Old old old notes: JGB at the Leroy Theatre, Pawtucket, RI, March 11, 1978

LN jg1978-03-11.jgb.all.aud-friend.97682.flac1644

I listened to this years ago, was just doing some housecleaning and thought I'd post.

Bullets:

Really nice tape. Piano sounds especially great .Thank you, Tim Friend! I note that it runs faster than the set II soundboard tape. I also noted that AF's ITAM patch from shnid-14931 (Tom Dalti aud) sounds pitched differently. Not sure which, if any, of these might be on A=440.

Third gig in three nights (whole tour was 11 11 eastern time zone shows in 11 days, March 9-19), poor ol' Jer's voice is already shot. It's not that surprising - the Dead's "laryngitis shows," with all Weir lead vocals, were only two months past, and he wasn't smoking fewer cigarettes nor, by all accounts, doing less blow or inhaling less burnt aluminum foil. He sometimes uses his rough edges to good effect, as when he growls in "Harder They Come" (HTC) about getting his share of what's his. But, this massively percussive band --Keith very loud, Kahn still a monster-- really calls for lots of vocal power, and Jerry just can't deliver the goods.

We do find the big, bad, cokey-Wolfy guitar chords throughout, plenty of power and burning tone. We find plenty of evidence in support of the "compensation hypothesis" --partly induced from the aforementioned laryngitis GD shows-- whereby vocals (and other) challenges drive good and aggressive guitar playing. In "I'll Take A Melody" here, for example, the whole band finds itself tripping over vocal timing, and I hear Garcia rip off an angry, aggressive-embarassed flurry, like he had to peel off that nervous extra skin he grew while the band was out of sync. Similarly, Jerry scrambles back from the brink of a near-unraveling in "Mystery Train" (MT) by picking some special  notes.

I love the ladies' harmonizing --I don't always-- on "Catfish John" here, and Jerry sings along with them, and it really reminds you of the beauty, that Donna has especially noted, that could happen when these people who love each other blend their voices. I need to find the quote of Donna talking about that -- feel free to point me to it! Buzzy sounds great on "That's What Love Will Make You Do", and I hear Kahn "dropping big artillery" in HTC and "rumbling like a motherfucker" in MT. I regularly criticize The Mule's playing after 1980, but in the 1970s the man played world-class electric bass.

"Rhapsody In Red" is one of my favorite Garciaverse tunes, and when it's great it absolutely slays me with some of the loudest and shreddiest rock'n'roll guitar Garcia would ever play. This version does deliver some screaming crazed fanning and other shreddy goodness, and Jerry puts feeling into the question of where playing the blues has led him, but overall I find this version a little ponderous, more in well than in top-shelf territory. So it goes. Crazy that I don't even mention "Lonesome And A Long Way From Home". So it goes.

Oh yeah, for real good fun, check out Dave Davis's writeup of this show and the prior night's Bob Weir Band gig in Provy at Grateful Seconds, Italian exchange student Gianni Rosati's endearing review in Relix, and the best-in-class Garcia Band interview by Andy Gefen from earlier on March 11th, which brings some interesting conversation but, especially, some great laughs. And who can't use more of those?

Jerry Garcia Band
Leroy Theatre
66 Broad Street
Pawtucket, RI 02860
March 11, 1978 (Saturday) - 7 PM
Tim Friend 145 minute audience recording

--set I (8 tracks, 79:02)--
s1t01. crowd and tuning [0:35]
s1t02. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [7:17] [1:05]
s1t03. Catfish John [9:55] [1:22]
s1t04. That's What Love Will Make You Do [10:11] [1:38]
s1t05. I'll Take A Melody [15:15] [1:00]
s1t06. Harder They Come [12:45] [1:11]
s1t07. Gomorrah [6:10] [0:34]
s1t08. % Mystery Train [9:45] (1) [0:21]

--set II (7 tracks, 66:26)--
s2t01. crowd and tuning [1:02]
s2t02. Love In The Afternoon [11:30] [0:28] % [0:11]
s2t03. Rhapsody In Red [8:16] [1:58]
s2t04. Knockin' On Heaven's Door [12:39] [0:22]
s2t05. Tore Up Over You [8:11] [1:05]
s2t06. I'll Be With Thee [4:46] ->
s2t07. Lonesome And A Long Way From Home [14:42] (2) [1:17]

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

JGMF:

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

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19780311-05

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/14931 (Tom Dalti aud); http://etreedb.org/shn/97682 (goodbear various auds); http://etreedb.org/shn/97682 (Tim Friend aud, this source); http://etreedb.org/shn/135199 (s2 sbd AJL). NB the board tap runs a fair bit slower than this aud. I don't know which might be correct.

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/BspT8D8hQXT2

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/05/leroy-theater-66-broad-street-pawtucket.html

! venue: http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/5639. "Pawtucket’s “Million Dollar Theater” opened May 1, 1923 to a packed house, with numerous celebrities in attendence. Designed by local architect John F. O'Malley, the theater featured a mirrored lobby, an electric chandelier with 4,700 bulbs, and the largest Wurlitzer organ in New England. ... After 55 continuous years as a movie and concert showplace, the Leroy was forced to close in 1978 due to fire code violations". So, the place closed within the year of Jerry playing there.

! band: JGB #4a (JGB #4 + Maria) (http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html)

! historical / Sue: Promoter: John Scher. Co-promoter: Gemini Concerts (Provy). Sound check 4:30 p.m. $4,000 flat guarantee on gross potential of $17,424. Sell out. Garcia and crew were interviewed by Andy Gefen earlier in the day at WBRU-FM in Provy. It is a classic - check it out!

! review: [positive] Rosati 1978. Rosati was an Italian exchange student at Providence College in Spring 1978. He notes "no opening act for the Mystery Cats, who played twice as much music as the Weir Band [the night before, in Provy] over a span of more than four hours, which included a one-hour break in the middle of the set."

! see also: GratefulSeconds, "A Weekend in Rhode Island with Bobby's Band and Jerry's Band, March 10-11, 1978"

! R: field recordist: Tim Friend

! R: field recording location: Fifth row orchestra, left center section

! R: field recording equipment: 1x AKG D200E (mono) > Sony TC-153SD (Maxell UD-XLII 90's, no Dolby).

! R: Transfer: MAC > Nakamichi DR-8 (with no Dolby) > Edirol FA-66 > Wavelab > R8Brain > CD-Wave > TLH > FLAC 1644 by Andrew F. 02/2009.

! R: JGMF rename to sets (replace 'd' with 's' in filename), plus tagging in foobar2000.

! R: This tape is nice. The piano is especially well-mic'd, but the bass, drums and vocals are all very nice. I bet the acoustics in this place were very good. Thank you, Tim Friend! The taper did a tremendous job of capturing the between-song tunings. I have tried to note the flips where I heard them, but this is a great job of taping. Listening in ITAM, and I'll reiterate: thje piano is beautifully recorded. Wow! That said, from Mystery Train forward I find Garcia's vocals to be a little buried, and for reasons unclear to me things muddy up a little in my ears.

! P: At the start, I was loving this performance. I find a lot to like, but I guess I don't stand up and say WOW! anywhere. The vocals detract.

! P: s1t02 HSII Jerry's voice sounds really, really rough. Ouch.

! P: s1t03 CJ if you want to hear the Donna/Maria vocals working, listen to the opening chorus of Catfish John. Jerry's vocals are nice and careful here. JG is even trying to harmonize more with the ladies in the 2:15ish chorus. Nice! Like a freaking church hymn, I tell ya. JG just running around the fretboard beautifully in the late 6-minute mark, Keith steps up for some really pretty piano playing, light and airy, while Jerry traipses about the melody.

! P: s1t03 TWLWMYD you can really here what a hot drummer Buzz Buchanan is. He's really good. Keith hits a little rough patch in the late 6-minute mark, but he stays with it and drops some nice bob and weave. Late 7-minute mark and forward for awhile, Jerry Garcia is playing his rock and roll guitar, bending notes around 8:20, pretty big and powerful chords for him to be pulling at this stage of the proceedings, until 8:45, when they hit the '1' very convincingly, and Jerry is doing his coke yelling.

! R: s1t05 seeder note: The end of Melody was cut by a tape-flip. ShnID-14931 provided a patch from 14:51 > 15:01. The patch material was EQ'ed and mixed down to mono to more closely resemble Tim's recording. JGMF note: The patch has a noticeable pitch difference, but I appreciate Andrew F.'s work in putting it together.

! P: s1t05 ITAM Garcia's voice is so scratchy, mournful, weary. The song is a little bit of a mess. For example, around the 13 minute mark they spend a minute or two just trying to get back on the same page, and it had been a struggle getting there in the first place. Jerry and Donna's vocals are just not sync'd up. Then @ 14:30 Keith does a sharp key slide at the same time that Jerry was going to --and indeed does-- rip off an angry, aggressive-embarassed flurry. Like he had to peel off that nervous extra skin he grew around the syncing issues.

! P: s1t06 HTC ouchy ouchy ouchy that voice sounds like it hurts. But Jerry is giving it some blowback, growling about getting his share of what's his. Keith does some nice little piano soloing in the 6-minute mark, Garcia enters 6:43 with some round-and-round chords, Kahn drops some big artillery right around 7-min mark and forward. Mmm-mm-m. Again at 8:16 forward, John Kahn thumping the woofers, higher up around 9-minute mark, but pulling very nicely. They finish with enthusiasm, some extra vocalization from the ladies.

! P: s1t08 MT Kahn is rumbling like a motherfucker as they start. Something pops, they almost false start, but they pick up the pieces. As so often happens, we get some special notes on the scramble back from the brink. Unfortunately, Jerry's vocal mic seems to be having some problems, and worse still his voice is just not up to the challenge. It just sounds a little weak relative to all that percussion, including very upfront piano.

! s1t08 (1) JG: "Thank you. We're gonna take a break for a little while. We'll be back in a little bit."

! s2t03 RIR is played too ponderously. Garcia is peeling off some wicked pissah guitar licks late in the 2-minute mark, lots of edge, but the tempo just holds things back a little bit. Now, toward the 4-minute mark, the ladies assert themselves, and Jerry makes it clear that he sings the blues, and he wants to know where it has led. Some serious rock star fanning licks in the 5-minute mark, but then it kind of thuds into Keith, who seems to want to shut it down. Garcia does some screaming crazed fanning mid-6 mark forward. Listen @ 6:58. Overall, though, I don't find this version of RIR to be the equal of, say, the mid-1983 barn-burners.

! s2t04 KOHD has a nice bouncy tempo that would really serve it well in the Garcia Band.

! s2t07 (2) JG: "Thanks a lot. Bye bye."

Tasty Fucking Tape: JGB at Paramount Northwest Theatre, Seattle, October 28, 1978 (Severson MAC)

LN jg1978-10-28.jgb.early-late.aud-severson.148540.flac2496

These last few shows of the Keith and Donna JGB are generally strong. And the recordings often sound really nice, not least because the bass, and I'd say generally the whole band, was dialed-in in the rooms. I don't know who was doing room sound, but they did a great job.

Mark Severson pulled the "tasty fucking tape(s)" of the title. That guy never missed, it seems.

Not a lot of notes, but that's kind of been characteristic of what I have been posting lately.

I really like the Reuben and Cherise here. It's not quite flawless, but it's strong. LAALWFH clocks in under 14 minutes, last time played until 7/26/81. 

For those who say that Keith Godchaux was worthless and nodding off in 1978. SHOW ME. I have never seen or heard evidence of this. Of course, maybe he was more engaged in the JGB than in the toxic cesspool of that other band. But, again, don't just repeat the narrative. Show, don't tell. (LIA supplies a bunch of the relevant canonical quotes in comment at LLD.)

Oh yeah, BTW, I also just upped some additional notes to my already-existing 10/27/78 post.

Jerry Garcia Band
Paramount Northwest Theatre
901 Pine Street
Seattle, WA 98101
October 28, 1978 (Saturday)
Severson MAC flac2496 shnid-148540

--early show, main set + encore (8 tracks, 7 tunes, 71:57)--
--early show main set (7 tracks, 6 tunes, 65:41)--
e-t01. ambience [1:14]
e-t02. Harder They Come [11:09] (1) [0:21] % [0:34]
e-t03. Mission In The Rain [9:16] [0:20] % [0:06]
e-t04. They Love Each Other [7:22] [1:11]
e-t05. Knockin' On Heaven's Door [13:01] [0:08] % (2) [1:54]
e-t06. It Ain't No Use [7:56] [1:36]
e-t07. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down [8:58] (3) [0:16] % [0:10] %
--early show encore (1 track, 6:16)--
e-t08. Reuben And Cherise [6:06] (4) [0:10] %

--late show (9 tracks, 8 tunes, 74:40)--
l-t01. ambience [1:03]
l-t02. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [8:14] [2:39]
l-t03. Catfish John [9:40] [0:15] % [0:33]
l-t04. I Second That Emotion [9:19] [0:25] % [0:15]
l-t05. Love In The Afternoon [8:14]
l-t06. Mystery Train
l-t07. Gomorrah [6:18] [0:15]
l-t08. I'll Be With Thee [5:15] ->
l-t09. Lonesome And A Long Way From Home [13:32] [0:28]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #4
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals;
! lineup: Donna Godchaux - vocals;
! lineup: Maria Muldaur - vocals;
! lineup: Keith Godchaux - piano;
! lineup: John Kahn - bass;
! lineup: Buzz Buchanan - drums.

JGMF:

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

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19781028-03 (early); https://jerrybase.com/events/19781028-04 (late)

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/12679 (McCaw MAC, shnf); https://etreedb.org/shn/89135 (Severson master, via minches); https://etreedb.org/shn/148539 (this fileset, flac1644); https://etreedb.org/shn/148540 (this fileset).

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/11/paramount-northwest-paramount-theatre.html

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

! Sue: For the two shows, $5k guarantee plus percentages on high gross and cost savings, on gross potential of $47,616-$53,568. Monarch got $3,000 for production, looks like co-pro was the John Bauer Concert Company.

! review: [negative] MacDonald 1978: "typically, the shows went on interminably. The first, which began at 7 pm, didn't end until almost 11 p.m. The second show, which was supposed to have started at 10:30 p.m., didn't get under way until past midnight. It was still going strong when I left about 3 a.m." Further, "I felt the second show audience, which was made to wait outside in the cold for hours and got a tired show, were ripped off."

! R: field recordist: Mark Severson

! R: field recording gear: 2x Sony ECM 270 mics > Sony TC-158

! R: Transfer Info: Master Cassette (Nakamichi CR-7A) > Tascam DA-3000 (DSF 1-bit/5.6 MHz)> dBpoweramp (24/96) > Adobe Audition CC 2019 > TLH flac2496

! R: seeder Notes: Thanks to Mark Severson for the master cassette recording. Thanks to Charlie Miller for the transfer and coordinating this effort. Thanks to Joe B. Jones for verifying the pitch. Mastered by Scott Clugston, December 2019.

! R: tasty fucking tape

! P: t02 HTC Garcia's first guitar turn is just so damn lyrical and melodic! Keith's first turn also nice.

! e-t02 (1) JG: "Thank you."

! P: e-t05 KOHD is beautiful! The notes Garcia plays in late 5 just slay me. Keith steps up for a feature 6:20ff.

! e-t05 (2) a guy in the crowd yells out something about "one show tonight, instead of two", and gets a good cheer from the crowd.

! e-t07 (3) JG: "Thanks a lot. We'll see ya later."

! P: e-t08 RAC Buzzy just kills some splashes around 3:25 - sounds great! I love how compact this version is. Great energy!

! e-t08 (4) JG: "So long."

! P: l-t09 LAALWFH it is pretty out there, but it never really did anything that interesting.

Late '78 Kahn (JGB at Paramount Theatre, Portland, OR, October 26, 1978)

LN jg1978-10-26.jgb.all.aud-severson.148655.flac2496

Not a ton to report. Kahn sounded absolutely amazing on this tour. Really, all through 1978. I don't know if he changed something, if the sound people just dialed him in especially well, or something else, but the bass was big and fat. Great recording by Mark Severson, full of ambience. Garcia strong.

Apparently young Buzzy had let his union membership lapse, because the Portland Musician's Mutual Association, A.F. of M Local number 99 sent a "Dear Sir and Brother" letter, fraternally hoping that notice of Buzzy's delinquency would give everyone "sufficient opportunity to avoid a repetition of this occurrence in any A.F.M. Local's jurisdiction, which could result in files being filed against" ol' Jer.

Jerry Garcia Band

Paramount Theatre

1037 S.W. Broadway

Portland, OR 97205

October 26, 1978 (Thursday)

Severson shnid-148655 flac2496

--set I (7 tracks, 6 tunes, 64:14)--

s1t01. ambience [1:16]

s1t02. Harder They Come [10:53] [1:57]

s1t03. Mission In The Rain [10:11] [0:16] % [0:49]

s1t04. Simple Twist Of Fate [10:38] [2:04]

s1t05. They Love Each Other [7:08] [1:56]

s1t06. It Ain't No Use [7:58] [0:19] % [0:17]

s1t07. Mystery Train [8:18] (1) [0:14]

--set II (7 tracks, 6 tunes, 64:20)--

s2t01. ambience [0:43]

s2t02. Love In The Afternoon [10:26] [1:46]

s2t03. Reuben And Cherise [5:37] [1:33]

s2t04. Tore Up Over You [7:50] [1:33]

s2t05. Gomorrah [5:56] [0:08] %

s2t06. /I'll Be With Thee [#5:09] [1:32]

s2t07. Lonesome And A Long Way From Home [21:45] [0:14] % dead air [0:04]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #4a

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

! lineup: John Kahn - el-bass;

! lineup: Buzz Buchanan - drums;

! lineup: Keith Godchaux - keyboards, harmony vocals;

! lineup: Donna Jean Godchaux - backing vocals;

! lineup: Maria Muldaur - backing vocals.

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; # = truncated timing; {x:xx} = time as tracked on this recording; [x:xx] = recorded even 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/19781026-03

! db: 

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/BNUjS75ANNs

! JGBP: URL https://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/08/paramount-theatre-paramount-northwest.html

! ad: Sunday Oregonian, October 8, 1978, p. 16

! ad: Capital-Journal (Salem, OR), October 13, 1978, p. 14-A

! seealso: Nick, "10/24/78: floundering in the snow," URL http://deadthinking.blogspot.com/2017/11/102478-floundering-in-snow.html

! seealso: Corry, "October 26, 1978 Paramount Theater, Portland, OR: Jerry Garcia Band/Bob Weir Band," URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2011/02/october-26-1978-paramount-theater.html. Corry suggests that Garcia found himself increasingly socially isolated in this period, couldn't go out to see other bands gig, and so was scouting talent from bands that opened for the GD or the JGB, noting "Garcia's primary keyboard players from 1979 to 1990 were all in bands that opened for him in 1978".

! historical: Bob Weir Band opened. Western flight #215 from SFO, landing PDX 5:09 PM: R. Taylor, Garcia, Kahn, 2x Godchaux, Muldaur, Buchanan, Healy, Loren, and GUITAR all ticketed. GUITAR doesn't get its own ticket on other flights of the tour until the end.

! R: field recordist: Mark Severson

! R: field recording gear: 2x Sony ECM 270 mics > Sony TC-158

! R: Transfer Info: Master Cassette (Nakamichi CR-7A) > Tascam DA-3000 (DSF 1-bit/5.6 MHz)> dBpoweramp (24/96) > Adobe Audition CC 2019 > TLH flac2496

! R: Notes: - Thanks to Mark Severson for the master cassette recording - Thanks to Charlie Miller for the transfer and coordinating this effort - Thanks to Pat Lee and Matt Smith for the Sony 18n source which supplies the first 5:05 of "Love In The Afternoon" - Thanks to Joe B. Jones for verifying the pitch. Mastered by Scott Clugston December 2019.

! P: s1t02 HTC @ 4:25 KG plays a terrific first lead, while Kahn is rumble-shredding beneath him. This band was so good, and sounded so good, on this tour. Hard to believe they'd only play a couple more shows.

! P: s1t03 MITR @ 3:40 Garcia decides he wants to play loudly, and does so.

! P: s1t04 STOF I have been repeatedly struck by how great Garcia's guitar work is. Late 6 here I especially note it again. Brimming over with stuff to say. No JK solo in this STOF.

! s1t07 (1) JG: "We're gonna take a break for a little while, we'll be back in a few minutes."

! R: s2t06 IBWT clips in

! P: s2t07 LAALWFH JG takes it out right over 6, and it comes back to the tune at 18:15. 12 pretty good, noodly minutes. And then they really stretch out the post-return piece - more than I ever recall in any other version. Donna moaning, Maria harmonizing nicely - lovely!

Emerge and See: Hunter Hosting Garcia at the Cellar Door - May 15, 1978 (DISCONFIRMED)

update 20210526: this seems not to have happened. David Kramer-Smythe reached out to David Morgenstern, who was with Comfort at this time. He remembered this gig for other reasons, but said Garcia definitely did not join, and that, in fact, Garcia never sat in with Comfort. So this is one of those cases of .... hmmm ... how does such a specific (if uncertain) memory form? What do we do with such a memory? In the absence of other advice. I will just keep this here for posterity.

Courtesy of slip at JGBP, this:

May 15, 1978 Robert Hunter and Comfort 

This was a three night run, the 14, 15, 16th at the Cellar Door in Washington DC.  

(The 14th  we saw the Dead play in Providence, RI. We were just finishing a post  spring semester  Vermont > Springfield > Providence run, so my memory of this event is extremely fuzzy, but it happened.) 

Anyway – towards the end of the Hunter show, Steve Parrish..what was he doing there?... helped roll a doorway sort-of-thing out on stage. It was like a big stage prop with a man-size keyhole shape cut-out. What…A giant keyhole? 

Then, I remember smoke machine and a siren howling like an ambulance. Lights flashed. The Cellar Door was a pretty small and dark venue as I recall, so this was kind of jarring. 

And then the PA screamed “Emergency…Emergency…Emergency” and gradually slowed to say “Emergggge an Seeeeee,” “Emergggge and See,” “Emerge and See,” Emerge and See!!!” 

And a fellow in a bozo mask walked through the keyhole. The fellow was Garcia. 

This is where it gets fuzzy....I forget what he played, maybe Boys in the Ballroom [sic]? Promontory Rider? Goodnight Irene? It wasn’t a standard Dead tune. 

Who’s got the tape?

Who, indeed? Can anyone confirm or deny?

The Bard on WLIR (Long Island), March 1978

http://tela.sugarmegs.org/_asxtela/asxcards/RobertHunter1978-03WLIRInterviewRoslynNY.html

Robert Hunter
1978-03-xx* Roslyn, New York unknown hotel (Hunter's room)
Interview by Denis McNamara for 92.7 WLIR-FM Garden City, New York (M?-FM)
"Sunday At 9:00" radio program -expanded edition- (3 shows/parts)
"A Conversation With Robert Hunter"

Not sure how close in time this was to the 3/12/78 Long Island show with JGB, NRPS, and Comfort (w/ Hunter). He says some interesting things about particular songs. I will just post annotations for the stuff that interests me.

2826 how about working for JG as a solo performer? Does that affect your writing?

2840 Sometimes. The best that can happen is that I'm just being prolific. some discussion

2915 first Garcia solo album related to the American Beauty and Workingmans field of material

3040 Deal is a reflection of what it's like to be in the rock and roll business

3815ff Bob Weir album

3916 CUTS a tune that I had been working on for years. I started working on it in London. ... a subterranean march of cats

4000 then there's a song which is my Orpheus it's called Reuben And Cérise which is one that I wrote several years ago for his second album Reflections but it just didn't around to gettin done until now. It's an Orpheic epic set in New Orleans ... he narrates this tune beautifully he recites it "her hair hung gently down" - "when Garcia sings this thing, it just brings goosebumps up my arm. It shivers up my spine - the full tragedy. I think we got Orpheus.

4213 record company stuff RH denies that it was economics. "I'll tell ya - I didn't give 'em the material. Here we were, all set up, ready to go, ready to rip, and if I had written albums like I've been writing ... it's just one of those situations where you get this nice snazzy Cadillac and the battery doesn't work for some reason. My streak ended. I don't know what it was. But ... WOTF I think has some excellent songs on it ... didn't grab [inaudible] exceedingly laid back, for one thing ... one of the problems was the choice of tempos on songs like Row Jimmy Row ... Stella Blue ... 1/2 Step ...

4418 first RH album Rum Runners I love the songs my singing is a little short of pathetic 4525

4610ff Blues for Allah 4646 people didn't take to it

4719 Crazy Fingers is his favorite from BFA

5320 JG wanted to do Tiger Rose!

5445 Tiger Rose

5515 "with Rum Runners, I didn't know [it would be released], and I don't think I could have sold that album if I didn't have my own record company, because it doesn't meet professional standards for recordings. It's quite dirty, in some respects."

5536 "Tiger Rose was produced by Garcia. ... I am afraid that the tracks sound more like Garcia music than mine, which may be good or bad. It has that mellowed out sound that he's into, whereas Rum Runners has this real rough-and-ready, which is my own style. ...Cruel White Water / Wild Bill

5652 excuse for TR vocals

5715 Mickey as anti-producer. Mickey Hart is the most wired cat you've ever met in your life. He has so many ideas, we had to like put em in a bag and tie it up and put em in the corner..... 5757 unsupressable ...

Palm Sunday

I know today is Easter, but JGBP tipped me off to a reddit AMA with Donna Jean the other day, and she provided this great memory from the Cats Under the Stars sessions:

It was about 4 o'clock in the morning, and Jerry and I were singing the duet on Palm Sunday, and we had the microphone on omni, so we were facing one another singing this song. It was probably the most soulful singing experience I ever had. It was a beautiful thing. I cannot say enough about how soulful that was, singing four inches from one another and singing that song. It's something I'll never forget.

Cool.

! ref: https://www.reddit.com/r/gratefuldead/comments/88dm78/hey_yall_its_donna_jean_ill_be_over_here_at_600/dwk2i0h/

Come back for Garcia Band. Come back, come back.

LN jg1978-03-10.interview.all.fm-zimmerman.82210.flac1644

I love these March '78 interviews. 3/11/78 is my absolute favorite, all kinds of great stuff. This one has less going on, but still interesting to the likes of me.

Jerry Garcia Band Interview
WCMF-FM Studios
129 Leighton Avenue
Rochester, NY 14614
March 10, 1978 (Friday) afternoon
46 minute Alan Zimmerman FM cassette

(7 tracks, 46:25)
jg19780310d3t001. Reuben and Cherise (album version) [3:45]
jg19780310d3t002. talk (1,2,3) [3:39]
jg19780310d3t003. Rain [5:46]
jg19780310d3t004. talk (4,5,6,7) [15:55] %
jg19780310d3t005. Love in the Afternoon [3:58]
jg19780310d3t006. talk (8,9,10,11,12,13) [10:46]
jg19780310d3t007. Gomorrah [2:40]

! Band: Interview
! personnel: Jerry Garcia
! personnel: John Kahn
! personnel: Donna Jean Godchaux
! personnel: ?? (primary interviewer)

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.

! TJS: none.

! db: shnid 82210 (this fileset)

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/4fyWc14xjgm

! seealso: JGMF, "One of the Great Interviews of the Garciaverse," http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2012/11/jg1978-03-11interview45minsfm-gefen.html.

! seealso: JGMF, "The Little Engine That Could," https://jgmf.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-little-engine-that-could.html, for show listening notes. Spoiler: it didn't slay me.

! R: Recordist: Alan Zimmerman; over-air FM broadcast (WCMF, 96.5 FM) >  cassette, unknown gear;

! R: Transfer and FLAC encoding by David Minches: Master played back on Nakamichi Dragon > Digital Audio Labs Card Deluxe soundcard > Adobe Audition > flac encoding > FLAC.

! historical: John Kahn sounds zonked.

! t02 (1) talk about having just been in Rochester with the GD a few months prior. JG: "Rochester keeps calling us back. 'Come back for Garcia Band. Come back, come back.'"

! t02 (2) @ 1:14 Q How did Maria get involved with the tour?" JG: "Well, uhhhh ... luck, I suppose. [Donna chuckles sweetly] Actually, what happened was that back when I did an album about 3 or 4 years ago and John produced it and he had Maria come in to do some vocal work on the record. Since then we've worked kind of informally. And John and Maria live together. [He swallows his words a little bit. Asks John, aside, "if that's OK, if you don't mind my mentioning that?" JK: "Oh, it's quite all right."] And so on this album she participated a lot, too, on the vocals and stuff and she's also accompanied us on a few other tours. And it's neat to have her singing with us. Donna and Maria sing really well together and they like working together. So, just, chemically it works out really nicely." DJG: "We don't fly together [?], you know." JG: "And I like having all those pretty girls onstage." [Kahn laughs.]

! t02 (3) DJ: we have a super advanced pressing of your latest album. We heard a test pressing just before we left CA 3 or 4 days ago. Record radio stations will be getting promo copies, in record stores soon.  @0250 "What kinds of musical directions are you trying to take on this record? There's a touch of reggae in it--" JG: "Every direction. We don't really have a style, except that it's all us." JK: "It sounds like us, is the direction. It's trying to sound the most like us of anything we've done so far." Song introduction "Rain", written by Donna, orchestration and arrangement by John Kahn.

! t04: DJ (4) Young kids still into the Dead. What do you attribute that to? JG: we've been lucky in having a spotty record career. No real big hits. contra formulaic thing, slam-bang show. Exciting the first time. The theatrics. You realize you're seeing the same thing, that gets to be dull. Audience doesn't want to ... DJ: so when you take the stage, do you have any songs in mind? JG we don't know what we're gonna do. We have a low boredom index. It would be horribly boring for us to do the same shows all the time. Constitutionally incapable of doing it. some times a dud, other times magical, miraculous. Exceptionally high concentration of coincidence. Musical coincidences are occurring way higher than the law of probability would allow them to be. Like magic. People come to that because there's something genuine about it. A mysterious thing. Something that people require. Being encouraged by the audience. Audience is participating. This talk is vague between GD vs. JG. Jerry can't identify great moments per se. completely out of our hands high energy environment ... in this testing situation. people follow all around the country. Maybe they asked him not to mention GD?

! personnel: t04 @ 4:55 JK sounds totally wrecked

! t04 (5) @0846 working with Robert Hunter. JK sometimes Garcia will have pages of words and write music to that. Or sometimes we'll write music that doesn't have words and give that to him. So it goes different directions. JG: All kinds of fine tuning possibilities. I'll have ideas that have vocal phrasing and sing the phrasings to him. We work very freely together."

! t04 (6) domestic scenes. @0956 Do you live and work together. Too many of us to live together. @1030 JG Basically we all have our own scenes and families and so forth ... or whatever. We're all, live near each other, and we hang out an awful lot together, we spend more hours together than we do living anywhere else. @1055 DJG we'll be playing at place called Keystone "Long time, no see." We've chosen to work that way.

! t05 (7) Club Front @11:33 studio setup. @1139 JG This record is the first record from that studio. ... This record is the first thing from that studio, which ... was partly funded ... partly built from the budget that I was allowed to make this record. It's quite well equipped. It has a really nice Neve console, from England, and a really nice Studer machine, Swiss, and it's an excellent sounding room. It's a very large room and it really sounds very pretty. Has very pretty vocal sound, pretty instrumental sound. We're really delighted with the results. We're real happy." #Club Front

! t04 (7) DJ ask John for song intro JK "Influenced by reggae music, which I love a whole lot. Reggae was the most significant thing that happened, for bass players, in ten years maybe." More reggae talk JK: "We might have heard the best reggae records." JG: "I don't think there's going to be some kind of explosion. It's a local thing. It has a limited appeal. But from a musician's standpoint it has some very interesting things that American music could use right now." DJ: "Like what?" JG: "A rhythmic approach, a whole approach to rhythm that has to do with standing on the rhythm in a certain way. The easiest way I can relate to it is to figure about 93 degrees, with about a hundred percent humidity, in the middle of somewhere, just goin' real slow, y'know? [he has a grin]. And it has a steadiness to it that comes from a kind of island life, like the surf, y'know ... and the thing about the bass playing, that John was saying, the sense of the rhythmic ... the holes, the spaces, having rhythmic value, in the same sense of that positive-negative image sense. So, the holes have the same kind of rhythmic values that the notes do, and that gives it a tremendous power, and a lovely kind of rhythmic thing." JK: "as a bass player, a long time ago, especially r and b records, old motown records, the bassline was one of the most important elements, counterpoint to the vocal, and the drums. Music has gotten away from that now. ... music directly related to the bassline has died out in America, and it's an element of reggae music that appeals a lot to me." #reggae

! t04 DJ started spinning Palm Sunday instead, accidentally.

! t06 (8) current music: Elvis Costello JG: "I like it." likes some New Wave. Really like Cheap Trick. What I like about it is the spirit. They're puttin' out. They're trying hard. The heavy duty production trick ... the glib slickness so mechanical and predictable and safe. It's a formula trip. Raw and real nasty, and the players are not very good, but the spirit ... young people can always dig that. JK: I dig it. I'm not young anymore. 5-min mark talking about The Who

! t06 (9) @0645 solo project outside the GD. JG "It's an illusion. The illusion is that these are solo projects, when they're really not solo projects. Like what we do in this band, it's no solo project. It's really a group contribution, and believe me, it's not a matter of my own personal activity. I am involved with people who care about music the same way that I do, we have an affinity for each other, we enjoy working together, and, for me, a group dynamic is way more interesting than the concept of a solo project. I've done one solo project, my first solo record, in which I was foolish enough to try to play everything on it myself and I was really bored with it, fundamentally, because you already know everything that happened, there's no surprises. The thing of working with other people, that somebody's gonna shed a new kind of light on an idea of yours ... it gives you something to work with ... there's electricity, or chemistry, or something like that." #solo vs GD

! t06 (10) @0746 DJ is it true that the banjo was your first instrument? @0747 JG: "Yeah, it was my first serious instrument. DJ: "And then you went to the guitar, and then the electric guitar, because it was more of an extension of--" JG: "Uhh, I've, well, for me, the banjo got to be so, uhhh ... [long pause] [JK: "Swiss watch-like." JG: "Right.] Like a Swiss watch. It was like a cuckoo clock or a Swiss watch. It got to be tremendously mechanical and I, finally just had a tremendous reaction to it, it's like, 'I really can't make music with this instrument. I want something that moves the way a voice moves. I want to be able to play more expressively. ... I just burned myself out on the banjo, really, is what it boils down to." DJG: "It's kind of a one-toned ..." JG: "Yeah, it's got one thing going for it." DJ @0835: Do you ever think about going back doing something like the OAITW record? @0837 JG "For me, it was the music ... [cross talk that John was also involved] And for me, the neat thing, my whole interest in the banjo even was really not so much the banjo itself, but bluegrass music as a style of music. And it's the music that I cared about, rather than the banjo by itself. So it's very hard for me to, say, sit at home and practice the banjo. If the music were there --in other words, if I were out playing with friends, a couple of nights a week-- I could get into it. But really the music matters to me more than the banjo does." JK: "Yeah, really, it's a beautiful kind of music." JG: "It is, it's really neat music." JK: "But, y'know, I couldn't see practicing ... either ... uhhh ... [JG, laughing: "No." Some chuckling, as if the thought of practicing is hilarious.] DJG: "Jerry doesn't think he plays the banjo or the steel guitar" JK: "We're all crazy like that, that's normal" (??). #banjo

! t06 (11) @0927 DJG: "He's talking about his first record, my four year old listens to it three or four times a day." JK: "I like that, too. ... I remember going in there and watching him play bass on that." JG: "Oh Jeez, that was embarassing." JK: "No it wasn't."

! t06 DJ we should wrap things up, get them to soundcheck.

! t06 (12) DJG: "Singing with Maria's great." Stress the point that Maria is part of the band. JG: "Yeah."

! t06 (13) JG introduces Gomorrah. JG: "This is an Old Testament song. Everybody knows about Sodom, but this song is about Gomorrah."

The Little Engine That Could

LN jg1978-03-10.jgb.all.aud-zimmerman-minches.80887.flac1644

Love this image of Jerry's face on a locomotive.

The show didn't do that much for me, though I do give rare praise to Dixie Down.

Reviewer paints a picture of the Dirty F$%^ing Hippies and assorted others:

The dressing room backstage at the Auditorium Theater [sic] has that lived-in look. The air is thick with various kinds of smoke. Cigarette butts litter the floor. On two long tables in a corner the remains of a catered meal are decaying. There are a lot of people hanging around who found the meaning of life in 1967. They look a little worn around the edges. Hells Angels in greasy and tattered denim are stomping around in pointed-toe boots. Beefy security guards eye them, nervously.
Jerry Garcia's in town.

Jerry Garcia Band
Auditorium Theatre
875 East Main Street
Rochester, NY 14605
March 10, 1978 (Friday)
Zimmerman MAC shnid-80887 flac1644

--set I (6 tracks, 5 tunes, 63:21)--
s1t01. crowd and tuning [0:56]
s1t02. Harder They Come [11:59] [2:02]
s1t03. Mission In The Rain [9:48] [1:14] % [0:06]
s1t04. Russian Lullaby [13:26] -14:58
s1t05. I Second That Emotion [11:15] -13:50
s1t06. Mystery Train [8:06] (1) [0:25]

--set II + encore (8 tracks, 7 tunes, 75:41)--
-- set II (7 tracks, 6 tunes, 64:38)--
s2t01. crowd and tuning [0:32]
s2t02. Love In The Afternoon
s2t03. They Love Each Other
s2t04. Tore Up Over You [8:03] -11:10
s2t05. Simple Twist Of Fate [11:34] -13:41
s2t06. I'll Be With Thee [5:17] [0:23] % [0:16]
s2t07. Night They Drove Old Dixie Down xxx some pre-encore tuning here
--encore (1 track, 11:03)--
s2t08. Midnight Moonlight


! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-guitar, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-bass;
! lineup: Buzz Buchanan - drums;
! lineup: Keith Godchaux - keyboards, harmony vocals;
! lineup: Donna Jean Godchaux - backing vocals;
! lineup: Maria Muldaur - backing vocals.

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; # = truncated timing; { } = time as tracked on this recording; [ ] = recorded even 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/19780310-05

! db: this is the only circulating tape of this show as of 11/18/2017.

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

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2011/09/auditorium-theater-885-east-main-st.html.

! ad: Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, February 26, 1978, p. 6G;

! ref: Billboard, March 25, 1978, p. 114;

! review: King 1978

! seealso: JGMF, "Come back for Garcia Band. Come back, come back." URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2017/12/come-back-for-garcia-band-come-back.html (interview from earlier in the day).

! R: field recordist: Alan Zimmerman

! R: field recording gear: 2x Sony 54P or Sony ECM 99 > Teac PC-10

! R: field recording media: 1st Set on Sony FeCr-90; 2nd Set on Maxell UD XLII-90

! R: transfer: Transfer and FLAC encoding by David Minches: Master played back on Nakamichi Dragon > ART DI/O > Digital Audio Labs Card Deluxe soundcard > Cool Edit 2000 > flac encoding > FLAC.

! R: low levels muffled low vox some static. Not a great tape, but the only one circulating as of this writing (10/15/2017).

! s1t04 RL a very nice dropping sequence 4:30 ish.

! s1t06 (1) JG: "Thanks a lot. We're gonna take a break [inaudible], we'll be back in a little bit. Thank you."

! P: s2t05 STOF I love the careful Dylanesque inflections

! P: s2t07 TNTDODD very nice!

oh my

https://archive.org/details/gd1978-01-11.135498.sbd.miller.flac16

Check out the Let It Grow.

UCSB '78

Corry has a post on the GD / Warren Zevon / Elvin Bishop / Wahkoo gig at UCSB on July 4, 1978.

I have two followups, a tape beg and a tangential piece of metadata.

First, does anyone have a copy of the Elvin Bishop set, with Jerry sitting in? Apparently there is an aud tape of it.

Second, at http://www.dead.net/show/june-4-1978 commenter jacksondownunder writes

I caught the soundcheck the day before [i.e., 6/3/78]. As I wandered up to the side gate the band was jamming a long instrumental "Dancin'" riff. They eventually stopped and Bobby & Jerry started playing the melody of an old Harry Belafonte song called "Yellow Bird" on twin slide guitars. (I recognized the tune, having heard it on my parent's records hundreds of times.) Then the band started jamming a riff that at the time I presumed was an instrumental vamp of Feat's "Dixie Chicken" (plausible), which is listed above as Iko (possible), but as it followed another Harry Belafonte song it coulda been "Women Smarter" (probable). The half dozen of us kindred strangers made the mistake of applauding and were chased off.

The writer thinks "Women Smarter" more likely, but I am going to go with Iko Iko, which had entered the Dead's rotation in 1977. That's speculative, caveat emptor.


I don't recall that info being in Deadlists, or if that entered the Deadbase 50 updates, but it should be a bit more firmly on the record than I recall it being.

A list of known soundchecks would be fun to see.

The Blogging Hobby

Blogging is a great hobby - if you have ever thought of just wanting to keep some intellectual interest of yours pinned down a little better than purely in your head, I highly recommend it.

Among Blogger's very limited features - You Get What You Pay For, Corry reminds us, and as a Braudelian he means it - is the statistics function. I check occasionally to see hit counts (pretty steady around 250, declines to 150 if I have a fallow month, increases to 350 and higher depending on idiosyncrasies of people dropping links), see what people are reading.

That latter is especially nice, just to see people skimming around, maybe get their chiaroscuro on. It's nice to be read, even when the prose is balky.

Seeing this, and thinking of my readers, inspires me to inspect a few freshly drilled rabbit holes. Thank you, reader!

Take today, for example.

1.

I see that someone's been into my post about a dreamed-of Garcia sit-in with David Bromberg at the Boarding House in mid-June 1972.

2.

I get to the thinking about Summer 1972 in The City (probably cold and foggy), great City room, not much on Garcia's mind since John's mostly not around to arrange gigs, play off some charts? (Who would have been in Bromberg's band?) Maybe a beautiful, marked-up copy of Night Times in the front seat, find some parking, see the show? Yes, please.

That picture probably never actually posed itself, but a fella can dream.

3.

I was reminded by my reader that I had posted what did happen, Jerry laying down his licks for the folkie's Demon in Disguise (Columbia KC 31753, 1972) at Heider's, Wednesday June 21 - Saturday June 24 at Heider's. I had forgotten I had posted that stuff.

The Bromberg post mentioned harmonica player Will Scarlett sitting in, which

4.

led to me to think about the Garcia Band show at the Keystone, March 3, 1978, The List telling us not only that Scarlett sat-in, but that the band played two blues singletons, Little Walter's "Juke" and, putatively, Booker T & The MG's "Green Onions". See notes 7-9 for more.

5.

I wondered where those setlist details might have come (tape?), so I emailed Corry.

6.

It also led me deaddisc, and I thought its proprietor might like to transcribe some of that into his DID page. Long story short, I thought he might like to go through some of my "San Francisco Sessions" posts, and in getting links I did a little light housekeeping with those.

7.

Listen to "Juke".

8.

Listen to "My Babe".

9.

Discover in my notes that the second singleton on 3/3/78 actually wasn't "Green Onions", but Sonny Boy Williamson's "Help Me".

10.

Lament that there's no Jerry Site to update.

11.

This was actually occurring throughout: "Thank you, Reader!"

Lost Godchaux-Muldaur Era JGB

New to The List:  Stanford Daily listing shows JGB at Keystone Berkeley Saturday, August 12, 1978 (long known via the Soto-McNally-Arnold JG List, and there is tape), but also Sunday, August 13, 1978. The latter would be new to The List.

 ! listing: Stanford Daily, August 11, 1978, p. 7. 

Still Uncertain? 11/4/78 and a Bonus Speculation

I don't know where things stand with respect to the "So What" show, Friday 11/3/78, or the next night (11/4/78) as the last Garcia Band shows of the Godchaux era, four months before they'd last play with the Dead. 11/4/78 has a question mark in the Soto-McNally-Arnold JG List. JGBP: "I was at the 11/3/78 show, I thought this was the last one, as they played an unusual So What to open the second set. From recollection, I don't think 11/4/78 happened." Those are two strikes against it.

For what it's worth, the 11/4/78 show was listed in the Stanford Daily of 11/2, and I now have the following around that show:

! listing: Stanford Daily, November 2, 1978, p. 9;
! listing: BAM no. 43 (November 3, 1978), p. 10;
! ref: Arnold, Corry. 2011. "So What" The Jerry Garcia Band: Keystone Palo Alto, Palo Alto, CA November 3, 1978. Hooterollin’ Around, May 13, 2011, URL http://hooterollin.blogspot.com/2011/05/so-what-jerry-garcia-band-keystone-palo.html, consulted 12/28/2013;
! ref: JGBP comment at JGMF, January 11, 2014 at 6:15:00 PM MST, URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2011/04/jgb-january-26-1976-keystone-berkeley.html?showComment=1389489304453#c2232559722495631241.

So the Saturday 11/4 show was advertised well, but canceled. The Friday show has the "So What" bustout, and JGBP reckoned at the time that Friday was the last show. How do we reconcile these observations? The Stanford Daily was just that, a daily, so the November 3-4 listings could have been called in on Halloween or 11/1, right? Maybe even 11/2? And then something happens to result in the lucrative Saturday show getting canceled.

Deadhead rumor mill (and maybe The Sources) have always hinted that Keith stole some of Garcia's drugs. If the foregoing things are true (that as of 11/1 the Saturday gig was still on, by 11/3 it was off) - I speculate that this represents a window within in which things changed rather abruptly for the Godchaux Era JGB.

p.s. it's remarkable that there are still potential shows to discover as late as 1978.

Cats in the Studio: September 1977