We'll probably never know who exactly made that call from within the camp that represents Jerry's business interests. One of the motivating factors behind the creation of Lossless Legs was to be a source for JGB shows, along with the GD. Many of us found LL after the Archive halted d/l's of GD shows. That I believe was Bobby's call.
If I recall (and my memory is often far from reliable) that time they pulled shows from the archive coincided with the first contract with Rhino. At first it was everything, then just SBD and now it’s just SBD’s of anything that has been released? I doubt it was Bobby making the call but more a negation between GDM and Rhino. I think once the fans lost their minds about losing the free content that’s when the band members asserted themselves. They seem to have a long standing tradition of hating anything that feels like work, spending time on the next set of music rather than the past and not looking like the heavy when it comes to the fans. Post 95 band business has been a very Divisive thing for the band members since they all have equal say. Mostly Phil not wanting to contest Jerry’s will or sell the vault to Microsoft but I’m sure all of them have to agree on something it gets weird. The solution has been to come to an agreement on contracts and delegate everything else. In the case of JGB, I’m sure the simple explanation is the right one. It was a hassle to organize a tapers section so they decided not to do it, allowing taping without a tapers section was a problem for the night of the show. So, just don’t allow taping. Trading files and streaming on the internet wasn’t a thing in 95 and the decision about how to handle that was made by the estate who only had the vault to manage. I don’t think anyone in that spot would chose to make everything free and available. But...it’s always been on the BT so it’s not like they have been unreasonable on the topic.
Listened to this one today, and it's pretty easy to see why Wales could never have existed within the confines of either the Dead or the JGB, although it would have been interesting to see. The stylistic leaps here are insane, with everything from fusion to prog to funk and beyond. At certain points, Jerry channels Eddie Hazel, Pete Cosey, and John McLaughlin as the music hops from funk to In A Silent Way type fusion to later Miles funk-fusion. He certainly rarely sounded like this again.
They used to pull down SBD's of released dates, even when just part of the show was given an official release, but they stopped bothering with that some time ago. I'm not sure if they've restored all SBD's for streaming, now, but I just checked 1977-05-22 and, yep, all of the boards are available for streaming. 1970-02-14, good to go. So it looks like they have completely rescinded that restriction. I guess someone pointed out in a meeting that allowing streaming boards on the Archive wasn't really going to hurt their sales, but apparently they're still afraid of downloads.
I remember quite well I remember quite well, good night, good night... Well it was around 2005 that SBD's became restricted on the archive. There was some confusion initially, and ALL GD recordings on the archive got locked up. After the initial confusion, the restriction was lifted for audience tapes. I think there was a period of time where streaming itself was also locked down for the SBD sources, but then that got opened up again, and that's how it stands today, you decide if he was wise. For many many years there was a 'loophole' on the site that would get you to a page where you could download the SBD's (mp3 only though). That loophole was closed like a year or two ago. Now there's a Chrome plug-in that will do it for you.
There’s an interesting academic paper from 2012 that goes into detail on how the GD/Archive situation unfolded: On The Removal of Download Access to Grateful Dead Soundboards From the Live Music Archive https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1034&context=fpml It starts getting into the timeline and involved parties on page 10.
The stuff that was released on the Dead's own label was fairly easy to find in Britain in the mid-90s, which I when I bought my copy.
I can't think of another iteration of the JGB where Jerry shared the spotlight as much with anyone else. Nicky had a way of being a presence on anything he played, and Jerry seemed more than happy to give him a ton of room here. The greatest thing about the JGB was how all the different lineups - the Merl band, Nicky, Keith-Donna, Ozzie, and Melvin and the girls - had their own distinct signature and sound. It really was like five different bands in a way. I'd love to see more mid-late '70's and early '80's releases, as we've got a ton of the Merl and Melvin stuff at this point.
Let It Rock is such a fantastic release. One of my favorites, certainly by any JGB lineup, and really, in the whole universe of GD related music. As you said, the Jerry - Nicky combo was amazing. I really hope there are other decent recordings to be found; that NYE 75 thing the Estate put out a few years ago is, IMO, just horrible. The sound quality is disqualifying, and the performance doesn’t live up to LIR either. Just my two cents of course...
Yeah, and the fact that Nicky was allegedly wasted doesn't help. I'd love another solid show like LIR to be released from the Nicky period, but I'm not holding my breath. I agree, it rates highly, even including GD material because if it's utter uniqueness in the canon.
Still plenty of time to listen back to tapes. Only speaking in round numbers to make a point. If anyone is using my posts to write a term paper on donnas tenure in the band, they are ****ed. But thanks for the correction.
I find Let it Rock more enjoyable than GarciaLive 5 by a lot. However, I still find GL5 a fun listen... just an oddball show, no doubt.
Damn, now you tell me! I just finished an extensive paper using your information as my primary source, complete with direct quotes, footnotes, the works.
What if the Let It Rock performance is the apotheosis of the Garcia/Hopkins combo? I have no idea if that's the case, but I'm just asking. I'll let @US Blues weigh in on that though...
I think it's the one for which there were multitrack tapes in the Vault. That they invested in a multitrack recording of this JGB in late '75 stands as a blessing. I wish they had done one of the early '78 JGB.
