I am sure you have already pre-ordered, as I just did, but just in case, here’s link to the upcoming Owsley Stanley Foundation (OSF) release called “Dawn of the New Riders of the Purple Sage”. I cannot freaking wait to hear this!
https://owsleystanleyfoundation.org/bears-sonic-journals/dawn-of-the-new-riders-of-the-purple-sage/
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Some early comments:
– According to the blurb, no Phil on bass. Hmm…
– The tapes that were already circulating aren't included – I wonder if that was because they were no longer in Bear's collection.
– Not one but two sets from 8/1/69…in fact it's the best-represented evening to be included, even though it's bound to be the most primitive playing.
– They seem to have been pretty picky about song selection, with some shows just included in fragments, unless that means there are still missing reels from those nights.
– A couple discs look really short but I'm hoping that's deceptive. Maybe there will be some half-hour pedal-steel extravaganzas in Mama Tried…
I always hoped a Bobby ace "Cathy's Clown" would show up, I wish Jerry was singing with him though.
Yeah, that'd be fun, but I am sure Jerry was concentrating on the knees, feet and wrist learning to play that steel!
The first surprise: Bear taped the New Riders early and often.
He recorded 3 reels at the Underground on 5/14/69, and another 6 reels of home rehearsals, plus some 33 reels of later shows!
Obviously this set is just a selection; a box set of completely different shows could have been made (depending on the state of the reels).
8/1/69 is endearingly rough and unpolished. (I can only wonder how primitive the May show sounds.) Lots of great banter, including Jerry's little pedal-steel lesson…band and audience are having fun. Bob Matthews is introduced on bass – perhaps mercifully, he's pretty low in the mix.
The second surprise: Jerry asks for requests, and the audience calls for Grateful Dead songs, which Jerry explains is not going to happen. (He doesn't even tell them to go to the Family Dog shows!) The surprise is that one persistent guy keeps calling for Casey Jones….not only was that a brand-new Dead song, it had only been played at only one known show in California, a month earlier. Who was that guy?
Maybe it was Hunter, heckling, hooting and jeering because they passed him over for the bass player gig.
The info on the other recordings comes from Jarnow's liner notes? I haven't gotten my copy yet.
Must've been someone who knew the band well enough to know the title of a brand-new song. It makes me wonder whether these Jerry gigs were attended by lots of friends of the band, just like the first Warlocks gigs in '65 were.
Anyway, very informative liner notes (Jarnow didn't write these, they're all "in-house" writers). But they cagily don't say which other shows got recorded, or much about the selection process.
At the Family Dog show when Weir is asked up to sing a few songs, Jerry is giddy: "This is a treat!"
Oh, speaking of 'friends of the band,' I'm reminded of the guy who commented on your 8/1/69 post:
"I was at that show… Bob Matthews played bass. Garcia wanted to name the band The Murdering Punks. They all went over to the gig at The Great Highway. My friend, Carol Green and I hitched a ride with Ken Candelero in one of their white vans with the equipment. Stayed at Weir's house that night. Next night [also went] to Great Hwy gig…"
There was also a commenter on one of those Lost Live Dead Family Dog threads who mentioned that he was at a bunch of shows in '69 because he was hanging out with Weir, and got to see a lot of acoustic practicing before the shows.
So yeah, I guess it was quite possible for friends and hangers-on to pick up on new songs from backstage rehearsals and such.
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