Between the Bottom Lines (Lennon and Garcia at the Bottom Line, November 5, 1974) (Guest post by Scott Raile)

[note: for a very long time it has been known that John
Lennon saw Jerry at the Bottom Line, and various accounts of a meeting,
possible sit-in, as well as the date of this encounter have been given over the
years. Historian Scott Raile nailed
it down as November 5, 1974 in comments to a post of mine about the early show
that night. Over the years, I had heard tell of a recording made
from Lennon’s table, capturing him commentating the gig, but had never been
able to put ears around it. In late 2021, monte_dym posted this recording –from
the previously uncirculated late show– to his
soundcloud account, and a few months back David Minches brought this
to my attention. Wow! (And thank you, David!) Monte supplied David with CD
audio of the files, and as of today they are circulating as shnid-163367 in the usual places. I
have invited Scott to put some context around all of this, hence this
first-ever JGMF guest post. Thanks to all involved! –ed.]

Between the Bottom Lines

Guest post by Scott Raile

https://lennonology.com/

In October of 2015, noted Beatles historian Chip Madinger
published his book LENNONOLOGY: Strange Days Indeed, a work that is still
recognized as the ultimate biography of post-Beatles John Lennon (and Yoko
Ono), an immensely detailed day-by-day chronology of Lennon’s life from
1966-1980. I was fortunate enough to have my name on the cover as Chip’s
co-author, the culmination of 15 years of arduous research and writing, debate
and discussion. So, to a handful of people around the world, I am known, thanks
to LENNONOLOGY, as a Beatles historian.

 But we are all multitudes, aren’t we? None of us is
one-dimensional, and everyone has multiple areas of interest and/or expertise,
even if most people only see one or two of those aspects. What most Beatle fans
who know my name don’t realize is that, while I was busy writing my chunks of LENNONOLOGY,
more often than not the Grateful Dead was playing in the background. They’re my
second-favorite band, and my obsession with “learning all I can”
about my interests definitely extends to them.

I love it when my interests collide. Circles within circles
within circles: Paul McCartney writes a James Bond theme song, or George
Harrison pops up in the middle of THE LIFE OF BRIAN. So, even though I
wanted to get every detail of Lennon’s life nailed down correctly in the book,
there was one date I was truly determined to nail down: The night John Lennon
went to a Jerry Garcia show.

We didn’t have much of a roadmap. Every previous Lennon
biography was silent on the matter, even as most of the Garcia biographies
mentioned it. As I dug deeper into it, the “facts” presented didn’t
sit right with me. The Garcia biographies placed the encounter in April of 1975
during Jerry’s run at the Bottom Line in New York. But that made no sense. John
and Yoko had been separated from September of 1973 until February of 1975
(Lennon’s infamous “lost weekend”). But after their reunion (and Yoko’s
almost-immediate pregnancy), John kept a very low profile, and all but
disappeared in 1975, as much as a Beatle can disappear. Hanging out in the
clubs in April 1975 was possible, of course, but unlikely. And that’s when I
started to focus on November of 1974, another timeframe that Jerry played at
the Bottom Line and one that made much more sense for Lennon’s biography.

November 1974 was a “between the lines” moment for
John Lennon. He had spent July and August of that year recording the album WALLS
AND BRIDGES, and a goodly chunk of September and October on an extensive
promotional jag for the album, the most extensive promotion he ever did for one.
By November, the buzz around the record was wearing off, and John occupied his
time hanging out with his new friend Elton John, and trying to rekindle his
deep friendship with George Harrison, who was touring America that month.

John’s personal life was “between the lines” as
well; his separation from Yoko was coming to an end, as the couple were just
beginning their negotiations to reconcile. That also meant that John’s
relationship with May Pang (his interim companion) was coming to an end. In May’s
1983 memoir, she wrote vaguely of a photo of John with a well-known groupie
that was published in a music trade magazine, a magazine that John bought all
the local copies of in a futile attempt to keep May from seeing the photo.

And that’s where the circles converge. While digging through
endless copies of Cashbox magazine for LENNONOLOGY, Chip turned
up the infamous photo (reproduced here). But more importantly for our purposes,
the caption spelled it out loud and clear: here’s John Lennon attending a Jerry
Garcia show last Tuesday. HUZZAH. The hard work paid off and all had been
revealed. At least we assumed “all had been revealed”; after all,
Jerry played two shows that night. Which one did John attend? We assumed it was
the late show, based on recollections from the band.

One of the greatest things about being a historian is how,
even after decades, things still just keep popping up. A film clip, a photo, a
recording that we don’t think exists (or may not have even happened) suddenly
shows up, in brilliant Technicolor, and all of a sudden we have to re-assume
our assumptions and re-think our thoughts. The world of the Beatles and the
Grateful Dead are especially rich in this respect. You would think that, after
50 or 60 years, everything that could be discovered has been discovered. And
then all of a sudden a photo shows up that you’ve never seen before, and the
wonder is renewed.

And that is just what has happened here. For decades, the
early show from November 5, 1974 has circulated, but we were pretty sure John
attended the late show. But the late show had never shown up. And if it did,
then so what? Would any Lennon fan care? Is it worth collecting just because he’s
in the audience? Do Lennon fans snap up that live Bob Marley album just because
John and Ringo are in the audience? Do you collect every 1974 episode of “The
Odd Couple” just because John was in the studio audience of one of them when
it was taped? What are the limits of collecting? Where do you draw the line? I
wanted to hear the late show just because I love Jerry. But who in the Beatles
world would care?

Fortunately, all of that speculation has come to a sudden
and spectacular end. I was thrilled out of my mind when JGMF sent me this show,
because I wanted to hear some more 1974 Jerry. But imagine my sheer elation
when, towards the end of the show, we can hear, clearly and unequivocally, John
Lennon himself commenting on the show. At first, we hear him wittily calling
the show like a sportscaster (“ten down and three to go!”), lapsing
slightly into a Howard Cosell-like description of the event (which makes sense
since John and Howard were hanging out in the fall of 1974). We hear him tell
the taper that he loves bootlegs (which he did), and then critique the
performance as a fellow musician, noting how a song had dragged in the middle
but then got saved at the end. Considering how tumultuous his personal life was
at that point (and how negatively some of Jerry’s band members recalled the
meeting), I fully expected John to be drunk and obnoxious at that show, but I
am thrilled to hear just the opposite: he’s lucid, funny and just another guy
hanging out at a Jerry show.

Unless another unknown tape pops up, we’ll never know directly
how John or Jerry reacted to their encounter that night; the current record
shows both of them as being silent on this topic. But from a historian’s point
of view, the story has come full-circle; from vague stories placed in April
1975 to “we have a tape and Lennon is even on it,” we have closed the
gap from hearsay to concrete evidence. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not
enormous; we’ve added another 90 minutes to our understanding of Jerry, and
another 60 seconds to our understanding of John. But history is little more
than an enormous jigsaw puzzle that wants putting together, and now we have one
more tiny piece to put into place.