Grateful Dead album by album thread

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by jacksondownunda, May 8, 2009.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. hbbfam

    hbbfam Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chandler,AZ
    And I believe the last concert at the Spectrum was last weekend featuring Pearl Jam. Pretty soon the old girl will be dust. Somewhere Bobby, Bernie and even Jerry are shedding a tear.
     
  2. ZappaSG

    ZappaSG New Member

    Location:
    Philadelphia
    I second the two previous posts. It's going to be one fantastic afternoon.:righton:
     
  3. CybrKhatru

    CybrKhatru Music is life.

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Just wanted to come out of lurk mode and say THANK YOU to everyone in this thread who's been posting info and impressions. I have been a Dead fan for a long time, but have recently gotten back into them, so this thread (and the others re: live releases, even though they are all mentioned here) have been GOLD.

    I don't get confused no mo' cause I listen to the music play....:wave:

    --Matt
     
  4. drbob932

    drbob932 Member

    Location:
    Cleveland, OH
    That's correct, purchased from Dead.net...and one can only assume that they're all available. Like I said in the initial post, though, it was slightly confusing to me because they used to have the dropdowns for each title that told you what format was available to purchase (CD/FLAC/MP3/etc)...and now it all sort of defaults to the CD (the "Live Shows" tab), and there's a separate section for "Downloads". I was getting a bit nervous as it was about 4 weeks before my card was even charged, and nearly 5 until it arrived here...but all's well that ends well. :righton:
     
  5. I think I'm in the minority here, but I really like a lot of Go To Heaven. Jerry Garcia's "Alabama Getaway" and "Althea", Bob Weir's "Feel Like A Stranger" and "Lost Sailor", I like them all. I think the Dead have done a lot worse in the studio than this.
     
    Jeremy Holiday likes this.
  6. rcdupre

    rcdupre Flying is Trying is Dying

    I like Go To Heaven too, a lot better than Shakedown....it's interesting to hear the early version of Alabama Getaway that's part of the bonus tracks on the Garica All Good Things Box...:thumbsup:
     
  7. jacksondownunda

    jacksondownunda Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Jack O’ Roses – Robert Hunter

    Sometime in 1980 Hunter recorded the voice and 12-string acoustic guitar album Jack O’Roses at “Terrapin Studios” (wherever that might have been in reality, possibly his home studio?) in London and released the album in the UK on “Dark Star Records”. I’m not sure if it’s a ‘fan club’ label, but if anyone has it please post a label pic as I’d like to see one. A few years later, the project was still dear enough to Hunter to have the album released in the US on fan mag “Relix” Records (label pictured). It was only shortly after that that Hunter crushed/puzzled some fans by saying he wasn’t fond of the rather marvelous record. The fans liked or loved it for what it was, but Hunter disliked it for what it wasn’t, …and there’s a story to tell about how that came about.

    Jack O’ Roses is worth a close inspection in my humble opinion. If it had merely been Hunter covering some GD tunes I don’t think it would have been of any major significance, but fortunately it’s a lot more than that. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it the GD Rosetta Stone, but it IS a lyrical Doppler Effect for showing Hunter/Garcia lyric processes from song roots, adaptations, and finally differences (minor and major) in Hunter’s versions that by inference show how Garcia could convey, but occasionally diffuse or change Hunter’s intent with editing. The album was purposely executed as a ‘song cycle’, and contained a “complete” Terrapin suite which was of great interest to some Dead and Hunter Heads.

    I’ll throw some thoughts at the wall and see what sticks….

    -------------------------------------------------
    “Box Of Rain” opens with a little nursery rhyme riff (regression?) on guitar before proceeding with the body of the song we know so well. The stark arrangement shows how beautiful a 12-string and just a voice (yes, even Hunter’s LOL) can be, and gives those lines about inching your way through life a very personal feel. As mentioned in American Beauty, Hunter has acknowledged that “Box Of Rain” is the World we live in, both literally and spiritually.
    --------------------------------


    Olompali very rightly pointed out in Cats Under The Stars that there is the huge Orpheus reference/influence (both Greek legend and particularly the movie adaptation). It appears quite literally in Hunter’s Jack O’Roses version, but it’s obscured in Jerry’s Cats Under the Stars version. This was a dilemma to describe alone on Cats, but great to compare them here. The versions are different enough that the two songs bear different names/spellings, probably for publishing purposes; “Rubin And Cherise” on the Cats cd (I’d swear it was RubEn on the vinyl?), and “Reuben And Cerise” on Jack O’Roses.

    To make a long story short, Orpheus in Greek mythology was to varying degrees credited with giving mankind music and poetry. His lyre playing could charm plants, animals and even the elements), which is where the line “When Ruben played his painted mandolin, the breeze would stop to listen in” comes from. In legend, his wife Eurydice died and Orpheus went to the Underworld to retrieve her. Because of his playing he was granted the permission to take her on the condition he didn’t look back at her as they ascended topside. He did in his anxious state and lost her a second time.

    The movie adaptation referenced the Greek legend early on, and it jus’ happened to also be the name of the main character. Orpheus was to marry Mira who was a jealous type. He met his neighbor’s cousin Eurydice, who he at one point saved from a costumed Death figure who stalked her at the Carnival. He played his guitar to her and won her heart and they fell in love. Mira and Death continued to stalk Eurydice and through misadventure she was killed. Orpheus sought her at the Bureau of Missing Persons, but he was instead directed to a strange religious ritual where the spirit of Eurydice spoke through an old woman on the condition he not look at her, but he did and her spirit was gone (a similar variation in the Greek myths is that Eurydice was never physically there, but his backward glance still caused her essence to be lost). Orpheus found her body at the morgue and carried it through the town until he too was killed.

    You can see much of Black Orpheus in both versions of the song. Rio incidentally became New Orleans. The female characters’ roles are now kind of bass-ackwards. In the song, Cherise is the insecure betrothed, continually threatening to drop dead if Ruben cheats, and Ruben keeps swearing on his life that won’t happen. Ruby Claire gains his attention and he plays just for her, but she quickly butts out leaving us with; “The truth of love an unsung song must tell. The course of love must follow blind without a look behind. Rubin walked through the streets of New Orleans 'till dawn, Cerise so lightly in his arms and her hair hung gently down.” Garcia’s Cats version alludes to the movie, but taking those Cats lyrics literally, the talk of Death seems like idle verbal threats IMO. Ruben’s love for Cherise is left tainted, but without fatalities (see Cats Under The Stars). I suppose if you’re seeing the movie in your head, then yes, she’s died.

    But now take a look at where Hunter’s song goes;

    “The truth of love an unsung song must tell. The course of love must follow blind.
    But Reuben looked behind.

    Ahoy, old ferryman, riverboat of Charon ride. Though alive, take Reuben to the other side.
    For his sweet Cérise has died.

    It's a long lonely walk from Hell to the burying ground. Cérise may return but don't you look around. For your glance would cut her down.
    Reuben walked the streets of New Orleans till dawn, With the ghost of Cérise in his empty arms,
    And her hair hung gently down.”

    The Orpheus link is unmistakable in Hunter’s version. So why the huge difference? Garcia repeatedly stated that he was most apologetic to Hunter if he felt he had to change even a single word for singing purposes or felt something didn’t fit his stage persona. This mighty edit seems to change the very meaning and direction of the song. I guess it’s a question of whether Garcia axed the whole UnderWorld verse as outlandish and out-of-character for Garcia, or possibly because Gomorrah also had bad consequences when someone “looked behind” which created a lyrical redundancy in the Cats album. On the other hand it’s also just possible that Hunter brought the submerged Orpheus imagery to the fore in a subsequent re-write, as Hunter has shown he’s not adverse to evolving established songs over time. It would be interesting to know for sure which came first….

    --------------------------------------------------
    “Talking Money Tree” was a re-recording of the 1975 Round Records Sampler bonus track about fancifully coming into unlimited wealth, but finally growing bored and giving it all away.

    Funnily, he follows this with “Friend Of The Devil” with the extra deleted lyric about money;
    “You can borrow from the Devil
    You can borrow from a friend
    But the Devil give you twenty
    When your friend got only ten.”
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------
    A slightly different version of Shakedown Street’s “Stagger Lee” follows. This version is titled "Delia DeLyon and Stagger Lee"(again, possibly for publishing differentiation?). It still uses Hunter’s recent lyrics, with the addition of “He’s a mad man” at the end of each verse. Mississippi John Hurt’s version closed each verse with “He’s a bad man”, so Hunter’s giving him a lyrical nod and also sings it closer to Hurt’s melody. Perhaps this is the version he brought to Jerry?
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------
    “Book Of Daniel” is a stunningly beautiful David Freiberg melody on the 12-string, and Hunter’ narrative vocal is delivered like a timeless tale told by a loving friend or relative. The story is Biblical, of course. The album is out of print, so peruse the lyrics. Re-reading these, I’ve suddenly had the darnedest memory association* that I’ll share at the end.

    “Calling down the gods of gold, silver, stone and wood
    The mighty king of Babylon, the proud Balshazzar, stood
    Drinking glory to himself as though he were a god
    When an armless hand* appeared among that party crowd
    Came drifting through the window to write upon the wall
    Four words that didn't make much sense at all

    The king turned to his friends in fright, in frenzied desperation
    But not one soul among them could make interpretation
    The queen said: long ago there was a wise man in this land
    Why don't you send for Daniel? He could read them

    Daniel walked in bent but tall, spat upon the floor
    Let me see these words - well, hmm, yes - I've seen them before
    They simply mean your days are numbered; fact, they're even run
    You've been judged in the balance and found wanting
    Your royalty is just a gift - your father learned that lesson
    By losing both his kingdom and his reason

    So great in pride, he was cut down, driven to the field
    Lived there like a wild beast until his pride did yield
    And when the king, your father, achieved humility
    He was restored his kingdom and his sanity

    And though you knew all this to start, you humbled not your heart
    The writing on the wall commands your fall
    Old King Darius that night slew Balshazzar
    Appointed Daniel prince and first adviser
    The lesser princes being jealous, drew up a decree
    Allowing prayers to no one but the king

    They caught old Daniel dead to rights, down upon his knees
    Threw him in the lion's den for breaking that decree
    Daniel walked among them safely, by his faith protected
    The king said: this is just what I expected
    Now you who brought me Daniel may kindly go yourselves
    Into the lion's den - see how you fare there

    What shall be the end of this? How shall it pass away?
    Get up, old Daniel, never mind, get up and go thy way
    Further words are closed and sealed until the end of time
    Many shall be called, each in his season
    In wickedness of pride is lost the light to understand
    How little grace is earned and how much given.”

    *At the February 26, 1977 San Bernardino gig where the Dead played the first “Terrapin” (and possibly subsequent gigs on that tour?) there was a giant backdrop of a flying fist that dissolved to flames at the wrist, which glowed in different colors under slowly changing lights. I never saw the image again and had no clue what it represented or was associated with. Could it have been the “armless hand” in this story?

    ---------------------------------
    A ‘complete’ “Terrapin Station” appears to be the main reason that Jack O’Roses was recorded. As was previously relayed, Hunter had an extraordinary inspiration during a fierce Bay storm and wrote “Terrapin Part 1” and a bit more. Remarkably Garcia had a similar simultaneous musical inspiration, and the next day the main pieces of the epic tune dovetailed. (The stuff of legend, huh?) Some of the remaining parts/songs were also set to music with Garcia, but set aside by time of studio recording due to time constraints. When “Shakedown” rolled around there was the opportunity to develop and record more of the “Terrapin” suite material (and develop a resolution to the cycle), but Garcia was reluctant to augment a piece already recorded. Hunter says the manuscripts were removed from the writing space and stuffed in a trunk to make way for the new album writings. (This is quite unlike Pete Townshend’s “Life House” theme/project which continued and spread in ‘background mode” over a few Who/solo albums.)

    The unfinished “Terrapin” must have annoyed Hunter, so while attempting to draw on his earlier muses (much from memory) he wrote/rewrote “Ivory Wheels/Rosewood Track” incorporating several characters from the GD canon, finishing with “Jack O’Roses” as a resolution. Tapes are referenced from Hunter’s 1978 solo performance, and in 1980 he recorded the ‘complete’ suite for the album in a song cycle with songs including some of those same characters. Sometime just after the album was finally released in UK and US, Hunter finally re-located the missing original manuscripts, hence his sudden dismissal of the suite on the album. The fans loved it because it was A ‘complete’ “Terrapin”, Hunter now dismissed it because it wasn’t THE ‘complete “Terrapin”. He’s subsequently assembled the truly complete lyrics with a final resolution and published it in the second edition of his “Box Of Rain” lyrics, and the epic poem appears as follows on this website;

    http://www3.clearlight.com/~acsa/introjs.htm?/~acsa/songfile/TERRSUIT.HTM

    Part 1
    Lady With A Fan
    Terrapin Station
    At A Siding
    Part 2
    Return To Terrapin
    Ivory Wheels, Rosewood Track
    And I Know You
    Jack O' Roses
    Leaving Terrapin
    Recognition

    See also:
    Lady Of Carlisle
    L'Alhambra
    Terrapin Transit
    Terrapin Flyer

    It’s a monster read if you’re interested, suitable for printing out in Olde English script down the wall. I won’t print them all out, but I’ll post some of the album stuff, and quickly describe some of the standalone lyrics.


    “Lady With A Fan/Terrapin Station” and “At A Siding” (“while you were gone…) are the same as the Grateful Dead album, and made up the first three sets of lyrics in the manuscript.


    “Return To Terrapin” was not recorded, and consists of 8 or 7 verses (there’s an original and re-written version). It refers to “the climb”, and 3 sample verses are as follows;

    Up these steps beside me climb
    To Terrapin and points sublime
    Bereft of reason, faith and name
    Broken-hearted blind and lame

    Slain by doubt, mistaken trust
    Abandoned in the rain to rust
    Shriveled by the heat of day
    Torn to shreds by birds of prey

    Walk with me, talk with me
    Tell me where we mean to go
    And where we’ve been..
    Crickets can say it and the wind;
    Terrapin…


    “Ivory Wheels/Rosewood Track” is on Jack O’Roses. On GD’s Terrapin Station album this is the instrumental riff following “and the whistle was screamin’..”. On The GD album you hear the giant riff, then the chords, then the riff, then the chords. Here it’s played about twice as fast and the lines are sung on each set of chord changes. In an old blues tradition exemplified by Mississippi John Hurt’s “Ballad Of Casey Jones” the guitar rosewood fretboard with ivory inlay BECOMES the train tracks and wheels. Hunter starts rapidly throwing in GD characters presumably representing different facets of relationships, including the traditional Peggy-O from Fenario which had been in the GD landscape for years. Hunter sings it in a rousing “Hi ho and away we go”-style of English folkies like Richard Thompson. Annotated Lyrics presents a composite lyric of a 1978 live tape and the 1980 album;

    “Take us back again and again to Terrapin (alternate lyrics include "Quick, Jack, take us back to Terrapin" or a train reference in "With a click and a clack, takes us back to Terrapin")
    Smokestack thunder - pay the ticket price
    Clock in the sky says quarter to twice - we roll again
    (extra verse here live; Long John Silver at the wheel, you bet
    That deuce (?) of a Staggerlee in the firebox blowing sweat)
    Hello, good soldier, where you been?
    Did you take the wrong round to get to Terrapin?
    (alt line; "You must have took the wrong way round to get to Terrapin")
    Some for reasons great or small
    Rise, climb, fall, to get to Terrapin
    The demon's daughter used to lay for gin
    In a shack way back on the skirts of the fens of Terrapin
    (in live version “deacon” used instead of “demon” on this verse and next)
    The demon himself got drunk all night
    Collapsed at the sunrise service - he was very tight
    Captain Billy Lyon from Louisiana low
    Used to chase a bayou girl through here named Peggy-o
    Some say he died of love for Peggy-o
    Others say it was the devil himself laid Billy low
    (alt line; "But I believe it was Staggerlee laid Billy low")
    (extra live verse; Must have made pretty good time between
    Fennario and DeLyon's club down in New Orleans
    Some for reasons known but to them
    Rise, climb, fall, to get to Terrapin
    One-eyed sailor with a Cheshire grin
    That must be the Jack O' Roses bound for Terrapin
    Chasing that lady-o through the bayou
    Swore to God in lightning storm he'd catch her, too
    Fortune dealt him such a straight high hand
    He saw no reason not to trust it more, and retrieved her fan
    The lions looked up in surprise
    But they backed right off when they saw the madness in his eyes
    Venus rises from the sea
    On the back of a mighty Terrapin with a coral fan
    Throws that fan to the diamond beach
    Always a little out of reach - but try again
    Some for reasons great or small
    Rise, climb, fall, to get to Terrapin”.


    “And I Know You” was not recorded, and consists of 8 hefty verses (and 3 re-written verses). Hunter appears to be referencing re-incarnation, Terrapin itself acting the traditional role of Heaven dispensing souls. Sample verses;

    “It's time to leave fair Terrapin
    Head down the stairs again
    Step by step return below
    Fill the blanks in as we go
    Find out what we need to know;
    from gossip if it must be so
    Forsake this cool and kindly light
    for troubled day and sleepless night

    Or shall I go while you remain;
    search below for you in vain
    find you here from time to time,
    elusive subject of a rhyme?
    Or would you rather go alone
    in unfamiliar flesh and bone,
    meet and put me to the test,
    a scarlet flower at your breast?”



    This proceeds to “Jack O’Roses” (music by Garcia) which on the album is the resolution of the suite, but not the resolution of the album;

    “What makes your sweet breast heave, my dear
    your bright eyes fill with tears?
    Did Jack O' Roses leave you here
    those seven lonely years?

    Had you fear he might be dead
    unwept in some far land?
    Or worse that love itself had fled
    betrayed both heart and hand?
    (alt line; "And left you with the damned")

    Jack O' Roses with a fan
    East of Eden turned
    built his castles in the sand
    and all their bridges burned
    (alt line "But never the shacks he lived in")

    Wait for him
    Don't take no other
    no demon lover
    who'll be gone at dawn
    Did you throw your fan
    too far this time?
    Well, well, well ...
    from the lion's den
    to the morning star
    to the gates of Hell!

    The morning star rose into hell
    three days to shine on Moses
    and from his solitary cell
    to free the Jack O' Roses

    He sprang to saddle like wind, I allow (alt “Jack sprang..”)
    for bridle strains of lightning
    Ride, ride, ride, though tempest howl
    cruelly and most frightening

    For at the dawn fair Terrapin
    arose like revelation
    The morning star reflected in
    the windows of Terrapin Station

    Terrapin
    If anyone should ask of you who made this song
    say the Jack O' Roses and all who played along
    who rise, climb, fall to win
    Terrapin

    What have we to lose from love
    except what lacks foundation
    Words can only carve the space
    we fill with expectation

    The lion's den lies far behind
    in visions of the damned
    Jack O' Roses one more time
    My lady, here's your fan
    (add’l verse; “[Coils of] fine and deja vue
    Unwinding like the wind
    I have played this song before
    I think sometimes for you”)

    Terrapin
    let me rise, let me fall, let me climb, let me crawl
    but let me in
    Accept this fan as a token of what I meant to do
    for I really do love you”



    “Leaving Terrapin” follows, is also unrecorded, and consists of 11 mammoth original verses and 9 re-written. One verse of creatures ascending and descending reminds me of Tull’s “animals at the ferry crossing waiting to be born” from Passion Play. There’s also the poignant line “there's no fear that lovers born will ever fail to meet”. Sample verses;

    “Be careful how you speak of us
    Take no one's name in vain
    Someday we are bound to meet
    in Terrapin again
    As we lose our faith and trust,
    guide us, though insane,
    through cataracts of wailing souls
    in search of face and name,

    If I have been a long time gone
    It's not that love of you
    has been forgot or ever cooked
    or halved and broke in two
    Outside major darkness
    where the circle is complete
    there's no fear that lovers born
    will ever fail to meet

    Was it you along beside me
    who crawled out of the sea?
    Who is that one sleeping
    in the shadow of the tree?
    Who is that beside her?
    Is it who it seems to be?
    Do not disturb their slumber
    Oh, true love, let them be

    Prophetic dreams and peaceful,
    not tumultuous and deep
    ease the crease upon their brows
    and smile upon their sleep
    While starfish gather coral
    beneath the foam and froth,
    they offer hymns to Isis
    Orpheus and Astoroth”


    And finally, in “Recognition” Hunter finds the resolution he was searching for in the opening lines of “Lady With A Fan”. In the early verses of this section, strange thoughts and images overtake Hunter; his lover seems a stranger for an uncertain while, the storyteller has returned younger than when he left, and the shadows on the walls are creating images. The suspension of our own reality, essential for the storyteller’s tale to exist in our minds, waivers. And finally;

    “Hand in hand we leave the fire
    the storytelling done;
    pinch the candle and retire
    tonight our dreams are one
    …. while crickets and cicadas sing
    a rare and different tune Terrapin Station.”



    Even Ian Anderson would have had to have a long hard think before contemplating the performance of such a monster. The Dead being the Dead needed huge jamming room and the freedom/flexibility to drift elsewhere. Teleprompters would have been a necessity. “Terrapin” is Hunter’s “Smile” or “Lifehouse”. These days the Grateful Dead are gone. This leaves only Hunter to record a complete performance before he shuffles off this mortal coil. I’m sure some reckon that it’s a long dead horse, but I think it would be terribly cool. Just Bob and a 12-string.

    -----------------------------------------------------------
    On the album Jack O’Roses, in the absence of a fully resolved “Terrapin”, the song “Prodigal Town” ( poignant mix of fondness and pain for a lover) acted as the resolution to the album. Maybe it’s coincidence, but after the manic ride of the Terrapin Flyer in “Ivory Wheels/Rosewood Track”, this “coming down” song starts with a train pulling out of town;

    “Some are awaiting, some overtaking
    The train, it's the last out of town
    Wasn't much of a town, anyway, and I never
    Knew anyone tempted to stay

    If heaven has said it
    Or hell has just let it
    I'm hardly the one to decide
    This train that I ride out of Prodigal Town...

    Give it it's due
    It's where I met you
    And you were my reason to stay
    Around in a Prodigal Town...”


    …Ooops, look where the time goes. Anyone remember this one?

    -------------------------------------------------------------------------

    from deaddisc.com


    Jack O'Roses
    Robert Hunter

    Initial release : 1980
    Dark Star DSLP 8001

    Robert Hunter solo album recorded and released in the UK. Includes the complete Terrapin Station Suite and a number of other songs that were performed by the Grateful Dead.

    Tracks

    • Box Of Rain (Hunter/Lesh)
    • Reuben And Cerise (Garcia/Hunter)
    • Talkin' Money Tree (Hunter)
    • Friend Of The Devil (Dawson/Garcia/Hunter)
    • Delia DeLyon And Stagger Lee (Hunter)
    • Lady Of Carlisle (Traditional)
    • Book Of Daniel (Hunter / Freiberg)
    • Terrapin
    a. Lady With A Fan (Garcia/Hunter)
    b. Terrapin Station (Garcia/Hunter)
    c. Ivory Wheels/Rosewood Track (Hunter)
    d. Jack O' Roses (Hunter)
    • Prodigal Town (Hunter)

    Musicians
    • Robert Hunter - guitar, vocals

    Credits
    • Engineer, mixing - Arthur Anderson
    • Artwork - Trevor Wright
    • Photography - Roy Wilbraham
    • Agency - Magna, New York (Bill Hahn)
    • Project co-ordination - Nick Ralph
    • Recorded and mixed at Terrapin Records' studio, London

    Related releases
    Released on LP in the US in 1984 as Relix RRLP-2001

    This album has not been released on CD.

    Lady Of Carlisle and Prodigal Town were included on the Robert Hunter compilation album;
    • Promontory Rider - A Retrospective Collection, Robert Hunter, 1984, Relix Records RRLP 2002
     

    Attached Files:

  8. jacksondownunda

    jacksondownunda Forum Resident Thread Starter

    I got carried away with "Terrapin" last night and I feel awfully silly for forgetting Hunter's inclusion of the olde traditional "Lady Of Carlisle" on the album. (nothin' slick about this thread) "Lady Of Carlisle" is the basis of "Lady With A Fan"; same tale about two suitors, one emerging with the fan and the heart of the lady. The New Lost City Ramblers recorded this one years ago with the twang in the voice, and Hunter's version is almost identical. (Pentangle's done it too.) They would have crossed paths with each other and with this ancient tune in the early folkie days.
     
  9. jacksondownunda

    jacksondownunda Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Sep-Oct ’80 acoustic sets; Reckoning, Dead Set, Dead Ahead video

    Maybe it’s a coincidence that Hunter and Grateful Dead both had acoustic offerings in such close proximity? Whatever, the Fall ’80 acoustic GD concerts are a real treat and brief change of pace after a year of flogging the “Go To Heaven” material.

    The announcement of acoustic sets in intimate halls was a bit of a surprise. The GD had long ago explained that switching from acoustic guitars to electric in the ’69—‘70 sets was a bit difficult their playing and momentum. I suppose I can understand this; the dynamics are quite different and on normal nights the band just straps themselves into their instruments until they meld enough for the music to come through. I’ve always entertained the mental image of the band members as EEG needles jiggling and swaying independently but creating a greater interacting pattern. In any event, this was perhaps their belated response to their 15th anniversary and it generated quite a bit of publicity when New York DeadHeads lined up for days to buy tickets.

    A short 3 afternoons of practice yielded about 90 minutes of acoustic materiel, of which about 45 minutes would be played on any given night. The acoustic sets were then usually followed by a short electric warm-up set, then a spacey second set. There were 16 nights at San Francisco’s Warfield, a couple nights in New Orleans, and 8 nights at Radio City Music Hall NYC. The last night (Halloween) was simulcast to theatres (at least in the East) featuring emcee SNL comediennes Franken and Davis and the mandatory sound glitches in the first set. (Many Heads consider attending the simulcasts as a bona-fide Dead show, such was the nature of the audience ambience!) I recall that Jerry, Bob, and sometimes the whole band would play short sets on TV to promote the events, usually tied to interviews portraying them (as Skully once noted) as a” living ‘60’s diorama”. Even Ken Kesey tagged along to talk about the Acid Tests on Ton Snyder. Joe Public, who may have heard of the cult band Grateful Dead, could finally put faces to the name. Reflecting on the rabid GD following, probably the best question was “How do you remain current?”, to which Weir astutely replied “We never were current”. There were a few more acoustic sets that year, most notably Vets Recreation Hall in Mill Valley, New Year’s at Oakland, and at an Amsterdam hashish bar the following year. Then they faded away and the band resumed strictly electric playing.

    The “Reckoning” acoustic sets are VERY listenable, and many folks who’d never listened to GD responded very favorably to them. Remarkably, if you compare an acoustic and electric “Dire Wolf”, the arrangements are almost identical, bringing the realization that the beating heart of this electric band is still a folk band. Comparisons are often made to the sound of Workingman’s, but in actuality only “Dire Wolf” and “Ripple” are from Workingman’s/Beauty, and “To Lay Me Down” features the same harmonies attempted on the Beauty outtake version. Much of the acoustic set is lifted right out of 1970; “Deep Elem Blues”, “Monkey And The Engineer”, “Little Sadie”, “Dark Hallow”, “Rosalie McFall”, and “I’ve Been All Around This World”. “It Must’ve Been The Roses” translates effortlessly. “On The Road Again” crops up from a 1966 outtake. Jerry left a wake of JGB outtakes of Elizabeth Cotton’s “Oh Babe It Ain’t No Lie”, so it’s a relief to know that she finally got her royalty check and bought herself a refrigerator. I think “Cassidy” and “Bird Song” adapt so well to acoustic rendering that it raises the question how many other electric jamming tunes could’ve been added to the sets. Could they have played “Scarlet Begonias” or “Terrapin”, or pulled off those un-named transition jams between songs if they’d played full-evening acoustic sets?

    A huge part of what makes “Reckoning” so beautiful is the amazing recording. The sound is a time-corrected matrix of stage line feed and microphones hung in a line from the ceiling. It’s also said you can discern the SF from the NYC audiences by the crowd noise levels on each track. “Reckoning” is a comprehensive overview of the main songs in that acoustic repertoire. After an initial jolt, I really like and recommend the alternate tunes presented on the expanded cd version including “Sage And Spirit” and an unexpected instrumental “Heaven Help The Fool” from Bob and Brett’s Midnight’s gigs.

    The electric counterpart album “Dead Set” wasn’t as highly regarded. The electric sets themselves were less than amazing by GD standards, following the more interesting acoustic sets. (Halloween night featured the 2 chord “Franklin’s Tower”> Space>Drumz> 2 chord “Fire On The Mountain”> 2 chord “Not Fade Away”; the latter was harshly edited off). There was the mindset of no live songs previously released, coupled with the mindset of “standalone” songs, hence no medleys interconnected by improvised musical passages. “Friend Of The Devil” was edited to make it shorter. The album is no disaster like “Steal Your Face”; many of the tracks are well played and the sound is very nice, and the expanded tracks are nice too, but they were STILL breaking in Brent Mydland and playing it relatively safe. Maybe they should’ve waited for a more spectacular and representative electric set to release.

    The VHS/DVD “Dead Ahead” is fun. Similar sets first hit HBO pay TV with a different setlist including Bob’s bandmate fusionist Billy Cobham sitting in with Bill and Mickey on drumz between “Truckin’” and “The Other One”, which are now bonus tracks on the expanded DVD. The “Dead Ahead” acoustic set is a short hybrid of a couple nights and is worth the bucks for that alone. Camera angles are superb (and Hart looks WAY wasted). The comedy sketches by Al Franken and Tom Davis are very funny; Henry Kissenger comparing Jerry to Mao and bootlegging the show, the Jerry’s Kids telethon, etc. (Interestingly, Jerry bought the rights to Kurt Vonnegut’s “Sirens Of Titan” and spent time with Tom Davis developing a movie script. Slightly surreal as the GD publishing Ice Nine is from another Vonnegut book, and “Siren”,s punchline is that many Earth “places of power” like GD’s much loved Stonehenge are merely “send spare parts” signs from aliens to others. After initial interest the project faded away. Too bad, I’d envisioned Phil as Winston Niles Rumfoord and Jerry as Unk, but after seeing what became of “Slapstick” it may have been a merciful outcome.) “Dead Ahead”’s flaw IMO is that during the electric set the camera guys focused for minutes on end to Jerry or Bob’s concentrating faces, usually cutting out hands fingers and guitars, so those sequences can get tedious.

    So there they were; They’d sweated blood on their lengthy GD and solo studio albums sessions to lukewarm response from Joe Public, then they rehearse for a few afternoons and get a gorgeous acoustic album and lots of publicity. With 2 live albums fulfilling contractual obligations for the time being, it’s no little wonder that they turned their back on the studio for the next several years and went back to what they DO; playing live and creating a symbiotic musical fun machine. As billed by Bill Graham at the Warfield gigs’ “They’re Not The Best At What They Do, They’re The Only Ones Who Do What They Do”.

    What do you reckon?...
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------

    from deaddisc.com;

    Reckoning
    Grateful Dead

    Initial release : April 1981
    Arista A2L-8604

    Double LP of acoustic material recorded live in September and October 1980. Initial CD releases omitted one track. One CD release, by Pair/Arista in 1984, was given the title For The Faithful.

    Tracks
    • Dire Wolf (Garcia / Hunter)
    • The Race Is On (Rollins)
    • Oh Babe, It Ain't No Lie (Cotton)
    • It Must Have Been The Roses (Garcia / Hunter)
    • Dark Hollow (Traditional rec. Browning)
    • China Doll (Garcia / Hunter)
    • Been All Around This World (Traditional)
    • Monkey And The Engineer (Fuller)
    • Jack-A-Roe (Traditional)
    • Deep Elem Blues (Traditional)
    • Cassidy (Weir / Barlow)
    • To Lay Me Down (Garcia / Hunter)
    • Rosa Lee McFall (Monroe)
    • On The Road Again (Traditional)
    • Bird Song (Garcia / Hunter)
    • Ripple (Garcia / Hunter)

    Oh Babe, It Ain't No Lie was omitted from CD reissues to allow the contents to fit on one CD.

    The CD version released in the Beyond Description box set in 2004 and subsequently as a separate CD in 2006 included Oh Babe, It Ain't No Lie. This release also included a second CD of bonus material;
    • To Lay Me Down (Traditional) - Studio rehearsal, 9/14/80
    • Iko Iko (Live) (Traditional / James Crawford) - Live, 10/7/80
    • Heaven Help The Fool (Weir / Barlow) - Live, 10/25/80
    • El Paso (Robbins) - Live, 10/13/80
    • Sage & Spirit (Weir) - Live, 10/31/80
    • Little Sadie (Traditional) - Live, 10/31/80
    • It Must Have Been The Roses (Hunter) - Alt live version, 10/23/80
    • Dark Hollow (Traditional) - Alt live version, 10/23/80
    • Jack-A-Roe (Traditional) - Alt live version, 10/23/80
    • Cassidy (Weir / Barlow) - Alt live version, 10/23/80
    • China Doll (Garcia / Hunter) - Alt live version, 10/23/80
    • Monkey And The Engineer (Fuller) - Alt live version, 10/23/80
    • Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie (Cotton) - Alt live version, 10/23/80
    • Ripple (Garcia / Hunter) - Alt live version, 10/23/80

    • Tom Dooley (Live, 1978) (Traditional) - Live, Chicago, 11/17/78
    • Deep Elem Blues (Traditional) - Live, Chicago, 11/17/78

    Musicians
    • Jerry Garcia - acoustic guitar, vocals
    • Mickey Hart - percussion
    • Billy Kreutzmann - percussion
    • Phil Lesh - bass
    • Brent Mydland - keyboards, vocals
    • Bob Weir - acoustic guitar, vocals

    Credits
    • Producer - Dan Healy, Betty Cantor-Jackson, Jerry Garcia
    • Live recording concept developed by and concert sound mixed by - Dan Healy
    • Recording systems engineering and live recording by - Betty Cantor-Jackson
    • Engineering - Don Pearson, John Cutler, Dennis Leonard
    • Recording systems maintenance - Bob Matthews
    • Assistant engineering - Billy Rothschild, Greg Mann, Michael Peri
    • Grateful Dead crew - Ram Rod, Bill Candelario, Steve Parish, Harry Popick, Joe Thomas, Paul Roehlk, Jeffrey Boden, Willy Legate
    • Road manager - Danny Rifkin
    • PA and sound reinforcement - FM Productions, Harry McCune Sound, Ultra Sound, Joe Winslow and Hard Truckers Speakers, John Meyer Sound
    • PA booth assistance - Dan Mcinerney, Jeff Hellman
    • Album co-ordination - Rock Scully, Alan Trist
    • Concert co-ordination - Noteworthy Enterprises, Richard Loren, Sue Stephens, Francis Carr
    • Warfield concert production - Bill Graham Presents, Bill Graham, Peter Barsotti, Bob Barsotti, Willy John Cashman, Bettike Barsotti, Drew Holmes, Rudy House, Bob Hall, Sherry Wasserman, Jan Rasmussen, Scott Ferry - Thanks to - Neal Sorenson, David Murphy, Warfield staff and SFIASTE
    • Radio City concert production - Monarch Entertainment, John Scher, Amy Polan, Mo Morrison, Frank Stetler, Shelley Diamond, James McGrath, Phil Guiliano, Peter Michelini - Thanks to - Patricia Morinelli, Bob Buckley, Radio City staff, NYIASTE
    • Grateful Dead Office - Bonnie Parker, Eileen Law, Janet Stephenson
    • Special thanks - Hal Kant, Randy Sarti and Mr. Russell
    • Cover illustration - Rick Griffin
    • Back cover photography - John Werner
    • Album work production - Jim Welch
    • Recorded Live: September 25 - October 14, 1980 at the Warfield Theater, San Francisco, CA and October 22 - October 31, 1980 at Radio City Music Hall, New York, NY
    • Mixed at - Club Front San Rafael
    • Mastering - Greg Fulginiti at Artisan Sound Recorders

    Notes
    Otis, who gets a mention during Ripple, was Bob Weir's dog.

    To allow release as a single CD, the CD release does not include Oh Babe, It Ain't No Lie. The CD notes explain this in a positive way; "The original two-record set of the same title has been edited for release on this single deluxe-play compact disc."

    The material recorded in 1980 was originally intended for release on one double LP set. But the format of the music subsequently steered them towards the release of the two double albums. Garcia commented on this in an interview;

    We really ended up with so much good material that it was a struggle. The idea of just one acoustic and one electric record was sort of pathetic, since our electric tunes are seldom less than eight minutes long. And that meant our fat electric album would have two songs on a side. It was kind of silly.

    Related releases
    Released as a single CD, with the title For The Faithful and with Oh Babe, It Ain't No Lie omitted, in 1986, Arista/Pair ARPDL2-1053 .

    Released on CD in 1988 with the title Reckoning and with Oh Babe, It Ain't No Lie omitted.

    The Reckoning CD release was included in;
    • Dead Zone: The Grateful Dead CD Collection (1977-1987), Grateful Dead, 1987
    A remastered, expanded version of Reckoning, with a extra CD of bonus material, was included in the box set;
    • Beyond Description, Grateful Dead, Oct 2004

    This remastered, expanded version was released as a double CD set in 2006.
    The electric sets of the shows that were used for Reckoning were also recorded and used on a double LP release;
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Dead Set
    Grateful Dead

    Initial release : August 26, 1981
    Arista A2L-8606

    Double LP of material recorded live in September and October 1980.

    Tracks

    Side 1
    • Samson And Delilah (Traditional arr. Grateful Dead)
    • Friend Of The Devil (Garcia / Dawson / Hunter)
    • New Minglewood Blues (Traditional arr. Grateful Dead)
    • Deal (Garcia / Hunter)

    Side 2
    • Candyman (Garcia / Hunter)
    • Little Red Rooster (Dixon)
    • Loser (Garcia / Hunter)

    Side 3
    • Passenger (Lesh / Monk)
    • Feel Like A Stranger (Weir / Barlow)
    • Franklin's Tower (Garcia / Kreutzmann / Hunter)
    • Rhythm Devils (Hart / Kreutzmann)

    Side 4
    • Space (Lesh / Mydland / Hart / Kreutzmann)
    • Fire On The Mountain (Hart / Hunter)
    • Greatest Story Ever Told (Weir / Hunter / Hart)
    • Brokedown Palace (Garcia / Hunter)

    Most CD versions of this album omit Space to allow a single CD release. A double CD version has been released that includes all tracks.

    The CD version released in the Beyond Description box set in 2004 and subsequently as a separate CD in 2006 included Space. This release also included a second CD of bonus live material;

    • Let It Grow (Weir / Barlow) - Live, 10/26/80
    • Sugaree (Garcia / Hunter) - Live, 10/26/80
    • C.C. Rider (Rainey) - Live, 10/13/80
    • Row Jimmy (Garcia / Hunter) - Live, 10/80
    • Lazy Lightnin' (Weir / Barlow) - Live, 10/13/80
    • Supplication (Weir / Barlow) - Live, 10/13/80
    • High Time (Garcia / Hunter) - Live, 10/80
    • Jack Straw (Weir / Hunter) - Live, 10/10/80
    • Shakedown Street (Garcia / Hunter) - Live, 10/7/80
    • Not Fade Away (Petty / Holly) - Live, 10/4/80

    Credits
    • Producer - Dan Healy, Betty Cantor-Jackson, Jerry Garcia
    • Recorded Live: September 25 - October 14, 1980 at the Warfield Theater, San Francisco, CA and October 22 - October 31, 1980 at Radio City Music Hall, New York, NY
    • Mixed at Club Front, San Rafael
    • Live recording concept developed by and concert sound mixed by - Dan Healy
    • Recording systems engineering and live recording by - Betty Cantor-Jackson
    • Engineering - Don Pearson, John Cutler, Dennis Leonard
    • Recording systems maintenance - Bob Matthews
    • Assistant engineering - Billy Rothschild, Greg Mann, Michael Peri, Jeffrey Norman
    • Grateful Dead crew - Ram Rod, Bill Candelario, Steve Parish, Harry Popick, Joe Thomas, Paul Roehlk, Jeffrey Boden, Willy Legate
    • Road manager - Danny Rifkin
    • PA and sound reinforcement - FM Productions, Harry McCune Sound, Ultra Sound, Joe Winslow and Hard Truckers Speakers, John Meyer Sound
    • PA booth assistance - Dan Mcinerney, Jeff Hellman
    • Album co-ordination - Rock Scully, Alan Trist
    • Concert co-ordination - Noteworthy Enterprises, Richard Loren, Sue Stephens, Francis Carr
    • Tour co-ordination - John Scher, Monarch Entertainment Bureau
    • Warfield concert production - Bill Graham Presents, Bill Graham, Peter Barsotti, Bob Barsotti, Willy John Cashman, Bettike Barsotti, Drew Holmes, Rudy House, Bob Hall, Sherry Wasserman, Jan Rasmussen, Scott Ferry - Thanks to - Neal Sorenson, David Murphy, Warfield staff and SFIASTE
    • Radio City concert production - Monarch Entertainment, John Scher, Amy Polan, Mo Morrison, Frank Stetler, Shelley Diamond, James McGrath, Phil Guiliano, Peter Michelini - Thanks to - Patricia Morinelli, Bob Buckley, Radio City staff, NYIASTE
    • Grateful Dead Office - Bonnie Parker, Eileen Law, Janet Stephenson
    • Legal Counsel - Hal Kant
    • Cover illustration - Dennis Larkin
    • Centerfold photography - John Werner
    • Album jacket production - Jim Welch

    Notes
    Some songs were edited (shortened) versions of the live performances.

    Related releases
    The Dead Set CD release was included in;
    • Dead Zone: The Grateful Dead CD Collection (1977-1987), Grateful Dead, 1987
    A remastered, expanded version of Dead Set, with an extra CD of bonus material, was included in the box set;
    • Beyond Description, Grateful Dead, Oct 2004
    This remastered, expanded version was released as a double CD set in 2006.

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Dead Ahead Expanded DVD
    Grateful Dead

    Expanded DVD release: Nov 2005
    Original video release: 1981
    Warner Home Video

    This expanded DVD release includes the complete original video material of just under two hours of footage and music from the week long marathon of shows at the Radio City Music Hall in New York in October 1980. Additional material includes 50 minutes of extra concert footage plus a booklet.

    Part One;
    • Uncle John's Band
    • Franken & Davis: Intro
    • Bird Song
    • On The Road Again
    • To Lay Me Down
    • Ripple
    • Franken & Davis: Henry K: Bootlegger
    • Me And My Uncle
    • Mexicali Blues
    • Ramble On Rose
    • Little Red Rooster

    Part Two;
    • Franken & Davis: Hey, **** Head
    • Don't Ease Me In
    • Lost Sailor >
    • Saint of Circumstance >
    • Franklin's Tower >
    • Drums >
    • Space >
    • Fire On The Mountain >
    • Not Fade Away >
    • Good Lovin'

    Bonus songs are from the 10/30/80 show;
    • Heaven Help The Fool
    • Shakedown Street
    • Samson and Delilah
    • He's Gone
    • Truckin'


    Credits for the original film include;
    • Executive Producer - John Scher
    • Producer - Richard Loren
    • Director - Len Dell'Amico
    • Audio Mix - Dan Healy, Betty Cantor-Jackson
    • Lighting, set design - Candace Brightman

    The original movie was released in 1981;
    • Dead Ahead, Grateful Dead, 1981

    Music from these shows was released on;
    • Reckoning, Grateful Dead, 1981
    • Dead Set, Grateful Dead, 1981

    A bonus CD comprising audio versions of all the bonus songs was distributed with pre-ordered copies of the DVD;
    Dead Ahead Bonus CD, Grateful Dead, 2005
    Buy video from amazon.com
     

    Attached Files:

  10. jacksondownunda

    jacksondownunda Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Here's a bump for Reckoning. If nothin's shakin' we'll move onto a few early '80's solo elpees.
     
  11. JimSmiley

    JimSmiley Team Blue Note

    Love both Reckoning and Dead Set...companion pieces for sure.
    Those two and "Without a Net" got me on the bus.

    Both titles are best on vinyl..Reckoning is great for a fall night by the fire!!
     
  12. R. Totale

    R. Totale The Voice of Reason

    I was more active in the early part of this thread, because that's when I was most interested. My interest tapered off starting with Workingman's - I still listened now and then and often enjoyed what I heard, but it wasn't the same. I occasionally swapped pre-1972 tapes with friends, and the only show I ever saw (and which I fully enjoyed) was in 1976. For me, "Reckoning" is the happy ending - a beautiful record which wraps it all up for me. I listen to it fairly regularly and always enjoy doing so, and I'll be interested to read the rest of the thread, but for me, that's pretty much it.
     
  13. jacksondownunda

    jacksondownunda Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Bobby & The Midnights

    The next few entries are more early '80's GD solo ventures. (My main computer’s taken a king hit of some sort and I’m using an old stand-in, so pics may be wonky this week…)

    The incarnations of the Bob Weir Band evolved into Bobby & The Midnites in very late ’79 or the early ‘80’s. Guitarist Bobby Cochran and GD keyboardist Brent Mydland were onboard, but the surprising long-term Midnite member IMHO was drummer Billy Cobham. Cobham had a huge name in the jazz-fusion world, having played with John Ambercrombie, Miles Davis, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Jan Hammer, Carlos Santana, and had his own solo lp’s. Though Weir had paid tribute to jazz fusion in some compositions, it was still surprising and quite a coup to have Cobham in his “rock band”. (Fellow fusionist Stanley Clarke had joined Ron Wood & Keith Richards’ ‘New Barbarians’ a couple years earlier, but his talents seemed incongruous and wasted there.) Midnites were a tight and dynamic live band, of that there’s little argument. I personally didn’t pay as much attention to these albums themselves as I perceived them (particularly the second one) as very mainstream radio-friendly ‘80’s rock. I’m several years younger than Bob Weir but he seemed to be aiming at an audience several years younger than myself, as born out by several younger kids in our crowd having these. It was the chorus of either “Far Away” or “Fly Away” that reminded me of the background vocals on a Van Halen album. I suppose it’s testimony to his talent that Weir was able to play highly improvised and unique Grateful Dead music regularly, and still be able to clear his head and create a COMPLETELY different sound and vibe attitude with the Midnites. Weir’s solo bands also gave him the opportunity to play big full chords and explore blues or pop styles that wouldn’t come up in the GD brew.

    As you can tell from reading the song writing credits below, the Midnite songwriting was very much a band effort and they did assemble some pretty slick stuff. Perhaps not surprisingly though, the songs that stuck out live for me were the Weir tunes. “Josephine” is a bluesy stroll that would’ve made a good pairing with Garcia’s “Valerie”. “Festival” is also Weir words/music changing keys a few times as Bob listed reasons to come on down to the ‘fes- tee-val’. One cover that may have had future influences was “Book Of Rules”. It’s a reggae/pop ditty about “de poor people like you and me living together in har-mo-nie”, …living by the “Book Of Rules”. I can’t help thinking that he turned that whole lyrical concept on it’s ear when he wrote the raging “Throwing Stones (Ashes To Ashes)”, and the loping bass run appears as the basis on his demo for “Brother Esau”. The band also started playing music by Weir to lyrics by 1800’s writer Rudyard Kipling called “The Winner” (“he who travels the fastest, travels alone”), which brings in that classical GD element.

    Anyhow, this was Weir’s home-away-from-home for a nice chunk of the ‘80’s. Anyone wanna comment?
    ------------------------------------------------------------

    from deaddisc.com;

    Bobby And The Midnites
    Bobby And The Midnites

    Initial release : November 1981
    Arista 9568

    The first album from Bob Weir's Bobby and the Midnites band.

    Tracks
    • Haze (Cochran/Kelly/Mohawk/Mydland/Shaw/Weir)
    • Too Many Losers (Cochran/Weir)
    • Far Away (Cochran/Kelly/Weir)
    • Book of Rules (Johnson/Llewellyn)
    • Me, Without You (Barlow/Johnson)
    • Josephine (Weir)
    • (I Want to) Fly Away (Barlow/Weir)
    • Carry Me (Weir)
    • Festival (Weir)

    Musicians
    • Bob Weir - guitar, vocals
    • Billy Cobham - drums, vocals
    • Bobby Cochran - guitar, vocals
    • Alphonso Johnson - bass, vocals
    • Matthew Kelly - harmonica, vocals
    • Brent Mydland - keyboards, vocals

    Credits
    • Producer - Gary Lyons
    • Engineer - Gary Lyons, Gregg Mann, Pete Thea, John Cutler - Engineer
    • Mastering - George Marino
    • Lyric Supervision - John Barlow
    • Art Direction - Victor Moscoso
    • Photography - Elizabeth Fenimore

    Related releases
    One single was released in conjunction with this album;
    • Too Many Losers / Haze, Bobby and The Midnites, 1981
    A promotional single was also distributed;
    • Too Many Losers 7" promotional single, Bobby and The Midnites, 1981

    ------------------------------------------------------------------

    Where The Beat Meets The Street
    Bobby And The Midnites

    Initial release : August 1984
    Columbia BFC 39276

    The second album from Bob Weir's Bobby and the Midnites band.

    Tracks
    • (I Want to Live in) America (Barlow/Cochran/Grahan/Weir)
    • Where the Beat Meets the Street (Chin/Glen)
    • She's Gonna Win Your Heart (Burnette/Williams)
    • Ain't That Peculiar (Moore/Robinson/Rogers/Tarplin)
    • Lifeguard (Beckett/Lambert)
    • Rock in the '80s (Cochran)
    • Lifeline (Frederiksen/Haseldon/Medica/Roddy)
    • Falling (Barlow/Baxter/Gradney/Weir)
    • Thunder & Lightning (Cochran/Weir)
    • Gloria Monday (Barlow/Baxter/Weir)

    Musicians
    • Bob Weir - guitar, vocals
    • Jeff Baxter - synthesizer, guitar
    • Paulette Brown - vocals
    • Billy Cobham - drums
    • Bobby Cochran - guitar, vocals
    • Steve Cropper - guitar
    • Paulinho Da Costa - percussion
    • Chuck Domonico - bass
    • Jim Ehinger - keyboards
    • Kenny Gradney - bass, vocals
    • Alphonso Johnson - bass
    • Sherlie Mathews - vocals
    • Brian Setzer - guitar

    Credits
    • Producer - Jeff Baxter
    • Engineer - Larold Rebhun
    • Assistant Engineer - John Bogosian, David Ferguson, Mark Wilczak
    • Mastering - Elliot Federman
    • Production Coordination - Marylata Elton
    • Design, Project Coordinator, Redesign - David Richman
    • Photography - Glenn Wexler
    • Art Direction - Joel Zimmerman
    • Coordination - Doug Wygal, Jamie Reamer

    Related releases
    One promotional single was released in conjunction with this album;
    • (I Want to Live in) America / (I Want to Live in) America, Bobby and The Midnites, 1984, Columbia 38-04587
     

    Attached Files:

  14. serge

    serge Forum Resident

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    I have to say I can't believe Reckoning has gotten so little attention on this.. Its such a great live album!

    I've played this at a friends many a time...All my Dead friends love it...
     
  15. It surprises me as well that there's so very few replies about Reckoning. I love acoustic Dead, I wish they'd done their first sets like this more often. This album is just lovely from start to finish.
     
  16. ZappaSG

    ZappaSG New Member

    Location:
    Philadelphia
    I still have yet to pick this up although last year my wife got me the Dead Ahead DVD. The Bird Song on there is just gorgeous. I love seeing the band, especially Bob and Jerry, just smiling away throughout the performance. They really seem to be enjoying themselves. I wish the actual performance of Uncle John's Band was included, the tracklist on the back makes it seem like it's actually there and not just a backdrop song for some footage.

    The electric sets are great with a fantastic Franklin's Tower and good renditions of Samson and Shakedown!
     
  17. jacksondownunda

    jacksondownunda Forum Resident Thread Starter

    High Noon w/Mickey Hart

    One amusing GD spin-off band that passed through town in Spring ’81 was High Noon. Depending on who’s telling the story, it was either started by Mickey Hart and late great pal Norton Buffalo, or started by Hart as a showcase for Bay local Jim McPherson’s songs.

    Members are usually listed as Merl Saunders (keys and vocals), Michael Hinton (guitar), Jim McPherson (guitar, keyboard and vocals), Vicki Randle (guitar, percussion and vocals), Norton Buffalo (harp & vocals), and Bobby Vega (bass). The version I saw featured songs and singing by Vicki Randle (you may know her as a long term member in the Tonight Show band), but there are some tapes of an all male version featuring Feat’s Chuck Rainy and sometimes Bill Kreutzmann, as well as occasional guest vocals by Joan Baez. Whatever the line-up, it was usually a pleasant evening of Bay Area rock/blues, and the band lasted about a year.

    There are no official live albums and only a couple High Noon studio tracks “Left Out in the Cold” and “Cross the Bridge” made it to the posthumous Jim McPherson album “A Promise Kept” (25 years later).
     

    Attached Files:

  18. jacksondownunda

    jacksondownunda Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Dafos w/Mickey Hart

    Dafos is musically not unlike “Rhythm Devils Play River Music”; many of the same exotic percussion instruments and free-form percussion composition (particularly with walking-drum Airto and his percussion tag-team mate and exotic howler Flora Purim), but the goal at the time was an ultra-high fidelity recording. Reference Recordings was/is(?) an SF audiophile label. The recording was done in concert spaces using stereo pairs of mics on each performer, mixed on the spot straight to 2 track. The original lp was cut at 45rpm for increased dynamic range and high end, and pressed under the finest available conditions with the finest vinyl.


    I’m kinda fond of the tone of the tars, so the opening track is right up my alley. The Grateful Dead stage drum set-up known as “The Beast” features on a couple tracks. My fondest memory of this one was a listen on a pal’s hi-end McIntosh rig with inverted speakers on poured concrete bases and subwoofer. There was a spot where Hart does a direct hit on some massive drum and I’d swear the sound wave rolled right through the room, down the hallway, and right out the back door.
    ---------------------------------------------------------

    from deaddisc.com;

    Dafos
    Hart / Airto / Purim

    Initial release : 1983
    Reference RR-12

    Mickey Hart plays on all tracks of this percussion dominated recording. Three of the tracks are solo Hart.

    Tracks
    • Dry Sands Of The Desert (Douglas/El-Din/Hart/Khan)
    • Ice Of The North (Diamond/Hart)
    • Reunion I/Reunion II/Reunion III (Hart/Moreira/Purim/Vega)
    • Saudação Popular (Batucaje/Hart/Lorenzo/Moreira/Purim)
    • Psychopomp (Hart)
    • Subterranean Caves Of Kronos (Hart)
    • The Gates Of Däfos (Hart)
    • Passage (Hart/Lorenzo/Moreira/Purim)

    Musicians
    The musicians on each track are as follows.

    Dry Sands Of The Desert;
    • Steve Douglas - woodwind
    • Mickey Hart - tars
    • Shabda Khan - tars
    • Daniel Kennedy - tars
    • Mica Katz - tars
    • Khadija Mastah - tars
    • Ray Patch - tars
    • Habib Bishop - tars
    • Brian Crittenden - tars

    Ice Of The North;
    • Mickey Hart - saron
    • Jody Diamond - saron

    Reunion I/Reunion II/Reunion III;
    • Flora Purim - vocals
    • Bobby Vega - electric bass
    • Airto Moreira - percussion
    • Mickey Hart - percussion

    Saudação Popular;
    • Marcos Antonio Dias - vocals
    • Flora Purim - vocals
    • Mickey Hart - berimbau, backup vocals
    • Batucaje - berimbau, backup vocals
    • Airto Moreira - percussion

    Psychopomp;
    • Mickey Hart - beam, rain stick

    Subterranean Caves Of Kronos;
    • Mickey Hart - tubular bells

    The Gates Of Däfos;
    • Mickey Hart - the beast

    Passage;
    • Mickey Hart - percussion, vocals
    • Airto Moreira - percussion, vocals
    • Flora Purim - percussion, vocals
    • Jose Lorenzo - percussion, vocals
    • Batucaje - percussion, vocals

    The members of Batucaje are;
    • Jose Lorenzo (Director)
    • Babatunde
    • Mario Abruzzo
    • Carlos Gomez
    • Jorge Perez
    • Renee Macay
    • Henry Flood
    • Marcos Antonio Dios

    Credits
    • Producer - Mickey Hart, Airto Moreira
    • Recording engineer - Keith O. Johnson
    • Remix engineer (Psychopomp and Reunion) - Tom Flye
    • Technical Assistance - Bob Hodas, Jeff Sterling
    • Executive Producer - J. Tamblyn Henderson, Marcia Martin
    • Cover photography - John Werner, Tony Plewik
    • Dafos logo - Alton Kelly
    • Package design - J.E. Tully
    • Crew - Ram Rod, Luvell, Dan Dundas, Billy Grillo
    • Series ethnomusicology consultant - Fredric Lieberman
    • Special thanks to Bill Graham, Kevin Chisholm, Marty McGee, Hamza El-Din, David Stern, Gordon Danielson, Ray Burnham, Jr.
    • Recorded on October 24, 1982 and March 21, 1983 at the Japan Center Theatre, San Francisco with the exception of Psychopomp which was performed and recorded on September 25, 1984 at Fantasy Studios, Berkeley

    Reissues
    Reissued in 1989 by Rykodisc as part of their 'The World' series.
    Related releases
    Dry Sands Of The Desert is included on the sampler CD;
    • Welcome To Our World 1990, Various Artists, 1990
    Dry Sands Of The Desert is included on the sampler CD;
    • Around The World (For A Song), Various Artists, 1991
     

    Attached Files:

  19. Jerry

    Jerry Grateful Gort Staff

    Location:
    New England
    I've been a big fan of Dafos since it was released. Strangely enough, last week in a thrift store I found a copy of the first pressing release. The copy I've owned for years, I thought was the only version. I went back to the thrift store a few days later and found Around The World (For A Song)! The original Dafos cd is aluminum to the center and has slightly different packaging. I also own the 45rpm LP. The cd release has an extra cut not on the LP. That sound of the drum crashing was described as "a house being dropped" or "a UPS truck hitting the foundation" in some early audiophile reviews. I was lucky enough to see the Rhythm Devils live at the Marin Vets Auditorium in the early 80's. I especially enjoyed Airto and Flora Purim performing live, as I was a huge fan of the Chick Corea albums they played on.
     
  20. jacksondownunda

    jacksondownunda Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Run For The Roses – Jerry Garcia Band

    I suppose the GD were considered high-profile dinosaur rock by the ‘80’s, and this album and cover art don’t do much to dispel that. Run For The Roses doesn’t have the finely honed theme, heart and soul that Jerry poured into Cats Under The Stars. Despite swearing off producers and intense recording for any foreseeable future, Garcia still kept the tapes rolling and perhaps fulfilled a contractual solo album obligation here. There were a few new tunes and several covers recorded, but most fans found the album’s original release a hodge-podge affair. As usual, though, there are a few things of note IMHO.

    The catchy title tune “Run For The Roses” is probably the reason this album was recorded. There’s no hint of dissonance or tension (or even a bridge) which makes the music and highly over-dubbed production very sweet, if not downright saccharine. It takes a close listen to reveal depth or conflict in the lyrics. “Reach for the stars, smack into the sky. You don’t want to live but you’re chicken to die.” strikes me as a very awkward phrase. However, I think some of the lyrics reflect a Hunter phase that found better realization in GD’s “Touch Of Grey” which started appearing live the better part of a year after RFTR was recorded. “Run for the money, caught short on the rent” later became in TOG “The rent is in arrears, the dog has not been fed in years”, “You got the do re, I got the mi” became more sophisticated in TOG with “the Ables, the Bakers and the C’s”, and “Hang on, hang on friend of mine, All good things in all good time” became “I will survive, I will get by”.

    The Beatles’ “I Saw Her Standing There” as a bouncy clavinet vehicle sounds like a “Compliments Of Garcia” session tune. These funky guys would be good value at a wedding.

    Cover tune “Without Love” made press at the time because it’s Garcia backed with a horn section singin’ somethin’ bluesy and showy, but he plays ZERO guitar. However, he didn’t really have the full throttle voice to fully pull this one off, so it remains a curio IMO.

    “Midnight Getaway” is a plaintive little narrative about a guy hearing his ol’ lady get out of bed, go down stairs, hop in the car and drive away leaving him for good, while he apparently listens and doesn’t make any attempt to stop her. It is a strange and interesting angle for a broken love song. I don’t recall ever hearing of him trying this one live.

    “Leave That Little Girl Alone” is a strange little stomp-pause-stomp thing written by Hunter and Kahn (who also had a hand in “Midnight Getaway”). It sounds like a tribute to some quirky and slightly bent girlfriend “She’s twisted but she’s got what it takes”, but Hunter actually wrote it about one of the teenaged girls in the GD family, possibly one of Jerry’s daughters IIRC? Again, this is a new theme that popped up for Hunter and appears shortly in “Touch Of Grey”; “Kid can’t read at seventeen, the words he knows are all obscene”.

    “Valerie” is one of the more memorable tunes on the album and a powerhouse live. Garcia plays a hard-to-lose thug of a boyfriend; “I shot my dog ‘cause he growled at you”, “I cut your other man but I spared his life”, “Valerie what’s the matter with me? I never ever done you no wrong. I can’t understand why you tell me Please Go Away”. The character sounds a bit incongruous if compared to what Hunter and Garcia had usually been writing, but Hunter was setting his sights on writing a rock novel Amagamilan Street, and would jump outside himself to write in the character of a very nasty character in that story. This might’ve been a character study that Garcia took a liking to?

    Which leaves Dylan’s “Knocking On Heaven’s Door”. I’ve always thought of this three chord tune as a no-brainer. Everybody and his goldfish (even Buns ‘N Noses) have covered or played this one at one time or another. Garcia did put this one in permanent rotation in both the JGB and GD. This one’s pleasant enough with it’s little reggae lilt, but I would’ve preferred it to be drop-dead amazing.

    I find some of the outtake bonus tracks from the cd version in the AGT Jerry box more interesting than some of this album, including “Tangled Up In Blue”, “Simple Twist Of Fate”, “Dear Prudence” with horns, the ever popular “Fenario”, and a very early but developed “Alabama Getaway” (with bluesy licks before the GD got their paws on it). IMHO it’s not too hard to whip up a superior version of this album by re-sequencing some of the track.


    --------------------------------------------------------------------------
    from deaddisc.com;

    Run for the Roses
    Jerry Garcia Band

    Initial release : November 1982
    Arista AL 9603

    The second and last studio album credited to the Jerry Garcia Band. Includes three Garcia/Hunter songs and one by Garcia, Hunter and John Kahn.

    Tracks
    • Run For The Roses (Jerry Garcia / Robert Hunter)
    • I Saw Her Standing There (John Lennon / Paul McCartney)
    • Without Love (Clyde McPhatter)
    • Midnight Getaway (Jerry Garcia / John Kahn / Robert Hunter)
    • Leave The Little Girl Alone (John Kahn / Robert Hunter)
    • Valerie (Jerry Garcia / Robert Hunter)
    • Knockin' On Heaven's Door (Bob Dylan)

    Bonus tracks included on the CD version of album included in the All Good Things box set in 2004 and the subsequent individual CD release in 2005;
    • Fennario (Traditional) (aka Peggy-O) *
    • Alabama Getaway (Garcia / Hunter) *
    • Tangled Up In Blue (Dylan) **
    • Simple Twist Of Fate (Dylan) *
    • Dear Prudence (Lennon / McCartney) *
    • Valerie (Alternate Mix) (Garcia / Hunter) **
    * previously unreleased studio recordings from Spring 1979
    ** previously unreleased outtakes from the Run For The Roses recording sessions in 1981

    Musicians
    The liner notes provide track by track information about musicians.
    Run For The Roses;
    • Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals
    • Melvin Seals - organ
    • James Warren - piano, clavinet
    • John Kahn - bass, synthesizer
    • Ron Tutt - drums, tambourine

    I Saw Her Standing There;
    • Jerry Garcia - guitar, slide guitar, vocals
    • Michael O'Martian - clavinet
    • John Kahn - bass
    • Ron Tutt - drums, tambourine

    Without Love;
    • Jerry Garcia - vocals
    • Michael O'Martian - piano
    • Merl Saunders - organ
    • John Kahn - bass
    • Roger Neuman - trumpet, horn section leader, horn arrangement
    • Ron Tutt - drums

    Midnight Getaway;
    • Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals
    • Ron Tutt - drums
    • James Warren - piano
    • Melvin Seals - organ
    • John Kahn - bass, fretless bass, synthesizer

    Leave The Little Girl Alone;
    • Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals
    • James Warren - piano
    • Melvin Seals - organ
    • John Kahn - bass, guitar, slide guitar, synthesizer
    • Ron Tutt - drums

    Valerie;
    • Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals
    • James Warren - piano
    • Melvin Seals - organ
    • John Kahn - bass, fretless bass
    • Ron Tutt - drums

    Knockin' On Heaven's Door;
    • Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals
    • Melvin Seals - organ
    • John Kahn - bass, piano, clavinet, guitar, synthesizer
    • Ron Tutt - drums, percussion
    • Liz Stires - background vocals
    • Julie Stafford - vocals

    Credits
    • Producer - Jerry Garcia, John Kahn
    • Basic recording - Betty Cantor-Jackson, Ron Malo
    • Overdubs, mixing - Bob Matthews
    • Art - Victor Moscoso
    • Crew - Steve Parish, Harry Popick, George Varra
    • Arrangement - Jerry Garcia, John Kahn, Roger Neuman (horn arrangements on Without Love)
    • Management - Rock Scully, Sue Stephens, Alan Trist
    • Thanks to - Grateful Dead Productions, John Cutler, Willy Legate, Dan Steadman
    • Mastering - George Horn
    • Tracks 1, 4, 5, 6 and 7 recorded at Club Front, San Rafael, September to December 1981
    • Tracks 2 and 3 recorded at Devonshire Studios, Los Angeles, September to December 1981

    Notes
    This was Melvin Seals first recording with Garcia and indeed his only full studio recording with the Jerry Garcia Band despite being in the band for nearly 15 years.

    In an interview in The Music Box in 1998, Seals commented on his first meetings with Garcia and the group;
    I did some gigs with Maria Muldaur. Her boyfriend at the time was John Kahn. He [came to] the gigs, and he admired what I was doing so he asked me if I'd be interested in jamming with another band sometime. He never really went into the details of what it was. Nobody even told me he played with [Jerry].
    [Kahn] called me up one day [and said] we're trying to put some rehearsals together to get some gigs. I went up to the address and there's Jerry Garcia and John Kahn and all these other musicians. I didn't even know what was going on. Really, it still didn't hit me until the end of the rehearsal.

    Garcia remembers his introduction slightly differently. In an interview with Scott Muni in 1991 he said;
    ;.... somewhere there in the '70s the Grateful Dead did a show with Elvin Bishop. I was standing behind this guy on the stage. He was the second keyboard player in Elvin's band. This big guy, he was just playing a Fender Rhodes. But he was playing so tasty, I'm just standing behind him. It's a pretty thick band, so figuring out just how to get in there was, I thought, the work of a good musician. He was just playing the tastiest little stuff. I thought, 'This guy is just too much!'
    I asked him what his name was. He said, 'Melvin Seals'. Melvin Seals. So years later I got Melvin. I don't remember exactly when he started playing with us, but right around the late '70s, early '80s, Melvin started playing with us, and he was just a monster. He's turned out to be the guy that we were looking for all along.

    Related releases
    Reissued by Arista on CD in 1986 (ARCD 8557)
    The complete Run For The Roses album plus bonus tracks from the album recording sessions were included in the Garcia box set;
    • All Good Things: Jerry Garcia Studio Sessions, Jerry Garcia / Jerry Garcia Band, 2004
    The All Good Things version of the album was subsequently released as a single CD in 2005.
     

    Attached Files:

  21. ron p

    ron p Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    This is to me Garcia's only clunker solo album. Everything else in the All Good Things box is played constantly. I do love the bonus tracks and play them as much as all the other stuff in the box. As a whole it's one of my all time favorite box sets. The extra disc of outtakes and demos is fantastic. I can't think of another box where the extras get played as much as the original albums. I think his solo work in it's entirety is so underrated. The box set of studio work is a wonderful musical ride. The live releases of his various bands all hold up to me and I play them constantly along with my live Dead.

    If you're just starting out listening to live Jerry, much like the GD you have to listen to various years and bands to see which one 'clicks' for you first. You'll probably love them all in the end but the first step could turn you off if not chosen well.

    I guess I also have to pipe in late about Reckoning. I have never heard any acoustic Dead that I didn't love. I've played Reckoning so much and it always delivers. It is one of the gems of the GD catalog. I can picture someone who had no exposure to the GD just immediately picking up on it. You can't say that for most of the GD's music. It's timeless stuff like all live GD but I think it should have a wider exposure.
     
  22. protay5

    protay5 Member

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    I actually picked up Run for the Roses recently, not having heard it before, because of a hearing a friend do the title song as punk/power pop, like a rough Tom Petty. IMO it's really not a bad song & it works great that way. I agree about it sounding like a rough draft for "Touch of Grey," which I think is really a great song. I think the way it sneaks "you're chicken to die" into a song that on the surface sounds like a "go go 80s" ode to ambition is cool. ToG perfects that ambivalence.

    I also like "Valerie" and "Midnight Getaway" pretty well. Haven't been able to bring myself to listen to "I Saw Her Standing There." Garcia & his pals are so smart that I'm never sure if stuff like that or "Let's Spend the Night Together" are crass commercialism or meta-ironic perfomance art. Or both.
     
  23. jacksondownunda

    jacksondownunda Forum Resident Thread Starter

    GD Live ’81-‘86

    These years are currently underrepresented as commercially available releases, but that’s not completely due to a “dark period” or “lost years” as is sometimes generalized IMHO. Archivists Dick Latvala and David Lemieux have both stated that GDM wanted to focus on some of the earlier eras and let this one ferment a bit. The relative abundance of the later Brent-era releases has been mainly due to the availability of multi-track tapes. There are a number of rippin’ shows I’d like to hear released, and some of these in my off-the-top-of-my-head list tonight might be different tomorrow.


    The Dead DID continue to introduce new songs live in concert, enough in fact that they could have released a “next” album (jokingly referred to as follow-up “Go To Hell”) in 1983. They instead embarked on several years of just honing and extending their live craft.

    --------------
    ’81 started as just a continuation of the comparatively tame (for them) “Heaven” tours and some promotion for the “Reckoning/Dead Set” lp’s. There was a Spring Europe tour which included a broadcast German Rockpalast gig 3/28/81 with a late second-set guest Pete Townshend sitting in (actually, bouncing around like a pogo stick); http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de1Miicm3Bc .
    Dick’s Pick 13 was a great pick from this year in many fans’ opinions, featuring a “He’s Gone” medley dedicated to IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands who’d just died. Though the GD don’t advocate bombers, they do great “send-offs” and caught a particularly ferocious musical current that evening.
    The GD did a 2nd Europe trip that Fall, and on an odd couple nights off, they set up an impromptu gig at an Amsterdam hash bar Milk Weg using off-the-shelf borrowed instruments and equipment. The first night was a small acoustic and non-descript electric set, but the next night was a sweaty return to rock roots with “Hully Gully” and “Gloria”; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Yq1J9vNNOk . This might make an amusing release some day?
    Oddly, in ’81 Weir also changed the “what in the world ever became of sweet Jane” lyrics in “Truckin’” from “living on reds, vitamin C and cocaine” to “ever since she went and got her sex changed”; either social satire or cultivation newz.
    The end of the year also featured the GD backing Joan Baez at a benefit, album sessions, and an acoustic set on New Year’s Eve. It was a bit of a musical mismatch; but Mickey Hart had been wooing neighbor Baez for a while thinking she’d be more of a party girl. (Funnily, Grace Slick wrote in her auto-bio that SHE thought Hart quite the guy after he judo’d 3 guys giving her some problems at a mall. If that had panned out maybe we’d be writing instead about a Grateful Airplane set.)

    ---------------------
    ’82 featured some interesting new venues like Alpine Valley, East Troy Wisconsin (DP32), or Ventura Fairgrounds CA (a rodeo ring on an ocean peninsula with a lagoon and tracks behind the stage giving the occasional illusion of trains speeding backstage!), or the US Festival in the desert in Devore CA (a gig at 0930am at 110F; so hot the tube amps were crackling and DeadHeads danced by wiggling their fingers…but nice set), or the Jamaica Music Festival at Montego Bay (0430am start, finishing at sunrise).
    Musically, new songs “West LA Fadeaway” and “Keep Your Day Job”, were soon followed by aging anthem “Touch Of Grey” and anarchist rant “Ashes To Ashes”. The first performance of “Ashes” had no middle solo at all and had hints of “Althea” in the verses, but for a year the “middle bit” was a free fall jam (not the Samson & Delilah instrumental thing that came later). This gave “Ashes” a very dramatic edge as it could literally go anywhere (….it’s dizzying the possibilities) and I’ve always felt the GD really backed away from an interesting and musically challenging idea there. “Drumz” and “Space” sequences really came a long way in these years. Drum set “The Beast” included a ten-foot strung amplified wire (shades of Jefferson Airplane’s “mandoleen” in the joke notes of Volunteers) to create weird sounds, and Lesh outdid himself in Hartford CT creating vocal accompaniment of “San Francisco Earthquake-Space” one night, and “dentist chair/nitrous/Poe’s Raven/Nevermore-Space” another.
    The New Year’s run went another direction again with Etta James & The Tower Of Power Horns joining GD for a rave; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DChW7LtosY .

    -------------------------------------
    ‘83 saw the return of “Help/ Slip/Franklin’s” and even “St Stephen” later in the year. Spring saw more new tunes; VietNam vet/biblical allegory “Brother Esau” debuted in March. The very early “Esau” versions didn’t have those little 2 chord punctuations, but was instead just the loping bassline verses (some differing lyrics), chorus and bridge (again some more differing lyrics). If I had input at a Road Trips cd, it would include the Irvine Meadows ‘early’ “Esau” with a long instrumental coda (far better meshed than the following night Berkeley version) and the ‘early’ “Ashes” with the free fall middle, and possibly mix it with Berkeley highlights like “West LA”. May brought the raunchy “Elegant Pride (Hell In A Bucket)” to setlists.
    Other year highlights include Stephen Stills dropping by Giants Stadium to jam a ponderous “Black Queen” which he supposedly wrote “for GD” in ’69.
    DP6 is all that’s released from ’83 as of this date, which puzzles me as there are far better shows. I can only guess that Dick Latvala was just breaking theDP ice with a then-unreleased “Spinach (Spanish) Jam” or “Day Job”.

    --------------------------
    ‘84 might be considered the “dark year” if seen behind the scenes. Garcia was living at Rock Skully’s house and Skully described in startling detail Jerry and himself strung out on the Persian. When not touring, Jerry’d sit for hours/days running guitar scales, eating ice cream, nodding off and burning furniture/carpets (“the afterlife, Marin-style” Skully noted). His size ballooned, shoes wouldn’t fit, and traveling with “supplies” could be precarious or awkward with Jerry being unbathed/unkempt in contrast to Weir/Lesh’s preppie look. (Skully claims Jerry sat in the sole toilet of the Concorde smoking the whole way across the Atlantic.) The band finally tried an intervention with little response.
    There were still some good shows (a Greek show with “Scarlet>Grey>Fire” and a “Dark Star” fluttering in the breeze is often traded. Mr Bill wuz there!), but ’84 had an alarming trend of often playing songs without the trademark improvised jammed bridges. Weir went so far as to say in interviews that they’d already “mapped out” those routes so didn’t need to do it, but there were many paths and combinations left unexplored, and many fans weren’t convinced that GD was playing their best.
    The GD did finally attempt recording a studio album of new stuff, but the vibe wasn’t there so they backed off. Brent had been meanwhile been stockpiling new songs like “Never Trust A Woman” and “Tons Of Steel”, and playing many live. He recorded and mastered a full solo album but it remains unreleased to this day. It must’ve been terribly frustrating for him (shades of George Harrison). I’ve never heard it, seen the setlist or even heard who played on it.


    As regards the “tardy” GD album, Hunter had this to say in 1984 in a Relix magazine interview with Mary Eisenhart;
    Hunter: “Right now I think we (the GD) are starting to blossom again. I think there are going to be interesting tidbits flowing out in the next year. The record’ll be getting done. It may be the first real high in three years. It’s been a slump.”
    Eisenhart: There are people who basically maintain that the Grateful Dead ceased to exist in 1974 and never came back.”
    Hunter: (pugnacious) “We’ll see about that. We’ll just see, huh? See about that. People put expectations on us, they want us to remain what we were, and no human being can do that without being totally crystallized. Maybe we’re bad, maybe we’re not giving them what they expected, but…”
    Eisenhart: “But that’s not what you’re here for.”
    Hunter: “No, we’re for ourselves, more than anything else, for our own musical development. If it goes through a slump, it goes through a slump. But I think we’ve made a bit of a career of meeting different expectations than are had of us, starting with Workingman’s Dead, which was just a joy (big grin) to drop on them after psychedelia, and to see how their heads would explode on that one. And maybe we’ll do it again. The only explanation for all of this, and the length of time it’s taking to make the album, and all the years like that is just phenomenal untogetherness. We’ve been in a slump, we haven’t been together, except onstage (my bold- ed.), I suppose. I think it’s a natural change , and I believe that with enough good will among the members that it is coming together again. I get the feeling it is. I do hope so. We shall see”.

    -------------------
    ‘85 early January saw Jerry get busted smoking in his car in Golden Gate Park. He was ordered to do drug counseling and performance alertness seemed to heighten again. The 20th anniversary of the GD seemed to creep up on them, but they did manage to add “Cryptical Envelopement” to “The Other One” for awhile. Lesh sang Derek & The Dominos “Keep On Growing” at the Greek.
    In one of those stranger-than-fiction spaces, Merl Saunders became musical director for the updated “Twilight Zone” TV series, and the GD recorded all kinds of hair tingling incidental soundtrack bits as well as re-recording the iconic doo-doo-doo-doo theme.
    The DP21 is a real good one with a very unorthodox “Sailor>Drums>Space>Saint”, “Gloria” and an appropriate “Dancin’ In The Streets” opener. There are several good shows that year, including popular Merriweather Post Pavillion gigs.
    GD seemed to be osing interest in the album they hadn’t even gotten around to recording, but in lieu of an album the GD did at least play with an audio/visual project which became “So Far”. They filmed some rehearsals in “concert mode” at the Marin Civic Auditorium in ‘85, then eventually spliced these with footage from their New Year’s broadcast, then superimposed computer altered imagery of buffalo and sepia photos, 30’s ballroom dancers, war and conflict, and outer space. (I’d LOVE however, to see a dvd video release of the far more manic 12/30/85 show with crazy visual slide show. It was a mad, mad night!)

    ------------------------------
    ’86 marked a return to stadium gigs in summer. One notable co-bill was Bob Dylan w/Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers; a harbinger of things to come.


    Another new and very controversial tune made a sole fleeting appearance on March 27, 1986, at Cumberland County Civic Center, in Portland, Maine. The tight little twisty tune was called “Revolutionary Hamstrung Blues” with words by Robert Petersen; music by Phil Lesh and Brent Mydland. The potential album already had an uncharacteristically anarchist rant “Ashes”, but this tune on first listen appeared to feature a frustrated hamstrung revolutionary looking for a place to explode a hand grenade. The Dead had a rather rabid and possibly chemically impressionable audience (and they HAD in fact once had a fan hold a bank hostage to play their songs on the radio!), so with that in mind the exotic song was performed once and dropped from the repertoire. However, hopefully we at SHF are a bit more trustworthy, so here are the cryptic and still unverified lyrics as assembled from several fan’s attempted transcriptions (from phonetic grunts to reasoned guesses). The mood and imagery are not literally about a Weatherman bomber, and vaguely in the vicinity of the future “Picasso Moon”, though quite violent.

    “Revolutionary Hamstrung Blues”

    Halfway past cool, clear Monday to the side of the room,
    Rolling down Wild Hair Boulevard with the rising of the moon.
    Hot damn! It's Mother's Day. Don't you all look fine?
    Promenading down the long carwash, passing snipes and sniffin' wine.

    We got poets, shuckers, and Godzilla’s grandmother
    Sweet little frozen-nose Sue.
    We got Speed Racer and His Arcade Androids,
    Revolutionary hamstrung blues.

    Say, now mama may I tighten your cap?
    Now honey may I loosen your load?
    You hold on to this hand grenade, while I...

    I remember some chicks from the ***** club,
    Coming on to Silly, squeeze toe(?).
    Silly says, "I'll say it once.
    For you it's cold steel, and slow."

    I'm standing by the rupture,
    'Mid chairs and flying glass.
    Silly smack dab in the soma,
    Shouting verse and kicking ***.
    Back then, the sweep; you hopped the 90,
    Don't make the six o'clock news.
    Speed Racer and the band kept playing...

    [instrumental break]

    As I recall I went for the window
    But I never did get clear
    Henry Hawkins' hickory stick
    Was the last thing I saw that year

    Drag me down to the tangle, you carry the charges, if you please.
    Hey, 30-day up on my shelf or a feeling we meant to be
    Mama may I tighten your cap?
    Your honor let me loosen your load.
    You hold on to this grenade for me, while I...

    The full moon irradiates Wild Hair Boulevard now.
    Dumb*****s talk so bold.
    Reminds me of old Silly, and how we
    Did it all over...
    Did it all over...
    Did it all over the road.

    We got poets, shuckers, and Godzilla’s grandmother
    Sweet little frozen nose Sue.
    We got Speed Racer and His Arcade Androids
    Revolutionary hamstrung blues.

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------
    Another day, another GD chapter (what I can recall, at least). Anybody have thoughts, or faves from this era?
     

    Attached Files:

  24. jacksondownunda

    jacksondownunda Forum Resident Thread Starter

    ’81-’86 DP13, DP32, DP6, DP21, So Far

    from deaddisc.com;

    Dick's Picks, Volume Thirteen
    Grateful Dead

    Initial release : March 1999
    Grateful Dead Records GDCD-4033

    Three CD set of the May 6, 1981 show at Nassau Coliseum


    Tracks
    Disc 1
    • Alabama Getaway (Garcia/Hunter)
    • Greatest Story Ever Told (Hart/Weir/Hunter)
    • They Love Each Other (Garcia/Hunter)
    • Cassidy (Weir/Barlow)
    • Jack-A-Roe (Traditional arr. Grateful Dead)
    • Little Red Rooster (Willie Dixon)
    • Dire Wolf (Garcia/Hunter)
    • Looks Like Rain (Weir/Barlow)
    • Big Railroad Blues (Noah Lewis arr. Grateful Dead)
    • Let It Grow (Weir/Barlow)
    • Deal (Garcia/Hunter)

    Disc 2
    • New Minglewood Blues (Traditional arr. Weir)
    • High Time (Garcia/Hunter)
    • Lost Sailor (Weir/Barlow)
    • Saint Of Circumstance (Weir/Barlow)

    Hidden tracks - from Nov 1, 1979
    • Scarlet Begonias (Garcia/Hunter)
    • Fire On The Mountain (Hart/Hunter)

    Disc 3
    • He's Gone (Garcia/Hunter)
    • Caution / Spanish Jam (Grateful Dead)
    • Drums (Hart/Kreutzmann)
    • Jam (Grateful Dead)
    • The Other One (Weir/Kreutzmann)
    • Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad (Traditional arr. Grateful Dead)
    • Wharf Rat (Garcia/Hunter)
    • Good Lovin' (Resnick/Clark)
    • Don't Ease Me In (Traditional arr. Grateful Dead)

    Musicians
    • Jerry Garcia - lead guitar, vocals
    • Mickey Hart - drums
    • Bill Kreutzmann - drums
    • Phil Lesh - electric bass
    • Brent Mydland - keyboards, vocals
    • Bob Weir - rhythm guitar, vocals

    Credits
    • Recorded by - Dan Healy
    • Tape Archivist - Dick Latvala
    • CD Mastering - Jeffery Norman
    • Ferromagnetist - John Cutler
    • Album Design - Gecko Graphics
    • Photography - Jim Anderson
    • Recorded live on May 6, 1981 at Nassau Coliseum

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------


    The Tomorrow Show: Tom Snyder's Electric Kool-Aid Talk Show
    Tom Snyder and guests
    2006
    Shout Factory
    A two DVD set of 4 editions of the late night talk program The Tomorrow Show in which Tom Snyder interviews "key figures and musical icons of the flower power generation." The contents are as follows.

    May 7, 1981: The Grateful Dead, Ken Kesey;
    • Interview with Ken Kesey and Jerry Garcia
    • Grateful Dead performance; On The Road Again, Cassidy, Dire Wolf and Deep Elem Blues
    • Interview with Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzman

    August 6, 1979: Tom Wolfe;
    October 14, 1980: Tom Wolfe;
    August 9, 1981: Dr. Timothy Leary;

    -------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Dick's Picks, Volume Thirty Two
    Grateful Dead

    Initial release : July 2004
    Grateful Dead Records

    Two CD set of music taken from the August 7, 1982 show at Alpine Valley, East Troy, WI.


    Tracks
    Disc 1
    • The Music Never Stopped (Weir / Barlow)
    • Sugaree (Garcia / Hunter)
    • The Music Never Stopped (Weir / Barlow)
    • Me And My Uncle (Phillips)
    • Big River (Cash)
    • It Must Have Been The Roses (Hunter)
    • C.C. Rider (Traditional arr. Grateful Dead)
    • Ramble On Rose (Garcia / Hunter)
    • Beat It On Down The Line (Fuller)
    • On The Road Again (Traditional arr. Grateful Dead)
    • Althea (Garcia / Hunter)
    • Let It Grow (Weir / Barlow)
    • U.S. Blues (Garcia / Hunter)

    Disc 2
    • China Cat Sunflower (Garcia / Hunter)
    • I Know You Rider (Traditional arr. Grateful Dead)
    • Man Smart / Woman Smarter (Span)
    • Ship Of Fools (Garcia / Hunter)
    • Playing In The Band (Weir / Hart / Hunter)
    • Drums (Hart / Kreutzmann)
    • Space (Garcia / Lesh / Weir)
    • The Wheel (Garcia / Kreutzmann / Hunter)
    • Playing In The Band (Weir / Hart / Hunter)
    • Morning Dew (Dobson / Rose)
    • One More Saturday Night (Weir)

    Credits
    • Recording engineer - Dan Healy
    • CD mastering - Jeffrey Norman
    • Tape archivist - David Lemieux
    • Archival research - Eileen Law / Grateful Dead Archives
    • Photography - Robert Minkin, Bill Turley
    • Cover art, package design - Robert Minkin
    • Recorded live on August 7, 1982 show at Alpine Valley, East Troy, WI

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Dick's Picks, Volume Six
    Grateful Dead

    Initial release : October 1996
    Grateful Dead Records GDCD-4026

    Three CD version of the complete October 14, 1983 show at Hartford.

    Tracks
    Disc 1
    • Alabama Getaway (Jerry Garcia / Robert Hunter)
    • Greatest Story Ever Told (Bob Weir / Mickey Hart / Robert Hunter)
    • They Love Each Other (Jerry Garcia / Robert Hunter)
    • Mama Tried (Merle Haggard)
    • Big River (Johnny Cash)
    • Althea (Jerry Garcia / Robert Hunter)
    • C.C. Rider (Traditional arr. Grateful Dead)
    • Tennessee Jed (Jerry Garcia / Robert Hunter)
    • Hell In A Bucket (Bob Weir / John Barlow)
    • Keep Your Day Job (Jerry Garcia / Robert Hunter)

    Disc 2
    • Scarlet Begonias (Jerry Garcia / Robert Hunter)
    • Fire On The Mountain (Mickey Hart / Robert Hunter)
    • Estimated Prophet (Bob Weir / John Barlow)
    • Eyes Of The World (Jerry Garcia / Robert Hunter)

    Disc 3
    • Drums (Mickey Hart / Bill Kreutzmann)
    • Spinach Jam (Grateful Dead)
    • The Other One (Bob Weir / Bill Kreutzmann)
    • Stella Blue (Jerry Garcia / Robert Hunter)
    • Sugar Magnolia (Bob Weir / Robert Hunter)
    • U.S. Blues (Jerry Garcia / Robert Hunter)

    Credits
    • Recorded by - Dan Healy
    • Tape Archivist - Dick Latvala
    • CD mastering - Jeffrey Norman
    • Photography - Michael Conway
    • Design - Gecko Graphics
    • Recorded Live: October 14, 1983 at the Hartford Civic Center, Hartford, CT
    --------------------------------------------------------------------
    See also; Shakedown Street - San Francisco Civic Auditorium, 12/31/84-So Many Roads boxset
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Twilight Zone (Volume 1) - Original Soundtrack from the TV series
    Grateful Dead and Merl Saunders

    Initial release : September 1998
    Silva Screen Records FILMCD 203

    Tracks
    • The Twilight Zone '85 Main Title (Grateful Dead) (1)
    • Suite From 'Nightcrawlers' (Merl Saunders / Philip DeGuerre / Grateful Dead )
    • I Of Newton (Grateful Dead) (1)
    • Children's Zoo (Grateful Dead)
    • Can She Type? (Grateful Dead)
    • Suite From 'The Shadow Man' (Grateful Dead) (2)
    • Suite From 'The Misfortune Cookie' (Merl Saunders)
    • Kentucky Rye - Part I (Grateful Dead / Merl Saunders)
    • Kentucky Rye - Part II (Grateful Dead / Merl Saunders)
    • Kentucky Rye - Part III (Grateful Dead / Merl Saunders)
    • The Twilight Zone '85 End Credits (Grateful Dead) (1)

    1. incorporating the original Twilight Zone Theme composed by Marius Constant
    2. incorporating 'Hold On To That Feeling' composed by Evy McPherson, Merl Saunders and Marina Zachau
    3.
    Musicians
    Detailed musician information is not provided with the CD release of the music. The musicians primarily involved are;
    • Merl Saunders
    • Jerry Garcia
    • Mickey Hart
    • Bill Kreutzmann
    • Phil Lesh
    • Brent Mydland
    • Merl Saunders
    • Bob Weir

    Guest on Suite From 'Nightcrawlers' ;
    • Huey Lewis - harmonica

    Clearly other musicians are involved on some tracks.

    Credits
    • Music composed, produced and performed by - The Grateful Dead and Merl Saunders
    • Music supervision - Robert Drasnin
    • Album producer - Ford A Thaxton
    • Project supervision - Yusuf Gandhi
    • Digital editing and mastering - James Nelson at Digital Outland and Bob Fisher at Digital Domain
    • Album notes - Chris Landry
    • Artwork, design - Madhukar Dhas
    • Thanks to - Marty Garcia, Leslie Berra, Cindy Badell-Slaughter, Stephen Davison and the UCLA Music Library, Tim Edwards, Robert Drasnin and the staff at CBS Entertainments and CBS Broadcast International

    The album carries the following dedication;
    This album is dedicated to the memory of Rod Serling and Jerry Garcia, two men who have gone beyond The Twilight Zone far too soon.


    Notes
    The original Twilight Zone was produced between 1959 and 1964.
    CBS produced a new series of the Twilight Zone in 1985 with a new title theme composed by the Grateful Dead and episodic music scored by the Grateful Dead, individual members of the Dead and Merl Saunders.
    The CD notes suggest that further volumes will be released, presumably if this volume is financially successful.
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Dick's Picks, Volume Twenty One
    Grateful Dead

    Initial release : March 2001
    Grateful Dead Records 4041

    Triple CD release of the November 1, 1985 show at the Richmond Coliseum, Richmond, VA. An extra 35 minutes is included on disc 3 from the September 2, 1980 show at the Community War Memorial, Rochester, NY
    Buy from amazon.com


    Tracks

    Disc 1
    • Dancing In The Streets (Stevenson, Gaye, I. Hunter)
    • Cold Rain and Snow (Grateful Dead)
    • Little Red Rooster (Dixon)
    • Stagger Lee (Garcia/Hunter)
    • Me And My Uncle (Phillips)
    • Big River (Cash)
    • Brown-Eyed Woman (Garcia/Hunter)
    • Jack Straw (Weir/Hunter)
    • Don't Ease Me In (Traditional arr. Grateful Dead)

    Disc 2
    • Samson and Delilah (Traditional arr. Bob Weir)
    • High Time (Garcia/Hunter)
    • He's Gone (Garcia/Hunter)
    • Spoonful (Dixon)
    • Comes A Time (Garcia/Hunter)
    • Lost Sailor (Weir/Barlow)
    • Drums (Hart/Kreutzmann)

    Disc 3
    • Space (Garcia/Lesh/Weir)
    • Saint Of Circumstance (Weir/Barlow)
    • Gimme Some Lovin' (Davis/M&S Winwood)
    • She Belongs To Me (Dylan)
    • Gloria (Morrison/Smith)
    • Keep Your Day Job (Garcia/Hunter)

    • Community War Memorial - Rochester, NY 9/2/80
    • Space (Garcia/Lesh/Weir)
    • Iko Iko (Crawford/B&R Hawkins/Johnson)
    • Morning Dew (Dobson/Rose)
    • Sugar Magnolia (Weir/Hunter)

    Credits
    • Live recording - Dan Healy
    • CD mastering - Jeffrey Norman
    • Tape archivists - Dick Latvala, David Lemieux
    • Archival research - Eileen Law/Grateful Dead Archives
    • Photography - Robert Minkin
    • Cover art, design - Tina Carpenter
    • Cover photos - David DeNoma
    • All of discs 1 and 2 and the first 6 songs on disc 3 were recorded on November 1, 1985 at the Richmond Coliseum, Richmond, VA
    • The last 4 tracks on disc 3 were recorded on September 2, 1980 at the Community War Memorial, Rochester, NY
    Notes
    The section from the Rochester show is the only part of the soundboard recording of the show that is in the Grateful Dead vault.
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    See also; Cassidy - Meadowlands Arena, East Rutherford, NJ, 11/10/85-So Many Roads boxset
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------
    So Far dvd
    Grateful Dead
    1987

    West Home Video/Arista
    "A seamless blend of music and animation" that includes footage from live shows and 1985 Marin County rehearsals

    The music includes;
    • Uncle John's Band
    • Playing in the Band
    • Lady with a Fan
    • Space
    • Rhythm Devils
    • Throwing Stones
    • Not Fade Away

    Each song is presented with imagery produced using computer animation and other state-of-the-art techniques.

    Garcia described the process as;
    What we were after was the idea of electronic mind altering and consciousness altering. And on that level, I think it's pretty successful.
    The band at the time were;
    • Jerry Garcia
    • Bob Weir
    • Phil Lesh
    • Mickey Hart
    • Bill Kreutzmann
    • Brent Mydland

    Credits for the film;
    • Producer - Len Del'Amico
    • Directors - Jerry Garcia, Len Del'Amico
    • Soundtrack Producer - John Cutler
    • Mixing - Jerry Garcia
    • Lighting Design and Direction - Candace Brightman
    • Editing - Veronica Losa
    • Associate Producers - Ann Leslie Uzdavinis, Sue Stephens

    "Just another Grateful Dead attempt to describe the indescribable" . . . Jerry Garcia
     

    Attached Files:

  25. R. Totale

    R. Totale The Voice of Reason

    The only two realeased studio tracks from Joan with Dead backing that i know of are on her compilation called "Rare, Live and Classic". They don't feature all of the Dead, but they are two of the best songs on the set.

    "Jackaroe"

    Joan Baez - guitar, vocals
    Jerry Garcia - guitar
    Mickey Hart - drums

    "Marriott USA"

    Joan Baez - guitar, vocals
    Mickey Hart - drums, percussion
    Jim McPherson - organ, piano, drums
    Bob Weir - guitar
    Bobby Vega - bass.

    Producer - Mickey Hart
    Recorded at the Barn, Novato, CA in 1980
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page

molar-endocrine