No Donna Tough Mama

LN jg1977-07-08.jgb.early.aud-moore-minches.21478.shn2flac

I like this show a lot.

Donna Jean is not present. Who sings harmonies?

Jerry Garcia Band
Calderone Concert Hall
145 N. Franklin Street
Hempstead, NY 11550
July 8, 1977 (Friday) – Early Show (scheduled 8 PM)
definitive Moore shnid-21478 shn2flac

–(8 tracks, 92:34)–
t01. [0:12] Sugaree [15:28] [3:00]
t02. Stop That Train [13:00] [0:11] % [2:57]
t03. Simple Twist Of Fate [13:48] [0:15] % [0:10] %
t04. crowd % and % tuning [1:18]
t05. That’s What Love Will Make You Do [12:25] [0:25] % [0:09]
t06. Mystery Train [10:18] [0:16] % [0:14] % [1:26]
t07. Friend Of The Devil [8:43] [0:29] % [0:28]
t08. Tough Mama [8:00] [0:23] %

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #3a
! Lineup: Jerry Garcia – el-g, vocals;
! Lineup: John Kahn – el-bass;
! Lineup: Keith Godchaux – piano, organ, vocals;
! Lineup: Ron Tutt – drums, ?vocals?;

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; … = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [m:ss] = 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 [m:ss] 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/19770708-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/21478 (this fileset); http://etreedb.org/shn/17054 (deprecated). Since the Jerry Moore tape is the only one ever to have surfaced, all other versions are deprecated by this fileset.

! map: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=145+N.+Franklin+Street+Hempstead,+NY+11550&num=100&client=firefox-a&hnear=145+N+Franklin+St,+Hempstead,+New+York+11550&gl=us&t=h&z=16

! venue: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2011/09/calderone-music-hall-145-n-franklin-st.html

! R: recorded by Jerry Moore (RIP), 2x Sony ECM-33P > Sony TC-152 (master cassettes, unnoted media); cassette > cdigital: Nakamichi Dragon playback > ART DI/O > Waveterminal 2496 sound card > Hard Drive Tracking in Cool Edit 2000 > master CD Burned with Feurio Error > undetermined extraction, checked with SHNTOOL > mkwACT (wav > shn compression), by David Minches; shn > flac, notation and tagging by jgmf, 2012.

! R: Among the many amazing things about a Jerry Moore tape is that we can engage the show almost in real time.

! P: t02 Stop That Train starts with Keith’s vocals (or is that Tutt?) very prominently upfront as they do the chorus at the start of the song. I don’t think Keith wants it that way, but there it is, and he makes the best of it. He is quavery, clearly lacking confidence, but his heart is in it and I love him for his singing here. Donna comes in a little bit, but barely audible. Again on the subsequent choruses, Keith is quite present and Donna is absent. Keith is playing organ during Stop That Train, whereas he had been playing piano during Sugaree.

! P: t03 STOF Keith is playing organ, very interesting.

! P: t03 STOF Jerry is a little bit all over the register vocally, like he just can’t decide which key works best.

! R: t03 STOF splice @ 13:19, very brief.

! t04 @ 0:52 some dude says, clear as a bell, “‘That’s What Love Will Make You Do’, Jerry” and he’s the guy who called it and is probably soaking up the formation of his legend as TWLWMYD unwinds itself.

! P: t05 TWLWMYD reminds us that we’re not necessarily in a rush. Lay back and groove a little bit. This version operates right in your midsection, deeply settled in right from the get-go. @ 3 minutes in, Garcia’s guitar has almost a synthesizer sound to it. Keith is back on piano for a little solo late in the six-minute mark. @ 7:15: Hello, Mr. Tutt, I am well, thank you.
! song: That’s What Love Will Make You Do (t05):

! P: t06 Mystery Train: You have to admit, it’s pretty freaking cool to see Garcia doing Mystery Train with Elvis’s drummer.  And holy moley, within the first two and a half minutes John Kahn has hit some positively huge pulls. Keep listening to him into the 3-minute mark, my friends. The man could play bass. He sounds like Jellyroll Troy here a little bit.

! P: t07 FOTD there’s a crowd cheer, maybe Donna coming on? She has been offstage all night. I wonder if Jerry called her out to be his friend, as it were. Or maybe it’s Mr. Tutt doing the high singing? John Kahn does another good and long bass run @ ca. 3:40.


! song: “Tough Mama” (t08): [Allan | deaddisc | JB]. Jerry played it a million times in 1974-1975 (in JGMS, LOM and the Hopkins JGB), and twice in early 1976 with Keith and Donna, and then shelved it for five years with one random appearance, on July 8, 1977. Twice in summer 1981, twice in fall 1982, five times in 1990, and that’s it. This is a very unusual pattern, suggestive of a song that Jerry absolutely loved, since he kept trying it with many different personnel configurations across a long period of time. The fact that it never stuck suggests that there’s just something that didn’t quite work. Dylan’s Planet Waves (1974) is so brilliant, and Robbie Robertson’s guitar so urgent and compelling across the album, it’s sometimes hard to hear this material any other way, I guess, though some of Jerry’s versions are really, really nice.

! P: t08 Tough Mama again pulling out some big sounds in the 2-3 minute range, while Keith runs with a really nice piano solo. John is hammering deep, more pulls and upward runs.

! historical: Four shows in two days for John Scher, two this night, two the next night on the Boardwalk, head home. For these July 8 shows, Looks like $12,500 guarantee plus 60% over $32,500, with gross potential of $38,400. So it’d be about $15k for a sellout.