Good Old Boys at Keystone: June 14, 1974

Good Old Boys

Keystone

2119 University Avenue

Berkeley, CA 94704

June 14, 1974 (Friday)

–early set main–

Blue Grass Breakdown (1)

Sittin’ On Top Of The World (2)

Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (And Loud, Loud Music)

Deep Elem Blues

(3) I’ll Never Make You Blue (4)

Jesus Loves His Mandolin Player #2 (5)

Pistol Packin’ Mama (6)

Wild Side Of Life (7)

Uncle Pen

Raw Hide (8)

–early set encore–

Colored Aristocracy (9)

Back Up And Push

–late set–

Goin’ Down The Road Feelin’ Bad (10, 11)

Nine Pound Hammer (12)

Little Girl And The Dreadful Snake

Used To Be

Ragtime Annie

Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms (13)

Jesus Love His Mandolin Player #34 (14, 15)

Crooked Judge

! Band: Good Old Boys

! Lineup: Frank Wakefield – mandolin, vocals;

! Lineup: David Nelson – -ac-g, vocals;

! Lineup: Robert Earl Davis – banjo;

! Lineup: Pat Campbell – bass;

! Lineup: Fred Weisz – fiddle;

! Guest: Richard Greene – fiddle (early show encore);

! Guest: David Grisman – mandolin (early show encore).

JGMF:

! reference: http://deaddisc.com/disc/Pistol_Packin_Mama.htm Pistol Packin’ Mama (Round RX-109 / RX-LA597-G, March 1976).

! metadata: None of the advertisements indicate separately charged early and late shows, but I think that’s what happened on this Friday night at Keystone.

! (1) David Nelson: “Thank you. We’re the Good Old Boys. We’re the Good New Boys, actually now, we’ve got a new banjo player … uhhh what is his name anyway? Bob Davis. We’ve been stealing musicians from other bands”, etc. FW: “Here’s one now that David wrote about fifteen years ago. It’s called ‘If I Miss You On The Matress, I’ll See You On The Springs’. [crowd laughs] I had to say something funny.”

! (2) Frank Wakefield: “I’d like to close … really we’re almost up here. We’ve got some very special guests here. And I’m not gonna introduce them right on the stage [inaudible]. Fred Weisz worked with him in 1960. Dave Nelson. Nelson:  “Pat Campbell. … This guy over here … from New York, hails from Manhattan New York. Frank Wakefield.” NB they forget to introduce the banjo player, though I guess they just had (see note 1).

! song: “Deep Elem Blues”: The GOB version is like the old Jerry & Sara versions and like the JGAB ones, which are based on the Red Allen/Frank Wakefield arrangement.

! (3) FW: “Here’s one now that David wrote a long time ago.”

! (4) DN, paraphrased/truncated: Right now Frank’s gonna do one of his mandolin tunes Jesus loves up to bout 36. What we want to do is record them all at once. #2. FW, paraphrased: “Hey maybe I’ll change. How many folks was in here last night? Can I see your hands. Don’t want to repeat myself. Song we did last night. … some slow parts and some real fast parts.” More chatter. NB that they did, indeed play Jesus #2 on 6/13/74. More cross-validation, not that these dates needed it.

! (5) Nelson: [inaudible] “you can lock me up in jail, but you can’t keep my face from breakin’ out.”

! (6): FW: “One that David wrote about fifteen years ago in San Quentin.”

! (7) Fred Herrera: “David, we’re running late.” Then something like “let’s do a nice ending” or “let’s do a last number”

! (8) Nelson: “Thank you, thank you very much” and crowd cheers indicate this is the end of the set.

! guest: early show encore with Richard Greene (fiddle), David Grisman (mandolin).

! personnel: With Dawg playing, and if Nelson’s still onstage, this might be the only known instance of them playing together (check Fillmore East GD 1970).

! (9) Someone says “We got one here called ‘Back Up And Push’. Hope you all like it. I don’t recognize the speaker’s voice. Not Richard Greene, Grisman, Wakefield or Nelson. Richard Greene: “Hope you all like, uh, country music. ‘Cause if you do, we get to disappoint you by playing other stuff. But not for awhile.” Note that this whole “encore” piece is one continuous piece of tape. So the guy who announces “Back Up And Push” is onstage playing, I assume one of the GOB guys not named Nelson or Wakefield.

! song: “Back Up And Push” sounds a little like the melody to “This Land Is Your Land” and, I hate to say it, in places, like “Copacabana”. Regardless, it’s credited to Bill Monroe. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6jFF0asxWM is an amazing version by Bill Monroe, The Father of Bluegrass ™.

! (10) unknown speaker: “Thank you thank you, the Good Old Boys.” Sounds like the end of an evening.

! (11) Nelson: “We’re gonna have some strange guests, but I can’t tell ya who they is. Right now we got over on the fiddle on the right hand side, Fiddlin’ Fred Weisz. On the banjo, stolen directly from Western Union, (Frank: “The hills of Manhattan, New York”) Bobby Davis. All right. He’s never played with us before. He played with us about five minutes in the back room there, so we have to work out our arrangements onstage. I think he’s doin’ pretty good. Then uhhh I’m not gonna introduce. On the bass, another musician stolen from Western Union, Pat Campbell. He’s doin’ real good too. He’s doesn’t know any of our songs either. (Frank: “He probly wrote ’em.”) But he probably wrote ’em, yeah. And on this little red instrument –whaddya call that please?– (Frank: “Ukelele.”) Ukelele, yeah. That thing’s falling apart. I keep worrying about it. He puts his finger underneath the binding on the frets and it snaps off every set, little pieces … bridge is on backwards … From the hills of Manhattan, New York, Frank Wakefield.” Frank Wakefield: “This feller on the git-tar here, he’s from the hills of Tennesse. I believe you’re from [inaudible] Actually, the fact of the matter is, he’s from a big rock group, like Jerry is … y’know, when he plays, he plays super banjo too, he plays super acoustic, David Nelson, from Easy Riders of the Purple Sage. Give him a hand, he’d appreciate it. … I’m mad at y’all now, I’m mad at y’all ’cause he got a better hand than I did. I feel bad now.” [woman in audience says “Nobody loves you, nobody [inaudible”] Frank, responding: “So, since she said that, here’s one called ‘If I Miss You On The Mattress, I’ll See You On The Springs’. [laughter] Here’s one that David wrote when he was with the Purple Sage, and still is.”

! (12) FW: “Here’s another one that David wrote a long time ago. If you folks know anything about folk music. David wrote [inaudible] he wrote one here a long time ago. What sparked that?” Nelson: “When I saw my first snake.”

! (13) long banter. David Nelson: “Thank you. Thank you. A little ragged, but that’s all right. Half of us don’t even know the words to these songs here. But this one doesn’t have any words, so that’s OK too. Frank’s gonna do a solo mandolin tune. He writes these mandolin tunes. I am not supposed to talk while he’s tuning. He doesn’t remember words … he doesn’t know what necessary means, for instance. And he says to people …” etc. etc. while FW is tuning. “But he remembers all these tunes, these long classical tunes that he wrote.” FW tuning and rap. “Last set I did two harmonies. Gonna do [something else] this set.” The structure here makes me thing these were separately billed early and late shows.

! (14) Frank: “We’re gonna do a thing now where a guy by the name of Robert Hunter wrote a song and David, me and David arranged that and we’ll do some very special stuff on the mandolin and the git-tar. And it’ll prolly be on this new record, I guess, too, right?” (Nelson: “Yeah.”) And it’s called the ‘Crooked Judge’.”

! (15) This is some great context. Fred Herrera must have an intercom from his little room, and you hear it click on and a guy says, in a hushed, golf-announcer voice, “Dave. Dave. (Nelson: “Yeah?”) Hey. We’re startin’ to run kinda late. Two tunes or so. Then someone, it sounds like Marmaduke, says “Hey, uh, Freddie says [inaudible] late.” Then “[inaudible, maybe “The man returns”], there’s a hoot and cheer from the audience. Frank: “So we’ll get David to do that judge song first. … If you all saw the concert we did last Saturday, we did this’un pretty much the same way.” NB that implies a gig on 6/8/74.