I like that lead guitar line in Row Jimmy. Faint echoes of delta blues. That could grow on you and make you really look forward to playing the number! Just putting 7/29/66 on from Archive.
Row Jimmy is one of my brother's favorite GoGD tunes. He has a standing order for me to point him to any version that is particularly nice.
Alternative History: 1974 Peak GOGD. Everything fails to click with decided regularity. And as the communal helix unwinds with increasing laxity, a storm of conflicting influences, tensions, and keyb ascendency brews with corollaries to be found only in the great jazz sextets from decades past. It was all downhill after Nixon resigned. But then, Olsen....
I think most view this as something of a reggae-tinged groove, but I suppose that's not too far from some Delta blues. And for the record, it's nice to have some input here from the female perspective. When I went to shows in '82-'85, I'd say it was ~65%-35% males-females, so your gender is vastly under-represented in this thread. You and @Kate_C. seem to be the few women providing input. So, good on yers, as someone must say somewhere. I sorta lump Row Jimmy and Here Comes Sunshine into the same wicker basket, but they really made something of Here Comes Sunshine (see, in particular, 6/22/73 in the PNW box), whereas Row Jimmy was something of a simple tune played with very little collective improv and just sort of sat there not going anywhere for me. A good tune, but nothing to really take notice of. I really didn't care for Here Comes Sunshine until I purchased DP 1 in about 2015. That's a great version, but the version from 6/22/73 is stunningly great, with Bobby rocking his Eventide Clockworks Phaser. Bliss.
something about rancid parsnips... What's worse is I meant 5-29-80. (or should I say worser?) phisherman?!? what a barbaric coinage.. Anyway the Eyes of the World from 5-29-80 made me hanker for one of the '74 versions, so I put on 6-18-74, objectively a much better performance than the likes of e.g. 8-6-74.
Listening to Row Jimmy from 9/7/73 having not liked one from a PNE Vancouver show the same year. This one is really sweet and I somehow imagine the guitar echoing off in hills somewhere in the south behind the singers... but the studio track is more watery/river/flood evoking. Back to '66 again after that detour however, jeez they are playing great, especially dig Pig Pen harmonica on Next Time You See Me!
The song does have a reggae-ish groove, an influence I think the Dead managed to assimilate better than most bands. But the lead guitar line specifically, which Jerry plays with a slide, does not sound reggae to me at all, it seems way more inflected with Delta blues, as was suggested.
Doesn't sound like the same type of thing to me. Not that Row Jimmy is delta blues, but I hear the comparison
One of my fave Bob Marley & Wailers recordings is the live stuff at the KSAN San Francisco station in 1973 (well the Record Plant studio). Never know who was listening. I do know that a lot of early Johnny Nash including some written by Marley got a lot of air play around this part of the west coast in the late '60s and early '70s until the real deal (with Peter and Bunny) could make it up here. I could hope Pig Pen would've heard some of what these Jamaican guys were doing on organ*. * Having nothing to do with Row Jimmy, just listening to '66 organ and thinking of Mr. McKernan.
Addendum (I don't want to edit because I don't know if you'll see it again): I see my claim was "doesn't sound reggae at all," in that context you make a fair point, it's not that rigid a thing
That's the one he is claiming is inferior! It's so obviously the greatest one ever that I can't, as the internet kids say, even...
That is a great Eyes. I also love the one from Freedom Hall Louisville, KY, 18/06/74 which was on Road Trips Vol. 2 No. 3: Wall of Sound. Edit—I see this was just discussed.
He bends the strings to make those sounds. Definitely a blues thing to my ears, possibly Bluegrass/banjo thing though as well? I know some players swore by banjo stings for a couple of the strings on their solid-body electrics.
For those who don't particularly like Throwing Stones, how do you feel now about being on our own? Check out Phil during the jam bit rockin' his Smith 6-banger. This is top-shelf GoGD.
Huge Traffic fan here, my dad loved them so they were always kind of in my life. I remember seeing Dead shows in 1990 and hearing John Barleycorn album on the PA being played before the band came on a few times and all the heads were into it. I see some parallels with how Traffic started Psych, than more acoustic song based and then more jam with hints of prog. I played keyboards in a rock cover band that would gig every other weekend during my so called mid life crisis (seemed cheaper than a divorce and a sports car at the time, though my liver disagreed) and our version of Low Spark had a 10 minute middle period jam that we took way out like the Dead would take Dark Star. We would play Mr. Fantasy which were both my featured tunes for the night. So yeah, love Traffic.
My favorite Bob recording also. It has so much life and is so raw. After Peter Tosh left it seemed like Marley lost a bit of edge or that someone to push him a little more.
