It's all over now, baby blue Frost Amphitheatre October 1982. Fast paced, it has the classic Garcia guitar parts and his singing/phrasing is pretty great. He goes through the motions. Is it sloppy? Yes!
____________________________________ Looks Like Rain • November 10, 1973 Winterland Arena San Francisco, CA “Jerry Garcia picks some of the most beautiful sounds I’ve heard, in this performance.” ~ Freebird ____________________________________
I agree with the exception of Phil’s bands. A typical second set at a Phil show is something like: Viola Lee Blues>Caution>Dark Star>The Eleven>The Other One>Not Fade Away. So, yeah, Phil has great taste in GD music.
It's not about the setlist, though. However I'm not disagreeing. I've never listened to much of that stuff but I'm open to it.
I mean, I get that some gravitas was gained in the ballads, but I can't get on board with anything past 77 for 'best voice', and I'll still take the Winterland '74 Stella Blue over anything in 87-91 (as an example, not the epitome). That January 78 laryngitis bout must have caused permanent damage, because he was never the same after that. I'm not saying 77 is my vote for 'best voice', but it seems to be an inflection point. It sounds like it hurts to sing after that, even in 1990. The first line of Shakedown always makes me wince with referred pain.
Once Phil began leading a band it was clear that he was the fulcrum for genuine strangeness in the GD. And yet, for me, his shows work better in person than on CD. Why not just listen to Jerry?
I think 1977 was the peak of his original voice, and I grew up on and love love love that voice. He had the most confidence with it, it was smoothest, and it really rang out in a way that it often did before 1977, but not as consistently. But once the 1978 laryngitis changes hit, he actually I think incorporated the fragility and hesitancies of his damaged voice in a way that is artistically pleasing and even moving...his singing on this, for instance, moves me at least as much as anything he did in 1977: There were ups and downs after that. But there's nothing that sounds painful to me in his post-coma voice. To me he had come out the other end of the voice damage and ups and downs with an older, more soulful singing sound and style. It of course happened nothing like this, but it's funny to think that just when his voice peaked (in 1977) he decided to tear it down and rebuild it because of his always restless artist soul.... Anyway I love every period of his voice but one of the greatest things about Garcia is the way he could convey fragility and human weakness with an undercurrent of wisdom, courage and perseverance in the way he delivered Hunter's lyrics. These things taken together add up to some kind of "soul." And to me he never had more soul than he did in around 1989. Even then his voice had ups and downs, there are shows where he's hoarse and struggling to stay on key. When praising his singing, I always used to present this as a "but." At some point, though, I realized it's not a "but" at all--the fact that he could deliver songs so effectively, and more than effectively get a whole audience in the palm of his hand, when his voice was shot or when he was having trouble staying on pitch is to me a testament to what a truly great singer he really was. And, when I realized that, I stopped hedging, as I used to say "Jerry isn't a great singer, but he's my favorite anyway." Now I think that this is not the case, and that Jerry in fact was simply a really, really great singer.
I saw many Phil and Friends, The Other Ones, The Dead, Furthur, Ratdog and other post Jerry bands. I had a great time at nearly all of them and was very into the music in real time. I have the vast majority of these shows (75 or so) in my collection. But for listening to recorded music, I agree 100% with "Why not just listen to Jerry?" I've only got 24 hours in my days and my GD listening will have Jerry. Just one man's take.
I just want to add a thought to this. I'm not really responding to you anymore, @track11 , just adding to my own thoughts, so don't take this as some kind of big argument against you or anything, your take on Jerry's singing is as valid as anyone's. I just want to put another couple thoughts down, I'll try not to make it too long. Here's why I now just say that Jerry is a great singer, without sheepish hedges. There's a user here who, although he is named @Terrapin Station , I don't think ever comes to this thread, but I'm @ ing him because I hope I am not misquoting him. He said something that made me think about these things differently; I believe he said that what one considers "technically" good is just as subjective as what one "likes." This made me think the following, and I'm not sure if it's entirely true to TS's thoughts on the matter: when we say "technical" there's an implication of the instrumental, i.e. a technique is a way to achieve some end. So whether you think something is technically accomplished or not depends on what end you think it is aimed at, whether you think it is a worthy end, and whether you think it is successful in achieving that end. Because I think that Garcia perfectly achieves the end I want him to when he sings, I think he is technically very good. I'm saying this in general, not just post-coma...
I'm going to try to work to The Grateful Dead Movie Soundtrack. I should be able listen w/o feeling the need to post here and, as a result, waste precious time. Oops!
I think Jer’s best “ballad voice” is easily post ‘89. My favorite “Stella” is Richfield ‘94...but ‘94 is a great year for Garcia ballads, if nothing else. Love his voice ‘89-‘91...then I go back into the 70s. The ragged, aged Garcia voice is just warm to me.
Jerry had the perfect authentic voice for the songs he sang in the Dead and in all of his solo and collaborations in my opinion. I pretty much can’t think of many who maintained that level of veritas, except maybe Willie Nelson. I have continued to appreciate his voice and performance more and more as the years have added up.
I think they did good. Some great stuff, some annoying bits for sure. They talked about the Dead for at least 90min back and forth on that monster show. Lots of comparrisons etc. I like the Phish story but I don't know much about them really, never listened to a studio record. Only know a few selected jams. I read about them more than I listen to them. That's kinda weird. But they are featured a lot on jambase for example.
Phil's 1999 shows with Trey are very good, as I recall. But I once tried to go through the 2006 tour--some had John Scofield on guitar, some had Trey--and I just couldn't get my head around why he'd hire Joan Osborne to go on tour, and then sing lead on most of the songs himself. It has to be ego.
Using Phish as a way to discuss post-Jerry Dead and the growth of the jam band community seems legit. It just seems a little weird that they've chosen a date from the '98 Island Tour, which they're presenting as a show that might hook you if you've been resistant to Phish, instead of a peak show from '97. It might totally work--4/3/98 is a very good show--but 11/17, 11/21-23, and 12/6/97 are right there, you know? Whatever. I still have trouble with Phish pre-1996, but they get interesting for me with the Halloween '96 show where they covered Remain in Light. And then in '97 they developed a funky sound that is surprisingly good, and I think the atmosphere of their jams gets deeper, darker, more substantial, too. Their arc from Halloween '96 through 2000 (check out 6/14/00 Fukuoka, and that June 2000 Japanese tour) is worthy of investigation--on the level of Grateful Dead jamming, but just lacking a lyricist on the level of Robert Hunter.
