Junco Partners – LN jg1976-01-10.jgb.all.aud-cook.8077.shn2flac

! seealso: For more around this period, see JGMF, “Jerry’s January 1976” (on 1/76 as *the* pivotal moment in Garcia’s side projects), “James Booker, Classified” (general on Booker), “‘Gimme Some Chords, Jerry Garcia, Gimme Some Chords!’” (1/7/76 rehearsal tape), “Flight Of The Bumblebee” (on the 1/9/76 gig tape), as well as Corry’s “January 9-10, 1976: Sophie’s, Palo Alto, CA: The Jerry Garcia Band with James Booker”.

! R: field recordist: David Cook

! R: field recording gear: unknown mics > Sony TC-110 cassette?

! R: I used to call this a terrible tape, but it’s not a terrible tape. It’s a flawed tape, for sure, though how much is PA and how much is the challenge of encoding sound on oxide as it comes at you is an open question. All the vocals, Booker’s and Jerry’s, are too low, the piano is a little buried in the mix, and the crowd is superchatty around the mic. But the guitar, drums and bass sound clear, and good within the ample room feel the tape provides. We are lucky to have this tape to study.

! R: s1t01 All By Myself cuts in, not much missing

! P: s1t01 ABM of course it’s nice to hear Jerry play ABM with the guy who, if he didn’t lay down its original boogie-woogie Nawlins swing piano (he might have), ended up perfecting it.

! s1t02 (1) JG introduces James Booker, though I can’t really make out what he says.

! s1t04 UOTWS “I wrote this song in the New Orleans Parish Prison”.

! song: “You Are My Sunshine” (s1t05): #singleton, an American classic, associated especially with former Louisiana governor Jimmie Hood.

1 song: “Junco Partner” (s2t06): a classic American road, drug and prison song.

! song: “Drown In My Own Tears” (s1t07): This was previously unidentified, and it’s true that the lyrics are devilishly hard to make out on this tape. But this is definitely what it is. Ray Charles made a Billboard R&B #1 hit out of it for Atlantic in 1956. #singleton

! R: s2t01 ITALTL, ITATTC cuts in, not much missing

! R: s2t02 Goodnight Irene cuts in, not much missing

! P: s2t03 LIR is somnambulent, I am 4 minutes in and I want it to end.

! R: s2t04 Slowly But Surely cuts in, not much missing

! P: s2t04 SBS 4 Jerry playing some nice stuff. James sounds really subdued this night. 9 Jerry is going minor key, and we are entering a stickier, deeper space, the improvisational room in the JGB-Booker show structure. These people chatting near the taper need to STFU and listen to what Booker is playing, as a few other audience members were doing; they yelp, fittingly, in 11 as Booker’s strike-and-rebound fingering, finely tuned percussion, sounds through the space – wow. Around 11:30 he quotes “Flight Of The Bumblebee”, and Garcia responds with some low, swarming, unmistakeably beelike buzzing notes – excellent. @ 14 James works the crowd: “All right. I know it might be kind of late to say it, but it come from the bottom of my heart: Happy New Year! Aww yeah! Swinging first. Frantic first and all that jazz. I came way out here to California to tell you all how much I love ya. I’m gonna show ya how much I love ya. All the things that I looked forward to last year, for kicks, is just a thing of the past. All for you. So you can – slowly but surely – get it back together. Will you promise me that you’ll do that? And love me? Do I hear ‘Yeah’!? Will you do it for me? Yeah! Everybody say yeah!”