Bobby Ace

I was doing some thinking about Bob Weir’s musical journey, and what I view to be the pivotal “Bobby Ace” period, running most obviously from about mid-1969 through 1970. And, since we were just talking about Family Dog shows, I got to thinking about the April 1970 acoustic gigs. Long story short, I just did some sniffing around some of the more obscure (in the Garciaverse) numbers they did. Here’s a back-of-the-napkin breakdown.

Note that, as far as I can tell, this is entirely roots-derived white contemporary stuff – is there a black songwriter in the whole repertoire? Anyway, FWIW.

Traditional

! song: Slewfoot

! song: Wabash Cannonball

Everly Brothers Originals

! song: All I Have To Do Is Dream (not their composition,
but I think they did it first)

! song: Cathy’s Clown

! song: So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad)

! song: Wake Up Little Susie

Bakersfield

! song: Mama Tried – Merle Haggard

! song: I’ve Got A Tiger By The Tail – Buck Owens

George Jones

! song: The Race Is On

! song: Old Old House

! song: Seasons Of My Heart

Contemporary Country – all of these were written in the
1960s

! song: Let It Be Me – also done by Everly Brothers

! song: Let Me In – Porter Wagoner

! song: Long Black Limousine – first available via Glen
Campbell in 1962, eventually Merle Haggard and Elvis, too.

! song: Me And My Uncle – John Philips

! song: Silver Threads And Golden Needles – also by Everly
Brothers

! song: Dire Wolf – Garcia/Hunter (sung by Weir 7/4/69)

! song: Green Green Grass Of Home – Curly Putnam, but done
by Porter Wagoner and on Merle Haggard’s Mama
Tried.

! song: Games People Play – Joe South – also by Everly
Brothers

Posted

December 16, 2016

Bakersfield, Bob Weir, Buck Owens, country, Everly Brothers, George Jones, Merle Haggard, race, togotigi

Fate Music

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4 responses to “Bobby Ace”

Alex Allan

December 16, 2016

Thanks – interesting analysis.

I've never seen Six Days On The Road in a Bobby Ace etc setlist – just as a song done by the New Riders around this time. Do you have a source for Bobby doing it?

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Fate Music

December 16, 2016

You are right, I took an extra liberty there, thinking about George Jones. I will delete that one.

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Light Into Ashes

December 17, 2016

Yes, it looks like country music was Weir's first love!

Some additional Weir songs from other acoustic shows of that era:
Monkey and the Engineer (Jesse Fuller 1961 – a solitary song from a black songwriter!)
Railroading on the Great Divide (6/11/69 – Carter Family, possibly via New Lost City Ramblers)
Gathering Flowers for the Master's Bouquet (12/26/69, with Garcia – Maddox Brothers & Rose 1948/also Stanley Brothers)
Saw Mill (Mel Tillis 1959)
Dark Hollow (Bill Browning 1958/partly traditional)
El Paso (Marty Robbins 1959)
And shall we add The Frozen Logger?

Looking at the setlist for the lost "Bobby Ace" show on 6/11/69, it looks like Weir probably sang every song in the show (with Garcia harmonies) – at least, he sang almost all the songs at other times – but it's possible that Garcia sang a song or two.

I haven't looked at the country songs Garcia sang without Weir, but that could be a fitting JGMF post!
Big River (Johnny Cash 1957) could fall through the cracks, since Garcia sang that at first (11/21/70), but later Weir took over the verses when the Dead played it.

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Fate Music

August 2, 2020

Weir: "Early on, Jerry and I worked up a lot of Everly Brothers tunes. And tunes of that nature, you know, country tunes. We patterned ourselves after the Everly Brothers [laughs]. Their style was fading then but they were hugely influential on us."

https://americansongwriter.com/bob-weir-jug-band-jam/

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Bobby Ace

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