Reading Notes: Browne 2015

Browne, David. 2015. So
Many Roads: The Life And Times Of The Grateful Dead
. Boston, MA: Da Capo
Press [a member of the Perseus Books Group].

I stand by my initial assessment – this book is the real deal, chock full of great tidbits, fluently written. This is a great addition to the canon, standing alongside Jackson, McNally and the rest.

Browne’s method involved lots of interviews and access to
materials with and from just about all of the key survivors at the very center
of the Grateful Dead world. As a scholar, I lament that the move to improve the
transparency of work done using qualitative methods underway in various scientific
fields, which is a very good thing, could never work for this kind of writing.
I will treat specific facts given by Browne as correct, unless I can find
something to raise doubts. I rarely do.

The usual reading notes methodology. I know the endnotes
don’t format properly on blogger – one gets that for which one has paid, and I need to do it this way for my own purposes. Notes below the fold.

MG the GD guys were “glued to the enterprise”[1]
Tate-Manson stuff was August 1969 – neat contrast with The
Common. Murdered August 9, 1969. #JATJ
#musics Browne 2015, xi says country, bluegrass,
experimental music and improvisation. Not my preferred taxonomy.[2]
other themes: rise of an alternative culture; changes in R
‘n’ R music and business; technology (on stage); shared community -> social
media
MG, via Browne: “young men from disparate musical and
cultural backgrounds who joined together, helped transform the sound of popular
music, grew together into older men, and shunned responsibility yet had it
thrust upon them in any number of ways.[3]
Mickey Hart: “When the music played, everything made
sense. When the music stopped, things started getting weird”.[4]
What a great line.
Amalie Rothschild photo from FE, ca. 2/13-14/70, “a few
days before the start of the Workingman’s
Dead
sessions.[5]
MH notes that getting busted (e.g., New Orleans, but also
think to 10/67) is good business.[6]
Note to Corry: Truckin’ as marketing.
“the Dead weren’t just West Coast weirdoes; their
repertoire made them one of the most eclectic, fearsome, and versatile American
rock band of its time, perhaps ever”.[7]
#musics
g-Rukka Rukka, Weir’s ranch in Nicasio
s- Rhonda, Sherry and Vicki Jensen sisters living at Hart’s
ranch
Madrone Avenue in Larkspur: JG and MG first, then RH #houses.
“Hunter moved in during the first months of 1969”[8]
“the Dead’s world could be a constant lurch between
light and dark”[9]
#chiaroscuro
GD met Hell’s Angels at Kesey’s in La Honda.[10]
ca. 1970 guitar case sticker “Blackjack Garcia, the
baddest fucking guitarist in the world”.[11]
#personality
Altamont: “after the Airplane’s Grace Slick had
mentioned to Mick Jagger the role the Angels had played in security for
Airplane shows, the Angels had been recruited for Altamont”.[12]
1970, “those close to Garcia were beginning to notice
that he could unexpectedly fall into grumpy, blackened moods”.[13]
#personality
MG later wondered whether 1970 cocaine wasn’t when Garcia
began what she called his “secret drug life”.[14]
#drugs
Workingman’s sessions began around 2/16/70 with Dire Wolf,
resumed in early March, and wrapped up around March 16.[15]
#private “Outside the studio doors the world could be
chaotic, disorganized, and messy. But as [Workingman’s sessions] showed, they
could escape it all”.[16]
JATJ
October 1962, Cuban Missile Crisis time; “Garcia had
grown almost accustomed to sudden, unexpected loss. It had already haunted the
first twenty years of his life, and each episode had left irrevocable scars on
his body or his psyche”.[17]
#death
Joe Garcia’s death: fishing in the Trinity River in August
1947.[18]
finger was spring 1947.[19]
#death
Bobbie remarried twice, second was Wally Matusiewicz, which
was hard on Jerry, since Wally was a seaman who wanted the boys to work with
their hands, while JG was more artistic.[20]
JGMF was a draw. “The missing finger only added to his
image, especially when he would boast, wrongly, that the absent part of his
finger was in a jar of alcohol at home, and accepting visitors”.[21]
in 8th grade JG tried out the saxophone.[22]
Garcia used to go down to Playland as a kid, eat pie and
play arcade games.[23]
v-FDGH
move to folk music while with Barbara Meier, ca. 1962
“Michael Row Your Boat Ashore” #musics Makes it seem like he had a
brief real folkie period. Banjo came in a few months before Cuban Missile
Crisis, i.e., maybe late summer or early fall 1962.
Barbara Meier: “I don’t know if you’ve spent time with
someone rehearsing ‘Foggy Mountain Breakdown’ on a banjo for eight hours, but
Jerry practiced endlessly. He really wanted to excel and be the best. He had
tremendous personal ambition in the musical
arena, and he wanted to master whatever he set out to explore. Then he would
set another sight for himself. And practice another eight hours a day of new
licks.”[24]
#why
Norm van Maastricht talks about how they were as
just-starting out musicians, ca. fall 1962: “We felt almost driven to play
anytime, anywhere, with anyone. The hunger was never satisfied.”[25]
-song “Matty Groves” – Lesh saw Garcia playing
this and was entranced, gushing that he was in the presence of greatness.[26]
#why 1963 JG to Norm van Maastricht: “All I want to do
is to live my own weird little life my own weird little way and play music for
a living.”[27]
#women early 1963 JG and Barbara Meier are done, he soon meets
Sara Ruppenthal. 1965 La Honda: “I’d give up music to be with Mountain
Girl”.[28]
#adayinthelife 10/2/67 “As always it would start with
Garcia, who would rise at dawn and immediately start practicing scales.”
#why #workaholic Laird Grant: “After the Army he was a little more
disciplined”.[29]
MG: “It took me a while to find out what an obsessive
person he was. Rehearsing constantly and talking and smoking and
practicing.”[30]
#why #personality
#women 1966 some succession of women, was with some other
chick when he moved into 710 Ashbury, then MG.
#women Laird: “Jerry was always one of those guys who
drew women to him because he seemed needy. He never took care of his own shit,
and he needed someone else to do that, like ‘Help me, be my old lady.’”[31]
#women #personality Garcia had a jealous streak, per Barlow
and MG.
At time of 10/2/67 bust, Lesh Kreutzmann and Hart were
living at 17 Belvedere Street.[32]
#geo
Michael Steven Hartman 9/11/1943[33]
11/24/66 Thanksgiving Jack Casady was rolling the joints[34]
– #JATJ
v-FDGH nice paragraph Browne 2015, p. 136. “The setting
for this performance was surreal but fitting. Only a few years before, the
hulking building on the Great Highway, the road that ran along the western side
of San Francisco, had been home to the world’s largest slot-car raceway.
Miniature-car freaks gathered to watch their toy autos careen along an
electrical track that stretched out 220 feet. For Garcia the mere sight of
Playland at the Beach, where he’d once romped as a teenager, must have brought back
memories of another, different lifetime.”[35]
#error says Chet opened FDGH in 1968, but it was 6/13/1969
(with the Jeffersons, note #JATJ).
Marin: “named after a chief of the Licatiut Native
American tribe who’d long ago vanquished the Spanish”[36]
#houses JG and MG had an apartment in another part of town
before moving to Marin[37]
Hart Ranch by early 1969.[38]
#Frankie Hart: “Born Judy Louis Doop, grew up in SLO,
won a dance contest, go-go-dancing at the Peppermint Lounge. Interesting
discussion.[39]
#error (I think) he says that Pig exhorts people to get up
and dance on the album version of Alligator, but I thought that was Weir
(2/14/68).[40]
Garcia and Weir as older and younger brother configuration.[41]
NB My Brother Esau #men
The Firing [42]
Phil’s idea. Main event at Potrero Theatre ca. August 1968[43]
Lesh: “The way we left it was ‘The four of us are going
to try this.’ It wasn’t, ‘If you guys don’t get your shit together, we’re going
to do this ourselves.’ It was ‘we’re going to try it. But you guys have to know
that we feel you’re not on the same page as us’.”[44]
This puts #Hartbeats in a whole different light.
People felt icky about The Firing. Aftermath is power trio
with two drummers, Mickey and the Hartbeats, “a dreadful name that didn’t
bode well for their music. ‘It sucked,’ Lesh says. ‘It was nowhere.’” Then
rediscovered the GD was only place where that level of magic could happen, all
of them.[45]
#error ca. 1969 to say gone were the long periods when Pig
strutted the stage – there were still long Lovelight rave-up endings many
nights. Also #disagree that St. Stephen and China Cat sounded like instant
standards – the latter took 18 months to get right, the former had a few
different iterations, and it was very hard to get right.[46]
Cost of Aoxomoxoa
$200k, exorbitant for the time.[47]
#Carousel
capacity 2,000 seats. $15k/month lease[48]
v-Carousel this is really interesting. He says the Carousel provided the
template for doing everything in-house, within the community: Matthews, Betty,
Frankie help with the sound, Rhoney runs concession, etc. etc. McIntire “a refined and diplomatic
Illinois native who’d attended college in San Francisco and had first become
part of the Dead’s circle while working at the Carousel.” Listened to
Chopin – blond, finely dressed, cultivated, diplomatic.[49]
Bill Graham 1969 FW shows $5k in June ’69, FE for $7,500.[50]
Pragmatic, gotta do business with Bill, don’t have to be friends. This is nice
setup for The Common #JATJ
Lesh characterizing Garcia’s 1968 “sense of impatience
and perfectionism”.[51]
#personality
#NRPS “Unable to dedicate himself fully to both bands
and aware of his limitations as a pedal steel player, Garcia had recommended
Cage for the slot during the multiband 1970 Festival Express tour of
Canada.”[52]
I am not sure I am 100% convinced that this account is gospel truth. “He
said, ‘I stink – P.U.’”, according to Buddy Cage.[53]
v-Wally_Heider’s,_SF,_CA “in the Tenderloin”.
Barncard says the Dead were pure pros, nothing but a little weed, not even
nitrous.[54]
Hm #drugs
#Lenny Hart I am confused on the timeline. “Soon after
the completion of Workingman’s Dead
everyone learned that the rumors about Lenny Hart were true.”[55]
The timeline confuses me bc earlier (check) he estimated end of WD sessions at
3/16/70. So why did the criminal complaint against Lenny say his employment
terminated 3/2/70? Man, I wish those session contracts would turn up.
MG says Mickey personally delivered the news about Lenny to
her and Jerry in their Larkspur home: “He came around in a terrible state
of apology and depression and said that leaving the band was the only thing for
him to do. He was so ashamed and humiliated.”[56]
If that was ca. March 1970, what took him so long to leave (2/19/71)?
Pigpen and Hart barely contributed to American Beauty.[57]
I wonder, was the NRPS Hart’s escape into musical comfort in 1970? Like, how
much did #NRPS sustain *him*, a low key gig in a stressful time.
DJG from Muscle Shoals, sang backup on
Elvis’s “Suspicious Minds”,
R.B. Greaves’s “Take A Letter Maria” (1969). You can really
hear the influence of this on Keith and Donna Band’s sound.
Neil Diamond’s “Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation
Show” (yyyy) wiki:
” “Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show” is a song
written and recorded by Neil Diamond which appeared as the opening track on
the eponymous album. Released
as a single in early 1969, it hit number 22 on the U.S.
pop singles chart
.” B-side “A Modern Day Version of Love”
Released January 29, 1969
Percy Sledge’s “When A Man Loves A Woman”.[58]
In Paris May 1972 Hunter wrote about the GD crew culture
with a “Ten Commandments of Rock ‘n’ Roll”, including advice to suck
up to the top cats, work only for factional interests, “make devastating
judgments on persons and situations without adequate information” and
“destroy yourself physically and morally and insist that all true brothers
do likewise an expression of unity”[59]
#GD
WB advanced $20k for Garcia,[60]
used to buy Sans Souci #houses
#private “Closed Session – Anita Bryant” taped
onto the door as a joke – Bryant being a “fervent antigay singer,
beauty-pageant winner, and orange juice spokesperson.”[61]
But seriously, notice Heider’s role in the public to private rebalancing.
Closed Session, Anita Bryant, indeed!
#error “Next Time You See Me”, gives last word as
“Her”[62].
Check, anyway.
recommend #edit first para. p. 196
3/12/73 Pig funeral at Daphne Funeral Home, Corte Madera. I
didn’t know this location, or hadn’t noted it.[63]
I also note bottom p. 197 “Pig still juicing E72 and after”.
Pig found dead on the floor by band accountant David Parker.[64]
Wall of Sound, pp. 201-202.
“During this time [ca. 5/12/74], the Dead were already
considering a switch to Columbia and its boss, Clive Davis, yet they remained with Warners, especially after Lenny
Hart absconded with their funds.”[65]
#contracts #record company #Clive
Joe “Smith
was also furious when Garcia released a side project –Hooteroll? with keyboardist Howard Wales—on another label.”[66]
#AHATT I can kind of see Smith’s point, actually. In early 1972 he goes east
behind Hooteroll, but never goes out
behind the one with his name, only –Garcia,
a couple of months later. It’s pretty scewy comportment. In later years, 1974
Round Record period, the Fantasy guy Saul whatshisname had the gall to make a
stir about Round using Merl. Puh-leeze – Garcia had made a series of low-key
contributions to Merl’s work out of Berkeley, and a more considerable one to Garcia-Saunders-Kahn-Vitt
[GSKV], Live at Keystone, and this
guy wants to fuss about Merl contributing a few licks, knowing how asymmetric
the respective impact of those concessions is? STFU. #contracts #record company
Joe Smith:
“I made no effort to hold onto them. If James Taylor had said that, I
would’ve fought like crazy. But the Dead weren’t that important to us in any
way, other than they’d helped our image.”[67]
record #contracts #record company
“They’d known Ron
Rakow
, a Wall Street stock trader who’d relocated to San Francisco, since
the time he’d lent them money for a [204] sound system. Rakow, who’d befriended
Scully and Rifkin, had been in and around their community ever since, helping
work out the deal for the short-lived Carousel Ballroom experiment (their first
foray into a band-run business).”[68]
per Vicki Jensen: Ron
Rakow
“talked a mile a minute, but he was really sharp, and he was
accepted. He was part of the show. Rakow was supportive of them when they had
hard times [buying them a sound system some time seemingly before the Carousel
operation], and he was magical in his own way. He spun quite a thing.”[69]
Cutler was
suspicious of Rakow‘s “So
What” era pitch: “Whomever had the loudest mouth and could persuade
Jerry would get their hands on wheel of the good ship Grateful Dead.”[70]
Sam Cutler left the band, ca. early 1974, maybe even a little bit earlier? So
when Rak came in Sam went out.
Grateful Dead records starts working April 1973, after First
National Bank of Boston provided a loan and Atlantic Records paid a chunk for
foreign distribution rights.[71]
#s-Mike (nicknamed
Josh) Belardo
, “KMPX DJ who had interviewed the band at Hart’s ranch
in 1970 and later took a job” at GDR.[72]
Steve Brown:
Rakow would have someone on
the hook, doing the [aggressive] Bill Graham thing, and Jerry would be sitting
back enjoying it. He loved the alter-ego
bad-boy thing.
Jerry couldn’t bring himself to be that guy publicly
or even privately, so watching someone else do it was fun for him.”[73]
#record company: it seems like Grateful Dead Records was
legitimately ripped off via rampant counterfeiting of its first release, Wake of the Flood, which Josh Belardo
says cost them 25% of their income.[74]
I have heard it intimated that this could have been an organized criminal operation,
a straight up racket, but I don’t know. Good to keep a couple of Hells Angels
hanging around on the drug side of the operation, but they had to turn to the
FBI about the records.[75]
Starting to earn more, now $10-15k a show in 1971.
1972 Hartford Stadium they grossed $78k, took home $25k. Big paydays in Tempe
and Denver 1973.
Sam on Keith
Godchaux
: “Keith wouldn’t say boo to a goose, but once you got to know
him, he wasn’t so shy. He had his feisty side.” In shopping for a piano
when he joined the band, Keith played a dozen models before picking one.[76]
Mars Hotel
was completed 4/30/74.[77]
Grateful Dead as an institution.[78]
Hits theme again p. 219.
Peter Rowan’s “Big Red” p. 212, doesn’t
close the loop right away, does on p. 215.
“Garcia’s new side project was an outgrowth of
his new living arrangements, and both were early signs that Garcia was seeking
his own space apart from the Dead. … Stinson
Beach … was the escape Garcia yearned for at the time.”[79]
MG: “Jerry liked that drive to Stinson. He said it
was the only time he had to himself in his life.”
[80]
Kahn “developed a love of jazz in high
school”, “more rooted in blues and R&B” than Lesh.[81]
Backstage at the RFK GD shows (June 9-10, 1973), Rowan
said “It was kinda weird. It was like, ‘You’re not gonna take Jerry from
us—he’s ours.’”[82]
#GD vs. solo
“industrialized Dead” took some casualties.
“In early 1974 Cutler parted
ways with the band after a tense meeting.”[83]
Sam: “I hated the politics—a bunch of hippies with nothing better to do
than plot against one another rather than get on with the collective thing.
There was more politics around the Dead than around the Stones”.[84]
1974 “industrialized Dead”. Per Owsley,
there was “a lot of coke and a lot of beer and a lot of booze and a lot of
roughness” in the Dead scene of the time.[85]
August, Marin County hotel, Danny Rifkin informs
everyone that the band will be coming off the road for awhile.[86]
1974 just before hiatus: Rock “and Garcia were in
the San Francisco airport and ran into, of all people, country-pop troubadour
John Denver. To Garcia’s amazement, Denver was carrying only a guitar case and
a briefcase. ‘Where’s your band?’ Garcia asked. Denver replied that for this
particular tour, he didn’t have one; he was merely showing up in cities to play
with symphonies, and he opened up his briefcase to show Garcia his sheet music.
Afterward Garcia, marveling at Denver’s relatively simple touring life, asked
Scully ‘Why aren’t we doing
that?’”[87]
#why
2/19/75 Rak brings bad financial news; “the dream
of the Dead’s label was becoming a calamity faster than anyone thought.”[88]
#record company
“the Dead were [227] hemorrhaging money”.[89]
#record company
Belardo “once saw Garcia so incapacitated he
couldn’t function”.[90]
#record company Details of the UA deal Browne 201,
228. “Upon delivering their first album to the label, the Dead would
receive $300,000 within ten days; each album to follow would earn them a
$150,000 advance. The deal also came with restrictions. The first two Dead
albums had to prominently feature Garcia (and to a lesser extent, Weir) …
Garcia would receive a $125,000 advance for two solo albums, with Weir getting
$85,000 for a record of his own. If the deal didn’t recoup … Garcia would be
required to make another solo album. Garcia was allowed to play on other
musicians’ records, but, as the contract read, ‘on the condition that Garcia’s
name is not featured more prominently than any other artist on such
record”.[91]
1975 Garcia opened an office in Stinson Beach –right
above Ed’s Superette, a local grocery”, with his new personal manager,
Zippy.[92]
1975 “The Garcia Band had less overhead, fewer
crew members, and far less backstage and offstage drama than the Dead”.[93]
#solo vs. GD
Lesh was “hit hardest by the decision to stop
touring.” “I was never into taking a break. But I knew why it
happened. Jerry wanted to take a break. Jerry wanted to make the movie out of
the Winterland shows. What are you going to do?”[94]
Fall 1974, JG and MG’s relationship was “melting
down”. JG slept with other women on the road”.[95]
Including DK the month the hiatus was announced. #women
Christmas 1973 Allen Arkush was with JG and MG. MG had
freezer crammed with bags of pot. But one of the guests brought coke, MG and JG
had a fight about it. “Garcia made an excuse for using it.”[96]
#drugs
JG had met DK at a Dead show 1973, she went with him
to Europe ’74. August 1975, Frankie Weir and Cagwin heard yelling and stuff in
Ace’s studio. “Because it was Garcia’s 33rd birthday, MG had
dropped by with Annabelle in order to give him a present, only to find Koons
there.”[97]
MG grabbed DK, dragged her out of the studio, pulling the door off its hinges
in so doing. “I hate this shit,” Jerry told an unnamed
friend. “I can’t tell you how much I hate it. I’m gonna get myself strung
out to escape this shit.”
[98]
#women #drugs
3/5/75 another session at Ace’s (implied). Says they
hear about Lenny’s death a month
after it happened. “At first Garcia didn’t know who they were talking
about”.[99]
Given how prominently this was done up in the I-J,[100]
this doesn’t feel plausible to me.
Joe Smith
on Lenny Hart: “When they sued
him I was sitting outside the courtroom, and I said, ‘How can you do that?’ He
said ‘The Lord has forgiven me – I hope the boys will.’ I said, ‘The Lord didn’t
lose seventy-five big ones.’”[101]
#chiaroscuro Hart’s Barn early 1975 “tense,
shadowy atmosphere. ‘I rarely went to Mickey’s after 1970, says Vicki Jensen.
‘Things got dark there.’”[102]
Jerilyn says “He was a complete hermit, and he was very depressed and
broken-hearted. … He cut himself off from everybody. He was so upset with
everything with his dad and the band. No one blamed Mickey ever, but Mickey blamed Mickey.”[103]
The 1975 UA contract called for first album to be delivered
by July 10th, a second on 10/31, and a third on 1/31/76.[104]
Yeesh.
#adayinthelife sessions at Ace’s 1975 “Garcia
would inevitably arrive first, as early as 7 a.m., and Cagwin would make a
fresh pot of coffee for him …”[105]
#charisma “When Garcia spoke, everyone else would
quiet down and listen. Even if he was just discussing a Don Reno and Chubby
Weiss [sic] bluegrass show he’d attended, Garcia remained the unquestioned
center of attention.”[106]
#hiatus “wasn’t about taking a break from each
other as much as it was from the overwhelming industry of the Dead”.[107]
#error double check did Santana play on 9/28/75 in
GGP? p. 244
John Scher first worked with GD at Roosevelt Stadium
1972.[108]
“In early 1976 the First National Bank of Boston
wanted its debt repaid, and tension between Rakow and the band was mounting.
Everyone other than Garcia was beginning to question the running of the
business, and Hart had an outright confrontation with Rakow when Hart was
recording Diga … Soon after, Rakow
was fired. Hearing what had happened, Rakow, according to published reports,
cashed a low-six-figure advance check from United Artists and paid off those
owed for production of movie projects and other costs.”[109]
#record company
Garcia didn’t want to press the matter of Rakow’s
cutting himself a check. According to Andy Leonard, Garcia’s salary was cut to
$50/week from $540, “to penalize him and compensate for the depletion in
funds. Garcia had been the one pushing for Rakow from the start and now had to
pay the price for his decision. The fallout would have enormous implications
for Garcia, his personal life, and the Dead.”[110]
I think this is exactly right. This is when the GD guys force Garcia to say yes
forever. It’s the one time he prostrated himself, and they locked him in.

Clive Davis
had been interested in the GD before they shopped around in 1976. Scher:
“We went and talked to Arista first. They were the only people we
negotiated with in any real way. Clive had signed the New Riders, and Jerry was
very happy with the way that happened.”[111]
#NRPS
#Hells_Angels and GD still “amicable” 1977.
“Garcia was friendly with Sandy
Alexander
, who ran the New York City chapter”.
ca. 9/3/77 “Garcia was increasingly besieged on
numerous fronts, and his need to alleviate stress was growing. That year he
endured a messy breakup with [257] Koons.”[112]
#women
ca. 1977 “Garcia was also feeling guilty
about the debacle of Grateful Dead Records and having not only brought
Rakow into the fold but also stood up for him during the entire chaotic ride.
It was as if he’d been entrusted to run the family but had let it run
amuck.”[113]
#drugs
Time of GD Movie, “the workload, combined with
everything he was juggling in his personal life, was proving to be too much for
Garcia. Increasingly his affable, approachable image began working against him:
anyone who needed a favor or a financial handout seemed to visit him
backstage.” Kid Candelario: “He had guys hounding him to do free
shows. They don’t come by to say ‘Hi, what’s going on?’ They came to tell him
he needed to do a benefit concert or whatever. It was a hustle. He had all of those kinds of things pounding on him. He wanted to be in
that place where he could go in and turn the light off and just be quiet.”
[114]
#drugs 1977 #benefits #burden
#drugs “a strong Persian opiate that could be
smoked rather than injected. Although some in the organization connected
Garcia’s alarming new habit to the fall of Grateful Dead Records [who?] he had
begun dabbling in heroin before that collapse. One Dead employee recalls seeing
Garcia and one of the band’s colleagues visit a brothel in 1974 so they could
do heroin without any band interruptions; Parish first saw Garcia partake of
the drug in the winter of 1975.” Parish: “As far as I know, he
started before the Rakow thing.”[115]
“Sources differ as to who brought the drug into
the Dead’s camp: one recalls an outsider who would occasionally worked [sic]
for their business. Garcia told Hart his connection was the son of an
ambassador to a Middle Eastern country, who was using his diplomatic immunity
to easily bring the drug into the States.”[116]
#drugs
ca. 1977 his use wasn’t debilitating, so few paid it
much mind.
Browne implies that 9/3/77 heralded a new era where
they didn’t have to be musically great, but just became a show, p. 263. I
agree. He’s one of the people who sees Englishtown for what it is, an OK show
in front of a lot of people.
Maria on Jerry and John: They “were like
spiritual brothers. It was musical, and it was something beyond that. Jerry
respected John and the knowledge he had of other kinds of music. He liked his
sensibility. They had this intuitive connection”.[117]
Says straight out that John and Maria an item from
1974.[118]
Cats sessions
sometimes “started after midnight and were fueled by coke and wine”[119]
according to Maria, JGB “allowed Garcia to revel
in different rhythms and repertoire than the Dead”.[120]
solo vs. gd
Egypt: “Garcia was suffering from withdrawal from
heroin.”[121]
Keith was so zonked that “during the final stages
of recording [the Dead’s 1978 Shakedown
Street
] John Kahn wound up playing some of the keyboard parts
himself.”[122]
“During a JGB tour in 1978 to promote Cats, Maria Muldaur would try to stand
in between the couple onstage so Donna wouldn’t be able to see when Keith would
briefly stop playing and give his wife two middle fingers at once, which would
often make Donna burst into tears”.[123]
I doubt it really happened regularly, but it’s a good image.
ca 8/1/78: “At a party for Garcia’s birthday in
August 1978” JG was living with Rock and Nicky, Mydland came to meet the
band.
ca. RCMH 1980 Garcia was, per Loren,
“speedballing. You do cocaine and then you smake that stuff, [called]
rat.” … by 1980 everyone knew JG was onto opiates. performance suffering,
voice going, hanging out in the studio bathroom, etc.[124]
#drugs
early 1980s “Garcia and his issues had put the
band through what seemed like a never-ending roller coaster ride. During a
European tour of 1981 they’d written a letter accusing him of not being
professional”.[125]
ca. Barcelona 1981? #drugs intervention?
early 1980s Garcia living in the “darkened
basement apartment” at Rock’s both of them stone cold junkies. Nicki moved
out in 1981. “I did everything in my power to keep Jerry in touch, to the
point where it drove my family out of my house because he wouldn’t leave, and I’d
have the band come into my living room and do the meetings there.”[126]
Browne says a 1983 JGB tour was mysteriously canceled,
implying JG drugs[127]
– when?
1983 “Garcia was looking particularly sickly; on
stage he was pasty skinned and ghostly pale, and at moments he barely seemed to
move. … Offstage he grew increasingly disconnected from his band mates, a
combination of the drug use and a deepening resentment about
the constraints on his time and the pressures of supporting the organization.

When a friend asked him why he didn’t simply stop touring so much, he replied, ‘Gotta feed the bulldog.’[128]
#burden
“To the increasing wariness of the
other members of the Dead
, Garcia was still spending time with Kahn
and playing regularly with the Jerry Garcia Band. Garcia’s close friendship
with Kahn made many in the Dead less than friendly toward the bass player and
the JGB, which the Dead saw as an unwelcome distraction. … Garcia clearly
enjoyed playing and spending time with Kahn, and as Kahn’s wife, Linda, says, ‘John
and Jerry liked old movies and they loved to joke. We were an escape
for Jerry.’ (Annabelle Garcia would concur, telling Jackson that the
Kahns were ‘very sweet people’ and provided her father with a ‘safe
haven.’)”[129]
#John Kahn #solo vs. GD Also some unease
about Bobby & The Midnites. Andy Leonard says he got a lecture from Dead
management about the importance of the “mothership”.[130]
Andy Leonard, on 6/16/82: “I had never seen a
human being that color before in my life. He was the wrong color. I thought he
was going to die onstage. It scared the crap out of me.”[131]
Peter Rowan played a stage at the second decadenal
field trip: “he sensed lingering resentment within the Dead camp in light
of the way Old and [297] in the Way had taken Garcia away from the mothership
almost a decade before.”[132]
#solo vs. GD
Rock Scully
things came to a head ca. 1984 “when Scully was called into a band meeting
and accused of pilfering money during a New York trip with the Jerry Garcia
Band.”[133]
… given his papers, went into rehab. Band mtg minutes he was in rehab in Tahoe.
JG #drugs 1981 Joan Baez crossing. “One time he
was hours late and claimed he’d gotten lost in the fog on the way north. Baez
had a feeling he wasn’t comfortable in the situation but couldn’t find out why.
Garcia didn’t end up sticking around for long, and later work shifted to a
different studio where Garcia would finally attempt to put down a guitar part
for a song they were finishing.”[134]
JG #drugs 1981 Joan Baez “He was way out there.  He would noodle and get lost and start
finding the part and go off into outer space, and it had nothing to do with
that song.”[135]
JG #drugs 1981 Joan asked Mickey what was up with
Jerry. Mick: “You’re getting a contact low.”[136]
Summary of Joan Baez: Browne definitely paints the picture
that JG was weird around Joan. He “mystified” her. Corry has written
about Jerry and Joan in the past – I have to find that stuff.
ca. early 1984: “By the time they began
congregating at Fantasy Garcia was barely the Garcia they had known a decade before.
He was now three hundred pounds with swollen ankles; his hair was increasingly
white, long and scraggly, and he seemed easily distracted. It wasn’t unusual
for him to arrive late and head for the bathroom, and he didn’t seem to bathe
with much frequency. One of his in-jokes around Front Street—”I stink,
therefore I am”—was a particularly ghoulish slice of dark humor. Between
takes at Fantasy Garcia would wander off again, and it was left to his devoted
roadie, Steve Parish, to round him up and make sure Garcia was back at
work.”[137]
Garcia early 1984 Fantasy with GD, his voice raspy and
off-key so that he can’t do his vocals, but still being a pill. “Flipping
through a bunch of Stax and Volt records in his booth, Garcia turned grumpy,
snapping at the others, ‘None of you seem to remember it tonight.’”[138]
#personality
Sue Swanson on JG, referring to “Garcia’s gallant
side”: “He really loved women. He was an old-style guy that way:
‘Don’t mess with women,’ ‘the weaker sex,’ whatever you want to call it.”[139]
#women
Sue Swanson, JG once told her “I could be the
nicest guy on the block or the meanest guy on the block”, and “she
could tell from the tone of his voice that he meant it”.[140]
Hmmm, not quite sure what to make of this. I don’t doubt Ms. Swanson’s subjective
sense of what he meant, but it could just have been persuasive, y’know,
bluster.
early 1980s “Garcia spent hours watching
junk-food television—he could stay up all night absorbing hours of Dr. Gene
Scott”[141].
He’s the crazy white-haired coke fiend on Bay Area TV at the time.
#drugs 1984 #error intervention “Over a dozen
people –including the band, Mountain Girl, and Hunter—crashed Garcia’s home for
just such a discussion, and Garcia promised he’d go into treatment. To prove
it, he and Lesh drove to a clinic in Oakland, where Garcia signed up and said
he’d return later”, then didn’t follow through.[142]
“The next” day is how Browne narrates the bust, 1/18/85, so there is
an #error here somewhere. Either it was 1985, or the next day was not the day
of the bust in GGP.
1/18/85 “Garcia was arrested and booked, but
afterward, back at home, he barely mentioned the incident and acted as if the
best wasn’t cause for major concern.” Garcia “didn’t at the time
think he had any sort of problem and rejected therapy”.[143]
#drugs
#drugs 1986 “The shows with Dylan and Petty
proved to be his undoing. As straight as Garcia tried to stay, mysterious brown
packets would still be handed to him in elevators, sometimes by strangers, and
his mood grew less than pleasant.”[144]
August 1986 discharge, moved back into HH, but with
MG, Trixie and Annabelle.[145]
When Trixie first went to HH, she saw “dirty
little pieces of tin foil and straws”. “The refrigerator was filled
with little but Tang, the fruit-flavored beverage powder, and the armrests in
his favorite chair were covered with cigarette burns.” Laird Grant tried
to find hidden stash, none in albums, but he found that “bits of heroin
were taped to the bottom of cereal boxes in the kitchen cabinets”.[146]
GD start playing around Front Street 10/86. Late in
month, Mickey tells office they just played a really good Dark Star.[147]
Basic tracks for ITD laid down January 6-15, 1987.[148]
“The Dead’s business was erupting around them in
the wake of ‘Touch of Grey’. By now touring income amounted to 80 to90 percent
of the Dead’s gross income; the Dead grossed $26.8 million in 1987”.[149]
#error references riot at a 1975 Dead show in
Hartford.[150]
#women Manasha Matheson grew up in Englishtown,
attended 9/3/77 but first at Watkins Glen. Her friend attended Dekalb 10/29/77
gave Gar a pumpkin saying “Manasha says hi”, even though MM was in
Oxford (abroad from Shimer College). Next year, GD Uptown Theatre gigs
[1/30-2/1/78].[151]
Uptown ’78 Manasha and a friend hook up with Garcia through a friend of Hart’s
talk Catholicism, she tells him she thinks he’s a saint.[152]
#religion
#women Mid-80s Manasha is living in CA and working at
health food store in Fairfax. Ran to hospital time of coma, Jerry reached out
to her during his recovery, “asked her to come back to CA[153],
sending her a plane ticket so she could visit him in Los Angeles” where he
was working on So Far.[154]
Timelines hazy.
4/87 Gar still living with MG at Hepburn Heights, but
does Irvine shows with Manasha. “By the Dead’s summer tour the two were a
couple.”[155]
#women
#women 1987 when JG and Manasha got together, MG was hurt. But she let it go. She
protected and nurtured Gar during his recovery, then he left her for a younger
model.
#women #personality per Parish, “Garcia had a
habit of ending one relationship by diving into another; unpleasant
confrontations were to be avoided as much as possible.
[156]
Clarence
Clemons
details p. 353. Moved to Bay Area, crossed into Dead world,
backstage and then onstage, high on mushrooms. BW says Clarence wanted to join
Dead and that he and Garcia were into it, but others were not. “A couple
of our guys hate the saxophone”.[157]
Cal fall 1989, Clarence
Clemons
“floated an unusual idea to Weir and Garcia. Clemons suggested
the three of them move in together for what Weir says would have been ‘a
bachelor pad’. As odd as the idea sounded, Weir has said he and Garcia gave it
serious consideration …”[158]
before deciding against it.
1989 work
on new album (BTL). “The Dead were trying their best to stay on a
relatively even keel and be good boys. Yet tempers, frustrations, and old
habits intruded … Garcia was looking haggard again, and the newly darkened mood
cast a pall over the sessions.” [159]
#drugs Shelley Kreutzmann: “It
was all contingent on how well Jerry was doing and if he was chasing the dragon.
The healthier he was, the better everyone got along.”[160]
“Lesh would later dub the making of what came to
be called Built to Last ‘a
nightmarish briar patch of egotistical contention.’”[161]
1989 even a good year musically in many ways, GD world just never that happy.
ca. early 1990s “Employees of the Warfield in San
Francisco would grow so tired of the inundation of Deadheads during a run of
solo Garcia shows that they hung a Garcia doll from the rafters in the kitchen
and beat it with sticks to vent their frustration.”[162]
JGB #burden even his side band is getting to be a hassle. The bullshit quotient
is rising.
Garcia got call about Brent’s passing at home in San
Anselmo, with Manasha.[163]
#death
With Brent’s passing, Trixie says she “realized
Jerry was probably going to die early. I had to think that Jerry lost hope or
was unhappy” after Brent’s death.[164]
#death
#death “From the moment he heard the news Garcia
clearly took Mydland’s death particularly hard.”[165]
Garcia attended the GDTS barbeque on his birthday
8/1/90.[166]
#error William and Mary Hall at William and Mary, not
Univ of Richmond.[167]
#personality GD “in typical style, decided to
keep working rather than confront its internal issues. As always, it was best
to move on without dwelling much, if at all, on what had just occurred. Justin
K remembers JG saying “I’m never going to teach all these songs again –
this is it. We’re not going to start up all over again with someone new”[168]
#death #1990 general
“the Dead machine”[169]
Hornsby notes the general indifference of the band,
fall 1991.[170]
Scher: “Suddenly there was Hornsby, who from a
talent point of view was Garcia’s equal,
and Jerry recognized that immediately.”[171]
Hornsby “had to adjust to the fact that by 1991
there seemed to be two Jerry Garcias in the house. Garcia’s drug use and health
issues had continued, on and off, since 1989. … summer 1991
“he noticed certain signs: Garcia immobile onstage, hunched over his
guitar and staring at the floor, barely playing.”[172]
#drugs
End of summer tour 1991, intervention, Phil especially
getting stuff off his chest. JG does a “stint at a methadone clinic”.[173]
But some point on fall tour, Weir gets Bruce and Vince at the bar and tells
them Gar is using again.[174]
#drugs
2 Jerry Garcias are the healthy and the unhealthy
ones.
8/17/90 JG and Manasha wed in a private spiritual
ceremony in their San Anselmo home.[175]
#women
Boston 9/20/1991 Hornsby confrontation with Garcia
starts p. 389. Bruce: “You’re just phoning it in. You’re not there. You’re
not really delivering.” Jerry: “You don’t understand twenty-five
years of burnout, man.
[176]
Manasha says JG just wasn’t feeling well that night p. 390. GD house narrative
is “one bad day”. Mickey Hart said that in 1992 interview, IIRC. But
it was at least two bad days.
“The day before New Year’s Eve 1993” jumps
“on a plane to Hawaii, where he’d been scuba diving and [396] escaping the
Dead world regularly since 1988.” He was with Barbara Meier and
#institutionalization GD 1988 press conference at the
United Nations – it doesn’t get much more “world society” (Meyer,
various years) than that.[177]
Browne narrates via Bruce: “The first set in
Boston [9/20/91] hadn’t gone well — and, to Hornsby’s mind, neither had most
of the previous nights at New York’s Madison Square Garden. To him the Dead,
especially Garcia, seemed lackluster.”[178]
I agree with Bruce – those shows systematically suck, and I don’t care if you
were there and there are great tapes.
Hornsby confronted Garcia: even playing at a crazy professional
pace [six nights off in a year or something], “he still tried to play at a
high level, and Garcia didn’t even seem like he was even trying—and that Garcia
was letting fans down. Parish was surprised to see someone challenging Garcia
that way. “It was something that was never said but was
under the surface”
[179].
That is all ca. 9/20/91. I have the Morse 1991a interview as 9/22, so it’s
Garcia expressing himself in the same spirit, I guess, laying it bare.
Manasha says Garcia had the flu that night, as she
“was prepping a soothing honey-ginger drink for her partner”.[180]
Awesome writing.
#women 12/30/92 “Garcia had left home that
morning without telling Manasha anything about his plans to leave her for
Meier, but he had to say something about
what he’d done, so his friends helped him write a note, then had it
hand-delivered to Manasha by Garcia’s assistant, Vince Dibiase”.[181]
Emotional cowardice, conflict avoidance.
scuba. Vicki Jensen turned him on to it. “His
legs were nearly purple from lack of circulation” when she first got him
started.[182]
over the years he went on 500 dives. “He could be
the Jerry he used to be”, Kid said.[183]
GD “success came with a Faustian bargain”.[184]
#women Garcia and Meier short-lived. HE could be
grumpy, and she learned he was an addict.[185]
She confronted him, and, him not liking to be confronted, it was over. By
December 1993, JG and DK back together.[186]
due to clogged arteries, JG told Mickey, he couldn’t
feel his guitar pick. Also had carpal tunnel.[187]
In November 1994 and again three months later, GD
tried studio work. “Garcia would often show up late, carting along egg
creams and egg salad sandwiches with extra mayo”.[188]
After 1992 collapse, Nancy Mallonee: “Jerry felt
he was on some kind of assembly line and needed more time at home, and the band
knew it was hard on him. But they were stuck in this pattern.” There were
times when if the band threatened to stay off the road until JG got clean he’d
just go out with the JGB.[189]
#drugs Koons has said that she became aware of
Garcia’s addiction early in 1995″.[190]
Really?
Stayed two weeks at Betty Ford, instead of a planned
month. Off the wagon between Betty Ford and Serenity Knolls. Linda and John got
impression that “he was going to leave much from his past behind,
including, presumably, the Dead” when he went to Serenity Knolls. Cameron
Sears saw Jerry at the Wendy’s drive through on the way to Serenity Knolls.[191]
died of a heart attack. Two heart arteries had 85% blockage,
a third 30%.[192]


[1]
Browne 2015, ix.
[2]
Browne 2015, xi.
[3]
Browne 2015, xii.
[4]
Browne 2015, xiii.
[5]
Browne 2015, xiv.
[6]
Browne 2015, 2.
[7]
Browne 2015, 5.
[8]
Browne 2015, 11.
[9]
Browne 2015, 11.
[10]
Browne 2015, 13.
[11]
Browne 2015, 13.
[12]
Browne 2015, 14.
[13]
Browne 2015, 17.
[14]
Browne 2015, 17.
[15]
Browne 2015, 19.
[16]
Browne 2015, 21.
[17]
Browne 2015, 30.
[18]
Browne 2015, 30.
[19]
Browne 2015, 31.
[20]
Browne 2015, 32.
[21]
Browne 2015, 33.
[22]
Browne 2015, 34.
[23]
Browne 2015, 35.
[24]
Browne 2015, 39.
[25]
Browne 2015, 41.
[26]
Browne 2015, 46-47.
[27]
Browne 2015, 56.
[28]
Browne 2015, 89.
[29]
Browne 2015, 110.
[30]
Browne 2015, 110.
[31]
Browne 2015, 117.
[32]
Browne 2015, 122.
[33]
Browne 2015, 123.
[34]
Browne 2015, 130.
[35]
Browne 2015, 136.
[36]
Browne 2015, 140.
[37]
Browne 2015, 140.
[38]
Browne 2015, 140.
[39]
Browne 2015, 141-142.
[40]
Browne 2015, 144.
[41]
Browne 2015, 147.
[42]
Browne 2015, 148-150.
[43]
Browne 2015, 151.
[44]
Browne 2015, 149.
[45]
Browne 2015, 149.
[46]
Browne 2015, 152.
[47]
Browne 2015, 153.
[48]
Browne 2015, 156.
[49]
Browne 2015, 157.
[50]
Browne 2015, 157.
[51]
Browne 2015, 162.
[52]
Browne 2015, 166.
[53]
Browne 2015, 166.
[54]
Browne 2015, 170.
[55]
Browne 2015, 171.
[56]
Browne 2015, 171.
[57]
Browne 2015, 173.
[58]
Browne 2015, 173.
[59]
Browne 2015, 180.
[60]
Browne 2015, 183.
[61]
Browne 2015, 183.
[62]
Browne 2015, 189.
[63]
Browne 2015, 197.
[64]
Browne 2015, 198.
[65]
Browne 2015, 202.
[66]
Browne 2015, 203.
[67]
Browne 2015, 203.
[68]
Browne 2015, 204.
[69]
Browne 2015, 204.
[70]
Browne 2015, 204.
[71]
Browne 2015, 206.
[72]
Browne 2015, 206.
[73]
Browne 2015, 206.
[74]
Browne 2015, 208.
[75]
Browne 2015, 208.
[76]
Browne 2015, 210.
[77]
Browne 2015, 211.
[78]
Browne 2015, 212.
[79]
Browne 2015, 213.
[80]
Browne 2015, 213.
[81]
Browne 2015, 214.
[82]
Browne 2015, 214.
[83]
Browne 2015, 217.
[84]
Browne 2015, 217.
[85]
Browne 2015, 218.
[86]
Browne 2015, 224.
[87]
Browne 2015, 225.
[88]
Browne 2015, 226.
[89]
Browne 2015, 226-227.
[90]
Browne 2015, 227.
[91]
Browne 2015, 228.
[92]
Browne 2015, 230.
[93]
Browne 2015, 230.
[94]
Browne 2015, 230.
[95]
Browne 2015, 231.
[96]
Browne 2015, 231.
[97]
Browne 2015, 231.
[98]
Browne 2015, 232.
[99]
Browne 2015, 232.
[100] “Oscuro,”
http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2015/01/oscuro-february-2-1975.html.
[101]
Browne 2015, 232.
[102]
Browne 2015, 233.
[103]
Browne 2015, 233.
[104]
Browne 2015, 235.
[105]
Browne 2015, 235.
[106]
Browne 2015, 236.
[107]
Browne 2015, 237.
[108]
Browne 2015, 244.
[109]
Browne 2015, 246.
[110]
Browne 2015, 246.
[111]
Browne 2015, 248.
[112]
Browne 2015, 256-257.
[113]
Browne 2015, 257.
[114]
Browne 2015, 258.
[115]
Browne 2015, 258.
[116]
Browne 2015, 258.
[117]
Browne 2015, 268.
[118]
Browne 2015, 268.
[119]
Browne 2015, 268.
[120]
Browne 2015, 268.
[121]
Browne 2015, 270.
[122]
Browne 2015, 275.
[123]
Browne 2015, 275.
[124]
Browne 2015, 281.
[125]
Browne 2015, 293.
[126]
Browne 2015, 293.
[127]
Browne 2015, 294.
[128]
Browne 2015, 294.
[129]
Browne 2015, 295.
[130]
Browne 2015, 295.
[131]
Browne 2015, 296.
[132]
Browne 2015, 297.
[133]
Browne 2015, 298.
[134]
Browne 2015, 304.
[135]
Browne 2015, 304.
[136]
Browne 2015, 304.
[137]
Browne 2015, 307.
[138]
Browne 2015, 307.
[139]
Browne 2015, 308.
[140]
Browne 2015, 308.
[141]
Browne 2015, 314.
[142]
Browne 2015, 318.
[143]
Browne 2015, 319.
[144]
Browne 2015, 320.
[145]
Browne 2015, 322.
[146]
Browne 2015, 323.
[147]
Browne 2015, 325.
[148]
Browne 2015, 326.
[149]
Browne 2015, 343.
[150]
Browne 2015, 349.
[151]
Browne 2015, 352.
[152]
Browne 2015, 352.
[153]
NB there might be a hole here where she moves from CA back to NJ.
[154]
Browne 2015, 352.
[155]
Browne 2015, 352.
[156]
Browne 2015, 353.
[157]
Browne 2015, 353.
[158]
Browne 2015, 353.
[159]
Browne 2015, 355.
[160]
Browne 2015, 355.
[161]
Browne 2015, 356.
[162]
Browne 2015, 365.
[163]
Browne 2015, 378.
[164]
Browne 2015, 379.
[165]
Browne 2015, 379.
[166]
Browne 2015, 380.
[167]
Browne 2015, 381.
[168]
Browne 2015, 383.
[169]
Browne 2015, 383.
[170]
Browne 2015, 384.
[171]
Browne 2015, 384.
[172]
Browne 2015, 385.
[173]
Browne 2015, 385.
[174]
Browne 2015, 385.
[175]
Browne 2015, 387.
[176]
Browne 2015, 390.
[177]
Browne 2015, 388.
[178]
Browne 2015, 389; see also Morse 1991a.
[179]
Browne 2015, 390.
[180]
Browne 2015, 390.
[181]
Browne 2015, 397.
[182]
Browne 2015, 400.
[183]
Browne 2015, 401.
[184]
Browne 2015, 405.
[185]
Browne 2015, 407.
[186]
Browne 2015, 407.
[187]
Browne 2015, 408.
[188]
Browne 2015, 410.
[189]
Browne 2015, 413.
[190]
Browne 2015, 427.
[191]
Browne 2015, 427.
[192]
Browne 2015, 429.

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2 responses to “Reading Notes: Browne 2015”

  1. Corry342 Avatar

    per note 31, Greenfield also mentions the JG girlfriend who lived at 710 who was unceremoniously dumped when MG appeared. She was called "Guido"–obviously not her real name. I once tried to google her real name, but I couldn't do it. It is interesting that we have a primary source at the center of the hurricane, and we don't even know her name. Everyone else–Rock Scully, Danny Rifkin, Rosie McGee, etc have been interviewed endlessly.

    Winston Churchill once said "History will exonerate me, for I will write that history." Mountain Girl "won" and history has been rewritten by her and Jerry to all but eliminate the mysterious Guido.

  2. gymnopedies13 Avatar

    Book relates the story of Workingman's Dead as an "experiment" in recording an album on time and under budget, i.e. professionally, which apparently worked, as it remains one of their best-sellers.

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