Byron Berline playing with Old And In The Way, ca. summer 1973

My previous post (three months ago!) touched on an expost recollection of Doug Sahm sitting in with Garcia-Saunders at the Keystone around December 1972. I love these little fragments, love trying to pin them down.

Here’s a similar one: in the August 16. 1973 Village Voice, it is reported by Jerry Leichtling that Byron Berline had “recently performed with Old And In The Way, Jerry Garcia’s new assemblage”. I won’t go into Byron Berline’s importance here, but the wiki can get you started. I will just say – hot, amazing, legendary bluegrass fiddler.

The mention happens in connection with a gig by Country Gazette at the Metro, members of which were Berline, former Kentucky Colonels Roland White on guitar and Roger Bush on bass, and Alan Munde on banjo. I don’t have time to try to hunt down when Country Gazette would have played those gigs, but let’s say ca. first half of August 1973. Let’s also imagine that the info about Berline playing with OAITW comes from the man himself. I take “recently” to suggest that the gig with Berline was either in June when OAITW was briefly out east, or July back in the Bay Area (with Vassar). We’d have to triangulate around Berline’s movements as a next step at getting closer to a specific date, but I don’t have time to do that. If anyone else wants to, please report back!

In the meantime, just another American musical legend with a Spudfactor of 1, though I can’t pin the metadata around this “shared stage” event with any precision.

My very old image of the relevant VV reportage below. Is that Win95? The wheels do turn slowly …