The "Dylan And The Dead"/Bob Dylan & Grateful Dead Together & Alone Tour

So true. Starting late 1991 and all through 1992 the NET took a different and well needed change in direction. In hindsight most of 1991 was poor. 1992 (especially Europe) was magical. 1993 got a tad boring to me. Remember Bob stretching songs like Tangled Up In Blue to the max at Hammersmith.

 

Hmmm. "You Gotta Here This Tape". Maybe I should not post late at night.

 

Levon Helm writes in his memoir that Bob was considering using the Dead as his band much earlier, early 70s, prior to Before the Flood. I can only imagine how great that would have been.

 

That was "On the Tracks" I believe. I subscribed for a while - of course there was also Look Back, and Isis, and The Telegraph. I had a brief run of getting them all, when I went completist bonkers in the late 80s.

I never got an "Idiot Wind" :-(

 

The rehearsals can be streamed from archive.org, which also houses pretty much every Dead show known to man.

Relisten

 

The Beach Boys and The Grateful Dead-Fillmore East, NY 4/27/71

i' ve heard Dylan was there this night and was quite impressed so that's probably when that was talked about.

 

Stephen Pickering claims to have heard a tape of Dylan and The Dead dating from 1972 (this report dates back more than 35 years now). He reiterated this claim to me on this very forum (before he was shown the door for having a wee bit of trouble getting along with others).

 

[APRIL 27]

I want you to meet another famous California group," said Jerry Garcia, late in a Grateful Dead set at the Fillmore East one recent mid-week night. And who appeared but the Beach Boys. They did four numbers, including, appropriately enough, "I Get Around," then jammed with the Dead for a good 45 minutes, doing numbers like "Johnny B. Goode," "Searchin'," and "Okie from Muskogee." Bob Dylan watched from the sound booth commenting, "****, they're damned good." Then the light show flashed the word "Dylan" for an instant, and Bob, his privacy jeopardized again, split out the door.

(from "Random Notes," Rolling Stone, May 27 1971)

Grateful Dead Sources: April 26, 1971: Fillmore East

Also the following comment from the host of that blog:

'I added a brief note from Rolling Stone about the April 27 show.
This is the first sighting of Dylan seeing the Dead (there was one a year later at the Roosevelt Stadium 7/18/72 show). It's not clear whether he met the band backstage either time, though - it seems not.
Also not clear whom he's referring to when he says "they're damned good," but my bet's on the Dead.'

The Beach Boys signed with the same management as the GD in 71, as they were looking to make a comeback and establish some credibility with the 'heads.' There is some speculation that the same strategery that saw the Beach Boys sit in with the Grateful Dead at the Fillmore also contrived to have Dylan in the building and his comment appear in the Rolling Stone.

It's intriguing to think of a Dylan/Dead collaboration in the '70s, though if that meant an alternate timeline where the Rolling Thunder Revue did not exist, I might be looking for a wormhole back to this reality.

 

During my first year of University in 1980, the University book store had a book by a British collector named Paul Cable which examined Bob Dylan's unreleased works so I bought it. He had a section in the appendix that mentioned Stephen Pickering and what he claimed to have and one of them was the Dylan/Dead session.

On another note, Bob Dylan clearly by 1987 envied the Grateful Dead's audience. And for good reason - the ten years before Jerry died, the Grateful Dead were the highest grossing touring band in North America. Bob's covering Dead songs in his show was a tribute but I also see it as Bob courting that audience. When Jerry did die, in terms of market share, Bob Dylan was the biggest beneficiary. I mean all those Dead Heads - where were they going to go? Bob picked up as many of those fans as anybody. My final Dead show was in Washington DC in the summer of 1995 (unfortunately only the first show). Bob opened but I was told it was noteworthy how many fans were in the venue when Bob played (I was told Dwight Yoakum and Sting had, at some shows, maybe only 5,000 in the venue when they started playing). And in 1995, Bob was in pretty fine form most days and he had an impact at the five shows he played with the Dead that summer. Hornsby later noted that the Dead found it rather intimidating following Bob that tour. By contrast, I found the Dead pretty low energy - and Jerry looked so tired and had visibly aged beyond his years. But the last song I ever heard the Grateful Dead play was "Black Muddy River" - a song Bob had covered and a pretty clear "death" song in my view. It was Jerry's little message to me I'd like to think. Bob further courted the Dead audience that fall after Jerry's death covering another Garcia/Hunter song. In the last half of the 1990s at Bob Dylan shows, there was a lot of tie-die in the audience.

 

Pickering responded to my question regarding the entry in Cable's book (after suggesting that he should have sued Cable - not sure what for):

The Dylan-Dead tape was from an "informal get-together following the Dead's appearance at Roosevelt Stadium" (in 1972). Regarding the contents: "I cannot violate confidentialies (sic)".

The two 1995 Dylan-Dead shows I saw (Giants Stadium) represented Dylan at a peak and The Dead at their lowest. The very same show where Jerry completely lost his way during "Wharf Rat" and literally appeared ready to keel over, Dylan tore the (half-full) house down with his opening set.

Working strictly from (perhaps faulty) memory, the largest crowd I remember for a Dead opening act at a stadium show was CSN at Three Rivers in 1990. But the Dylan '95 audiences were close, and definitely larger than those for Sting, Los Lobos, or anyone else I can remember.

I would agree that Dylan was courting the Dead audience, while also openly courting an alternative/college-based audience - a new generation that wouldn't be expecting the nostalgia act that he didn't want to be.

 

1972 - from LIA's great Dead Sources blog:

So what is Dylan doing here with Dave Bromberg at Roosevelt Stadium, Jersey City, on this foul night? The Dead have announced “surprise guests”; all week rumors have been mounting up to the point where even the promoters (especially the promoters) have hinted in no uncertain terms that the Jam to end All Jams is about to take place right here and now, or maybe (perhaps) in a couple of hours (or more).

Grateful Dead Sources: September 19, 1972: Dylan Stalks the Dead

the source quoted is a Village Voice article, more style than substance, and not very informative. The Dave Bromberg connection is interesting, as the Dead did serve as back-up musicians for him on 2 of his albums c. 72-74 (?)

also of note, the writer refers to that show as the biggest East Coast concert of the year (23,000 gate.)

 

More from '72, a Garcia quote from the Dec 7 Rolling Stone:

"You gotta remember, too, he's in a house now with five kids in it, has no time to write, no solitude." When Dylan showed up at Dead shows in New York, Jerry said, "We just sat around and talked and picked. And with Sir Doug he didn't have to do a Bob Dylan trip. But with us - well, we're on two different coasts, so there's that problem of adjusting to each other's schedules. Anyway, he's into movies."

Grateful Dead Sources: December 1972: The Dead & Dylan

the comments here have a summary of some of the Dylan/Dead rumors and connections from the early 70s.

It's clear from that quote they played some music in 72. A shame there's nothing like those Dylan/Johnny Cash sessions except with Garcia. Maybe one day the 'confidential' tape will surface.

 

As I recall it was only one song from the album Wanted Dead Or Alive where Bromberg had most of the Dead backing him.

 

They are on 2 songs on Demon in Disguise as well.

Grateful Dead Family Discography: Demon In Disguise

 

You definitely got right to the primary source from whence the tape rumors emanate, well done! The question of course now becomes - was this "picking" actually recorded, if so by whom, and where does the tape now reside? A lot of what Cable described in the "Pickering Collection" has eventually surfaced or been confirmed to exist. But not all of it (still waiting on that "Love is Just a Four Letter Word" tape!)

Then we can ask if it is the next "Million Dollar Quartet" or is it closer to the '74 Lennon-McCartney reunion mess.

 

I have good memories..well good vibe but a little fuzzy..of the July 4th Foxboro.

 

I was always a big fan of John Wesley Harding. When Bob sang the first line of "Wicked Messenger" at Meadowlands, I was so stunned I wondered if someone had dropped something in my drink.

 

To be honest I have never really had an issue with Dylan and The Dead. Actually have always enjoyed it.

Sat listening now to The Unreleased Live Album mentioned a few posts back. Moonlight Records who I seem to recall put out some good releases. Great album.

 

The rehearsal sessions reveal a great loss opportunity. Jerry speaks of 4 different groups of rehearsed songs - acoustic (they have "about a million"), electric, pedal steel, and BANJO! Unfortunately the banjo idea was dropped (as were the abundant supply of traditional and cover songs - all passed over for Dylan originals).

 

Didn't they once rehearse Paul Simon's "Boy in the Bubble"?

 

There was an official VHS release of an Australian show. Really good concert. I think it was called Hard to Handle. Not sure if it ever came out on DVD. There never was an audio release.

 

That was 1986. Lots of those were professionally recorded as well. Many still unheard.

 

Yes, along with a lot of other covers and some traditionals. Also a few seriously deep dives into the early Dylan songbook - "John Brown" (which made the shows) and "Walkin' Down the Line" (which did not).

 

Frankly when "John Brown" was played in Jersey, I did not know what it was. "Walking Down The Line" is my favourite thing on the rehearsal tape mainly because of Bob's harmonica solo beautifully answered by Brent Mydland's piano. The harmonica only made it to one performance on the tour - "I Want You" from Foxboro which I would have put on the record in place of the version they chose mainly because the harmonica was at least a spirited performance.

 

One book about Dylan states that in 1989 he asked to join the Dead, and only one band member (Lesh) voted against it.