Enter Tom Fogerty

update 20230712

I have no idea why I inferred Tom Fogerty saw JGMS at Keystone Korner on 5/20/71. It seems more likely to have been 5/22/71, and his arrival may mark why they made tapes of the next two nights.

Further, I have no idea why I inferred he first joined in Berkeley on 5/26/71, when Tuesday 5/25 is even more likely, based on the "off-night" clause of The Iron Law of Breaking in New Band Members.

So, as of 7/12/2023, I am calling 5/22 the visit and 5/25 Tom's debut.

/update 20230712

A couple of years ago I discovered this youtube content called "Goodbye Media Man", featuring video of Tom Fogerty, Merl Saunders, Bill Vitt, various studio engineers and others unknown to me, working on a track by that same title.

Here is the description (published October 9, 2013):

Tom was the original singer of the Blue Velvets and the Golliwogs, both of which evolved into Creedence Clearwater Revival. Tom Fogerty had the chops to be a star in his own right. Within the band (Doug, Stu, Tom and John), Tom was overshadowed by younger brother John, who's talent was clearly evident. "Goodbye Media Man", recorded in 1971, was Tom's first solo single after leaving Creedence. A great track with solid musicianship and hooks. To my knowledge, this is the first time this video has been posted. Tom left us far too soon, passing on September 6, 1990. Back in the day, he was a friend, and I miss him - Ken Levy, Brooklyn NY / Addlestone, Surrey England

Wow.

I continue to be amazed at the material that continues to crawl out of the woodwork. It gives me hope for the Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival (GSCBF) film, among many other things. This post will pin down the metadata but also talk about how remarkable is the wealth of material we have available to study, across many different media - and why we get to enjoy that wealth.

Metadata
Location

Appears to be Berkeley, both at Fantasy Studios and at Tom Fogerty's professorial manse with a bunch of kids running around.

Date

The video is only dated 1971. Recall that Tom Fogerty had announced on February 2, 1971 that he was leaving the lucrative Creedence Clearwater Revival over differences with the band's dominant force, his little brother John, and to spend more time with his four children.[1] We also know that the House That Creedence Built, the new Fantasy Studios facility at 10^th and Parker in Berkeley, had come online right around this time. Local journo students Kathie Staska and George Mangrum ("KG") ran an amazingly rich column in the Hayward Daily Review starting in February, and got a tour of the new facility from the one and only Ralph Gleason, now working full time for Saul Zaentz at Fantasy.[2]

KG reported on March 11 that Tom had started work on his solo album.[3] Just after the solstice, on June 24th, KG reported that the record was done and was set for release the next week,[4] also noting that he'd be part of Merl Saunders's band for a release on the same label. On June 29th, Robert Hilburn noted in the LA Times that "Goodbye Media Man" was set for imminent release. So the video presumably features material from this late-winter to early-summer span. Intriguingly, a youtube posting of the "Goodbye Media Man" single associates a date of "the 17th of June 1971" with it:

With all of this, the studio film could come from anywhere between March and June, but I strongly suspect that the home material is from closer to June, as the single neared or achieved completion. Update: John Wasserman mentioned that Tom was cutting "Goodbye Media Man" in his Chronicle column of June 21st, so this is very much in the nearing-completion stage - right around the solstice.

Forging The Garcia-Fogerty Connection

Our Hero comes up in the interview, and I think this comment sheds some light on the Tom Fogerty version of the Garcia-Saunders band.[5] Tom says

I only want to jam around right now and perform with as many people as possible. I’ve learned more about music this last month [i.e., May-June] from meeting other people than during the whole time while I was with Creedence ... One night, I just happened to go over to Keystone Korner. Merl Saunders had invited me over to hear him and Bill Vitt and Jerry Garcia, and within a week I was up on the stage with 'em. And, uh playin' with 'em, and at that point I decided that that was ... the kind of music that I wanted behind the song. It was within about three days that the thing came together with Merl.

When might this have been, exactly? Let's investigate. Jerry and Merl had played the following Keystone Korner gigs from the first Freddie Herrera - Jerry Garcia Joint through mid-1971:

Table xxx. Garcia at Keystone Korner, 11/25/70-6/16/71. Follow this link for a more complete table of Garcia's Keystone Korner gigs. Click image to enlarge.

Tom's narrative and the overall evidence best fits Tom having seen JGMS on 5/20/71,[6] and sitting in with them on Wednesday 5/26/71. This frame fits "within a week" from Tom's filmed reckoning, and I am pretty confident about the interval, if not the specifics. "Three days" from Tom is a little unclear to me, certainly could suggest it was other nights than the ones I pinpoint. So, why these?

This is going to get really convoluted, and, despite my best efforts, I assume it will be somewhat hard to follow. You can just take my word for it, or you can try to follow me into the data.

First, there is tape of 5/20/71 and 5/21/71, the first out of the Garcia Vault and the second locked away there until its 2020 release. May 11, 1971[7] and these tapes represent the earliest-audible Garcia-Saunders performances (perhaps as many as eight months after they started gigging![8]), and they precede a four-month gap that audibly ends when Lou Judson becomes the second Marin County soundman to run PA tape of The Group in late September. The 5/20/71 tape escaped into the world because Garcia had it amongst his stuff when, ca. Christmas 1975, MG threw him out of Sans Souci --on which the couple had closed on ... May 5, 1971!-- and he shuffled off to Deborah's for the first time. Debbie took possession of the tape, someone found a way to copy it, and now anyone can hear it.

Second, I submit that the fact that Jerry had this tape amongst his personal stuff is not innocent with respect to the very question we are considering. I think he had the tape "pulled", either initially recorded or pulled out of wherever most of his tapes were kept, or both, precisely so Fogerty could give it a listen. We know the Dead were in the habit of pulling recent tapes to prepare their incoming members, e.g., the "Houseboat Tapes" of August 1971 that they gave Keith Godchaux to listen to. I think Jerry lent it to Tom or dubbed it for him so he could come up to speed with the band and its material.

Third, and with respect to the late boundary, I glean one other possible tidbit of information from the table above, in the advertising patterns. I am almost certainly over-reading this, but the Thursday-Friday-Saturday 5/20-22 run looks like Big Nights - advertised in the Chron, weekend shows, some real buzz. Even Tuesday 5/25 gets a Wasserman mention, which may well have been enough to sell the gig out. But 5/26, Wednesday, gets a measley mention in the Trib's "Bay Sounds" items, which usually ran more toward jazz and soul. Probably a much quieter night for Tom to step up and play some for the first time, dontcha think? I can't adduce all of the evidence here, but it is as close to an Iron Law as exists in the Garciaverse that new players are broken in off-nights, off-the-beaten-path, or both.

Art and Commerce

For Garcia of this vintage, the aesthetics of any musical choice should go without saying. He wanted to play more music with good players than the Dead could afford him (especially in this very fallow period between the closing of the Fillmores East and West). As Corry and I have elaborated, Tom Fogerty advened alongside huge changes in The Group's approach and repertoire, from spacey organ jazz to all kinds of Americana, white (The Band's "Dixie Down", Jesse Winchester's "Biloxi", some good ol' rockabilly), black (Stevie Wonder, Motown, etc. etc.) and everything in between, mostly more or less contemporary stuff. In short, I think Fogerty came in because Jerry wanted to sing some tunes, wanted to bring in more white contemporary, and Fogerty could sing, play rhythm guitar, and bring in some new material. [update: the release of the pre-Tom 5/21/71 Garcia-Saunders gig gives the lie to the idea that it was all space jazz pre-Tom, with white-roots-flavored stuff coming in with him. Dixie Down, Mystery Train and arguably a few others were already in the repertoire. This is a case where fragmentary tape evidence led us {at least me} a little astray.]

But there were almost surely also commercial logics operating here, too. Whether they came from Jerry, from Merl, from Tom, from Saul Zaentz (or Ralph Gleason), and/or others, I can't know. But Fantasy Records stands at the center of this.

Indeed, I want to revise my conjecture above about why the May 20-21, 1971 JGMS tapes were made (and recorded in 4-track, no less). This was long before Rex and then Betty started taping Jerry, so why is there this one pair of shows? I said a few paragraphs ago that it was so Tom could bone up. I think that's half-right – it was so Tom could bone up, and Tom joining this operation cannot be separated from Tom making records for Fantasy, Merl making records for Fantasy, etc. etc. Remember that Merl invited Tom down to the club. He might have had a purpose in mind - say, to make a Group for Jerry that would record on Fantasy and make them all rich, what already wasn't, and them richer what already was. Corry and I have concluded that Fogerty's arrival served a sea change in the Garcia-Saunders aggregation, taking it from space organ to Dylan, Band and Motown numbers. (update: we overstated the discontinuity here. The 5/21/71 show has "Dixie Down", for example.) Why this big artistic shift? Quite possibly, to work up some more commercially viable material than the "out-there" jams they had been doing. Hooteroll? (Douglas 5, December 1971) would cover the space-organ piece of the market for the jazz heads, while The Group could do some white and black contemporary tunes for the dormitory set. It's all made to order, including an eager press. Indeed, two days after writing about Fogerty's upcoming release, our intrepid collegians K and G found themselves at the New Monk in Berkeley, where Tom, Merl and Jerry were holding forth for a standing-room-only crowd, just blocks from Fantasy.[9]

Conclusion

I feel quite confident, though not certain, that Tom Fogerty first sat in with JGMS on May 26, 1971. I also think Fantasy Records was the Prime Mover behind this partnership.

Now, Garcia and Tom did end up on Merl's Heavy Turbulence (Fantasy 8421, 1972), which looks to me like it could have been recorded in 1971, and Fogerty's Excalibur (Fantasy 9413, October 1972) which, though seemingly released later, feels roughly contemporary. Merl's Fire Up (Fantasy 9421, 1973) feels more like 1972, though of course it's pretty hard to say. But Fantasy's big golden goose feast, 1973's Live at the Keystone (Fantasy F-79002), featured the Fogertyless quartet of the aforementioned goose plus Merl and the Kahn-Vitt rhythm section. As best we can tell, Tom left the fold at the end of 1972 after eighteen months with The Group. What happened? I dunno, but I welcome your speculations in comments.

---

[1] “Tom Fogarty [sic] Leaves Creedence,” San Francisco Chronicle, February 3, 1971, p. 42.

[2] See also Staska and Mangrum 19710225.

[3] Staska and Mangrum 19710311.

[4] Staska and Mangrum 19710624.

[5] I have written at length around all of this. See "Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders at the Matrix - A Dialogue" (with Corry Arnold), URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2014/09/jerry-garcia-and-merl-saunders-at.html; "Jerry Garcia & Merl Saunders & Tom Fogerty Sat-Sun, New Monk", URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2014/09/jerry-garcia-merl-saunders-tom-fogerty.html; and "Tom Fogerty, Merl Saunders and Friends - June 25, 1971 Keystone Korner", URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2014/09/tom-fogerty-merl-saunders-and-friends.html.

[6] See "'JGMS 5/20/71' is probably really JGMS 5/20/71," URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2014/09/jgms-52071-is-probably-really-jgms-52071.html.

[7] See "JGMS: Matrix, May 11-12, 1971," URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2014/09/jgms-matrix-may-11-12-1971.html; "'Hey Merl, you wanna do that tune in 'G'? Get spaced out a little?' LN jg1971-05-11.jgms.partial.aud.28784.flac1644," URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2014/09/hey-merl-you-wanna-do-that-tune-in-g.html.

[8] "When did Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders first play together?" URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2010/11/when-did-jerry-garcia-and-merl-saunders.html.

[9] Staska and Mangrum 19710701.

Cities Burn and The Show Goes On: JGB at the Warfield, April 30, 1992

jg1992-04-30.jgb.all.aud-vasseur.141475.flac1644

On April 30, 1992, as on other Thursdays before, at least a couple American cities were in flames as protests over racial injustice turned violent and disorderly in the aftermath of a Simi Valley jury's acquittal of four LAPD officers accused in the March 1991 beating of black motorist Rodney King.

The Garcia Band played the Warfield, part of an extraordinary run of 11 Jerry appearances there with three different bands in 13 days: JGB April 29-May 3, Bob Dylan on May 5th, and Garcia-Grisman from the 7th to the 11th. Selvin provided some context:

With looters and police clashing on the street outside the theater, for the Jerry Garcia Band at the Warfield Thursday night it was business as usual. Background vocalist Gloria Jones traveled from her East Bay home on BART and, with Market Street stations closed, was forced to exit on 16th Street and take a bus back downtown, barely making it before show time.

An attendee posting at JGC remembers, too:

Riot police surrounded the theatre and there were reports of gunshots in the streets. An announcement was made from the stage warning patrons not to leave the theatre.

As Selvin titled his piece, "The Show Goes On."

I have historically thought that 1992 was absolutely the worst, most boring and useless year for the JGB. I remember *hating* 2/7/92 at one time, despite a luscious Marcus Buick tape. I might still think the year is the most boring, but it's not all bad. 8/1/92 pleasantly surprised me. On a first listen, this 4/30/92 didn't move me much, but then I revisited it and I found plenty to like. As has been the case lately, I find myself especially fond of the second set. My bottom line note reads as follows:

Garcia sounds tired, but he probably *was* tired. After his August collapse, he described his state earlier in the year: "I wasn't ill. There was no pain. I just had zero energy. I was always tired. I'd always been able to get through a concert, but now it was getting hard. I hadn't realized how run-down I'd got" (Carroll 1992). As was often the case for late era Jerry, weariness suits the material pretty well. This isn't one you'd give to a newbie to turn them on to JGB, but aficionados may just be able to appreciate the OG perspective is really setting in at this point. The segment that goes R&C, Gomorrah, DLG and The Maker is quite excellent. First listen DLG didn't kill me, but this time I found it to be very strong.

There are a few songs at interesting points in their lives: last "Throw Out the Lifeline" (with a spotty performance history note"), penultimate "Let's Spend The Night Together" (5/2/92 the last, IIRC), newly arriving, the third "Maker", which would become a late-era favorite. I also note Our Hero playing some slide in "Gomorrah", which I don't recall having heard before, which is not to say it wasn't always there.



Anyway, not bad, old timer. Not bad. Listening notes after the jump.

Folk Songs of America, 3: all front matter

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7TAYus5LRzuTDF5bkxHOEx5TU0/view?usp=sharing

This includes the table of contents, which is super interesting. Have at it!

Lomax, Alan. 1960. The Folk Songs of North America in the English Language. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company.

Folk Songs of America, 1: cover
Folk Songs of America, 2: map
Folk Songs of America, 3: all front matter

Folk Songs of America, 2: map

Lomax, Alan. 1960. The Folk Songs of North America in the English Language. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company.

Folk Songs of America, 1: cover
Folk Songs of America, 2: map
Folk Songs of America, 3: all front matter

Body ... Bent and Broken

LN jg1994-09-10.jgb.all.aud-vasseur.23791.shn2flac

Man, these late era shows are really changing my understanding of Old Garcia. I have been saying it in these recent posts: his lacks lung-power, his voice is weak, his muscles are atrophied and his wrists are sore. He is prone to forgetting lyrics.

These physical limitations dictate his vocal and instrumental approaches. Vocally, we find clearer enunciation and articulation. He wants to be in key, unlike Dylan, but this is interpreted pretty liberally. The grooves are slower and deeper, but a light swing touch can also work. He can still bop his head and swing his shoulders, even if he can't dig in, ass and hips and all, like he used to with his guitar, with respect to which expressiveness trumps power, and, really, the latter doesn't make much of an appearance through the whole show.

It's deeply flawed stuff, but if you know and love Jerry it's really, really good. The post title is a little dark, but he delivers that line from "The Maker" so amazingly, I just couldn't resist.

Random thoughts from the notes below:

! song: "Johnny Too Bad" and #death: He sings it as "one of these days "gonna hear a voice a say come" is JG, instead of "when you hear". I am certainly parsing too finely, his expressive variations were mostly driven by lips, mouth, lungs and brain, but I like it. "Gonna", as a declarative, penetrates more deeply in a probability sense, while the passive "when" leaves some space for at least momentary human delusion and denial, suspending the certainty of the outcome if only for a flash. For ol' Jer, it's gonna happen, And That Right Quick. And Johnny Too Bad, in my mind's eye, ends more The Lord Of The Flies than The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe: there is, as the song reminds us repeatedly, no rock. Might as well play some reggae.

! song: "That Lucky Old Sun" and #race #musics and Old Garcia: As you might imagine with decrepit Jerry, "Lucky Ol' Sun" offers some real possibilities, and he takes especial advantage on "fuss with my woman | toil with my kids | sweat till I'm wrinkled and grey". As commenter Nick and others have helped me understand, Tin Pan Alley tunes like this derive from jazz but crossed the racial divide, with whites appropriating and deploying black tropes and affectations - not unlike good old rock 'n' roll itself. On the other hand, crossing over is his American birthright, and ol' Gar owns it lovingly, inclusively, the tender vocal delivery full of feeling, the band providing a spare backing for Jerry's gentle drop-sparkle string work. These tunes can really evoke Garcia's painting of himself and John as old Mission Street players, even from the loftier confines of the Warfield balcony or an 8,500 set amphitheatre on a hot Reno evening.

Jerry Garcia Band
Reno Hilton Amphitheatre
2500 East Second Street
Reno, NV 89595
September 10, 1994 (Saturday)
?Vasseur? shnid-23791 shn2flac

--set I (8 tracks, 50:15)--
s1t01. crowd [01:00]
s1t02. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [5:45] [1:17]
s1t03. Stop That Train [7:06] [0:33]
s1t04. Get Out Of My Life Woman [7:27] (1) [2:13]
s1t05. Run For The Roses [05:14]
s1t06. Ain't No Bread In The Breadbox [08:04]
s1t07. My Sisters And Brothers [03:54]
s1t08. Deal [07:42]

--set II (7 tracks, 61:37)--
s2t01. The Way You Do The Things You Do [10:14] [0:22]
s2t02. The Maker [12:29] [0:10]
s2t03. What A Wonderful World [4:44] [0:19]
s2t04. Johnny Too Bad [11:05] [0:20]
s2t05. Don't Let Go [12:22]
s2t06. That Lucky Old Sun (Just Rolls Around Heaven All Day) [04:21]
s2t07. Midnight Moonlight [05:10]

! ACT1: JGB #23
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, v;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-bass;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - keyboards;
! lineup: Donny Baldwin - drums;
! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch - backing vocals;
! lineup: Gloria Jones - backing vocals.

JGMF:

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19940910-01

! JGC: http://jerrygarcia.com/show/1994-09-10

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/23791 (this fileset, shnf); http://etreedb.org/shn/97863 (absent from my archive).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/fAbuJCQB6zt

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/07/reno-hilton-amphitheatre-2500-east.html

! R: field recordists: [presumed] Chuck Vasseur and Janet Vasseur.

! R: source: MAD (Vintage Neumanns) > D > C > CDR > WAV > SHN; shn2flac jgmf 5/23/2017.

! R: seeder comments: [INCORRECT: "First public performance of 'Johnny Too Bad'"] -- the 3rd song off the "Harder They Come" soundtrack that Jerry would play with JGB (others are "Harder They Come" and "Sitting In Limbo"). This is the second of five times out for JTB (9/1/94).

! R: seeder note: "Minimal hiss, more distant sounding than the typical Vasseur Warfield."

! R: lineage: DAE (EAC) and sbe-free SHN encoding by C.Ladner, May '04.

! R: something swishy and wonky about this tape, panning or something out of phase. By the time I am in "The Maker", it is sounding downright good.

! s1t01 HSII starts with "opened my eyes at night" in06-s2t07 stead of "I needed the shelter". He comes back to it for the second verse - attaboy, Jer! 2-3 he has done some very fluent guitar playing, sounds energetic. Melvin steps up to his big swirling-sweeping piece 3:30, Garcia sounds happy to comp 3:45 behind him. Jerry remembers the next verse, 4:40 ish Melvin provides tasty piano accompaniment with a barrelhouse feel, more after 5.

! s1t04 (1) JG: "We have a little technical problem," as things are being pounded. Melvin hits a little piano thing, JG signals RFTR. FF to s2t01.

! P: s2t01 TWYDTTYD right at end of 5 he puts on his Grateful Dead guitar, wahh-ing in a way that was very uncommon for JGB. Long vocal piece with the ladies out front, him emphasizing behind.

! P: s2t02 Maker John is doing some bowing-type stuff at the very start. Overt religiosity. @ 0354 "oh my body is bent and broken" with feeling. Fragile stuff, glorious. Big pitch-bendy stuff 6.

! song: "What A Wonderful World" (s2t03): this is the Sam Cooke ("don't know much about history", etc.).

! P: song: "Johnny Too Bad" (s2t04): second live version (9/1/94). He sings it as "one of these days "gonna hear a voice a say come" is JG, instead of "when you hear". I am certainly parsing too finely, his expressive variations were mostly driven by lips, mouth, lungs and brain, but I like it. "Gonna", as a declarative, penetrates more deeply in a probability sense, while the passive "when" leaves some space for at least momentary human delusion and denial, suspending the certainty of the outcome if only for a flash. For ol' Jer, it's gonna happen, And That Right Quick. And Johnny Too Bad, in my mind's eye, ends more The Lord Of The Flies than The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe: there is, as the song reminds us repeatedly, no rock. Might as well play some reggae. ^P This has lots of interesting pieces, and credit ol Jer for working it, but the band keeps expecting it to end, and he croaks another go-round. The song is quite repetitive, and that's part of what's so compelling but also challenging about it - huis clos. A for effort, lower for execution.

! P: s2t05 DLG nice to see the ambition. He mumbles first verse. Baldwin sets a fine pocket here. 4 very cool little song-voice piece, set to the weak lungs, allowing him to just not strain. 4:20ff some very plucky plucking. Garcia 4:40ff in a bassier tone, keys are right on it, bass has been inaudible. Heading over 5, it has that worried urgency that an earlier tune with Merl, "She's Got Charisma", also provided in spades. It's a game effort, doesn't knock me out on two listens.

! P: s2t06 "That Lucky Old Sun": As you might imagine with decrepit Jerry, "Lucky Ol' Sun" offers some real possibilities, and he takes especial advantage on "fuss with my woman | toil with my kids | sweat till I'm wrinkled and grey". For book, should probably write Tin Pan Alley up here at the end. Sort of a crossover genre in that it seems to have been whites appropriating and deploying black tropes and affectations - not unlike rock 'n' roll. On the other hand, ol' Gar owns this stuff fully, bringing sincere love and tenderness to the vocal delivery, full of feeling, over a spare band arrangement that lets him play his display a little gentle drop-sparkle string work, too. These tunes can really evoke Garcia's painting of himself and John as old Mission Street players, even from the loftier confines of the Warfield balcony or an 8,500 set amphitheatre on a hot Reno evening.

! P: s2t07 MM I love that Jerry loved this song. At this point, he must have had a real Skinnerian involvement with it, since MM = end of show = nicotine = whatever else. Not that he deprived himself before or during, mind you, but the chance to sit down in a comfy chair and unwind, change your sweaty shirt, soundsl ike a nice prospect, too. So the San Franciscan plays Pete Rowan's paen to another city with a Mission, San Antonio, good music. This version delivers nothing special, and September 10, 1994 goes on its merry way.

Never Get Yo Cornbread Made

LN jg1995-01-13.jgb.all.aud-vasseur-ladner.21484.shn2flac

I almost never listen to 1995. I mean to. And then I did. But then, it turns out that I had already listened to the second set of this show, so the novelty factor was reduced by half.

On the flip side, the "study in contrasts" possibilities are wide; in this case, it looks like a November 2015 listen found me, not dissatisfied, but resigned:

I enjoyed this, overall. It was not a ripoff. Jerry's guitar play is fine, if mixed very low. The arrangements are pretty interesting, but the execution suffers without David Kemper in the chair. Garcia is flubbing like 50% of the lyrics, and there are a few moments where he seems completely to lose himself.

On this listen, I find myself appreciating some creative success in "Don't Let Go" and noting that he probably remembers more of the words to 4th Street than I do.

Old Jerry singing "never get yo' cornbread made" just destroys me - a gentler, faux-blacker version of Dylan's "sure got a lot of gall | to be so useless and all" rant in "Visions Of Johanna".

Jerry Garcia Band
The Warfield
982 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
January 13, 1995 (DOW)
Vasseur shnid-21484 shn2flac

--set I (8 tracks, 7 tunes, 65:48)--
s1t01. crowd [0:41]
s1t02. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [6:53] [0:15]
s1t03. They Love Each Other [10:47]
s1t04. Simple Twist Of Fate [13:09]
s1t05. Run For The Roses [06:34]
s1t06. Ain't No Bread In The Breadbox [14:41]
s1t07. My Sisters And Brothers [03:55]
s1t08. Deal [8:51]

--set II (8 tracks, 7 tunes, 65:02)--
s2t01. crowd [1:34]
s2t02. Harder They Come [10:33]
s2t03. And It Stoned Me [9:53]
s2t04. Evangeline [5:51]
s2t05. Don't Let Go [14:11] [0:07]
s2t06. Lazy Bones [8:45] ->
s2t07. Positively 4th Street [7:58]
s2t08. Midnight Moonlight [6:07]

! ACT1: JGB #23
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, v;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-bass;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - keyboards;
! lineup: Donny Baldwin - drums;
! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch - backing vocals;
! lineup: Gloria Jones - backing vocals.

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/19950113-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/21484 (this fileset); http://etreedb.org/shn/79638 (s2 Schoeps).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/ZW52vfHTbjs

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2013/02/warfield-982-market-street-san.html

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

! historical: First shows of 1995, let's see how ol' Jer sounds.

! R: field recordists: Chuck Vasseur and Janet Vasseur

! R: field recording gear: 2x Neumann KM54 > DAT

! R: lineage: DATx > CDRx > WAV > SHN (1/2004) > shn2flac (5/14/2017).

! R: seeder Comments: Another outstanding audience recording from the Vasseurs - Jerry fans for all eternity thank you Chuck and Linda [sic] :-)

! R: seeder comments: Strong performance of the seldom played (4th performance post-1980) and often cat-called, "Positively 4th Street" which JGB pulls out of the proverbial playlist closet. I can see Jerry sneering when he spouts "what a DRAG it is ..." Sublime final performance of another relative JGB rarity, Lazy Bones.

! R: seeder comments: There were a few millisecond dropouts before the start of a few tracks which were removed using SF6.

! R: seeder comments. Thanks to J.Powell for providing a lineaged CDR source. DAE (EAC0.9b4,offset corrected, secure mode, track quality > 99.9%) > removal of silence at set boundaries (SF6.0) > tracking (cdwav) > sector boundaries confirmed (shntool) > SHN(shorten3.4) via C.Ladner. misSHN in the rain, 1/04.

! P: s1t02 HSII - Listening in 5/17, when I don't listen to much 1995, I hear the appeal of this stuff for all involved. His guitar lacks power, his voice is way down in the mix, but still functioning.

! P: s2t02 HTC always a litmus test, because it's mostly always there. Il manque son souffle. Flubbing lyrics after singing this tune like 300 times. What are you gonna do? Now going to FF to Don't Let Go about 2 minutes in.

! P: s2t05 DLG there is absolutely nothing wrong with this DLG. It's a creative success. It has all kinds of range, the guitar isn't burning off both my ears with pure power, but the tones are appropriately, at turns, gritty, spacy, driving, etc. Nice chunka-chunnka-ing 10ff, a step closer to DLG theme with little crosscut sawing happening. NB that John hasn't done much that's audible. I sure would love to hear a stage monitor perspective, because I imagine he was just playing for Jerry at this point? I have no complaints with Donny Baldwin's drumming, either.

! P: s2t06 LB: I am expected to love this, and I want to. But, out of the gate I cannot. The guitar approach 3 is interesting, but I am not compelled, it felt a little awkward. @ 6:44 corn bread verse starts off warbly, but he delivers it beautifully, tellingly, knowingly. "Never get yo cornbread made | sleeping in the evening shade". He sings the break, but he's not particularly audible. Same with the next verse: "Lazy bones | talkin' in the shade | how you spect to make a dime that way? | Never make a dime that way" - old, tired Jerry is great on those lines.

! song: "Positively 4th Street" (s2t07): 2/23/80, then 3/1/91, 4/18/93, 4/24/93, 1/13/95. Jerry had to reach up to the top shelf to grab Dylan's snide and splenetic rant - I hadn't been aware when it started that it had become such a rarity. He'd try it again on March 4 and April 15, 1995 - I'd like to check those out (update: done! 3/4, 4/15). Positively 4th Street is one of those that Garcia loved and never gave up on - Tough Mama being a 70s Dylan analog.

! P: s2t07 4th Street: As Chris Ladner notes, this was a breakout after almost two years, and the hometown crowd knows it. It's a little off between guitar and vocals out of the gate, he has just started with some random verse as far as I can tell - very late Dylanesque! The combination of him just singing scraps and the vocals low in the mix --not unrelated-- makes it hard to hear the lyrics, but whatevs. This feels like bonus time with ol' Jer. Flubs next attempt at a verse, late 2. He remembers a lot more of the words than I would.

Black Roots about Native Americans?

I am thinking about Native American musical influences on Garcia.

As far as I can tell, they are mediated by whites: Hank Williams's "Kaw-Liga," Bill Monroe's "Cheyenne,"Peter Rowan's "Land Of The Navajo" (which the latter inspired).

Is there any black traditional music with Native American narrative or musical themes? Like, any old banjo tunes about the Seminoles?

Some notes on classifying Garciaverse Musics

In narrating Jerry Garcia's Musical Life Outside The Grateful Dead, I think in terms of the various musics he played.

One cut is geographic: 1) world vs. 2) American.

In terms of musics he directly quasi-publicly performed, The World is mostly only reggae and Indian music (e.g., Diga). He got some stuff from Canada, but it was either Americana (e.g., The Band) or pan-white pop (e.g., Bruce Cockburn's "Waiting For A Miracle") - not what I'd call "Canadian music".

Everything else from The World comes to Garcia pre-mediated through America.

Within the second bucket, I want to distinguish a) indigenous music (Hawaiian, Native American) from b) music made by non-indigenous peoples.

As noted above, Native American music came to Garcia pre-mediated by whites. When he played "Native American", he was playing white renderings of that music. I am guessing he jammed around at Hart's with Rolling Thunder and others -- I wonder if there are calendars, diaries, tapes?? --, but it falls sort of short of my fuzzy event threshold ("musics he directly quasi-publicly performed").

It seems like the same is likely true of the other indigenous American music that Garcia engaged, Hawaiian.  Let me put it another way: he directly heard Hawaiian music (grandmother Tillie loved it - McNally 2015, 36), but in playing pedal steel guitar he was playing what white people were doing, inspired by the islanders' music. So it doesn't get the full-on music font.

b) is the set of musics that get the special font and the central real estate in my table on Garciaverse musics.

Bobby Ace

I was doing some thinking about Bob Weir's musical journey, and what I view to be the pivotal "Bobby Ace" period, running most obviously from about mid-1969 through 1970. And, since we were just talking about Family Dog shows, I got to thinking about the April 1970 acoustic gigs. Long story short, I just did some sniffing around some of the more obscure (in the Garciaverse) numbers they did. Here's a back-of-the-napkin breakdown.

Note that, as far as I can tell, this is entirely roots-derived white contemporary stuff - is there a black songwriter in the whole repertoire? Anyway, FWIW.

Traditional

! song: Slewfoot

! song: Wabash Cannonball

Everly Brothers Originals

! song: All I Have To Do Is Dream (not their composition, but I think they did it first)

! song: Cathy's Clown

! song: So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad)

! song: Wake Up Little Susie

Bakersfield

! song: Mama Tried – Merle Haggard

! song: I've Got A Tiger By The Tail – Buck Owens

George Jones

! song: The Race Is On

! song: Old Old House

! song: Seasons Of My Heart

Contemporary Country – all of these were written in the 1960s

! song: Let It Be Me – also done by Everly Brothers

! song: Let Me In – Porter Wagoner

! song: Long Black Limousine – first available via Glen Campbell in 1962, eventually Merle Haggard and Elvis, too.

! song: Me And My Uncle – John Philips

! song: Silver Threads And Golden Needles – also by Everly Brothers

! song: Dire Wolf – Garcia/Hunter (sung by Weir 7/4/69)

! song: Green Green Grass Of Home – Curly Putnam, but done by Porter Wagoner and on Merle Haggard's Mama Tried.

! song: Games People Play – Joe South – also by Everly Brothers