update: this was originally posted some years ago. I accidentally reposted it today. It looks like it is not perfectly together – you get what you pay for.
I wanted to try a little experiment by just unpacking a single show. I am not a very effective “prosopographer”, so I can’t do what Corry does, or what LIA does. Anyway, for various reasons, I ended up with Saturday, March 2, 1990, Warfield Theatre, San Francisco, CA.
IMO
The Jerry Garcia Band had its last sustained run of excellence from August 29, 1987 (Eel River, Piercy, CA) through August 26, 1989 (Greek Theatre, University of California, Berkeley, CA). Ask me again in two hours and I might have a different view. But, anyway, give or take a month or a year or two, this was the sweet period after the coma when Jerry had had enough time to get his chops back and was relatively healthy (though early 1989, I’d maintain, but that’s a whole ‘nother can o’ worms), before turning south again, at least on the latter dimension. There were a few other local peaks (the last one being JGB February 6, 1994 at the Warfield), but no other sustained period combining such a high mean and such low variance.
/IMO
The Jerry Garcia Band show on Friday, March 2, 1990 at the Warfield Theatre, 982 Market Street, San Francisco, CA, 94102, falls outside of these boundaries. And, indeed, now having heard it, I can say that I find it well below the mean of, say, 1989. There are some very hot moments, but Jerry definitely has less steam behind him here than he had a year earlier.
Venue
Corry has covered this venue in crisp form (in a post on the Keystones, of course!), though it hasn’t gotten the full Garcia-centric treatment that someone, at some point, will have to give it. In lieu of tacking that here and now, I’d first make the obvious point that the Warfield, a xxx 2,000 seat theater, [owned? operated?] by Bill Graham, is perfectly crucial to understanding late-period Jerry, having served as the Garcia Band’s home base from late 1987 through the end. Second, I’d note that the Warfield replaced Freddie Herrera’s 700-capacity The Stone at 412 Broadway, San Francisco, CA, 94133 in that home court role. I have started jotting down notes on a post about this change, we’ll see when I can get to it. It’ll be interesting. In the meantime, Corry has just recently engaged that issue!
The live JGB Album
March 2, 1990 was recorded, and at least one song (“Waiting For A Miracle”) was included, on the The double live 1991 Arista release Jerry Garcia Band (record release information | deaddisc). It is a fantastic release and has really held up well as a representation of this near-peak period. The Jerry Garcia Band played five separate multinight runs at the Warfield during a six-month in 1990: February 2-3-4, March 1-2, April 13-14-15, June 12-13 and August 7-8-9. The April and August runs were multitracked for possible use on the album. Taping security was very tight at these shows, which is a story that I hope to be able to tell at some point.
Information has never been provided by The Powers That Be as to which songs come from which shows, and no fans have ever been able to try to piece the puzzle together because a few sets have never really circulated. Since I think old copies of just about everything have been dug up, that circumstance will change, and I’ll tackle the project if no-one beats me to it. (It needs to happen for How Sweet It Is and Shining Star as well.) [update: done.] I expect that we’ll be able to pin everything down in reasonably short order, though w/r/t Jerry Garcia Band I think the analysis will show that there is some splicing of various material here and there. Blair Jackson has already stated on Dead Net Central that the vocals on the beautiful, haunting version of Dylan’s “Señor (Tales Of Yankee Power)” had to be overdubbed in the studio, since Garcia never once (during the multitrack recording period for the album, anyway) got them straight live. There is also the occasional audible splice (a truncated cymbal, for example) that will need to be pinned down, but I think it can be done.
The producers managed to cull 2 CDs worth of pretty fantastic music. But, to repeat, I think 3/2/90 falls outside the peak. A couple of recent posts at Dead Net Central, most notably by Blair Jackson, suggest that the Jerry Garcia Band’s raging playing of early 1989 –check out the 1/27 and 1/28 shows at the Orpheum, easily Garcia’s finest post-coma shows to that point– may have inspired the idea to record the live album. But by the time they got around to recording,
Caveat Lector: rest of the post is sketchy/drafty
The release is pretty fantastic, I admit. But …
The problem is, the shows are extremely uneven, generally down to the song level. So, while I absolutely love the Jerry Garcia Band live release, I can’t help but wish they had been recording a year to 18 months earlier.
To be clear, there were plenty of great versions of great songs. Enough for a really nice 2 CD release in 1991. There were some great setlist innovations during this period, with the additions of “Señor (Tales Of Yankee Power)” on 2/2/90 and “Tears Of Rage” the next night being my favorites. But Jerry just doesn’t sound as alive as he did a year previous.
circulation issues: VHS … never jumped to DAT
Difficulty of taping 1990 Warfield shows.
songs (use Blair GR). Alex Allan song links
Setlist
–Set I–
Cats Under The Stars (Lyrics: Robert Hunter; Music: Jerry Garcia).
Forever Young (Lyrics: Bob Dylan;Music: Bob Dylan). From Dylan’s Planet Waves (deaddisc, released January 1974).
Tough Mama (Lyrics: Bob Dylan; Music: Bob Dylan). From Dylan’s Planet Waves (deaddisc, released January 1974).
The Way You Do The Things You Do (Lyrics: William Robinson, Robert Rogers; Music: William Robinson, Robert Rogers). This is a revival for TWYDTTYD, which JGB hadn’t played publicly since January 14, 1984. BJ notes
Like A Road Leading Home (Lyrics: Nix, Penn; Music: Nix, Penn)
Deal (Lyrics: Robert Hunter; Music: Jerry Garcia)
Set I Comments: Garcia/Hunter tunes bookend two Dylans and two R&Bs.
–Set II–
Mission In The Rain (Lyrics: Robert Hunter; Music: Jerry Garcia). A great San Francisco song for and by a great San Franciscan. By March 1990, though, Jerry is pretty phlegmy and has a hard time, for example with the “ten years ago, I walked these streets, my dreams were riding tall” line. He wants to put a little inflection on “walked”, but he just doesn’t have the range.
Waiting For A Miracle (Lyrics: Bruce Cockburn; Music: Bruce Cockburn). Late in his career, Garcia picked up a few Canadian-penned midtempos: this one and Daniel Lanois’s “The Maker”, which debuted a little later (xxx date xxx). Waiting For A Miracle was a really nice JGB tune for a bit, but by 1990 it had passed its peak. The best version is the one from the Wiltern Theatre, Los Angeles, CA on November 26, 1988 [db | LL], which was only its second appearance. Jerry took special care with the “stand up tall, pretend you’re strong / in the hope that you can be” line, which really seemed to speak to him (and certainly makes the song for me). But certainly after 1989 the song could just be a dud notwithstanding which Garcia kept playing it (all the way into 1994), bless his heart. The version from March 2, 1990 is sounds just like the one (!) the one that ended up on the double-live 1991 Jerry Garcia Band.
Tears Of Rage (Lyrics: Bob Dylan, Richard Manuel; Music: Bob Dylan, Richard Manuel). This is only the 3rd of 12 JGB versions. Oh my goodness, what a fantastic cover this was for Jerry. He delivered some gut-wrenchingly good versions of this lament, the best of which, from August 5, 1990 at the Greek Theatre, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA (TJS) was selected for the outtakes of the Garcia Plays Dylan release. deaddisc URL
Think (Lyrics: Jimmy McKracklin, Don Robey (note: often credited to McCracklin and Deadric Malone, which was the pseudonym Don Robey often wrote under); Music: Jimmy McKracklin, Don Robey)
My Sisters And Brothers (Lyrics: Charles Johnson; Music: Charles Johnson)
Tangled Up In Blue (Lyrics: Bob Dylan; Music: Bob Dylan)
REFERENCES
Arnold, Corry. 1986. Bob Dylan Approximately. Golden Road no. xx (Summer): 34. Songs discussed: “She Belongs To Me”, “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”, “It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry”, “When I Paint My Masterpiece”, “Positively 4th Street”, “The Wicked Messenger”, “Tough Mama”, “Going, Going Gone”, “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”, “Simple Twist Of Fate”,”Tangled Up In Blue”, “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues”, “The Mighty Quinn”, “Visions Of Johanna”, “Desolation Row”, “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”.
Jackson
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