11/23/86: I know all the words

photographer unknown; I got these from thejerrysite (RIP)

I am doing some spring e-cleaning and found old listening notes for 11/23/86, the "Log Cabin Boys" show that beget the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band -- it's more just a transcription of whatever conversation I could make out.  Calling it a "show" is a stretch: David Nelson and Sandy Rothman had been playing some music with Garcia as he was in recovery from his coma, and they wound up playing together at the Dead organization's Thanksgiving party (the Sunday before Thanksgiving, actually).  The Dead hadn't played publicly yet, but Garcia had a couple of JGB and Garcia/Kahn gigs under his belt at this point (including a big Halloween show at the Kaiser) and had played a few songs with Weir and Hart at a benefit the night before this (video here).  In 2012, Rothman and Nelson talked about it:

DN: By November, Jerry was getting out and doing stuff again. When it came time for the annual Grateful Dead Thanksgiving party, it was decided to have it at the Log Cabin in San Anselmo, CA. It’s an American Legion hall kind of place, but really nice – designed like a log cabin. And the three of us were the “Log Cabin Boys” for the night.

SR: We were all just sitting around a table with all the other families and people milling around in typical party fashion. Everybody was doing what they were doing and occasionally listening to us. I guess we were providing ambient music in the room, but it wasn’t like a performance – just a lot of fun.

DN: Before the party, Sandy and I were saying to each other, “Jeez – Jerry’s just been to the ends of the universe and back; what’s he going to remember about those old tunes?” So the two of us tried to put our heads together: “Let’s try that song,” and, “I think I remember how that one goes.” By the end of the evening, we realized that Jerry remembered more of the words than we did! But that was the way Jerry always was: listen once; play it.

I pull this recording out maybe once a year and always get sucked into it: if you've never given it a close listen, it's about as fly-on-the-wall as you can possibly get, listening to Garcia sitting in a corner at a party, picking tunes, and shooting the shit.  The performances are all fine, but assessing them is missing the point: they're not really even performances, anyway.  It's amazing that someone even taped it (big thanks to Steve Marcus), but unlike the Garcia/Grisman/Tony Rice "Pizza Tapes" session, there's no audible sense of occasion here, and if Nelson or Rothman had any bigger ideas about the event, they keep it cool.  One big question I do have is about the note in the text file that Dan Healy adds guitar and vocals but "does not play on the last 4 or 5 songs" -- I wonder if it's the other way around (that he shows up for the last 4-5 songs).  He's right there in one of the pictures with a guitar in hand, but I don't hear a trace of him playing at all, and only a snatch of his voice (in conversation, not music) near the end.

Otherwise, I have no comments on the music itself, other than to say that this is a delightful and priceless document of a pivotal moment in Garcia's latter day history.  There are some key pull quotes here, too, if that's your thing (I've put the really good stuff in bold).  Anyway:

d1t01.  The first thing you can hear is Jerry warming up and crowing:
JG: Fuck! So rusty, man!  My fingers, they don't know each other any more.
DN: Let's try a few and then we get in tune as we go.  That's the best way to get in tune, right?
JG: Good idea.  Let's start with something simple, Dave, and then we'll move onto something a little more difficult.
DN: OK, how about Freight Train Boogie?
And off they go.  Nelson sings lead.

They tune and chat for about 5 1/2 min - joking around about tuning up
@5:18-5:25: a really little kid is calling "Garcia!"
DN is taking a while to get in tune, prompting some wisecracks.
JG: Nelson, you're all fucked up!  
DN: Not yet, not yet.  Wait a sec, then I'll be all fucked up.
More joking around about tuning.  DN tells a story about one of Bill Monroe's bass players who would never tune.  Nelson tells a lot of stories over the course of this musical hang.

DN plays Rosalie McFall melody @9:27
JG: Ahh, great song, man. 
SR(?): Me too, that's one of my all time favorites. 
DN: Anybody know the words? 
JG: Sure I know all the words.
SR: You still know 'em? 
JG: I know all the words.  Play that sucker.

d1t02. Rosalie McFall
SR: [asks Jerry something inaudible]
Jerry: No, uh, that's "Little Glass of Wine."  That's also E or D.

d1t03. Little Glass of Wine - they just dive right in!  sweet.
JG: I love that song, I love that friggin' song. 
DN: yeah. 
JG: It's one of the world's greatest tunes. 
DN: It really is, one of the world's greatest tunes.
[they talk about some additional verses, tune some more, inaudible chatter.]
JG: --sing some more tunes if I can remember the words.  I love to sing bluegrass music.  Seems like the only chance to do it (?).  Oh, do "Drifting Too Far from the Shore"?

d1t04. Drifting Too Far From the Shore
They start, then stop to futz with the harmony arrangement, then do it for real.
JG: It's too bad one of us isn't a real tenor.
Someone hollers for "Wild Horses."
JG: I don't know if anybody here knows it.  I don't know the verses.  Pete Rowan knows them.  That's a great song, though.

dt05. Devil in Disguise - DN sings lead.
JG: Who's tune is that? 
DN: Graham Parsons.  I always liked that tune, one of the Burritos' first tunes from when the Burrito Bros first came out.
[inaudible talk about Parsons]
JG: --that motherfucker, boy, hearts would stop in the audience. It was beautiful.
[more talk about Parsons].

d1t06. Two Little Boys
JG: Yeah, that's a great little song. 
DN: Yeah.  Civil War song.
JG: [sings] "Can't you see, Jack, I'm all a-tremble."  That's a great verse.
party-goer: Ah, you guys, give it up! 
JG: Hey, dice(?) buddy! Who asked you?
DN calls Cold Jordan.  They pick a key and work out the harmonies. 

d1t07. Cold Jordan
JG: I love that, that's my favorite.  We need a quartet, not a trio.  We need a bass singer.  That's for Willie Legate.  [inaudible, laughing]
The same party-goer who heckled them before (is that Willie Legate?) comes and talks about the lyrics with them > long semi-audible conversation about Catholicism, Latin mass, other stuff.  Jerry mentions reading in the National Enquirer that Canadians are the dullest white people in the world?  I have no idea.

d1t08. On and On
JG: Boy, it's fun to sing bluegrass.   
DN: Bill Monroe.  Nothing like a good ol' Monroe song.
@3:32 JG: I'm gonna get me a drink, you guys want something to drink?  Just something wet? 

Jerry tells someone they're taking a break and will play more.  In the text file for the circulating fileset, this is noted as a "setbreak," but it's no longer than a lot of the other breaks between songs. 
Jerry comes back. 
JG: What do you wanna bet we could burn out everybody in this place?  No, they're gonna throw us out! 
Chatting about their beers seems to inspire the next tune.  They pick a key.

d1t09. Drink Up and Go Home
JG: I just love that song.  One of my favorite bar songs. 
[they joke around about the "blind man" line].
SR suggests Mystery Train.  They talk about it - inaudible, but they're talking about some particular version.  tuning.

d1t10.
JG: It's like Six White Horses.  -> they ease into Mystery Train
JG sings the verses, DN sings a verse from Six White Horses, JG ends with Mystery Train
JG: That's got a lot of good verses, but I don't remember 'em.
DN: Funny thing about that one is that the bluegrass verses are the same, they're pretty much the same. 
JG: It's all part of that same one song.  That blues song.
DG: Who was it, Clyde Moody? 
SR: I get the verses mixed up with Folsom Prison Blues.
JG: It's the same trip. [...]
DG: Elvis got it from-
JG: He got it from Big Boy Crudup. 
DG: Yeah, and the same words, the very same words come from the bluegrass guy who sang with Bill Monroe, Clyde Moody.  And it's the same thing: the train I ride, sixteen coaches long... 
-> semi-inaudible story that DN tells about a dream he had about Bill Monroe.  JG talks about seeing Bill Monroe on television.
More chatter and tuning for Life's Railway to Heaven: JG is talking about someone and how much he likes his singing and new album(?), they crack some jokes about Marlon Brando, then Jerry talks about what a good singer Robert Duvall is.
DN: I don't really know all the words to Life's Railway to Heaven.
JG: We'll blunder it.

d1t11. Life's Railway to Heaven
JG: I don't know the melody of that, really.
DN tells the story of how he learned Diamond Joe - hard to make out

d1t12. Diamond Joe
JG: Great song.
DN: Yeah, great song.  I love that song.
SR: It just comes out.
Jerry mentions that the New Lost City Ramblers played it.
DN: Let's do, uh--
JG: Remember that, oh jeez, I don't remember that at all.
SR: What were you going to say?
JG: I was thinking of, um, oops.

d1t13. banter
SR suggests a "A Little at a Time" and sings a bit of it.
JG: I remember that, it's cool ... Remember that Buzz Busby tune "Gone, Gone, Gone?" [sings] ...it's just an amazing tune.
SR: Not "Lost"?
JG: Yeah, "Lost."
SR: Oof, that's like as far into it as you can get. 
JG: [sings] "Lost in a world without you."  It's a great fucking song.  Great record, amazing record.  The solo on that is so soulful, it's so great.  Really, one-of-a-kinder. They don't get no better than that. 
SR: Or deeper.  
JG: Yeah, or deeper.
[more talk about Buzz Busby and then someone else]
JG: They're so many great songs, I wish I knew some of 'em. 
They chat about "A Voice From On High."  Jerry's trying to remember another song.
JG: We used to do it, too, as a quartet, you, me, and Weir, and Marmaduke. 
DN: Yeah, Voice From on High and, uh, let's see.
JG: The other ones we did, besides Jordan. 
DN: Yeah, it wasn't "Find Me Lifted Up."
JG: "Find Me Lifted Up" is a nice one, but it's that other one -- Swing Low Sweet Chariot.

d2t01.  Swing Low Sweet Chariot
They talk about other verses and keys. 
David tunes more.  Then not much chatter here.
DN: How about that one, that Willie(?) song.

d2t02.  Drifting with the Tide - DN sings lead. 
JG: That's a really good song.
DN: I love that song.
SR: This one?  You can do it. 
JG: Real high but we can do it. 
SR: Low and loathsome. 
JG: (laughs) Low and loathsome.  That's a great name for a band.  (they all crack up). 
DN: The low loathsome sound.
JG: Well shit, we oughta get together and play some bluegrass sometime. 
DN: I'd love to do that.
SR: Me too. 
DN: I'd find some other guys to--
JG: --sure, that'd be fun.
DN: Yes. I've finally gotten down to learning the words and everything to a bunch of songs.
JG: [sarcastic] I can do that too, Nelson (laughs). 
DN: I used to avoid it like the plague, y'know. 
JG: It's really easy to learn words, shit, I've been learning like pages and reams of words for years, I'm not real good at it.  Bluegrass tunes only have 3 or 4 verses. 
DN: Yeah.  I'm starting to think of pneumonic devices.
JG: I mean, I've just started to understand singing too.  It's like one of those things, if it gets to you late, y'know what I mean.  Singing's one of those things that'll really flash on you [inaudible]
[lots more chatter about learning songs and singing - hard to make out and transcribe]
It's one of those things, you flash on it and all of a sudden it's like Oh Man ... hearing your voice in that context where it sounds good, the room sounds good, the accompaniment sounds good ... it's really a special thing, I mean, the power of the voice... 
[Healy?]  The rooms where voices work make it really easy to do that.
[Nelson starts talking about playing here before?]
JG: We've got to get together and work some bluegrass out ... I would love it.  I love the music, and I hate being rusty.  And it don't take too long, y'know, just one of those things that a couple of times a week [?] and you just have it.  We'd get it, we have enough experience and shit.  ... The whole thing is working up a book, that's the cool thing about bluegrass is-
DN: There's always some version way back there in your head. 
JG: It's amazing, when you get back there, it's like [inaudible] like Little Glass of Wine,  hey it's been like 12 years since I've even thought of that song ... and a lot of them are like that, like imprints.
[inaudible].

Healy (I thinnk?) starts telling a story about a room he plays in, but then it sounds like a woman physically bumps into Jerry and offers him something.
JG: Aw no, you're gonna make me smoke it?
woman: You don't have to.
JG: Yeah, I'd just as soon save it, okay?  You can set my nose on fire.
woman: No, I--
JG: Thanks, actually not.  All right, this is enough.  (laughs)
//tape cuts here.


Hmm.  At the risk of editorializing, this seems like there's a lot you can read into this little exchange.  The burden of being Jerry and all that.



d2t03.  Angel Band - Rothman lead vocals
JG: Yes boys.  That's a great song.
SR: (singing) "oh the cry from the cross"  [sounds of approval]  Nobody knows that.
JG: I know, that's another great song [sings some of it]
SR: Do you know any words to that?
JG: I think I might.
SR: Really? I can follow, I don't know 'em.

d2t04.  The Cry from the Cross
They give the words a shot, then pick a key. Jerry sings lead, they stop and change keys and try again.
JG: That's a great song!  What's that other song, that Stanley Brothers gospel song... 
DN: Yeah, same record, [inaudible]
SR: That's a great song, too.  
DN: It's got Orange Blossom Special on it, and it's got Voice From On High.  [the record he's talking about, fwiw, is Country Pickin' and Singin' from 1958]
JG: Voice From On High.

d2t05.  A Voice From On High
Nelson sings lead
JG: That's a great freakin' song!  Those inversions are a bitch.  Oh shit!  How did they do it all those years?  [sings some of it again].
SR starts playing a mandolin run,
DN: Yeah, play that one.

d2t06.  Shady Grove/In Despair
This is the fast bluegrass version, not the same as Garcia/Grisman's.
Nelson & Garcia swap verses, then forget the words.  SR sings "In Despair" lyrics instead. 
and they segue right into

d2t07.  Love Please Come Home
JG sings first verse, SR sings second, it's too high for DN.
applause after this (for this first time). 
DN: Why thank you everybody. [all laugh]
[DN & SR talk about some tune that Jerry can't remember.]

JG: Hey, I gotta take the gang home ... 
girl: Jerry, I was telling them you were gonna teach me how to play right now.
JG: [laughs] Oh sure, you got five minutes? I'll teach you everything I know.

And the tape ends a few seconds after that.  Time to go sleep off those post-turkey blues!