12, 1976, Garcia, John Kahn, Keith and Donna Jean Godchaux, probably Richard
Loren hopped into sedans being driven by monitor mixer Harry Popick and roadie Bill
‘Kidd’ Candelario to Davis,
California, about a hundred miles east of San Francisco on I-80. Thus began a
little weekend jaunt that strikes me as more pleasant than one they’d do in
August ’81 (billed as the “1st
Northern California Tour”), if only because the latter passed through
Stockton in August, while this one offers foggier temperatures and a cooler implicit psychology.
Herrera in Berkeley and Palo Alto (I don’t think a note of these shows
circulates among collectors), then Tuesday through Thursday at Elliot Mazer’s
His Master’s Wheels studio, in the space formerly operated by, variously, Pacific High Recorders and Alembic. The band gives every appearance of trying to use these sessions to
work up some old favorites, sort of like a second version of Compliments, a few more fonky gospel numbers, maybe a few not so fonky, but a
nice eclectic mix, for some ready-to-sell vinyl. This is the…
rooms in the Bay Area in June of 1974, right after recording Compliments (mostly at Columbia) and using it for Reflections, recorded second half 1975 and released early 1976, itself
involving some abortive components (see Corry). That involved the payoff of the summer 1975 United
Artists bailout. In late 76, Jerry played for Clive, and Arista paid the HMW studio time, as Davis, Garcia, Weir and the Grateful Dead (the latter three not at all the same thing as these men make their respective journeys) enter into a deal to further find fates. It’s impossible
to say whether Davis fronted the studio time as an act of good faith, or
whether, more likely, the time would eventually come out of Garcia’s advance. Despite its aesthetic promise, I can’t say why this project gwas shelved. Eventually, after long battles with demons in the studio –recorded in earnest August-November 1977 and released around April 1,
1978– Cats Under The Stars replaced it as the first, and in many ways the only, Jerry Garcia Band studio album.
After August 1976 sessions paid by Round Records – perhaps the last good checks that outfit ever wrote, if they didn’t bounce, October and November found Arista paying the bills, leaked to the cognoscenti no later than November 20th.[i] Conceptually, take 2 of the first JGB album resonated with the “Americana Jerry likes” feel of Compliments, but with the band of Garcia-Kahn-Tutt-Godchaux (Keith) and at least some of the material drawing from cooler, stiller depths. Garcia tried Elizabeth
Cotten’s “Freight Train”
and “Oh Babe It Ain’t No Lie”
on for size for the project, about which I wrote at some length, noting
that the ancient songstress found pulp-and-glue permanence in the New Lost City Ramblers Songbook
(1964), through which, I surmise, Garcia might have learned the tunes. An undated
OBIANL features on All Good Things, disc 3, track 11.
The Band also
drew heavily from the gospel well with which Jerry, Keith, Donna and the
rest had spent so much time in the Godchaux’s living room in 1975 (for Keith and Donna), sometimes quite literally accompanied by a Samarian woman and a “Strange Man”. telling her every sinful thing she’d done, and setting her free. After a shambolic January, the bicentennial live act came to feature more upbeat gospel, as well, from the celestial choir of “My Sisters And Brothers”
to the hot-to-trot show closer “Ride Mighty High”. (Another angelic boogie, “Magnificent Sanctuary Band” [released
on the 2004 box set All Good Things] never made it out of Stinson.)
Beyond gospel we find a Dylan (“Visions
Of Johanna”, on the bonus disc All Good Things
Redux), some black–and-white rockers “Bo Diddley” and “Not Fade Away” (11/9/76), a little R&B on November 10th (“Don’t Let Go”, “The Way You Do The Things You Do”), “The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise” (11/10/76), “Matilda” (calypso on both 11/10/76 and 11/11/76!) and the pure train “Streamlined
Cannonball” (11/11/76). To travel to the places to which these various tunes were established, among the people who established them, would drive across every route and byway east of the Mississippi, lots of cities and hollers and plains, and a few on the other side; to do so by the means that conveyed them would bring you to ambient voice, boat, ship, raft, rail and automobile. Aesthetically, the collection would make a fine record.
The Weekend “Tour”
 |
| Table xxx. |
Garcia checked in, said hello and stocked up on the local fare –still
autumn, harvest season– for the rides back home.
Garcia at Freeborn
Depending on where they were coming from, this crew crossed
a bridge (Richmond-San Rafael from Marin, or the Bay Bridge from the City),
hooked up with I-80 east bound, crossed another bridge (over the Carquinez
Strait), went up over the coastal ridge and dropped into the Great Central
Valley. “Jerry Garcia has always liked this town,” wrote the California Aggie reviewer about Davis. Campus
gym Freeborn Hall would have been a drafty, smelly basketball arena at this
time, all echo, but the college kids, many of them from the Bay Area, were
enthusiastic, and the show shimmered. “Never before,” wrote his
seasoned reviewer, “have I seen Garcia dance, nor have I ever seen him
smile so much”.
 |
| Table xxx. |
Donna) swaying in a sweet groove, but of the audio, we are blessed to have
Betty Cantor Jackson’s 4th reel of the night (reels 1-3 are AWOL,
and may have returned do dust), and it holds just a 30 minute “Don’t Let
Go” and a show-closing “Might High”, the crème de la crème of 1976 JGB repertoire, just about (LAALWFH wants a word with me).
evidence.
interesting, not his usual feathery fluttery tickling thing – actual bass playing.
He could do this in earlier years, and occasionally later on, but to hear John
Kahn play with some power in November 1976 is a revelation.
lineup: Jerry Garcia – el-guitar, vocals;
JGMF:
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.
probably different source DAT and definitely more primitive DAT > CD
transfer – deprecated); http://etreedb.org/shn/132401 (this fileset – best
source).
Phenomenal Crowd Pleasers. California Aggie, November 15, 1976, p. 3. positive
review of 11/12/76. Under subtitle “Fabulous Crowd Pleasers” starts
by getting out his Webster’s: “mellifluous (me-lif-loo-es, adj. (L.
/mellifluus: mel, mellis-honey, fluete-to flow), flowing sweetly and smoothly;
honeyed; said of words, sounds, etc. … Jerry Garcia has always liked this town,
Davis”, gave a memorable performance. Not’s the JGB has played Crabshaw
Corner in Sacto. Freeborn Freeborn
usually sounds like ass, but the reviewer says the band’s gear sounded
great.” Kane praises “Garcia’s magnificently mellow, fluid blues
progressions”. “Never before have I seen Garcia dance, nor have I
ever seen him smile so much. But he had a lot to smile about, and so did a
crowded Freeborn.” “He appeared very warm and comfortable. His music
was doubly so.”
only). As far as I know, reels 1-3 are not in the Garcia Vault, which might
mean they are still out in the world somewhere. They are known not to be among
the Betty Boards (TM). Given the water damage to this reel, though, it’s
strongly possible that the first three reels were among the miles of rotted
spaghetti and distingrated vinyl and oxide, silt and pulp and goat piss. As of
this writing (3/24/2016), my best sense is that they are gone forever, but that
could be wrong.
processor-Sony PCM R-700 DAT @ 48KHz (circa 1999). Original zero gen DAT played
back on a Sony PCM R-500-Digital Audio Labs Card deluxe-16 bit 48KHz. Editing
(Adobe Audition CC) – Mastering & Processing (iZotope Ozone 6) – FLAC
encoding (dBpoweramp) – Tagging (Tag & Re-name – Digital Transfer, Editing
& Processing By JW:February 2015.
servers”
is some tape squeal present.”
wasn’t, some squeal. Again late 22, ca. 22:50.
and for 20 seconds he’s on it, a little too fluttery at 12:20, some great bass
soloing by John Kahn — yeah, I said it. @ 14:43 the band comes back, John gets
a nice round of applause from the crowd. This is building to a very nice
crescendo, all involved, Garcia high up 15:18, all the rest is percussion, now
he puts some blue on it 15:39. Garcia in a very interesting space 16:13, a
little more speed. 25ff is Garcia’s vocale-guitar duetting, some good moaning
and scowling. Jerry gets real strong wid it to come to an end, everyone lands
right.
29:49 – sounds like something definable. 30:20 for sure, that Parisian Waltz.
more at 30:35. another quote 30:53, more than a quote. He wants to play it.
Garcia strums for Mighty High @ 31:04.
it early 5ff, everyone singing hard, she is belting! You guy, girl! Even Keith
is yelling, in his nasally way, making the tape squeal. Man, that is some good
time music for the Aggies!
ends, maybe 30 seconds of music missing.
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