Fate Music

James and the Good Brothers (Courtesy of the Grateful Dead)

Found this interesting. The New Orleans House ad from the Berkeley Tribe v.3 n.15 (issue 67) (October 16-23, 1970), p. 21 lists “James & The Good Brothers (Courtesy of the Grateful Dead)” for Friday-Saturday, October 13-14, 1970.

Corry has said this about the connection between the bands:

James and The Good Brothers were a Canadian trio (James Ackroyd and twins Bruce and Brian Good). They made contact with the Dead on the infamous “Festival Express” train trip, and were invited to San Francisco. They recorded an album for Columbia (NRPS’s label), produced by Betty Cantor-Jackson, with Bill Kreutzmann on drums, and possibly an uncredited Jerry Garcia.

He has mentioned them again in the context of a post on the Festival Express, while the post quoted above is primarily about a Garcia guest shot with them in February 1971 at the Fillmore West.

This ad interests me for a few reasons. First, I don’t recall seeing much stuff like this in pawing through old ads and the like. How common was this, and what did the “courtesy of” really mean? Was this just advertising, or would the GD somehow have contributed financially?

Second, Matt Scofield’s deaddisc entry for the JATGB album contains contradictory information, with the story quoted from Corry above alongside the claim that “After moving to California to play some gigs they were ‘spotted’ by Jack Casady and Bill Kreutzmann – attention that eventually led to a recording deal. This LP was the result.” So the one version has them hooking up with the GD on the train and then coming to CA, while the other says they were already in CA when Jack and Billy “spotted” them. Not a big deal, but I do wonder which one is closer to the truth.

Third, maybe most importantly to me, I wonder how the various record deals floating around relate to this, if at all. In our various Hooteroll? discussions (I guess this one was the last post that I did), there was lots of talk of how the pieces of the puzzle —Garcia, Hooteroll?, NRPS, Rolling Thunder, the GD’s contracts, etc. etc.– all fit together (and not). I wonder when JATGB signed with Columbia (and precisely when NRPS) did, and how it is that the GD were “promoting” them, as it were.

Anyway, really just a “hmmmm…”, from my perspective.

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9 responses to “James and the Good Brothers (Courtesy of the Grateful Dead)”

  1. Corry342 Avatar
    Corry342

    Much as I'd love to hope there was more than just "branding" going on here, I think "courtesy of the Grateful Dead" was a way to get people to pay attention to an otherwise unknown band. During this period, Alice Cooper was always billed as "new, from Frank Zappa", as he was their producer.

    Record companies paid a lot of attention to what other hip musicians thought, and for good reason. Warners, for example, signed all sorts of bizarre acts for Zappa's Bizarre Records, but they made millions on Alice Cooper.

    A good word from Jerry Garcia was enough to get Clive Davis to sign a band to Columbia–The Rowan Brothers, JATGB, etc–because that was common practice at the time.

    As to the differing stories about JATGB, they may all be true; they could have made contact with some band members and been invited to SF, and Casady and Kreutzmann "discovered them" as a result. The Good Brothers are still popular in Canada–we could probably just email them.

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  2. rosa Avatar
    rosa

    HI
    I knew James in Toronto back in 68/70 thru a mutual friend, John Lyons. I know James had met up with the Dead and gone out to California to hang out on their farm and after that a record deal took place. This James told me so I guess it is the true version of events. I would love to know what happened to James – anyone know? Also love to get a copy of the album James and The Good Brothers if anyone has one? pls reply to [email protected] if you have any info. thanks…

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  3. Corry342 Avatar
    Corry342

    According to the Good Brothers site (www.goodbrothers.com) James Ackroyd is no longer with us. He appears to have stayed in California when the group returned to Canada in the early 70s, and he seems fondly remembered by his former bandmates.

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  4. cryptdev Avatar
    cryptdev

    In late 1974-early 1975, James Acrkroyd briefly fronted another band in the bay area, called James and the Mercedes, which featured two female singers, one of whom was Bob Weir's then-wife Frankie. I saw them open for Kingfish a few times, but that came to an end when Frankie had a personal crisis early in 1975. I didn't hear much of him subsequently.

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  5. Fate Music Avatar
    Fate Music

    I found another James and the Good Brothers listing "courtesy of the Grateful Dead" for the Matrix on Thursday, 10/15/70. Unless I am mistaken, this is also new to the Matrix list.

    Reply
  6. Light Into Ashes Avatar
    Light Into Ashes

    Per the Santa Rosa Junior College paper the Oak Leaf, 12/17/70:

    "ROCK CONCERT IN BURBANK TOMORROW
    The Christmas seasons festivities will begin tomorrow in Burbank Auditorium at 4 p.m. when the student body of this campus will have the opportunity to hear three farout Canadians who call themselves JAMES AND THE GOOD BROTHERS.
    Their manager, Gail, met them on the Festival Express while on a tour of Canada last summer with the Grateful Dead and persuaded them to give California a go.
    The first performance of James and the Good Brothers in the U.S. was two months ago at the Inn of the Beginning. The audience response was so enthusiastically overwhelming that they are currently in the process of recording their first album.
    According to one of the college sponsors of the group, the Grateful Dead…and countless others who have heard James and the Good Brothers really freak out when they hear them."

    Also, from the San Rafael Independent-Journal, 12/4/70:
    "The Lion's Share on the San Anselmo Miracle Mile is featuring James and Good Brothers tonight and tomorrow night. This is a group of three guitarists doing three-part vocal harmony, discovered in Canada by the Grateful Dead."

    Also of note, newspaper listings for the 4-hour KQED TV broadcast of the 12/31/70 Winterland concert included James & the Good Brothers among the performers. As far as I know they didn't perform (I didn't find any report of them playing), but they were listed in advance. Possibly they did play, on the TV broadcast no less, and have been completely forgotten!

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  7. cryptdev Avatar
    cryptdev

    The 12/31/70 TV Broadcast began with Hot Tuna (unmilled) and continued with the electric Grateful Dead set that was marred by failure of both phone lines that were to carry the FM signals to KSAN and KQED, respectively. The TV broadcast ended at the end of the regular Dead set, and did not include the Hot Tuna with Weir set that finished off the evening. Short of an eyewitness account, no idea whether Stoneground or the New Riders (plus assorted friends, as billed) played earlier.

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  8. Light Into Ashes Avatar
    Light Into Ashes

    A reporter attending 12/31/70 wrote, "Stone Ground were to have opened the show at 8:30, were now suddenly scheduled to play after the Dead at 2:30 am." This was confirmed by a couple attendees.
    Whoever made that decision, it was sure a bad break for Stoneground!
    http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2019/06/december-31-1970-winterland.html

    One person wrote a very detailed account of the lineup that night:
    "Instead of Stoneground getting things started, David Crosby and Graham Nash started with their band. After them, New Riders of the Purple Sage came on but Jerry Garcia wasn't feeling well so he did not play with them. In his place Jack Casady and Jorma Kaukonen from Hot Tuna joined the New Riders. After that set, the rest of Hot Tuna came on stage and played a set. After they finished it was close to midnight so the Dead came on and played. Finally at 2:30 AM, the warm up band – Stoneground – finally came on stage. After that set, the jam started."
    https://www.dead.net/show/december-31-1970
    This sounds chaotic & unplanned enough to be plausible!
    JGMF take note: it was quite rare for Garcia to skip the New Riders' set. Whether he actually got replaced that night, I can't confirm.

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  9. Alex Allan Avatar
    Alex Allan

    There's an interview with Garcia, Weir etc here https://bit.ly/3sS65ly which suggests Bob Weir may have played on the album.

    CREEM: (To Bob Weir) Are you also involved with some spinoff group from the Dead?

    BOBBY: Well I got a lot of friends who are about to do stuff. For one, there’s a group called James and the Good Brothers.

    PHIL: They’re from Canada, we met them on the train.

    BOBBY: And we’ve just been picking and singing together a lot.

    PHIL: They’re planning to make a record.

    CREEM: Are you going to be on it?

    BOBBY: Well, I’m going to play on it a little, but what they really need is someone in the studio. At this point they’re so together that they ought to put together an album, and I plan to be around to help out.

    Reply

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