Did You Ever Notice the 9/18/81 JGB Rehearsal Has Jerry Playing Acoustic?

The spine of Betty's 9/18/81 JGB rehearsal tape box

A beautiful piece of tape: Betty's reel from the 9/18/81 JGB rehearsal

I just revisited this little 20+ minute rehearsal fragment. Thank you Betty! This is the latest piece of Betty Board of interest to me: some of the abortive Brent solo album material came from later in '81 and into '82, but this is the last scrap of tape with ol' Jer on it.

 A few things to note.

First, Jerry is playing acoustic throughout, and doing so tastily.

Second, this is Ron Tutt drumming. Right before "Dear Prudence", as the reel winds up, Jerry comes in with a "hello?" while beautifully strumming Prudence on his acoustic. Tutt asks "Is that the right tempo, or should that be a little slower than the other'n?" Jerry replies "it should be a little slower than the other one."

Third, Melvin Seals sounds simply wonderful here. 

That's all I've got.

Jerry Garcia Band - Studio Rehearsal

Club Front

20 Front Street

San Rafael, CA 94901

September 18, 1981 (Friday)

MSR -> P -> D shnid-13881 shn2flac

--partial rehearsal (3 tracks, 21:38)--

t01. Tangled Up In Blue [7:36]

t02. Dear Prudence (1) [6:28] (2) [0:49] %

t03. //Tangled Up In Blue// [#6:45#]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band

! lineup: Jerry Garcia – acoustic guitar, vocals;

! lineup: John Kahn – electric bass;

! lineup: Jimmy Warren – electric piano;

! lineup: Melvin Seals – organ;

! lineup: Ron Tutt – drums.

Seasons Of My Heart

Cats in the Studio: September 1977

-->

I can’t write up everything I have gathered around the recording of Garcia’s 1978 masterpiece Cats Under the Stars, not now, and, alas, perhaps not ever in any true sense of the word “everything”. Once I write the book I plan on just throwing open all of my materials and letting others have at it insofar as they might care to.

The Dead organization’s calendar for the month of September 1977 listed Garcia in the new Front Street studio (built for the recording of Cats) from September 6-22 for overdubs, mixing, and mastering. Let me just briefly drop a few notes from a one week, Friday September 16, 1977 through Thursday the 22^nd, based on the union paperwork. All of these sessions were paid by Arista Records and the named artist is Jerry Garcia Band. The union scale looks to be $110 for a three-hour session.

Friday, 9/16/77, 6 pm

Session leader: Merl Saunders, 1353 17^th Avenue, San Francisco (double scale)

Also: Jerry Garcia (address a PO box in Corte Madera), John Kahn (a different PO box in Corte Madera), Keith Godchaux (PO box 1073, San Rafael, i.e., the Dead’s business address) and Ron Tutt (a PO box in Topanga).

Song: “Rubin”

Monday, 9/19/77, two sessions, 5-8 pm and 8-midnight

Session leader: Kahn (double scale)

Also: Garcia (1^st session only), Tutt, Saunders (double scale)

Song: “Rain”

Tuesday, 9/20/77, 3-6 pm

Session leader: Keith (double scale)

Also: Kahn, Tutt, Saunders (double scale)

Song: “Rhapsody In Red”

Tuesday, 9/20/77, 7-10 pm

Session leader: Merl (double scale)

Also: Garcia, Kahn, Godchaux, Tutt

Song: “Rhapsody In Red”

Wednesday, 9/21/77, 2-5pm

Session leader: Kahn (double scale)

Also: Godchaux, Tutt, Bob Hogins (Petaluma, CA), Robert F. Ogdin (Nashville, TN) (4x scale), Saunders (double scale)

Song: “Gomorrah”

Wednesday, 9/21/77, 6-9pm

Session leader: Merl (double scale)

Also: Kahn, Garcia, Godchaux, Tutt, Ogdin (4x scale)

Song: “Gomorrah”

Thursday, 9/22/77 6-9pm

Session leader: Tutt (double scale)

Also: Garcia, Kahn, Godchaux, Saunders (double scale)

Song: “Love In The Afternoon”

My comments are pretty obvious, if you follow along with my MO.

First, Merl! Though there is a listing for Garcia sitting in with Merl in late 1976, I believe it’s probably spurious. After playing together steadily for almost five years, Jerry and Merl suddently stopped doing so in July 1975, for reasons that remain obscure. They picked up again in late 1978, Jerry sitting in with Merl at Shady Grove and then “reconstructing” the old gang, with some fresh tunes and arrangements, for most of 1979. Merl is credited on Cats, so this is not new information, but seeing him here all week, and getting double-scale, just makes raises all kinds of questions about the nature of these men’s relationship. I don’t get it.

Second, Bob Hogins. Discogs shows him to have been in the a Buddy Miles/Santana kind of orbit, did some work with the Rowans and Barry Melton. Keyboards, a little horns, some arranging. He is not credited in the deaddisc entry for Cats, which tells me he wasn’t credited on the record. Hm.

Third, Robert F. Ogdin of Nashville, who gets 4x scale. Discogs describes Bobby Ogdin as a “prominent american session pianist and keyboardist [who] is also Vice-president of the Nashville branch of the Recording Musicians Association.” He boasts well over 100 credits with all kinds of country stars. He crosses with Tutt in various places, and his own credits page shows Cats, despite that his name isn’t given at deaddisc (and, again, I assume, not on the record itself).

Fourth, why so many keyboard players? My hunch is that they are good with arranging, but that’s just a shot in the dark. Anyone?

Fifth, Merl gets double-scale all the time, but he is listed as leader three times, Kahn twice, and Tutt and Keith once. It seems like there was a rotation to share the double-scale leader’s pay among the guys who aren’t Jerry, consistent with what we have long understood about Jerry’s egalitarian approach to things.

Anything else jump out at you?

"Gimme some chords, Jerry Garcia, gimme some chords"

LN jg1976-01-07.jgb-rehearsal.93mins.sbd-tjs.8385.shn2flac

I will just post raw listening notes, because I will be sweeping bit and pieces of it up into a larger narrative that I have been working on. (update - see "James Booker, Classified")

Jerry Garcia Band
Club Front
20 Front Street
San Rafael, CA 94901
January 7, 1976 (Wednesday) - rehearsal
93min TJS sbd shnid-8385 shn2flac

--(14 tracks, 93:02)--
t01. Tico Tico (1) [11:11] ->
t02. Tico Tico [4:42] 
t03. talk (2) [0:40]
t04. Don't Try To Be Your's Brother's Keeper [15:51]
t05. Something You've Got [5:21] ->
t06. Just A Closer Walk With Thee [4:00] ->
t07. Goodnight Irene (3) [4:50] ->
t08. Just a Closer Walk With Thee (4) [0:50]
t09. //Goodnight Irene// [#1:43#]
t10. //Goodnight Irene (5) [11:29#] [0:32]
t11. (6) United Our Thing Will Stand [8:21] [1:23]
t12. Classified [6:08] ->
t13. Right Place, Wrong Time (7) [3:31] [0:23]
t14. Slowly But Surely [11:37] [0:10] % dead air [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; [ ] = 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/19760107-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/4466 (shorter shnf); http://etreedb.org/shn/8385 (this fileset); http://etreedb.org/shn/28366 (EAC-FLAC of shnid-4466, probably deprecated).

! venue: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2011/09/club-front-20-front-st-san-rafael-ca.html

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/Ree7m

! 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.

! R: source: MSR > ? > 1C > 1D > 1CD > EAC > SHN. Extraction using EAC, re-tracking using CD Wave, and .shn encoding using mkwACT. Proper sector boundaries verified using shntool.

! R: shn2flac jgmf 1/8/2015.

! R: seeder notes: "This version should be compared to the previously circulating version to be understood.  This one is slightly more complete (the two takes of Goodnight Irene, here laid out at the start of disc two, are absent from the other version).  It also has slightly clearer lineage, at least in terms of the analog-to- digital transfer (John Kahn's cassette to Ryan Shriver's DAT). In terms of sound quality, it seems a bit of a toss-up.  The other version had some noise reduction and other work done in Sound Forge, and actually seems to have considerably more high end than this version, which is considerably flatter and bassier. d2t01 & t02 both cut in"

! t01 TT this first version with Booker on piano, then on organ for t02. (1) @ 3:47 they bring it to a little close, JB "Play that part again". Until about 6:15. JB explains: "I do one medley of that. I do one chorus of that, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen, please let me explain, Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen means that you're grand." "Hey John, you wanna try this 'Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen'?" until 6:45 ish. Jerry doing more of his Tico Tico stuff 6:45ff with Tutt. Not sure I have heard John yet.

! t02 Tico Tico JB on organ

! t03 (2) JB: "Hey what about this tune 'Your Brother's Killer'" -- band laughs, eggs him on, whoa, whoa! Being goofy. JB, coquettishly: "Oops - I slipped." Garcia laughing. @ 0:33 JB: "Hey, look here - listen at this - hey John, listen at the changes in this" -- starts playing.

! P: t04 DTTBYBK is just Booker for the first two minutes. Jerry comes in around 2:18 a little, Tutt is real light behind. Booker is a rather amazing one-man band. Jerry comes in more seriously 3:17, lands safely, catches the ground running like a parachutist, real soft, turns himself up 4:10. If Booker was looking for a backing band, this guy's not particularly backing. JB calls it to a halt, 5:45, sounds a little frustrated - "you stay on that 'C', stay on that 'C'", and he hits it, calling out some chords over the progressions, with lyrics. 6:15: "Look, John, do this. Listen at me." He's showing it to John. By 6:48 John is with him.

! P: t05 SYG JB stops, "Wait a minute - I done messed up the changes."

! t07 (3) JB: "Goodnight, ladies and gentlemen!" as they start the song, and he's playing it as outro music as the bar winds down. @ 0:38, Booker starts playing, calls out "pick your feet up and shuffle!", and Garcia digs into a good strong shuffle. "That's how we're gonna go out" - Booker is structuring the show. And, fuck yeah, this is the way to take the band out. This is Jerry Garcia playing Goodnight Irene with James freaking Booker. Thank you, tape Gods. "See ya later ladies and gentlemen! How about a hand for Jerry Garcia, and brothers, and others! Yeah! "Jerry Garcia, of the Grateful Dead: thankful as evah. Yeah! How 'bout a hand for gratitude ... in the grave -aw!-- how about a hand for resurrection ... and reincarnation ... and all that karma, and all that jazz."
! song "Goodnight Irene" (t07, t09, t10): The earliest known recording 1/7/76 is the first extant recording of Garcia playing the New Orleans classic, and he's doing it with the Bayou Maharajah, Professor Longhair student and Mac Rebbenack (Dr. John) mentor, entertainer to anyone who ever kept his presence, the great piano wizard James Booker [x-ref earlier Booker materials - probably prefer to keep this discussion for later JGJK].

! t08 (4) JB "Gimme some chords, Jerry Garcia, gimme some chords" (sung to this shuffle of "Just A Closer Walk With Thee"), then breaks it down for instruction: "Jerry, gimme some chords ... a few places, you know? Don't just wire it all up, you dig? Try to settle down a little something so we can keep some contrast in it."

! R: t09 there's a cut here, but this sounds like it follows from what they were just doing.

! P: t10 (5) @ 4:20, James is telling John to "ride the tonic" - "John Kahn, ride the tonic, like I'm doin' rightchere wit my lef' han'" - Tutt thinks he's found the end @ 4:35, hits it clean, but no-one else appears to have taken note.  At the end of the song, Booker asks "Now, what was the name of that?" Garcia: "Goodnight Irene". JB: "Yeah". What an odd little exchange. JB @ 11:45 "Now, this other tune is the one we did before. Oh no no no no ... yeah? Didn't we do that, 'So Swell When You're Well'? What key did I do that in?" Garcia: "That's what we were tryin' to figure  out." JB: "Oh no, I wanna do this first." JG: "Just tell us the name of 'em." I figure they must have had charts, but Garcia didn't read music, did he?

! t11 (6) JB: "'United, Our Thing Will Stand' - it's in F." The guys say "yeah", and they jump right in, so they are working from something. 5 JB brings in some nice loud B3. After the song, 8:24, James says "This thing in D-flat? I think I'm gonna do it in C instead." I think I hear Jerry say "all right". No, E-flat. I better try it in C." Last song title discussion. @ 9:23. "I wrote that in the New Orleans Parish prison in 1970." More: "I wanna do this, here's another one (t12) - do it in C. we did it last night, but it was in D flat."

! P: t12 Classified JB is calling out the notes. At 2 Jerry could have made it sounds like his great jam in Hard To Handle, but he resists. JB wants him to play some chords 2:18. 4 he tells Jerry to vamp on that C.

! t13 (7) at the end JG asks what was the name of that again? JB: "'Classified', but I just made a medley of it." Then: "This other thing ... 'One Helluva Nerve' - oh no no, not that, yet."

! P: t14 SBS John and Ronnie are on it. Garcia slow to join, than @ 0:30 JB: "No - it's not a straight thing, it's choppy - real choppy fonk, regular choppy New Orleans fonk." 10 he dedicates the song to his Aunt Bessie down in Bay St. Louis. She used to say that all the time - "slowly but surely". And she'd say this: "Dead and gone, I may be dead and gone, just under the ground rottin' [??]. Oh but the truth will live on, you know, it never be forgotten, oh no." etc Jerry does some nice scrubbing 10:44.

LN jg1973-07-21.oaitw.early.sbd-smith-boswell.113805.flac1644

ad for Keystone, Berkeley, July 19 - August 1, 1973; Berkeley Barb (7/19/73-8/1/73), p. 21

Let me just make a few points to head up these listening notes for this newly-circulated version of these rehearsals. They are very, very important.

First, the provenance of the tape is awesome. Thanks to the Pacific Northwest Crew for this one.

Second, there's evidence on the tape that lends near-perfect credibility (for me) to the date/time/place/personnel ascribed to this. I totally believe this is 7/21/73 in the afternoon at the Lion's Share, in between two shows at the Keystone, Berkeley which, I am coming to believe, served as the introduction of Vassar Clements to the Bay Area. I also list a show at the Inn of the Beginning in Cotati midweek (Wednesday, July 18), which would have been a good place and time to warm up the act in public, but without a big crowd, before heading to the (relatively!) bigger deal weekend gigs at the Keystone. Anyway, long-winded way of saying, again, that I completely believe that this is exactly 7/21/73 in the afternoon at the Lion's Share. You could call this (presumably part of) the "Vassar Clements rehearsals".

Third, related, I need to go foresensically through the OAITW rehearsal tapes that are around. There are a shitload of filesets out there. While they have been much-collected, I think they are little-auditioned and remain almost entirely unanalyzed. I wouldn't be surprised to find more "Vassar Clements rehearsals", as well as some "Richard Greene rehearsals". (I doubt there are Hartford or other pieces, but who knows?)

Fourth, having confidence in this date/time/location/configuration gives me more confidence that the evening's show from Berkeley, which the Pacific Northwest (PNW) crew has also recently dropped (shnid 113845), is correctly dated. I know that the material is the same as what has long traveled as Monday, July 23, 1973 at the Boarding House, 960 Bush Street, San Francisco, 94109. I am going to revisit it soon, hopefully today, but my working hypothesis is that the 7/21/73 dating is probably correct. I'll report back.

Update: Done!

Fifth, for my taste this source deprecates a bunch of filesets:

• shnid 6386
• shnid 11462
• shnid 20507
• shnid 21835

There may be other bits and pieces of this same material floating around amongst the undated OAITW rehearsal snippets, but figuring that out is a project.

Old And In The Way
Lion's Share
60 Red Hill Avenue
San Anselmo, CA, 94960
July 21, 1973 (Saturday), afternoon rehearsal
PNW sbd shnid-113805

(22 tracks, 78:15)
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t01. (1) [0:28] Little Bessie [3:42]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t02. talk [0:09], % On And On (false start) [0:43]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t03. On And On [3:39]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t04. tuning and talking [1:15]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t05. Lonesome Fiddle Blues [2:59] %
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t06. tuning and talking (2) [1:39]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t07. Land Of// The Navajo [6:#59]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t08. talk and tuning [0:20] % [0:25], Going To The Races [2:33]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t09. Land Of The Navajo [8:25]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t10. talk (3) and tuning [1:14], Cedar Hill [3:37] [0:03], randomness [0:02]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t11. dead air, fiddle/bass jam, tuning and talking [1:22]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t12. High Lonesome Sound [3:42]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t13. false start [0:21] % Hobo Song [4:58] [0:03]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t14. [0:06] % /Wild Horses [4:34] [0:04]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t15. Lonesome L.A. Cowboy [4:29]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t16. tuning and talking, Pig In A Pen chorus practice [2:05]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t17. Pig In A Pen [3:04]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t18. tuning and talking (4) [2:22]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t19. Kissimee Kid [2:56]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t20. Kissimee Kid [3:07]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t21. tuning and talking (5) [1:22]
jg1973-07-21a-smith-t22. Midnight Moonlight [4:50], talk (6) and silliness [0:15], dead air [0:07]

! Band: Old And In The Way
! Lineup: Peter Rowan - ac-guitar, vocals;
! Lineup: David Grisman - mandolin, vocals;
! Lineup: Jerry Garcia - banjo, vocals;
! Lineup: Vassar Clements - fiddle;
! Lineup: John Kahn - ac-bass.

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.

! TJS: http://www.thejerrysite.com/shows/show/963.

! db: shnid -113805 (this source).

 ! R: MR @ 7.5ips (Recorded by Betty Cantor on her Nagra) > R @ 3.75ips (Jerry Garcia's copy) > R @ 3.75ips (Will Boswell's copy). Transferred and mastered by Matt Smith 5/11. CD > flac using dbpoweramp, checksums created with TLH by gballen 05-28-2011. JGMF copy: files renamed and tagged with foobar2000.

! R: we can call this a soundboard if we'd like, but I have to think that'd be a misnomer. Presumably there were no lines anywhere, and these guys were all acoustic. So this recording would have been an ambient recording, n'est-ce pas?! R: Matt Smith's notes: "This (7-21-73) is from the famed "Debbie Stash" that Will copied back in early 1979. The rehearsal has circulated but the late show from the Keystone has never surfaced until now. The real cool thing about this is that it gives the listener the whole scope of a typical day for Jerry back then. You know, get up, go to the GD office maybe, then rehearse with your bluegrass buddies then decide you are going to do a gig at the Keystone that night!! This time period was probably a very happy time in his life and it comes through in his playing here."

! Technical: since there is no clear set distinction here, I renamed the tracks from the "dxtxx" format to a continuous naming. If you want the original disc splits they were between t10 and 11, though of course with this total time there'd be no need for disc splits at all (unless one could track down some 74-minute CDs!).

! (1) dead air [0:10]; @ 0:xx: ??: "Wanna try that 'Little Bessie' that we were doin' in G last night?" I think this reference to "last night" is important in time-stamping this. The ad in the Berkeley Barb makes a fair amount of "Special Guest Fiddler from Nashville Vassar Clements". This seems to have been billed as Vassar's introduction to the Bay Area as a member of OAITW. Why is that relevant here? Because it makes sense that they'd be rehearsing this stuff in between the two billed shows. It's just a little detail that fits the given date/time of July 21, 1973 in the afternoon (in a little place they've gigged, just down the road from Stinson where Rowan, Grisman and Garcia lived) with absolute perfection.

! setlist: jg1973-07-21a-smith-t01 was listed as "Someone Calling My Name", but its correct title is "Little Bessie". Verified from http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=14718! jg1973-07-21a-smith-t06 (2) Jerry talking about his banjo: gives the names/model, bought it last week. It's brand new.

! jg1973-07-21a-smith-t07 LOTN influenced by Kaw-Liga?

! R: jg1973-07-21a-smith-t07 LOTN splice/jump @ 4:18

! jg1973-07-21a-smith-t10 (3) @ start JG about LOTN #2: "That wasn't as good as the first one."

! jg1973-07-21a-smith-t11: DIME comment #4763536 by randomando at 2011-05-31 21:41:33 GMT: "Vassar teaching somebody the jazz tune "Move" on disc 2 track 1 [i.e., t11] is stunning. Dawg did the tune in the early years of the DGQ (75-76)."

! jg1973-07-21a-smith-t18 (4) JG, cutting up (but precisely how is hard to say without physical or visual correlate): "OK you guys, I'm ready to cut another track." Talk about where they can position themselves. DG: "Wanna try White Dove?" Then they are gonna do "Vassar's tune", and JG is enthusiastic. More cutting up about doing whatever that's called. DG: "Wanna play 'Find Your Name Written There'? JG: "Why don't we just do that tune of Vassar's." I notice that Grisman rarely gets to call the tune. Garcia's assent is always required.

! jg1973-07-21a-smith-t21 (4) ?PR?: "All I know are words. I'll just play with words."

! jg1973-07-21a-smith-t22 (6) JG: "That was all right."