The Group In and Around the Sarah Era: Boarding House, 1/24/73

LN jg1973-01-24.jgms.early-late.sbd-nfagdtrfb.100216.flac1644

update: this post has so  many old links to the evil db.etree – please never use that URL. Substitute etreedb wherever you see db.etree. Thank you.

(Man oh man does Blogger’s formatting suck. One can’t compose online, because stuff can get lost [viz my long beautiful post on Wales-Garcia 1/26/72]. One can’t compose in Word, because Blogger can’t swallow even pretty basic formatting [or Word doesn’t make it clear to Blogger what it’s doing]. Anyway, sheesh.)

Listing for Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders at Boarding House, 960 Bush Street, San Francisco, CA, 94109, Tuesday-Thursday, January 23-25, 1973. Source: San Francisco Chronicle-Examiner Datebook, January 21, 1973, p. 4.

The Sarah Era

I have been listening to tapes and contemplating materials
from the Sarah Era –the period from
ca. January 14, 1973 through ca. October
2, 1973
during which Sarah Fulcher sang with The Group, Garcia-Saunders-Kahn-Vitt,
around the San Francisco Bay Area. I have touched on the following (from the jgmf etree list):
  1. 01/15/73 JGMS
    Inn Of The Beginning Cotati CA 9573 Listening
    Notes
  2. 01/23/73 JGMS
    Boarding House San Francisco CA noncirc handbill,
    ads, discussion
  3. 01/24/73 JGMS
    Boarding House San Francisco CA handbill,
    ads, discussion
  4. 01/25/73 JGMS
    Boarding House San Francisco CA handbill,
    ad, discussion
    (2011); listening
    notes for shnid 7670
    (2012).
  5.  03/07/73 JGMS
    Keystone Berkeley CA listening
    notes
  6.  05/04/73 JGMS
    Homer’s Warehouse Palo Alto CA Listening
    Notes
  7. 05/29/73 JGMS
    Ash Grove Santa Monica CA dating
    (?No Sarah?)
  8. 05/30/73 JGMS
    Ash Grove Santa Monica CA dating
    (?No Sarah?)
  9. 07/05/73 JGMS
    Lion’s Share San Anselmo CA Listening
    Notes
    (no Sarah)
  10.  07/10/73 JGMS
    Keystone Berkeley CA material
    from 7/10/73 on the Live at the Keystone
    releases
    (No Sarah)
  11. 07/11/73 JGMS
    Keystone Berkeley CA material
    from 7/11/73 on the Live at the Keystone
    releases
    (No Sarah)
  12. 07/19/73 JGMS
    Great American Music Hall San Francisco CA San
    Francisco Phoenix
    review, brief discussion
  13.  09/01/73 JGMS
    Keystone Berkeley CA Keystone
    handbill for 9/1/73 and 9/2/73
  14.  09/02/73 JGMS
    Keystone Berkeley CA Keystone
    handbill for 9/1/73 and 9/2/73
  15. 10/02/73 JGMS Winterland (listening notes)

She is not present on either 10/11/73 or 10/12/73. For now, then, 10/2/73 at Winterland stands as the end of the Sarah Era, as presently documented. Even within it, her presence on any given night was not assured.

Live at the Keystone

She was absent from what would like have been two of the most financially-
and perhaps professionally-consequential gigs of her life, the Jerry Garcia – Merl Saunders (JGMS) July 1011,
1973 Keystone Berkeley shows.

July 1973 Keystone Berkeley calendar, courtesy of Fred Herrera and Merl Saunders, Jr.

The Group manifested –Freud first made me write “menifested”, on which more at some point– as the Garcia-Saunders-Kahn-Vitt
quartet and recorded enough material to establish a lifetime of steady, modest income. The two nights have been released, and re-released, and
re-re-released, nearly in toto over
the years. On vinyl came Live at the
Keystone
(Fantasy
F-79002, 1973
), Keystone Encores,
Volume 1
(Fantasy
MPF 4533, 1988
) and Keystone Encores, Volume 2 (Fantasy MPF 4534,
1988
). Per Scofield,
at the advent of the CD era “the tracks from the original double LP and the two
1988 releases were reconfigured and released as Live At The Keystone, Volume 1 (Fantasy FCD
7701-2, 1988
), Live At The Keystone,
Volume 2
(Fantasy
FCD 7702-2, 1988
) and Keystone
Encores
(Fantasy
FCD 7703-2, 1988
).” And I won’t even begin with the various compilations
and re-releases.

[update, 8/1/2012: Looks like the shows will actually be released in toto later this year. Affirms the point, needless to say.]

As Corry’s “Jerry
Garcia Album Economics, 1973-74 (John Kahn XIII)”
lays out so well, Garcia et al. were looking remarkably like
grownups in 1972-1973. Relatively speaking, of course. Merl had two high
schoolers, and Merl Jr. remembers that the live album bought the family its
first house. Garcia had his place with Mountain Girl and two little girls, Mountain Girl’s daughter by Ken Kesey, Sunshine, and three-year old Annabelle (Trixie would be born the next year). This was the most domestic phase of Garcia’s life, Dad not just a good
provider, as one might have said, but often actually physically present. I am under
the impression that both John Kahn and Bill Vitt had young kids as well.

So, time for some grownup business decisions to go with
grownup responsibilities. These seem to have included the various personnel
variations that we observe over the course of 1973. The year started with Tom
Fogerty still billed,
but, far as I can tell, apparently never playing with The Group again. Sarah. George
Tickner
as another possible second guitarist. Maybe a mystery
trumpeter
  (12/28/72) or two (7/5/73),
try on some horn colors. Figure out who’s good, who’s cool, who knows the stuff
or has the background or chops necessary to pick it up. Oh yeah, grownups, one
more thing: choose who gets paid and who doesn’t. Sarah Fulcher didn’t. “Nothin’
personal, darlin’, just business,” they might have told her.

Performance

All of that by way of background for a great night of music
at the Boarding House, 960 Bush Street, San Francisco, CA, 94109: Garcia-Saunders-Kahn-Vitt and Fulcher, Wednesday, January 24, 1973. Early and late shows,
unknown start times, but running over 90 minutes each. Great performance by the
whole band, one of the shows that bears repeated listening. Vintage
Garcia-Saunders. It’s considerably better than 1/15/73
and, to my ears, a little better than the next night (1/25/73).
SteveSw
sums up my feelings on the performance very nicely when he says “this show is a much better
example of what this configuration is capable of than the ones we listened to
before”, i.e., from earlier in January. I may even like it (and
especially certain numbers, such as “I Was Made To Love Her”) even more than
Steve does. In fact, I’ll go ahead and call it my favorite January 1973 material. Every number creates its own pop, as appropriate, or settles you
down deep in some American musical pocket. Seriously, there is not a clunker in
the whole bunch. Event Dixie Down had me singing and, perhaps for the first
time in multiple hundreds of hearings, feeling a little sympathy, if still no
empathy, for ol’ Virgil Caine. I feel like I am dancing about architecture
here, but the music simply shines.

SteveSw suggests
that those pressed for time check out this version of “Georgia On My
Mind”
(Allan
| Scofield), and who am I to
argue? I’d only further that you check out the “Jam” track from the early show
tape (a-t07, “collective improvisation”).
It has some “After Midnight”
feel at the start, but really only Jerry and only at the very beginning. Merl
plays some very period-distinctive brassy synth while Jerry and John let it
melt a little bit. The real treat comes about 8:15 here is what I am thinking
of as The Group’s ghost story. Sarah
opens the funhouse door with some spooky vocalizations at 8:15. Jerry strikes
like a brown on a Colorado caddis hatch, flirting with and even briefly
touching “The Tiger” in the nine minute mark while Sarah’s phantom wails creep
everyone out. It’s not clear that “this place as clean”, as the little lady in Poltergeist might say. One could really
scare the neighbors with this Halloween night ha’nted house soundtrack, which
runs probably 4 minutes all told (into the 12-minute mark). Fantastic,
distinctive stuff!

After the ghost story, there’s more good listening for you.
Jerry scales around a little, fast strumming and a little GD-flavored picking at
13:21. With no Bobby Ace on the scene to blow the vibe with “Me And My
Uncle” (the flavor there in Jerry’s playing), things stay pretty unmoored
until Garcia things down, pregnantly, in the late 14-minute mark, wailing a
little over more synth & Sarah. Everyone sounds lonely, all together, for a
while. I almost hear gentle strains of “Imagine”
 before Sarah brings out the
first-ever Garcia version –and, for all we know, one of the first-ever live
versions by anyone, anywhere—of “Like A
Road Leading Home”
, church-time in Memphis. Great stuff.

Setlist

While I think the performance is particularly good, it’s
also particularly enjoyable because there is just a lot of great American music
finding expression here. The Group’s repertoire is broad, deep, well-rounded
and pretty well-conceived as show and, if one were inclined to think this way,
as possible (vinyl) product.

I begin by noting that there are no obvious “jam vehicles”,
numbers seemingly designed to open up improvisationally . The modal tune
probably clocked in in the 3-minute range on the AM radio dial in its original
form. Garcia and Saunders, of course, are perfectly willing to make room, so we get extended,
funkified, street-struttin’ versions of Steve Wonder’s great “I Was
Made To Love Her”
, the Soul Survivors’ “Expressway (To Your Heart)” and
Martha Reeves’s scorching rave-up “Honey
Chile”
, the players bobbing and weaving and Sarah, the Satin Doll, rocking
the mic. They stretch out nicely on some blues, as well.

Related to the lack of specific improvisational vehicles, The
Group plays no Merl Saunders
compositions
 this night. The next
night
, they’d do no fewer than three.

There were not really any Garcia, Kahn or Vitt compositions
to play, but there were a couple of mysterious tunes that I presume to have
been written by, or at least for, Sarah Fulcher, both of which appeared in the
late show. “Find
A Rainbow”
(Allan) is a pleasant
midtempo that finds Jerry starting with his best Tom Fogerty/George Tickner
impression, pretty straight chunka-chunka, gradually smoothing and fattening
his tone. Sarah sounds absolutely lovely, trying to find a rainbow, despite
looking out dirty windows … and Jerry … mellifluous. Some of Sarah’s
improvisations fall flat in the 6-minute mark, but overall this is a lovely
piece of music. As far as we know, it would never be played live again. “Go Climb A
Mountain”
(Allan), has some nice
anthemic qualities that Garcia perceptively pushes, building himself up, John
joining in, releasing the tension, working it back up. I could hear this song
opening itself up to double-time jam of the sort we get on 5/5/73, but it
doesn’t happen, an unrealized (and possibly wholly imagined!) possibility.

Songs

Here are some comments on specific songs.

a-t01 “Hi-Heel Sneakers” was a 1964 #1 R&B hit for
Tommy Tucker, a.k.a. Robert Higginbotham, on Checker Records (Checker 1067) (Allan | Scofield | wiki). It’s a fucking
fantastic tune, such a wonderful feel, the steppin’-out-on-a-Sunday,
bible-in-my-hand-but-razor-in-my-belt trope of Lackawanna Blues,
an “uptempo 12-bar blues” (wiki). This version
gets my toe-tapping, though I don’t think I have ever encountered one that
didn’t. Go listen to Tommy
Tucker do it
, though absolutely everyone else did it, too, including the
Dead on at least two occasions (11/19/66
and 8/3/69).

a-t03 “That’s All
Right”
is commonly referred to among Garcia/GD-oriented listkeepers as
“Who’s Loving You Tonight?”,
but that is incorrect (Allan
| Scofield [WLYT?,
TAR]). This is a tune
written by Jimmy Rogers. It is distinct from “That’s Alright Mama”, written by Arthur ‘Big Boy’
Crudup, though it is mistakenly credited to him on the Merl Saunders CD Keepers (Fantasy, FCD-7712, 1997). I had originally mistakenly listed the composer as Jimmy Rodgers, “the Singing Brakeman”. The correct author, Jimmy
Rogers, “was Muddy Waters’ rhythm guitar player for much of the 50’s. His
given name was Lane but he took Rogers after his step-father.” Thanks to commenter Paul for the correction and additional color!

There is a strong case for
common usage (i.e., WLYT?) here, but I will resist it and stick with the
correct title, as best I can determine. After this third known JGMS
performance, they’d shelve it for a year, revive it briefly in early 1974
(1/17/74, 3/9/74), and retire it from the stage for the rest of Garcia’s
career. One final Jerry would play this song as part of a wonderful medley of
Jam -> That’s Alright Mama -> That’s All Right on about 10/2/75 at His
Master’s Wheels studio in San Francisco (60 Brady Street) during the Reflections sessions. I need to revisit
that great piece of music and see if I can glean anything from it.

a-t04 “Honey Chile” (Allan | Scofield). Motown female sensations
Martha Reeves and the Vandellas had a 1967 hit (Gordy G 7067, released
10/14/67) with this in-your-face number about a woman who just loves him too
much to leave the man who done her wrong (in addition to being shiftless, lazy,
and no-good). Wiki:
” the tune rose to number eleven on the Billboard pop singles chart and number five on the Billboard R&B singles chart.”
The Jackson 5 covered it in 1971, but Sarah Fulcher’s rendition is quite certainly
inspired by Martha Reeves. This is one of only 8 versions documented at Jerrybase, all of them presumed
to be sung by Sarah Fulcher.

a-t06 “Are You
Lonely For Me”
goes by a few different titles in the (GD/Garcia)
Lists, including “Last Train To Jacksonville”. Allan and Scofield are
not consistent (Scofield includes “, Baby?”). For now I will use the
version without extraneous punctuation (the comma and question mark). It was
“written and produced by Bert Berns (aka Bert Russell)” and “first recorded by Freddie
Scott
” (Shout Records, 1966), who had it #1 on the Billboard Hot Rhythm & Blues charts for four
weeks in early 1967 (wiki;
NB Scofield says charted in 1966). Commenter nick has suggested that Jerry and Merl probably got the song from Al Green’s 1971 breakout Al Green Gets Next To You (wiki). Now, I know thatmMaking data parsing easier is not a good
reason for my titling choice, but I don’t know how to judge, otherwise, from
among the alternatives. So I choose the version without the comma and question mark.

Garcia-Saunders did this tune a documented 10 times
between 1972 and 1974 (JB).
The Grateful Dead, playing as Jerry Garcia and Friends and backing up none
other than Bo Diddley, played the song at least once, on March 25, 1972 at the
New York Academy of Music (Deadlists
| dead.net). The earliest
known Garcia On The Side version (though 3/25/72
might count
!) comes from the legendary 6/30/72 (JGMF)
show, is a real monster, stretching to a long and spacy jam. This is the second
documented version. It was more frequent in 1974, including the very well-known
Rheem Theater tape (2/9/74).

a-t08 “Like A Road Leading Home” is
a beautiful piece of Don Nix / Dan Penn Stax poetry (Allan | Scofield | JB) understood to be
making its Garcia debut here. Sarah put it on her record Sarah & Friends (TMI 30968, 1971) (Arnold
| Scofield | Billboard),
which Steve Cropper produced in Memphis. Corry first hypothesized that Sarah
brought the tune to The Group, and I think this seems undeniable. She takes the
vocals entirely on her own. Since I believe the band rehearsed at least a time
or two with Sarah, trying to concatenate repertoires all while, y’know,
learning to play together, I suspect Sarah had played her record for Jerry/John/Merl/whomever. But they might already have been familiar with the tune. Commenter nick notes that Like A Road appeared on Albert King’s 1971 Lovejoy (wiki), and spending a little time with that record, it certainly seems like something Garcia would have had in his record collection.

Jerry clearly fell in love with the song, if not the
songstress. Within a few months he was singing it on his own, as a kind of
featured “sweet” Garcia vocal, and we are fortunate to have great tapes from
ca. 5/29/73
(dit “5/23/73”), 7/5/73
and 7/11/73,
the latter version appearing on the Live
at the Keystone
double LP (Fantasy F-79002, 1973).
To my ear, he rarely struggled with the lyrics, which tended to be the case
with songs that Jerry loved to sing, specifically. Why Sarah was not present to
sing it, or anything else on those other early “Like A Road” nights, nor to
share in the financial rewards of the Fantasy release, remains unclear. Jerry
and Merl played it a few more times post-Sarah (into 1974). It would appear in
Jerry Garcia Band (JGB) a little in 1981 setlists. From 1984 until the end of
his life Jerry would play it regularly enough to be together, but rarely enough
that it always felt special, a little church for the lost and weary soul.

b-t04 “Georgia On My Mind” is a super-rarity (JB). I need to complete this note, but NB it first appeared on 12/28/72. Sarah was in town in December. I wonder if she was there, or if they had already been working a few things up with her?

Listening Notes

Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
Boarding House
960
Bush Street
San Francisco, CA 94109
January 24, 1973 (Wednesday)
188 min Betty Cantor-Jackson soundboard, early and late shows
Listening Notes
Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
Boarding House
960
Bush Street
San Francisco, CA 94109
January 24, 1973 (Wednesday)
188 min Betty Cantor-Jackson soundboard, early and late shows
–Early Show (9 tracks, 94:43)–
a-t01. … Hi-Heel Sneakers [#8:50] [0:06] % [0:12]
a-t02. I Was Made To Love Her [11:43] [0:17] % [0:05]
a-t03. That’s All Right [10:49] [0:18] % [0:08]
a-t04. Honey Chile [14:36] [0:16] %
a-t05. tuning [0:41]
a-t06. Are You Lonely For Me [13:26] ->
a-t08. Like A Road Leading Home [11:22] [0:16] %
a-t09. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down [5:38] (1) [0:09]
–Late Show (7 tracks, 92:55)–
b-t01. [0:05] Expressway (To Your Heart) [17:55] [0:21]
b-t02. Find A Rainbow [12:08] (2) [0:28] %
b-t03. After Midnight [13:51] [0:17] %
b-t04. Georgia On My Mind [15:19] [0:48]
b-t05. Money Honey [7:46] [0:02] % [0:27]
b-t06. Go Climb A Mountain [13:41] [0:07] % [0:05]
b-t07. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [9:30] (3) [0:07]
! ACT1: Merle [sic] Saunders Experience
! lineup: Jerry Garcia – electric guitar, vocals;
! lineup: Merl Saunders – keyboards (Hammond B3 organ, Fender Rhodes electric
piano), synthesizers;
! lineup: John Kahn – bass;
! lineup: Bill Vitt – drums;
! lineup: Sara Fulcher – 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/19730124-01 (early); https://jerrybase.com/events/19730124-02 (late)

! db: http://db.etree.org/shn/100216 (this fileset) is the superior
source. The older filesets (shnids 4492
and 9783) are derived from the same
root master and probably also pass through some of the same initial hands as
this source (see below), but according to the seeder they should be sonically deprecated
by this seed. I believe him – Andrew F. is generally good and careful.

! R: Eaton: “01/24/73 The Boarding House, San Francisco Ca –
complete  4.8,186min, Sbd, A0D1, Reel
Master->PCM 0->Dat 1, 44k,  10inch
Master [email protected] 1/2trk->PCM x 0->3700 x 1”.

! R: Given lineage: 
“Source: MSR > ? > DAT; Transfer: DAT > Sony D10P >
Coax SPDIF > Audiophile-2496 > Wavelab > R8Brain > CD-Wave > TLH
> FLAC 1644, via Andrew F.” I believe this is a Second Betty Batch tape. It probably has a PCM gen (Dougal
Donaldson’s) and at least one (Ryan Shriver) DAT gen before the source DAT. One
little source of doubt is that the early show circulated quite generally for
some years before late show really emerged. But it all feels like a Dougal
Donaldson pathway to me.

! db: For the record, the older filesets have the following stated
lineages. 1) shnid 4492 (92 minute
early + 1st song of late show), MSR > P > DATs > Sony [email protected]
playback > optical S/PDIF > Digidesign 001 > HD as Sound Designer 2
@44.1kHz > Pro Tools LE (tracked and converted to wav) > SHN, via D. Metz
(from Ryan Shriver), ca. September 2000 or earlier; 2) shnid 9783 (71 minutes, continuation of
late show, i.e., all but first song): MSR > PCM > DAT > CD > EAC
> SHN, via jjoops (from AJL), ca. 6/2/2002. That fileset mentions that some
copies claim a cassette gen. NB: All of the above lineages for early and late
are consistent with this being a Second Betty Batch tape.

! R: “Source note: This 1996 DAT improves on the
4492/9783 set. 4492 was found to be mono, and has clipped wav’s thru-out. 9783
appears to have been compressed, and L&R are flipped. This source combines
early & late shows into one file-set.”

! R: “Patches were added to repair problems with the
DAT source: – High Heel Sneakers; 5:22, 6:13, 8:35, from ID-4492. – I Was Made
to Love Her; 0:52, 1:57, from ID-4492. – Honey Chile; 9:20 > 10:11, from
ID-4492. – Like a Road; 10:11 > 10:50, from ID-4492. – After Midnight; 3:19
> 3:54, from ID-9783. – Go Climb a Mountain; 10:05 > 11:15, from
ID-9783.”

! R: seeder note: “There are numerous small
snap-crackle-n-pop events thru-out the recording; fixed major pops with
Wavelab, and left most as-is, as these seem to be present on the MSR. Several
cuts at start of Dixie, 0:07 > 0:14, 0:30, and 0:39. Pops around those
cleaned-up and blank spots left as-is. Some sub-second digi-zaps patched over
with an alternate DAT source. Thanks to Cbass for assistance with this project.
Andrew F. 07/2009”.

! SteveSw writeup: http://gdvault.com/tracker/forum.php?action=viewtopic&topicid=2600

! song: a-t01 “Hi-Heel
Sneakers”
was a 1964 #1 R&B hit for Tommy Tucker, a.k.a. Robert
Higginbotham, on Checker Records [Allan | Scofield]. It’s a
fucking fantastic tune, such a wonderful feel of a substantially disappeared
steppin’-out-on-a-Sunday, bible-in-my-hand-but-razor-in-my-belt black
tradition. This version gets my toe-tapping, though I don’t think I have ever
encountered one that didn’t.

! R: a-t01 HHS enters in progress.

! P: a-t02 IWMTLH Sarah Fulcher on lead vocals. Jerry comes
in with his first solo at 1:15, and it’s like an arrow to the heart, bullseye
right out of the gate. Merl takes some nice turns in the late 6-minute mark,
even eliciting a yowl from Ms. Fulcher. Excellent. They are interacting nicely,
the whole band.

! song: a-t03 “That’s All Right” is commonly referred to among
Garcia/GD-oriented listkeepers as “Who’s
Loving You Tonight?”
, but that is incorrect (Allan | Scofield (WLYT?, TAR). This is a tune
written by Jimmy Rodgers. It is distinct from “That’s Alright Mama”, written by Arthur ‘Big Boy’
Crudup, though it is mistakenly credited to him on the Merl Saunders CD Keepers (Fantasy, FCD-7712, 1997).There is a strong case for
common usage (i.e., WLYT?) here, but I will resist it and stick with the
correct title, as best I can determine. After this third known JGMS
performance, they’d shelve it for a year, revive it briefly in early 1974
(1/17/74, 3/9/74), and retire it from the stage for the rest of Garcia’s
career. One final Jerry would play this song as part of a wonderful medley of
Jam -> That’s Alright Mama -> That’s All Right on about 10/2/75 at His
Master’s Wheels studio in San Francisco (60 Brady Street, right?) during the Reflections sessions. I need to revisit
that great piece of music and see if I can glean anything from it.

! P: a-t03 TAR in the late 4-minute mark, Jerry and Merl are
working really well together. Merl is just B3’ing it, and Garcia is comping a
little bit. They are communicating well.

! P: a-t04 The start of Honey Chile shows off Vitt’s
fantastic drumming and Betty Cantor-Jackson’s amazing talent as a recording
engineer.

! song: “Honey Chile”
(a-t04 ): This is one of only 8 versions documented, all of them presumed
to be sung by Sarah Fulcher. It was played on 1/15/73,
but I didn’t say much. I said a little more about the song in connection with 5/4/73.

! R: a-t04 change in SQ at 9:25-10:12.

! song: “Are You Lonely For Me” (a-t06) goes by a few
different titles in the (GD/Garcia) Lists, including “Last Train To
Jacksonville”, and Allan and Scofield are
not consistent (Scofield includes “, Baby?”). For now I will use the
version without extraneous punctuation (the comma and question mark). It was
“written and produced by Bert Berns (aka Bert Russell)” and “first recorded by Freddie
Scott
” (Shout Records, 1966), who had it #1 on the Billboard Hot Rhythm & Blues charts for four
weeks in early 1967 (wiki;
NB Scofield says charted in 1966). Making data parsing easier is not a good
reason for my titling choice, but I don’t know how to judge, otherwise, from
among the alternatives. Garcia-Saunders did this tune a documented 13 times
between 1972 and 1974 (TJS).
The Grateful Dead, playing as Jerry Garcia and Friends and backing up none
other than Bo Diddley, played the song at least once, on March 25, 1972 at the
New York Academy of Music (Deadlists
| dead.net). The earliest
known Garcia On The Side version (though 3/25/72
might count
!) comes from the legendary 6/30/72 (JGMF)
show, is a real monster, stretching to a long and spacy jam. This is the second
documented version. It was more frequent in 1974, including the very well-known
Rheem Theater tape (2/9/74).

! P: a-t06 AYLFM: JG is playing a nice little melody, sounds
almost like a snippet of a different song, during the 4-min mark. Merl is in a
nice spot in the 7:30 range while Jerry picks chords and flavorful little
melodies behind him. Around 9 minutes in Sarah comes in and lets us know that
she’s been searching everywhere, looking for her baby. 10:45 Garcia hints at a
little whale cry, but it’s nicely integrated with the song, very nice. Some fast
and nice guitar runs, including an incredible fretclimb around 11:24.

! P a-t07 collective improvisation (i.e., “Jam”)
has a lot of “After Midnight”
feel at the start. Merl does some very distinctive synthesized trumpet sustains
around 5:30. They are all playing, all touching some interesting themes. They
start breaking it down in the 7-min mark, more groovy synth by Merl ca. 7:35
and forward. Betty’s tape is wonderful. @ 8:16, Sarah floats some really
haunting vocals over the top, and together they are creating a real ghost
story. Jerry starts urgently near Tiger-ing in the 9-minute mark, pulls a Tiger
at 9:30 while Sarah seriously creeps me out and leaves me feeling a little
unclean (in the Poltergeist sense). One could really scare the neighbors on Halloween
night with this interlude. More ha’nted house wailing from Sarah toward the
11:30-12:00 range, Jerry now scaling around, fast strumming and picking a
little GD-flavored stuff at 13:21 … if Bobby Ace were around he’d pull out
“Me And My Uncle” in this 13-minute mark. Quite unmoored here for a
bit. Jerry starts slowing things down pregnantly in the late 14-minute mark,
some more synth and Sarah jumps back in in the early 15-minute mark. Everyone
sounding lonely, all together, sort of. The drop into Imagine/Like A Road is
very tasty. Yow!

! P: a-t08 Sarah starts with the words “I’ll climb a
mountain”, but then she locates herself inside “Like A Road Leading Home”. She is doing lead vocals
here. Jerry is playing beautifully, as he would for 20+ years. It was always a
perfect song for him. It sure sounds to me like this emerged pretty
spontaneously. Of course, they had probably run it through a time or two
(actually rehearsed?).

! song: a-t08 “Like
A Road Leading Home”
is a beautiful piece of Don Nix / Dan Penn Stax
poetry (Allan
| Scofield) understood to be making
its Garcia debut here. Sarah put it on her record Sarah & Friends (Trans-Maximus, Inc. [TMI], TMI 30968, 1971) (Arnold
| Scofield | Billboard),
which Steve Cropper produced in Memphis. It seems undeniable that she brought
the song into the Garcia-Saunders band. For all the world, it sounds like
Garcia and the guys are playing Lennon’s “Imagine”
before Sarah starts singing Like A Road. She takes the vocals entirely on her
own. It’s possible Garcia had never played the tune, nor maybe even ever heard
it, before this, though perhaps more likely that Sarah had run through it once
or twice with them. As far as I can tell, it did not appear on record, except
for Sarah’s, until 2002, at which point Garcia could already hear it from Don
Nix himself in the Great Beyond (wiki).
Jerry clearly fell in love with the song. Within a few months he was singing it
on his own, as a kind of featured “sweet” Garcia vocal, and we are fortunate to
have great tapes from ca. 5/29/73
(dit “5/23/73”), 7/5/73
and 7/11/73,
the latter version appearing on the Live at the Keystone
double LP (Fantasy F-79002, 1973). He’d play it live several times a year
–never too much– for the rest of his life, seemingly always as a special salve
for the lonely, weary soul.

! R: a-t09 TNTDODD splice @ 0:07-0:14, drops @ 0:30,
0:38-0:39

! P: a-t09 TNTDODD Jerry is singing the verses, Sarah is
joining him on the chorus.

! a-t09 (1) JG: “Thanks a lot. We’ll see y’all
later.”

! P: b-t01: Expressway is one of my all-time favorite
Garcia-Saunders numbers, but this version comes out of the gate a little bit
sluggishly. Nothing wrong, just a little slower tempo than I prefer. That said,
Jerry jumps into his first solo feet first, no hesitation whatsoever, and also
seems to be pulling the tempo up a little bit as he goes. By 2 minutes in, I’m
either used to this more laconic pace or it has picked up a little bit. Jerry
is plucking some really glassy stuff in the late 7- and early 8-minute mark.
Very pure stuff. Sarah is singing really nicely, IMO.

! P: b-t02 “Find A Rainbow” is very, very nice, a
really pretty composition. Garcia is all over this number, and Sarah is singing
very tastefully.

! b-t02 (2) Sarah Fulcher: “Thank you.”

! P: b-t03 AM Jerry doing some nice whale-crying, followed
by glassy plucking and pulling, in the 10-minute mark, before bringing things
back to the tune proper.

! P: b-t04 GOMM Garcia pulls some very long sustains in the
3-4 minute marks, abetted by some urgent pulling wrapped in reverb around 4:47.
John Kahn steps out for some soloing @ 9:34 for a minute or two.

! P: b-t05 Sarah and Jerry sing “Money Honey”
together, or occasionally together. Or, like SNL’s Almost Pizza, “that was
their intention”.

! P: b-t06 GCAM is a little schematic, compositionally speaking,
though I think here Sarah sings with more confidence than she would the next
night (1/25/73b).

! b-t07 (3) JG: “Thanks a lot. See y’all later.”

Comments

7 responses to “The Group In and Around the Sarah Era: Boarding House, 1/24/73”

  1. Nick Avatar

    Thanks for another great set of notes! I've never been a big fan of Sarah's contributions, but your recent posts have made me want to revisit all this material with a fresh pair of ears.

    Two bits of minutae re song provenance:
    "Are You Lonely For Me" was also on Al Green's breakthrough lp Al Green Gets Next To You, released Aug 14 1971 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Green_Gets_Next_to_You). Given the date (and the fact that it's Al Green), I've always kinda figured that was where Merl or Jerry got the immediate inspiration to do the tune. Also, "Like a Road" was on Albert King's Lovejoy album which came out in 1971 as well (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovejoy_%28album%29). I don't know if I misread you or not, but Sarah's version wasn't the only recording contemporary to the band — though it certainly stands to reason that Garcia first heard the tune from Sarah's own recording.

  2. Fate Music Avatar

    nick, I really appreciate your insights.

    I was, indeed, suggesting that about Like A Road. Not sure how I arrived there, but I will fix it.

    AYLF: Interesting, and probably right. One of the things so hard to reconstruct is where the songs came from, who picked them, which of the sometimes-numerous arrangements of a given tune to use, etc.

    Not having "been there" as a music consumer at the 1973 juncture, it's kind of illuminating, in spinning through Matt Scofield's amazing work at deaddisc.com, to see how many versions of some songs there really were. Coming a little later, I have tended to think of songs in a more band-oriented way (i.e., "a Stones song"), than a song-oriented one ("a Stones version of song x"). Partly that's why I have had to adjust myself to the concept of remixing, though I am coming increasingly to see it as just an explicit version of what has been happening implicitly since the dawn of man.

    Of course, it's also poses the interpretive challenge: how did Jerry et al. come to bring songs into the band? Did Jerry mostly find inspiration on the radio, or from records? If the latter (which I strongly suspect), where did he shop? I know later on he'd buy records from John Goddard's Village Music in Mill Valley.

    I'd sure love a chance to catalog Garcia's record collection. I bet it's impressive.

  3. Fate Music Avatar

    I have updated.

    Albert King's "Like A Road Leading Home" (from Lovejoy) most definitely sounds like an arrangement that ol' Jerry would have liked and might have borrowed from.

    Al Green's "Are You Lonely For Me" sounds like a very different arrangement, much more uptempo.

  4. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    That's an interesting article although 1973-01-25 is still the only January '73 show I can enjoy due to its relative lack of Sarah.

    One small point, I'm not sure if it's just a spelling correction but it could lead to confusion.

    That's All Right is not a Jimmy Rodgers tune, it's a Jimmy Rogers tune.

    Jimmy Rogers was Muddy Waters' rhythm guitar player for much of the 50's. His given name was Lane but he took Rogers after his step-father. He is no relation to "the Singing Brakeman" Jimmie Rodgers author of all those Blue Yodels.

  5. Fate Music Avatar

    Fixed, thank you!

    I am one of the ones who likes Sarah and appreciates what she tried to bring to the band, and what they were going for by having her. Of course I understand the alternative view.

  6. Nick Avatar

    I got around to tracking down Freddie Scott's original "Are You Lonely For Me?" — Jerry's vocal delivery seems more patterned after Scott's, though it's no surprise that Jerry's version is considerably slower than either Scott's Al Green's. Ultimately, it seems like 6 to 1, half a dozen to another ultimately, so who knows?

    On another note, I've also been revisiting both 1/24 and 1/25 over the last few days and have been very pleasantly surprised. I'm another one who doesn't typically go for Sarah's "contributions" to this lineup, but the core band is so good that it's hard to complain. Everything sounds great! Thanks for the inspiration to spend some focused time with both shows.

  7. Fate Music Avatar

    Cool. Thanks for reading, digging in with some listening, and reporting back!

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