARCIA
WMMR Studios
addy
Philadelphia PA zzzzz
November 7, 1979 (Wednesday) - 2:30 AM
26 min FM cassette

! historical: WMMR-FM Radio interview with Lyn Kratz & Michael Tearson at 2:30AM

01 intro [0:58] %
02 Brent in the band, Making Go to Heaven album [6:02] %
03 Story of Reuben & Cherise, Jerry's new guitar, Acoustic shows, Bertha the fan
04 Mission in the Rain, Egypt trip, Smaller venues, GD films, Eclectic listening
05 Terrapin II Suite, thanks & outro
06 DJ Talk [0:45]

! R: Transfer: TDK D90 > Nakamichi CR-5A > Edirol FA-66 > Wavelab > CD-Wave > TLH > FLAC 1644 tagged.

! R: seeder Note: This interview occurred in the wee hours of the morning after the 11/06/79 Spectrum show.

! R: seeder note: Thanks to Poordevil and Sounddawg for this historic tape!

! t02  "When you add a new member, it becomes a new band"

! t02 GTH: "I think it's our best album." Yeesh.

! t03 song R&C: movie Black Orpheus. "It's the Orpheus story, and the Black Orpheus adaptation of the Orpheus story. Plus we transmogrified it and put it into New Orleans and Mardi Gras. And we changed the outcome somewhat. It was one of those songs that was very slow growing. It started off with a melody that I was fooling around with, while we were working on Blues for Allah, and I gave a copy of the melody to Hunter, and he took it home and fooled with it, fooled with it, fooled with it. He came up with a lot of different ideas. And then, independently of the original melody, he set a group of ... those lyrics. And I liked the lyrics better than I liked the original melody. So, I dumped the original melody, held onto the lyrics, and, after fooling with the lyrics, and look at em for a long, long time, and really liking them, and really wanting them to work, I came up with the new melody."

! t03 @ late 5:50 11/17/78 "Dan Healy has a cousin who is involed in Loyola University in Chicago. They were doing a little small benefit for a famine relief thing in Pakistan, and so we got involved in doing just that - an acoustic show, Bob and I and Phil playing electric bass very quietly, and Mickey playing a little snare drum with brushes. ... we rehearsed it about 15 minutes before we went in and did it. We enjoyed it really a lot."

! t04 song: MITR. "It's about SF. It's about me in San Francisco. It's as close to autobiographical as it's possible for me to get working with another guy. ... Hunter is able sometimes to write if I would say ... it's very personal. It's him speaking about me. When I do the song, it's a very personal song, I'm talking about myself, my life.

! t04 @ 7:20 "I've always been a Dylan fan." "Music is music." "Even the worst music doesn't hurt anybody ... wound anybody." Jerry picked "Gotta Serve Somebody" to listen to.

Visions of Johanna

Powerful viewing of a gut-wrenchingly beautiful performance, a dying man grasping at life, stumbling a time or two, laying bare the depth and beauty of the human condition. Thank you, videographer, thank you Bob Dylan, thank you Jerry.

Finally Busting out Cats at the End of the Cats Tour: JGB at the Philly Spectrum, March 16, 1978

 LN jg1978-03-16.jgb.all.aud-petrunis.124066.flac1644

Jerry Garcia Band
Spectrum Theater
3601 S. Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19148
March 16, 1978 (Thursday)
Petrunis aud shnid-124066

--complete show (10 tracks, 87:45)--
t01. The Harder They Come [10:36] % [-0:02]
t02. [+0:02] /Mission In The Rain [10:40] %
t03. /That's What Love Will Make You Do [10:25] %
t04. /Gomorrah [#7:15] %
t05. //Tore Up Over //You [#7:#48] %
t06. /Love In The Afternoon [#10:44] %
t07. //I'll Be With Thee [5:25] %
t08. //Cats Under The Stars [#7:14] [0:02] %
t09. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [9:11] %
t10. /Midnight Moonlight// [#8:23#]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #4a
! Member: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! Member: John Kahn - el-b;
! Member: Keith Godchaux - piano;
! Member: Buzz Buchanan - drums;
! Member: Donna Jean Godchaux - vocals;
! Member: Maria Muldaur - vocals.

JGMF:

! R: 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/19780316-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/28790 (unattributed aud, possibly this source); http://etreedb.org/shn/124066 (this fileset).

! map: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=3601+S.+Broad+Street,+Philadelphia,+PA&hl=en&sll=38.997934,-105.550567&sspn=7.587664,16.907959&t=h&hnear=3601+S+Broad+St,+Philadelphia,+Pennsylvania+19148&z=17

! venue: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/06/spectrum-and-spectrum-theatre-3601-s.html

! review: Matt Damsker, "Garcia Offers Some Homespun Folk-Rock," Evening Bulletin (Philadelphia), March 17, 1978, p 34. The band's "affection for casual variety was well received by approximately 6,600 fervent followers of the Dead." His basic characterization: positive about their "homespun folk-rock".

! see also: Mike Grosswald and Glen Blavat, "Jerry Garcia’s Band Under the Stars," Happytimes (Philadelphia), March 31, 1978, p. 15. See notes at http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2010/11/reading-notes-grosswald-mike-and-glen.html.

! R: field recordist: Rich Petrunis

! R: field recording gear: Sony handheld recorder

! R: field recording media: 1x Lafayette low bias cassette, no NR

! R: transfer: nak dragon > tascam hd-p2 24/96 > pc > adobe audition 2.0  > cd wave > tlh flac, transfer & seed by Rob Berger march 2013.

! R: notes: "thanks to LL's powrtoch for loaning me his Dad's masters. great sound for a hand held and a classic Mystery Cats set." There is some nice color, including folks near the taper, perhaps the folks he was with, struggling with folks standing in front of them.

! P: t01 HTC Garcia's guitar work in 5-6 minute range is potent, aggressive, exploratory. Very, very nice.

! R: t01-t02 tracking maybe a bit off. MITR cuts in.

! P: t02 MITR vocals sound OK at this point, relatively speaking. Having had the day before, two of the last three, off seems to have helped. I love the way Jerry is singing MITR here. This song wore well (thematically, if not vocally) as he suffered his travails. And I love the harmony arrangements with Donna Jean and Maria, the one's "white gospel heartiness" with the other's "white  blues sultriness" (Damsker 1978). A little madonna-whore thing going there, but whatever.

! R: t03 TWLWMYD I suspect taper might have stood up, because a minute or two in, the hi-hat is much more present. Or maybe the PA was still settling in. The Damsker review notes the below-GD-par sound quality.

! R: t03 TWLWMYD clips in

! R: t04 Gomorrah clips in

! R: t05 TUOY cuts in, splice @ 4:18

! P: t05 TUOY never really takes off, to my ears.

! R: t06 LITA clips in.

! song: Cats Under The Stars (t08): This is the first time played on this tour. Funny to be "touring behind" (really, because they were catastrophically late, "touring in front of") an album named Cats Under The Stars, and not breaking out the title tune, which I gather Jerry hoped would garner some airplay, until midway through. I suspect they finalized (and possibly began working on!) a serious live arrangement for the song on the off-day (the day before). The two known versions from '77 (11/21 and 12/2) were definitely at the "work in progress" stage.

! setlist: It is impossible to tell from this recording whether HSII and MM, or just MM, or neither, represented an encore. I would guess that MM was the encore, but I can't really tell for sure.

! P: t10 MM sounds to me like JG and BB are not on the same tempo to start, but it could be the boominess of the room and all the ambient clapping. This is a nice energetic version of MM. But Jerry is losing steam at the end.

! R: t10 SQ change, slightly more muffled, @ 3:45. Maybe had to put mics down, or someone stood in front of taper? Opens back up @ 8:02. Straight bad tape cut on the back-end, but by this time it's just as well -- not that much missing, I would guess.

! itinerary: Fly out Wednesday, March 8th (all but Tutt: United #72, DC8, SFO 9:45 a.m., arrive Cleveland 5:05 p.m.; Tutt: United #78, LAX 11:30 a.m. - Cleveland 6:40 p.m.) to start tour in Cleveland on the 9th. Shows 9-10-11-12, Monday 3/13 off. Show Tues. 14th in Boston, another day off, then this show in Philly. Staying at the Hilton, 10th & Packer, "across the street" from the venue (http://goo.gl/maps/NyEhx). This is hardly a downtown location, but it's right across from the gig and probably much better than the next night's digs, at the HoJo's in Clifton, NJ. Levon Helm and His R.C.O. All Stars opened, scheduled to go on at 7 pm, JGB on at 9 with an 11 pm closing. Five shows the three nights following, then home sweet home on TWA #25 on Monday 3/20.

Cat in the Limelight: RN Grosswald and Blavat 1978

Grosswald, Mike and Glen Blavat. 1978. Jerry Garcia’s Band Under the Stars. Happytimes (Philadelphia), March 31, 1978, p. 15.

Grosswald-Bavat 1978: This is a really nicely done piece from what I assume was a Philly underground paper, Happytimes, around the time of the JGB’s visit to that town in mid-March (3/16/78 at the Spectrum Theatre). Garcia had actually promoted Cats Under the Stars pretty vigorously, including interviews at least on March 10 in Rochester, March 11 in Pawtucket, and March 17 in NYC. It is well-established that Garcia poured himself into the album, loved it from an artistic point of view, and felt the sting of its commercial failure very, very deeply. I’d go so far as to say that he gave up trying after CUTS dropped through the charts like a stone. But that’s a matter for another post (or a book chapter!). For now, some reading notes.

Grosswald-Bavat 1978, 15: CUTS described as “brilliant” [CUTS]

Grosswald-Bavat 1978, 15: “The evolution of the Jerry Garcia Band has pretty much mirrored the development of the Grateful Dead. What started at as loose, informal jazz sessions at San Francisco clubs several nights a week has developed into a tight ensemble that writes and produces its own material”. JGMF: interesting and spot-on analogy. There’s a common, underlying evolutionary process in both bands, from spontaneity and “chaos” to institutionalization and “form”. [GD-JGB]

Grosswald-Bavat 1978, 15: “’We started playing by pure coincidence ten years ago,’ recalled John Kahn, ‘in a real small club in ‘Frisco called the Matrix which hasn’t existed for at least eight years. It used to be a Monday night jam session type of gig. Jerry was with organ player Howard Wales, myself, and Bill Vitt, and I’ve been playing with Jerry ever since. The jamming went on for years; most of the time five or six people would join in.’” [JGMS]

Grosswald-Bavat 1978, 15: Kahn: “’Wales quit and I got Merl Saunders, who I knew from my jazz playing days, to join us.’ Being known only as The Group in the beginning is indicative of how loose these early sessions were. [JGMF: yes!] ‘Nobody thought of having a name or any kind of focus besides showing up and jamming. We tried to avoid all the bullshit that we could,’ Kahn added. [JGMF music without bullshit]

Grosswald-Bavat 1978, 15: addition of Tutt and Fierro gave birth to “Legion of Mary” [LOM]

Grosswald-Bavat 1978, 15 quoting JG from a ca. 1975 interview, re LOM: “Legion of Mary is a different sort of group for me. I don’t write material for it. We play other people’s songs that we like and just have a good time. It’s like a low profile is more desirable for me. The Dead and this group are two different trips. And this one has a lot less pressure associated with it because we haven’t made an effort to get famous at it. That’s one of the things that makes it possible. I couldn’t take the pressure of being a double celebrity. It’s a drag just being it once.”

Grosswald-Bavat 1978, 15: recording CUTS: JK: “was recorded in the Grateful Dead warehouse where they rehearse in San Rafael. Garcia has a 16 track studio machine and we got a real compatible Neve board from the budget of the next hundred million albums.” [JGMF, NB: would be in debt from JGB, for awhile, least!]

Grosswald-Bavat 1978, 15: Kahn speaks to the consonance of the JGB recording process: “We all sort of think the same way musically and the production worked out real well in contrast to other situations I’ve been involved with where everybody contributes different ideas thus you end up nowhere. That can be a real drag.” [JGMF: Reflections?]

Grosswald-Bavat 1978, 15: after the JGB tour, Kahn goes out with Maria Muldaur, including in the area April 10 (opening for Bromberg at the Valley Forge Music Fair). GD will go on tour starting April 6^th in Florida.

Grosswald-Bavat 1978, 15: Maria Muldaur: “Maria Muldaur is now a permanent member of the Garcia Band … ‘I totally cherish being part of a musical experience like this,’ she elucidated. ‘I never was a Dead Head, but I’ve become involved because my old man is the backbone, the right hand man of the Garcia band. John and Jerry have a particular musical exchange happening. Their music has evolved and they’ve helped each other grow musically immensely and that’s when I came to respect them. At first I went to their gigs and thought this is pretty loose,’ Maria continued, ‘but then I saw that the place where they come from musically has nothing to do with putting on a tight show. There’s this intimate interchange and there’s an openness that happens. He may bumble a few notes, but that absolutely doesn’t matter ‘cause of where he takes it. And then to see the whole audience get it every time and not just applaud a solo, but levitate out of their seats. That’s a special thing to be a part of.’”

Grosswald-Bavat 1978, 15: “During the recent [GD?] hiatus, Donna spent time setting up a nursery school with Mountain Girl, Jerry’s old lady.” I didn’t know Donna and MG were close.

Grosswald-Bavat 1978, 15: “Cats Under the Stars, the Jerry Band’s best album to date, is sure to propel the Band to new heights of musical stardom. And while Jerry Garcia’s worst fears of becoming a double celebrity are being realized, apparently the feeling is ‘Cats in the limelight / feels like it’s all right.’” That is pretty brilliant.