Somehow, I had never pinned down in my mind that Jerry played none of his original tunes before the advent of the Jerry Garcia Band in 1975. Pure covers before then. Hm.
You all probably knew this. And at some level I did, too. But it has come into sharper focus for me with this morning’s cup of coffee.
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I must be misinterpreting this post. Can you elaborate?
Outside of the GD, Garcia didn't play any of his own original songs until the debut of the first JGB. The various Garcia/Saunders bands played mostly other peoples' songs and a couple of Saunders originals, but no Garcia tunes. Starting in Oct 75 with the first JGB, Garcia started playing Sugaree, FOTD, TLEO, and Mission. It makes sense, I guess: a Jerry Garcia Band might as well have some Jerry Garcia songs in there, right?
But then the next question is: why? It merits a little analysis.
Part of the answer, I think, is in Garcia's conception of his side-band. He wasn't about to pull out a Dead tune when playing with Howard Wales, and even with Saunders his own songs seem to have been off-limits. Part of this may have been in deference to his partners; part of it because he thought of the Dead as the place to play his songs, while the club band was for entirely different explorations. It took years to gradually arrive at the idea that his side-band would play original songs that the Dead never touched, that he would pursue two concurrent but separate careers. The turning point was the Dead hiatus, when Garcia decided he'd form *his* band without Saunders, and the Garcia catalog became fair game.
On this blog, assume I am talking about Garcia outside the GD, unless otherwise noted. Thanks for clarifying, Nick!
Sounds right to me.
How about Hartbeats and David and the Dorks, semi-Dead?
Yeah, good! Especially Dorks doing Bertha, I guess. Are there any other Garcia-Hunter originals in those repertoires I am not remembering?
To me, the Hartbeats doesn't count as "outside the GD" since it was mostly Dead members playing mostly Dead tunes. (For instance, 8/28/69 is the "Hartbeats" with Howard Wales, but it's an entirely Dead repertoire, nothing like Garcia's other shows with Wales that we know of.)
But David & the Dorks was an interesting exception since Garcia got to do a couple songs in that group, yet Garcia was clearly the junior partner since Crosby dominated with his own songs. (No 50/50 song split like Garcia did in Dead shows.)
Crosby was happy to contribute to Dead songs when guesting in their shows, though.
Another interesting comparison is Garcia's many jams with Jack Casady and/or Jorma Kaukonen. Now that Casady's presence on some of the Hartbeats jams has been questioned, did either of them ever jam on an original Dead song? I may be forgetting one, but whenever Jack & Jorma appeared it was time to pull out the blues covers or old '50s rock tunes…they weren't going to play on a Dark Star or Other One like Crosby did.
Can't think of Jack on any GD tunes.
I haven't gotten into your Hartbeats post, but Jack is definitely listed on some of the 4-track Vault reels for 10/8/68. I think the bass is given as follows:
tape1: Phil
tape2: Phil
tape3: Phil (presume end of set I), then Casady (presume start set II)
tape4: Casady for the end of the GD material, then just "bass" for the Elvin material
tape5: "bass" (Elvin material)
tape6: Phil
tape7: Phil
Got it, thanks fellas.
somewhere out there is an interview with Jack saying he played on "Dark Star," I'm sure I heard (or read) this. Whether Jack was remembering correctly or not who knows.
He probably did sometime. There are several Hartbeats shows (and many Dead shows) we don't have…for all we know Casady might have played a Dark Star on 10/28/68 or 2/26/69…
They play a bit of Bird Song during the rehearsal part of that tape, too. Jerry also played a early, unfinished version of Loser on Crosby's PERRO sessions (dated 1/2/71). It seems like he was able to workshop some new material during Crosby's studio time, but since Lesh and Kreutzmann were there, I don't know if this really counts as being "outside the GD."
It does to me. If it wasn't the GD, it wasn't the GD. Then, there are degrees of separation.
For me, the distinction here is not so much "outside the GD" but "off the stage"…this is Garcia in rehearsals showing new tunes to his friends, but they're not playing them for an audience, so these songs aren't really part of the repertoire.
Then again…the Dorks *might* have played Bird Song on another night. And the PERRO Loser is my favorite version, even as a casual demo.
Just to clarify, the live Dorks tape does feature Bertha "on the stage." On the rehearsal portion, it sounds like Garcia is teaching it to Crosby, then the two of them run through it together, then the whole band plays it. Public performance certainly seems like it was the intention, unlike the Loser from the PERRO tapes (which, I agree, seems more like Jerry just showing a new tune to the folks who happened to be in the studio that night).
If you will pardon the self-promotion, I've updated my Hartbeats mega-post with substantial updates to the 10/8/68 notes. I think I was able to pin down exactly where Casady makes his appearance with the Dead — but I can't get it to quite line up with how you say the reels are labeled. The mystery continues.
https://deadthinking.blogspot.com/2018/04/oct-68-hartbeats-run-down.html
Self-promotion is great. Thanks! I will check it out.
I understand that Jerry starting playing GD songs in the JGB in 1975 was entirely an economic decision which ended up making band for JG as venue size grew and grew for 20 years. You guys know this already, but first Jerry Garcia Band name lead to the debut of Mission in the Rain 10-11-75 at Keystone Berkeley, Sugaree 10-23-75 in Providence and at my very first show 10-24-75 Boston (early show, They Love Each Other) as well as Dead covers live Rockin Pneumenia
and Nick I have to absorb your fuckin great blog now
Well, "entirely" may be too strong. And we don't really *know* it to be true, in the sense of having direct evidence, do we? I think we think it's probably true, and it certainly makes sense, but it could partly have been an aesthetic shift as he moved away from the jazz-funk stuff with Merl to the mix we'd come to know with JGB.
Thanks, man. I'll leave a light on for ya.
re: "economic necessity," I dunno that I'd make that assumption at all. I can't believe that the JGB started and Jerry said to himself, "ok, to make this work, I now have to start playing some GD tunes."
Going back to JGMF's "challenge vs comfort" narrative of earlier side projects vs. the JGB, I think it's also worth considering the logistics of getting a band together on relatively short notice. From 1970-75, Merl was bringing both his own originals and R&B covers that he sang, as well as a number of jazz tunes, and Jerry could sing whatever he liked — they certainly weren't hurting for material. He probably could have sung any of his own tunes if he wanted (ignoring any potential stink-eye from the GD organization), but for whatever reason he he chose not to: I don't think it's a stretch to assume that he enjoyed singing those covers, but that the GD wasn't the right place for them, whereas the GD had "dibs" on his original songs. Why cross the streams when his band with Merl already had plenty of material that was pretty different from the GD's?
It seems like the fall 75 JGB got together on fairly short notice. There's not a lot of "new" stuff that Jerry appears to have learned for this new band. He kept playing a lot of the same tunes he had been singing with Merl (for years, in some cases). Hopkins brought a couple of things (Jerry only actually had to learn "Edward" and "Pig's Boogie," neither of which seem like much work), and then what? That's not enough material, so they appear to have added in some older stuff that Jerry already knew plus 2-3 straightforward R&B oldies that played to Hopkins' strength (and had no learning curve)… and some GD tunes, two of which were on Reflections, one of which was substantially rearranged (FOTD), and one of which was just Sugaree (not hard). No sweat!
I double down on "make a lot more cash". I'm not smart enough to have made that up, so either I read it somewhere or I have a better idea I'll ask Howard!
Glad for the debate!
Rock told me that putting his name on it was for commercial purposes, nudged along by John Scher who didn't want to have to explain what Legion of Mary was. I don't think the repertoire additions were unrelated, but I do think the path of least resistance explains at least part of this.
I am either spitballing or I read this but forgot where I read it. Typical old man former Deadhead behavior
I agree that calling the new band the "Jerry Garcia Band" was partly for commercial reasons; but the song repertoire was more a personal choice, not so much to draw the Dead fans in (the name alone would be enough for that); and perhaps at first he went with the laziest option of already-known tunes.
Not playing Dead songs with Saunders I suspect wasn't because of how the Dead felt about it, but because of Saunders. Aside from some live-album overdubbing in '71, did Saunders ever play on a single Garcia original?
Actually I remain surprised that Garcia played so few Dead songs in the Garcia Band over the years. You'd think he'd appreciate the chance to try out more of his own tunes in a different band setting, and it's hard to say why he chose that specific handful of songs to make the crossover. (Like off his first album: Deal but not Loser, Sugaree but not To Lay Me Down, Bird Song acoustic but not electric. Or off Reflections: Mission but not Comes a Time, They Love Each Other but not It Must Have Been the Roses.) I guess his song picks were for personal reasons we can't explain.
I suspect that Garcia could have played Polish mazurkas and people still would have been lining up to pay money to see him do it. Maybe that wasn't as evident in 1975, but it just occurred to me that, technically, there was no Grateful Dead in late 75/early 76. It stands to reason that since the JGB was now his *only* outlet and no longer really a "side project," he might add some original GD tunes to the band's book. Sure, it probably crossed somebody's mind that that all those kids hollering for Dead tunes would be happier if he obliged, but imho the idea that "play some Dead tunes = more money for everyone" seems like a stretch re his motivation for playing those songs.
Also, the guy had a record to sell. We all know his track record with promoting those kinds of things, but it can't be a coincidence that 2 of the 4 original tunes he initially played were on Reflections.
I don't think selling records was on his mind when he busted out Mission and TLEO – the record didn't hit the streets until 2/76. But there was just no GD to play anything for a minute there, so they came out with the Jerry Band, and some of them stuck.
Now I want to put together some charts, like on Sugaree and TLEO in the two bands …
Whenever I get to thinking about something, I just check around, and one of you lot has done a post or more on it.
Great stuff though
I know I speak for all of the bloggers when I say thanks for engaging!
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