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

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.”