Dirty Business

Jackson, Blair. 2014. Classic Track - New Riders of the Purple Sage, 'Dirty Business' Mix Online, January 1, 2014. URL
http://mixonline.com/classic-tracks/classic_track_-_new_riders_of_the_purple_sage_dirty_business/, accessed 10/3/2014.

I have had this in my "xfer-incoming" folder since it was published, still need to read it. It looks awesome. Note to self.

Grungy: JGB at the Starry Night in Portland, December 6, 1984

LN jg1984-12-06.jgb.s1s2p.aud-Rice.124941.flac1644

The second half of 1984 is Garcia's Rock Bottom period. But it's not all terrible, and some of it is rather amazing. Ain't that always the way.

My reaction to 12/6/84, a Thursday at the Starry Night in downtown Portland, is similar to my reaction to 8/24/84. The vocals are unprofessional, embarrassingly bad. For a guy who testified to feeling responsible to give at least a professional effort to his paying fans, out of respect to them, in this period he tested and, on some nights and some dimensions, transgressed that boundary. Yet his guitar playing is incendiary, not just hot (really silvery hot), burning, but also very expressive. That's the thing that contravenes my priors. I would not expect such fluidity and articulation to come out of the fingers of a stone-cold junkie. Opiates anesthetize. Yet there's an awful lot of feeling in the guitar playing here.

What a weird little tour, the "1984 Northwest Tour", per the handbill. I have a few random thoughts.

• I infer from the handbill (which looks like it could have been Garcia's personal copy ... har har) that the Friday 12/7 show at Starry Night was sold out and so isn't listed.
• I won't say "only Garcia" and his operation would call this a tour. I guess it is, strictu sensu. But it ain't much of one. 
• I assume that Windham Hill Records paid for Michael Hedges, maybe for the handbills, etc., defrayed costs for Garcia. 
• Every time he's in Eugene, we have to look for a Kesey connection, though I don't have any evidence of one.

Let me elaborate a bit more on one point.

Whenever people make the argument that Garcia's side projects were about drug money for John and him, I think they have something like this little jaunt in mind. Like the handbill, it's a little filthy, grungy, unclean. You know Garcia was rocking the same black t-shirt and the same icky cords night after night, dandruff covering his shoulders, sweating like a greased pig, pungent, feculent (per wk), fingers covered in tar from smoking Persian. He and John had scraped the bottom of the barrel with an acoustic duet tour out east for John Scher, now, a week later, a week later, up to the PNW. It all feels a little like chomping down on the tinfoil from Garcia's bindles. A little zingy.

That's probably "right", but so what? We all gotta eat. Jerry and John in this period had needs, and needs cost money, and you gotta go out and get paid if you want them fulfilled. The nature of the needs is kind of irrelevant. It's not like the guy is lazing around the house all the time. This is the end of a year in which I count 128 musical events, mostly live shows  by the Grateful Dead, the JGB and the Garcia/Kahn duet. That might not sound like much for the average American who works fifty five-day weeks. But the gig must be physically exhausting. I get physically exhausted, to the point of soreness, lecturing about political science. Standing up and blaring away for a few hours in a smoky little place in seedy downtown Portland would take it out of you. Then there's the road. At some point I'll be able to calculate some distances, and 1984 would be a fine place to report on them. But the dude was zigzagging the country all year long. And, if you believe in the frictionless market (I call her Sparkle, my unicorn), then private returns equal social returns, and Garcia probably generated a shitton more revenue in 1984 than any of us did. There's always that about the Dirty Fucking Hippie.

At some point around this time, my sense is January 1985 but it could have been December 1984, the GD and other loved ones apparently stage an intervention and tell Garcia to get clean. Ever the passive-aggressive, he fuck yous them by getting busted in Golden Gate Park on January 18, 1985. I think this 12/6/84 show is an interesting fleck in the whole mosaic, deeply flawed but strangely compelling, a Human Thang.

**update: see also LN for the next night, 12/7/84**

Jerry Garcia Band
Starry Night
8 NW Sixth Avenue
Portland, OR 97209
December 6, 1984 (Thursday) - 7 PM
74 min s1s2p Otto Rice aud shnid-124941

--set I (5 tracks, 53:15)--
s1t01. [0:36] How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [8:47] [0:13] %
s1t02. [0:15] Knockin' On Heaven's Door [13:25] [0:15] %
s1t03. [0:05] I Second That Emotion [9:32] [0:02] %
s1t04. [0:15] Mississippi Moon [7:12] ->
s1t05. Tangled Up In Blue [12:32 (1) [0:05] %

--set II (2 tracks, 21:17, missing last three songs)--
s2t06. [0:14] Sugaree [12:35] [0:11]
s2t07. [0:03] Get Out Of My Life, Woman [8:07] [0:06] %
[MISSING: Simple Twist Of Fate]
[MISSING: Run For The Roses]
[MISSING: Midnight Moonlight]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #21b
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-b;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - keyboards;
! lineup: David Kemper - drums;
! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch - vocals;
! lineup: Gloria Jones - 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/19841206-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/20325 (sbd); http://etreedb.org/shn/124941 (this fileset); http://etreedb.org/shn/127067 (Bruce Young flac2496); http://etreedb.org/shn/127068 (Bruce Young flac1644).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/W2atf

! venue: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/07/starry-night-8-nw-sixth-avenue-portland.html

! band: JGB #21b, THE Jerry Garcia Band (http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html).

! R: field recordist: Otto Rice;

! R: field recording equipment: 2x Sennheiser 441 > Sony D5M

! R: field recording media: 1x cassette, unknown stock;

! R: field recording location: front row balcony;

! R: transfer: Marantz PMD 510 > HHB 850 CD/0 by Otto Rice (jjoops's copy); extraction, mastering, encoding by Jamie Waddell.

! R: seeder comments: "from the Jjoops Tupperware, unconfirmed exact lineage; Very Good Audience Recording by Otto Rice ... seeded at Lossless Legs  7 4 2013 a Project **GEMS** mastered by Jamie Waddell"

! R: yes, nice tape.

! P: The vocals are horrific. Want to cringe in embarassment for Our Hero? Check him out trying to sing @ 2:45 of Miss Moon. The guitar work sounds fine.

! P: t01 HSII Garcia's vocals are truly painful to behold. But, as was so often the case, his guitar work seems not to suffer. The song goes on a couple of extra measures at the end, while Jerry thinks about how he's gonna do the final vocal inflection without a functioning voice.

! P: t03 ISTE brutal vox. The ladies sound good behind him. You can hear why he wanted those big voices behind him on the chorus. He needs to vocally carry as little as possible. Jerry solo late 2 over 3, some tempo management issues early in the solo.

! P: t04 MM horrific, horrific, vocals. @ 2:45 he clams badly. Guitar solo 3:30ff sounds good.

! t05 (1) JG: "We're gonna take a break for a little while, we'll be back in a little bit."

! R: t05 TUIB seeder said it "has a few small glitches, but is mostly complete [missing from sbd source]." IMo these are more than small glitches. From 6:12 to the end, there are lots of tape gremlins.

! P: t05 TUIB oh my God these vocals ... The humanity! He flubs first verse, but it's the croaking that really gets me. Ouch. The guitar playing is quite good, e.g., in late 10-minute mark. Kemper hitting sharply, Melvin watercoloring with purpose. Nice. The "compensation hypothesis", that as has voice got really bad, he made up for it with creative and powerful guitar playing, is worth entertaining.

! P: t06 Sugaree features some scintillating guitar work, e.g. 8-minute mark. Seeder GEMS loves the Sugarees from this time period (e.g., August 1984), and I can see why. This is good.

! P: t07 GOOMLW the note Jerry hits around 15 seconds in is so freaking tasty. He is doing some really fast runs, almost like Viola Lee Blues, while he tries to lock in the tempo. Nice!

even though I am on hiatus until ca. March 2013, I

thought I'd leave a breadcrumb here for the return. Lotsa new info on the Third Betty Batch, or info new-to-the-record, anyway.

Paumgarten, Nick. 2012. Deadhead: The afterlife. New Yorker, November 26, 2012, URL http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/11/26/121126fa_fact_paumgarten, consulted 11/20/2012.

Also, I never knew that Betty and Brent were an item. But then again, there's an awful lot of stuff that's known that I've forgotten.

LN jg1974-08-24.jgms.all.sbd.10162.shn2flac

On Saturday, August 24, 1974, the Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders played the Great American Music Hall at 859 O’ Farrell Street, San Francisco, CA, 94109. I have written about this show once before, just to lay out a few contradictions around the date/venue combination, which I basically dismiss. I am of the view that this show happened as we have it in The Garcia List despite lots of other weirdness around the August 1974 record of shows (about both of which – The Garcia List, and August 1974 confusion—I will post before too long).

Here I report on what I hear through shnid-10612, a very nice soundboard recording from the First Betty Batch, taped by the incredible Betty Cantor-Jackson.

Tape Provenance and Quality

The etree copy is identified as 10" MSR > C > DAT > CD > EAC > SHN. It entered the lossless realm in around July 2002 via jjoops, who had received CD copies from Katy Miller. For reference, Eaton lists this date as follows: "08/24/74 Great American Music Hall, San Francisco Ca - complete; 4.6, 135min, Sbd, A1D0, Reel Master > Cass 1 > Dat 0, 48k; 7inch Master Reel @ 7.5 ips 1/2trk > Tascam 122mkIII 1st Gen Cass > 3800 x0."

The first question I have is whether these are different reel sources, one of them 10” and another 7”. It is possible. As I note, these recordings almost have the feel as if they were intended for a live release. I have seen hints and allegations of various 1^st gen mixdowns involving this date, 8/28/74, and other dates, perhaps around the release of the “9/1/74” Keystone show (which is not from a single show, but from several). That said, it’s probably safest to assume that these came from the same 1^st gen cassettes that Eaton has on DAT, and possibly from Rob’s DAT itself.

Either way, these look to be part of the First Betty Batch. Recall that the First Betty Batch and the Second Betty Batch were tapes that were bought in the storage locker auction ca. 1986 and digitized by a large crew of people, many of whom had the idea that they should be freely and widely circulated. As reported in Dwork et al. (2000), Harvey (2009) and various other sources, the daisy chain involved in transferring these tapes (7” and 10” reels) was as follows: 1x Technics 1506 reel to reel playback deck (Bob Menke's) > 1x Sony PCM-501ES (Dougal Donaldson's) > 1x Panasonic VHS hi-fi VCR deck > 3x Beta hi-fi VCR decks > 1 other VHS hifi VCR deck > 2 cassette decks. I don’t know to whom the various other decks belong, nor the extent to which their Garcia tapes have circulated. I know that some of Dougal’s Garcia PCMs emerged (e.g., 7/21/74, maybe 7/22/74, maybe 6/4/74), and that there other tapes that are identified as MSR > cassette (such as the Sacks version of 7/21/74 [shnid 10127] and this 8/24/74 tape). That may imply that whoever got cassette copies also circulated them independently, that Dougal himself had cassette copies, or some other arrangement.

The tapes are beautiful. Even with the limits imposed by the (various) A>D steps (e.g., wasn’t the Sony PCM 501ES doing A>D at 14bit/44.056kHz?) and an assigned cassette gen, underneath it (and, don’t get me wrong, it’s not far underneath) lies a gorgeous, full, rich, balanced, crisp Betty Cantor-Jackson recording. She has amazing ears.

Personnel

This is Garcia, Saunders, Fierro, Kahn and a drummer. I believe the drummer is Paul Humphrey. Argument against is that Bill Kreutzmann is known to have played the day before (8/23/74) at the Berkeley Community Theater for the Ethiopian Famine Relief Benefit. Argument for is that this sounds like Humphrey to me. I don’t trust my ears, but this is my thinking. update 20181211: drummer is probably BK. As I note below, I think this is the period in which Martin really starts to step forward. I like that, but others find it less appealing. Kahn is really good here, and Garcia is right, if a little be restrained.

Song Notes

Some notes on some of the songs, straight from my listening notes.

“La-La” [Allan | Scofield | JB] is understood as a Martin Fierro composition and features him on flute. I know little about the song, beyond that it was released on Keepers (1997). As I have conjectured, August 1974 is where Martin Fierro really starts to step in front of this band. He leads the first five minutes here with his flute. In the 4-min mark he uses some really nicely controlled echo and reverb. I suspect if we go back and compare we'll find that he only really started using this sort of thing from July 1974. Folks who object to Martin's playing (I am not generally among them) will probably like his playing less and less from July 1974 to the end of the year. (I haven't revisited true 1975 LOM shows with this hypothesis in mind, so let me not comment on his playing there yet.) During this time, Garcia is very subtly strumming a vaguely Brazilian rhythm behind. Really tasteful, "back" stuff. Betty's recording really does La-La justice, too. Everything is mic'd just perfectly. the 9-minute mark, after some really nice gentle Merl solos, John Kahn steps forward a little, even more prominently in the 10-minute mark. Everyone is really tight here. @ 11:15 La-La I think Merl is the one who signals a decay of the song structure, which really interests me. Garcia is always ready to go to space, so it's probably part of their playing together that Jerry restrained himself and put Merl in front of it (at least in this case). I need to revisit, but he does something right around this time that decays the notes, I can't describe it. By mid-to-late 11-minute mark, Garcia has heard him and he signals that he's ready to get spacy. John is there, too. Late 12-minute mark, there is some spacy knobbing going on. I have typically associated this sound with Martin's saxophone, but here it is. I wonder if it's a synthesizer that Merl has that can either be keyed to the saxophone or switched over to a knob or pedal or key that Merl has? Late 12-minute mark, just some nice decayed jazzy spacing it. Martin has picked the flute back up (he had laid out for a few minutes, or maybe was just doing that funky space sound I just described) Garcia speeds up 14:12, tries a little fretting, Martin is doing the reverb and echo on his flute again. Early 15-minute mark the drummer digs in and tries to set a faster pace, getting underneath John who's going that speed as well and scaling around, a little fast wiggle @ 15:47ish. Jungle echo'ing, gotta be wired up through Martin's flute? Yep, listen @ 16:50, where it's coming out as hybrid flute and jungle echo. Garcia leads a more urgent decay @ early 17-min mark. I find this material engaging. I think some would critique it, but I find it to be pretty productive jamming for this whole time. The song clocks in around 18 and a half minutes, but it doesn't sound to me like it meanders. The transition to PMTWGR is flawed but interesting. Martin quite explicitly blows the “La-La” theme on the flute, while Kahn quite explicitly (and rather more definitively) asserts the “People Make The World Go Round” intro. Bass v. flute, so to PMTWGR we go!

“People Make The World Go Round” [Allan | JB] is absolutely fantastic. It starts with the bass-led intro, beautifully accompanied by the flute, Merl running some nice gentle organ keys, Garcia just strumming, nice tight-string rhythm happening. A little palate cleanser after the space out. It's interesting to me that this is indeed how this band used PMTWGR, a warmdown and not a jam vehicle. In the one Aunt Monk version in circulation (2/14/75), it was a 20+ minute echofest (and really good). I have always assumed that these guys got the song from Milt Jackson's 1973 album Sunflower (my CD version of which is part of a "CTI Catalogue Re-Launch Series", produced by Didier C. Deutsch, ZK 65131, 1997), since on that album the song precedes Freddie Hubbard’s “Little Sunflower” [Allan | Scofield | JB] (called just “Sunflower” on the Milt Jackson album), which this group also played (9 times between 5/9/75 and 7/4/75 in various personnel/band configurations). (Blair Jackson has said this latter tune was brought in by Martin, FYI.) But beyond their propinquity on the Milt Jackson album, there’s no particular reason to imagine that PMTWGR came from there. Composed by the Stylistics’ writing team of Thom Bell (music) and Linda Creed (lyrics), and released on that band’s eponymous 1971 album, it was covered by inter alia Michael Jackson and Ramon Morris (on Sweet Sister Funk). These guys could have gotten it from anywhere, and listening around a little bit I don’t hear a distinct arrangement that jumps out as the source for Merl/Martin/Jerry and the rest of these guys.

“(I’m A) Road Runner” [Allan | Scofield | JB] was written by the Holland/Dozier/Holland team at Motown and first released by Junior Walker & The All Stars on the 1965 record Shotgun. JGMS had started playing it around the start of 1974, and IMO it got better by August 1974 than it had been earlier. The song lives right at the top of Garcia's vocal range in this period, in fact probably just a bit beyond it. When he first started singing it, to get to these notes he sort of parodied them, which is just not a good emotional register for Garcia. It doesn't make me as uncomfortable as Marmaduke's {RIP} treatment of Honky Tonk Women, which had a worse to-be-taken-seriously-ratio for a more parodiable song, but I don't like those early Roadrunners (see 2/5/74, 2/9/74 for reference). Look it ain't a Dylan song, but it's a good piece of Americana and it deserves some respect, dammit!

Jimmy Cliff’s “Sitting In Limbo” [Allan | Scofield |JB] is an early version for this band (third time), performed with extreme care to good effect. It almost sounds like Garcia thinks he's on the radio, that's how careful he's being. Almost like he thinks he's being recorded for release. The vocals are as perspicacious as Garcia vocals could get. Despite that this song lives in a really tight spot for his vocal range, he doesn't crack or clam up, not once. He doesn't sound too thin (though a critique might say it is, indeed thin). He doesn't stumble once on the lyrics. His guitar playing is reasonably safe, but pretty well flawless. I think he really likes and respects this song. And, again, Betty's tape does this quiet song great justice. Now, this sort of thing doesn't light me up (I like the rough as much as the diamond), but if you want to hear Jerry paying attention, this is as good an example as any.

Overall

Great recording, pretty good show. La-La -> PMTWGR are the highlights, for me.

Listening Notes after the jump.

Workingman's Tracker's JGMS and LOM Project

Update: thanks to the good folks at WT, the forum posts are now public. Thank you!

There is a Garcia/Saunders and Legion of Mary Project going on at Workingman's Tracker, organized by user SteveSw. He's posting great reviews of about one recording per day, using only the best sources from '71-'75. The project is scheduled to run until November 5th!

I don't think non-members of Workingman's Tracker can read the information. I wish there were a way they could make that conversation public (as the WELL with Deadsongs.Vue: Literature of the Grateful Dead, which basically includes all of David Dodd's amazing Annotated Lyrics!). I have this fear that really interesting information/analysis/insight will emerge there, but the fact that it's firewalled as a private discussion might keep that stuff out of reach. We have seen in the history of the whole GD List-Making Tradition, about which I'll eventually do a post or two, that things that were known can become unknown. Hate to see that happen any more than it should.

Anyway, there's good music spinning and SteveSw is writing beautiful reviews. They are up through Garcia and Saunders "5/23/73, Ash Grove" (a misdate, I argue), and there could be lots of good discussion and deep engagement with these shows. Great concept for a project. Thank you, SteveSw!

GSCBF8: Skunk Cabbage: Sunday, April 28, 1974, ca. 19:05

Part of a series of back-of-the-napkin thoughts about the Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival (GSCBF), held in San Rafael, CA from Friday, April 26th through Sunday, April 28, 1974.

Previous installments:

GSCBF1: just a mention

GSCBF2: a plea for a release of the film and tapes!

GSCBF3: Sunday 4/28/74 afternoon schedule

GSCBF4: Greenbriar Boys (a.k.a. "Frank Wakefield"): Sunday, April 28, 1974, ca. 15:00 

GSCBF5: Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys: Sunday, April 28, 1974, ca. 16:15

GSCBF6: Doc and Merle Watson: Sunday, April 28, 1974, ca. 1700 

GSCBF7: Steve Martin and John McEuen: Sunday, April 28, 1974, ca. 1900

Next up on Sunday evening is Skunk Cabbage, a local bluegrass band. On a cursory scan through Google Images I wasn't able to get a picture of this act, so I scanned one out of the concert program.

At some point I will have lots to say about this band, which is apparently not related to this Skunk Cabbage in Vancouver, BC. There's very little that I find online upon a quick glance, so it'll be nice to lay down that marker.

Let me for now just drop two things. First, Vassar used to play with them a bit. One of the SK players told me that Vassar first sat in with them the day after the last OAITW show. Except for the reunion at the GSCBF, the latest known OAITW show was November 4, 1973 at Sonoma State College, so the date in question would have been Nov. 5th. Anyway, it seems this was quite a regular thing and it is an interesting connection. Second, GSCBF co-organizer Judy Lammers was SK's manager at the time. This partly explains why SK got such a sweet, prime-time slot in the festival schedule. Again, I plan on trying to learn more and making a future post just on Skunk Cabbage.

OK, here's what I note about their set at the GSCBF. My own ignorance explains why I don't know the names/instruments and some of the song titles. I would be grateful for your help in illuminating in any way you can!

Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival
Marin County Veterans' Auditorium Building and Grounds
San Rafael, CA

<--Steve Martin and John McEuen precede-->

Sunday, April 28, 1974 ca. 19:05

Source: "Debbie reel 4/27/74" CD 2 (end) and 3 (start) of 4
Provenance: unknown sbd recording (?maybe MSC > C?) > reel
Transfer: AKAI GX 636 playback > Apogee mini ME @ 24/96 > Apogee Mini DAC (monitoring/mastering) > lynx one soundcard > wavelab 5.0 > CD, by Matt Smith.
Lossless encoding: EAC > CDWave > TLH (FLAC level 8).
Tagging: Foobar 2000.

(15 tracks, 33:43)

GSCBF-1974-04-28-1905-Skunk_Cabbage-t01. Steve Martin intro, tuning [2:16]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1905-Skunk_Cabbage-t02. untitled Skunk Cabbage 19740428-1 [0:30] [0:10]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1905-Skunk_Cabbage-t03. Salty Dog Blues [2:40] [0:06]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1905-Skunk_Cabbage-t04. song introduction [0:27]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1905-Skunk_Cabbage-t05. Foolin' % Around (Buck Owens) [2:17] [0:05]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1905-Skunk_Cabbage-t06. song introduction [0:27]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1905-Skunk_Cabbage-t07. Leather Britches (traditional) [3:20] [0:07]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1905-Skunk_Cabbage-t08. talk [0:33]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1905-Skunk_Cabbage-t09. Once a Day [3:27] [0:37]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1905-Skunk_Cabbage-t10. I Wish You Knew (Loovin Brothers) [2:50] [0:44]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1905-Skunk_Cabbage-t11. Let Me Fall [1:56] [0:10]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1905-Skunk_Cabbage-t12. talk (1), band introductions [1:02]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1905-Skunk_Cabbage-t13. Salt Creek [3:07] [0:46]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1905-Skunk_Cabbage-t14. The Crawdad Song [2:48] [0:56]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1905-Skunk_Cabbage-t15. Hello City Limits [2:05] [0:14] %

Lineup:
Tom Rigney - fiddle, vocals;
Bob Bruen - mandolin, vocals;
Marc Brinitzer - lead guitar, vocals (on "Once a Day")
Don Laughland - rhythm guitar, vocals (on "Let Me Fall")
Steve Gallagher - banjo;
Dave Carpenter - bass, vocals.
[NB: sounds like Douglas Bird is introduced on bass?]

Notes:
! % = tape discontinuity
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-1905-Skunk_Cabbage-t02. The untitled song is presumably an easily identifiable standard
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-1905-Skunk_Cabbage-t05. Foolin' Around gap @ 1:21-1:24
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-1905-Skunk_Cabbage-t09. "Once a Day" a C&W song ?originally recorded by Connie Smith?' SK learned it from a band called Country Boy.
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-1905-Skunk_Cabbage-t10. Bob and Mark sing "I Wish You Knew" as a duet
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-1905-Skunk_Cabbage-t10. Joking reference to degeneracy of the crowd.
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-1905-Skunk_Cabbage-t10. "We're gonna let Don sing one here" (Let Me Fall)
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-1905-Skunk_Cabbage-t12. (1) "Boy, it's amazing to be up here in front of seven million people or whatever it is."
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-1905-Skunk_Cabbage-t14. says band comes from Walnut creek

<--Ramblin' Jack Elliott follows--> 

GSCBF7: Steve Martin and John McEuen: Sunday, April 28, 1974, ca. 1900

Part of a series of back-of-the-napkin thoughts about the Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival (GSCBF), held in San Rafael, CA from Friday, April 26th through Sunday, April 28, 1974.

Previous installments:

GSCBF1: just a mention

GSCBF2: a plea for a release of the film and tapes!

GSCBF3: Sunday 4/28/74 afternoon schedule

GSCBF4: Greenbriar Boys (a.k.a. "Frank Wakefield"): Sunday, April 28, 1974, ca. 15:00 

GSCBF5: Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys: Sunday, April 28, 1974, ca. 16:15

GSCBF6: Doc and Merle Watson: Sunday, April 28, 1974, ca. 1700

After the sequence of three sets covered in posts 4, 5 and 6, we have a dinner break on the program. I am assuming that things came back from dinner time on schedule. I know this sounds like an unreasonable assumption given festival-giving in general and this group of folks in particular (a later set will hint that there is generalized degeneracy present!), but the sets seem to conform to a pretty strict festival scheduling and things don't feel too terribly rushed to my ears. I could be 100% wrong, but anyway.

Anyway ... assuming things are on schedule, then I assume that the dinner break ended promptly at 7, or at least the emcee (Steve Martin, yes, that Steve Martin) came on then. What we have next is Steven Martin's emcee act taking musical form (we all know he plays banjo), duet-style with John McEuen of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (NGDB).

McEuen was a particularly big deal at this event and in this moment in time because, though I am no expert on all of this, I believe he was a key mover behind the late 1972 "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" (WTCBU for my short) project. This brought together a bunch of old-time country and bluegrass leading lights with some of the younger crowd, with the explicit aim of building bridges across generations and genres. Many of the summer 1973 bluegrass festivals were advertised as culminating in a WTCBU reunion, and the GSCBF followed suit. Jimmy Martin had mentioned in his set that he was on later with the Dirt Band, and he was one of the WTCBU old-timers. I'll try to make a post about the overall overlap of these two projects.

Anyway, Martin and McEuen get together for a five-minute bit of hokey comedy and banjo playing.  Here's what note from their set.

Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival
Marin County Veterans' Auditorium Building and Grounds
San Rafael, CA

<--Doc & Merle Watson, then dinner break precede-->

Steve Martin and John McEuen
Sunday, April 28, 1974 ca. 19:00

Source: "Debbie reel 4/27/74, CD 2 of 4"
Provenance: unknown sbd recording (?maybe MSC > C?) > reel
Transfer: AKAI GX 636 playback > Apogee mini ME @ 24/96 > Apogee Mini DAC (monitoring/mastering) > lynx one soundcard > wavelab 5.0 > CD, by Matt Smith.
Lossless encoding: EAC > CDWave > TLH (FLAC level 8).
Tagging: Foobar 2000.

(6 tracks, 3:57)

GSCBF-1974-04-28-1845.Martin-McEuen-t01. % tuning [0:05]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1845.Martin-McEuen-t02. unknown Martin-McEuen 19740428-1 [0:52]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1845.Martin-McEuen-t03. Steve Martin talk [0:44]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1845.Martin-McEuen-t04. "Duelling Banjoes" [0:21]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1845.Martin-McEuen-t05. Devil's Dream [1:37]
GSCBF-1974-04-28-1845.Martin-McEuen-t06. Steve Martin talk [0:15]

Notes:
! % = tape discontinuity
! Both are playing banjo.
! GSCBF-1974-04-28-1845.Martin-McEuen-t02. unknown Martin-McEuen 19740428-1 should be easily identifiable to someone with more knowledge. Please help!

<--Skunk Cabbage follows-->

Where was Garcia on July 4, 1973?

I don't really know. I have him with the GD at the Universal Ampitheatre in Universal City, CA on June 29 - July 1, and then at the Lion's Share on July 5 with Merl.

July 4 was a Wednesday, but Garcia seemed like a vaguely patriotic guy (in a U.S. Blues sort of way!) who might want to gig on the 4th.

Now consider the following two scans:

According to a May 1973 ad in Bluegrass Unlimited, Old and in the Way and "Jerry Garcia (Grateful Dead)" were listed as scheduled to appear at the 1st Annual Pennsylvania Old Time Mountain-Country Gospel-Bluegrass & Blues Folk Music Arts Festival. I'll call that the 1APOTMCGBBFMAF for short. Based on fliers held in the archives of the Southern Folklife Collection Festival Files at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (Folder #506), this seems to have been held in Valley View Park, York, PA ("off I-83").

Now, this scan is from the next month's issue of the same magazine. It no longer lists Garcia (Don Reno and Bill Harrell have been subbed in), but it does list Old and in the Way for the 4th. Vassar Clements is also billed for that day (with Doug Dillard), as he had been the month previous.












There are two fliers in the SFC collection, both undated. One lists "Jerry Garcia from Grateful Dead" (underneath "Peter Rowan from Seatrain" -- think they were trying to appeal to the youth/rock audience?). The other does not, and makes no mention of OAITW, either.

Someone who was involved in the bluegrass festival scene at this time says that he doesn't remember seeing Garcia at this 4th of July festival. Combined with the printed materials, this seems to suggest that OAITW/Jerry were originally scheduled to play, or at least discussions were happening, but it didn't come to fruition.

This still leaves open the question of what Jerry was doing on Independence Day 1973, but I do doubt that he attended the 1APOTMCGBBFMAF.

The summer of 1973 bluegrass festival scene certainly warrants a post on its own.