Jerry Garcia’s Name-Claiming Journey Beyond the Grateful Dead

  • jug band note

    Probably a reference to Mother McCree’s, but this from a ca. late 1970 – early 1971 interview with Jerry by one Frank Fedele, who asks him about what he was doing before GD. Jerry says “We had a jug band together, me and Bob Weir and Pigpen and we worked once or twice a year.…

  • GD: September 11-12, 1970: Pepperland, San Rafael (POSSIBLE) (NOW DISCONFIRMED)

    **UPDATE: DISCONFIRMED. SEE COMMENTS** I don’t have tremendous confidence that this ever happened, but since Corry has educated me a little about booking practices and such, the fact that it’s a Friday-Saturday that is otherwise unfilled in GD/Garcia chronologies makes me more open to it. In a July 1970 Billboard article on Pepperland (“scheduled to…

  • TJS deletion: 7/5/71

    slip added a listing for NRPS 7/5/71 at Fillmore West, based on this poster from Wolfgang’s Vault. But the poster is clearly for the movie “Fillmore” and has been mis-interpreted and it has now been deleted. I will be tagging this with “TJS-deletion.” Since there’s no other way to track what’s been cut, I’ll track…

  • Godawful Palo Alto Bluegrass Ensemble

    Pete Wernick recounts spending some time in the Summer of 1963 out West, playing banjo with Jerry Garcia (mandolin!) and David Nelson in an outfit called The Godawful Palo Alto Bluegrass Ensemble. I don’t recall seeing this name in the historiography, though as I have noted before I am not particularly up on the pre-GD…

  • JGB: December 31, 1975, Keystone, Berkeley: who was drumming?

    update: we know now it was Greg Errico, with Hart sitting in in the third set, so enjoy this post as a waystation in the growth of knowledge. Jerrybase exists now! update: see also my “Jerry’s New Year’s Eve” post.   I am not the big fan of the 12/31/75 JGB show that most people…

  • 1966: Darby Slick et al. “Jammin’ With Garcia”

    Chapter 5 of Darby Slick’s autobiography, I guess (1), is entitled “Jammin’ With Garcia” and recounts a Friday evening jam session, ca. 1966, in the Mission District. These one-offs are inherently interesting, of course, but especially interesting to me is the question of how often they occurred. I had always bought into the mythology that…

  • Where were the NRPS in late 1969 – early 1970?

    Light Into Ashes notes the following about the April 17-18, 1970 NRPS billing: these were the first known shows Garcia had played with NRPS since November ’69 NRPS shows were advertised for March 12-14, and March 18, 1970 (see), while the NRPS concert history lists 2/7/70. The latter seems very unlikely (see comments to this…

  • GD at Mammoth Gardens, Denver CO, April 24-25, 1970

    It seems that these shows have been shrouded in mystery and legend for a very long time. Maybe it’s because April 1970 was such a hot month, because the tape circulating from this weekend reveals a characteristically hot show, because the next gig (4/26/70 at Poynette Wisconsin) is similarly enshrouded, because “Mammoth Gardens” just sounds…

  • GD at Eagles Auditorium, Seattle, WA, January 1968

     I am going to argue that the Quick and the Dead played Eagles Auditorium in Seattle, WA on Friday, January 26 and Saturday, January 27, 1968, and *not* on Monday 1/22 and Tuesday 1/23. This may well be widely accepted, but since the tapes still circulate with the latter dates, and Deadlists remains a bit…

  • NRPS, January 1971

    update: NRPS now confirmed for all three of these shows I have had some uncertainty about whether NRPS played with the GD during the handful of January 1971 shows. The New Riders’ official tour history from 1971 has listed these shows: 1/21/71, Freeborn Hall, UC Davis, Davis, CA 1/22/71, Lane Community College, Eugene, OR “1/25/71”,…