Category: Donna Jean Godchaux

  • Brief Encounters of the Weird Kind: JGB at Penn State, December 11, 1977

    jg1977-12-11.jgb.all.sbd-sirmick.80773.flac1644 Again, listening notes may be briefer for awhile. Certainly, these are bullet-style. David Gans once said something to the effect that Garcia exhibits the shortest distance between spirit and fingertip of any musician he knows. That’s probably not quite right, but it was something like this. A reviewer from this last show of the…

  • Palm Sunday

    I know today is Easter, but JGBP tipped me off to a reddit AMA with Donna Jean the other day, and she provided this great memory from the Cats Under the Stars sessions: It was about 4 o’clock in the morning, and Jerry and I were singing the duet on Palm Sunday, and we had…

  • Jerry’s January 1976

    (formatting will almost certainly be a mess – I blame Blogger) I.                    Preface My band is in a state of flux right now. John Kahn and Ron Tutt and I are the main … are the nucleus of it, such as it is. We’re hoping to have a four-piece band that we all like, sometime.…

  • No Donna Tough Mama

    LN jg1977-07-08.jgb.early.aud-moore-minches.21478.shn2flac I like this show a lot. Donna Jean is not present. Who sings harmonies? Jerry Garcia Band Calderone Concert Hall 145 N. Franklin StreetHempstead, NY 11550 July 8, 1977 (Friday) – Early Show (scheduled 8 PM) definitive Moore shnid-21478 shn2flac –(8 tracks, 92:34)– t01. [0:12] Sugaree [15:28] [3:00] t02. Stop That Train [13:00]…

  • Rockabilly JGB Doing Not Fade Away: July 9, 1977

     LN jg1977-07-09.jgb.late-2.aud-strange-miller.124426.flac1644 Not a whole ton to say, not a ton of time, so I’ll just bullet. Donna is absent. I wonder why? I need to document her 1977 absences, because there was a good number. “Not Fade Away” is a JGB singleton, and is very interesting. Jerry is super-fired up for it and does…

  • Who Was John? JGB at GWU, April 3, 1976 (early show)

     LN jg1976-04-03.jgb.early.aud-CC.xxxxxx.flac2448 OK, maybe the last post of my hiatus hiatus. 4/3/76a. This is probably the same source tape as shnid-82761. A nice show. Jerry Garcia Band Lisner Auditorium, George Washington University 730 21st and H Street NWWashington, DC 20052 April 3, 1976 (Saturday) – Early show, 7 PM 80 min CC aud-1 flac2448 [upgraded…

  • JGB at Northwestern: Cahn Auditorium, March 12, 1976 (late show)

    LN jg1976-03-12.jgb.late.aud-unk.xxxxx.flac1644 My love of audience tapes is evident to anyone who reads here. The anthropological instinct (and practice) underpinning field recording enthralls me. To me, everybody who ever taped a gig is right there with Alan Lomax and all the rest. Now, sometimes you have to be willing to sacrifice your aesthetics a little…

  • LN jg1976-03-12.jgb.1p-2p.aud-coplen.20700.shn2flac

    If there were more time, I’d like to talk about “Who Was John?”, elaborate on the racial structure of the music, the unevenness of this period (March-April 1976).  But there’s not time, so just a data dump. Jerry Garcia Band Cahn Auditorium, Northwestern University 600 Emerson StreetEvanston, IL 60201 March 12, 1976 (Friday) 55 minute…