Jerry Has Fallen, and He Can’t Get Up

OK, maybe I am feeling a little bit cranky. I have been doing some late era listening, and it’s not always easy.

Wednesday, April 20, 1994 at the Warfield, for example, has a “Don’t Let Go” – which is good! – but it falls into quite a remarkable rut. From 3:22-6:03 of this lovely Vasseur tape, he sings “Hold me tight and don’t let go” no fewer than thirty times, by my count. Now, if he were embellishing more, if he were varying his vocal attack, if he were pairing it with guitar expressions, I would, in principle, be fine with that. He’d be feeling it. But, in this case, he seems to be feeling a little lost, a little stuck. There is a bit of variation in how he sings the line, but not much. There’s almost no interplay between the voice and guitar, which could make “Don’t Let Go” from any era pretty compelling, since it’s not something he did much of on any other song. It’s like he’s trying to remember how he exits into the jam part of the song, but can’t bring it forth.

The show’s not as bad as 8/14/94. Married about nine weeks to Deborah Koons, he played “Get Out Of My Life Woman” with some nice burn and real conviction. But the penultimate “Señor” suffers for lack of steady drumming, and in any case the “tail of the dragon” is smelling dangerously strong at this point, so perhaps best to put it to bed. The closing “Midnight Moonlight”, I note, “is a little hard to hear.”

Jerry Garcia Band
The Warfield
982 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
April 20, 1994 (Wednesday)
Vasseur shnid-141480

–set I (7 tracks, 65:07)–
s1t01. [0:14] I’ll Take A Melody [10:59] [0:54]
s1t02. Get Out Of My Life Woman [9:23] [1:41]
s1t03. Forever Young [10:50] [0:23]
s1t04. Run For The Roses [5:50] [0:15]
s1t05. Ain’t No Bread In The Breadbox [10:22] [0:04]
s1t06. My Sisters And Brothers [3:58] ->
s1t07. Deal [9:56] (1) [0:09]

–set II (6 tracks, 74:36)–
s2t08. Shining Star [21:31] [0:23]
s2t09. Think [8:09] ]0:10]
s2t10. Señor [7:34] ->
s2t11. Don’t Let Go [14:49] [0:39]
s2t12. Mississippi Moon [8:35] ->
s2t13. Tangled Up In Blue [12:40] (2) [0:06]

! ACT1: JGB #23
! lineup: Jerry Garcia – el-g, v;
! lineup: John Kahn – el-bass;
! lineup: Melvin Seals – keyboards;
! lineup: Donny Baldwin – drums;
! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch – backing vocals;
! lineup: Gloria Jones – backing vocals.

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; … = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [ ] = recorded event time. The recorded event time immediately after the song or item name is an attempt at getting the “real” time of the event. So, a timing of [x:xx] right after a song title is an attempt to say how long the song really was, as represented on this recording.

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19940420-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/21299 (Vasseur shnf); http://etreedb.org/shn/141480 (this fileset).

! band: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2013/02/warfield-982-market-street-san.html

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/ZW52vfHTbjs

! R: field recordist: Chuck Vasseur

! R: field recording gear: 2x Neumann KM54 > DAT

! R: Transfer: DAT Master > CDR (Kyle Porter); Extract: CDR clone > EAC > WAV > FLAC16 (Bill Shaw aka Shark)

! R: Source Notes: “Sometime in the early 2000’s, Chuck loaned Kyle all of his 92-95 JGB masters to transfer to CDR. Kyle “mastered” the DATs to CDR, fading in/out as needed, adjusting levels (as needed) and tracking. Kyle then gave Chuck his masters back, with nice CDR copies of all of it. Chuck offered to clone the entire set for me, so I gave him a spool of 100 blank MITSUI CDRs and the next time I saw him, he gave them back to me, filled with his JGB recordings. Many of the Chuck V. JGB recordings do circulate already, but probably not all
of them, and those that do may not be the Kyle Porter transfers. So, Here they are! –Shark”

! R: tape sounds so great

! R: s1t01 ITAM splice 0:32-0:43, repeated section, a bit missing. Lame.

! P: s1t01 ITAM 3 range he is just making sounds, having forgotten the words.

! P: s1t02 GOOMLW the vocals are low but the guitar is nice and grungy, e.g., in the 4-minute range. Nice playing. Crowd stoked 5:40ff, and for good reason – good stuff. Melvin feature 6:35ff.

! P: s1t03 FY he puts the pitch-bender to work 7:49ff. DB doesn’t really know how to end it, but they get there.

! P: s1t04 RFTR sounds half-speed

! s1t07 (1) JG: “Back in a little while.”

! P: s2t10 Señor Donnie doesn’t seem to know how to drum for this. Nothing much happens in this version.

! song: Señor (s2t10) penultimate version of this song (4/25/94).

! P: s2t11 DLG he doesn’t really know the words. In 4 he’s just repeating “hold me tight and don’t let go” without much interesting vocal variation or guitar accompaniment, so it just feels a little stuck. I count thirty iterations between 3:22-6:03, which would be fine if he were embellishing, mixing it up. He is a little bit, on the margins. But mostly it just feels like he’s fallen into this rut, and he can’t get up.

! P: s2t12 Miss Moon is a little hard to hear.

! s2t13 (2) JG: “See ya later.”