Legion of Mary: never meant to last? (duh?)

The New York Times reported, on April 4, 1975, on the Legion of Mary's arrival in New York:

[Garcia's and Saunders's] current quintet... is fixed enough to be considered a real unit, Mr. Garcia reported the other day from San Francisco.

Mr. Garcia is very pleased by the quality of the current group. “We're more on the relaxed than the hurried side of the metronome,” he said. “We get a real nice conversational quality in our music.”

The East Coast swing lasts only three weeks, but Mr. Garcia said that Legion of Mary would make a longer tour later on, and that there are “tentative plans” for a record.
 

Almost a year later to the day (April 1, 1976), Garcia gave an interview to The Music Gig magazine:

Garcia's association with Merle Saunders last year [1975] produced many a sloppy concert and severely tested the endurance of the audience. "Yeah, we burned out on it too," he allows. "That was a very weird band it was never meant to go out and tour" [sic].

(note that this 1976 interview is the same one where Garcia praises the JGB's harmonious consonance, as opposed to the Dead's dissonance and divergent viewpoints)

 

No big revelations here, I guess?  The breakup of the Legion of Mary and the larger Garcia/Saunders partnership is still foggy (see JGMF on the precise-ish dating of their split and other thoughts), and it seems likely that the principals wouldn't necessarily agree on the real reason, even if we had firm statements on the record, which we mostly do not.  I don't see any real mystery: it had run its course, and Garcia wasn't interested in moving further with a band that played this particular hodgepodge of music: contemporary soul and funk, extended jazz instrumentals, and Garcia's own bag of favored Americana.  The comment about it being a band that "was never meant to go out and tour" belies his earlier 1975 plug for more touring and a record, but it is still probably true in the grander scheme of things: ultimately, it was the club band that was meant to work late at night in laid back local haunts, not up on big stages to crowds of hollering fans coast to coast.  It seems impossible to overstate the influence that Saunders had on his playing, and Garcia clearly had a great time working out on some unfamiliar material (that eventually became familiar and then, maybe, overfamiliar) in his downtime away from the dissonance of the Grateful Dead.  But that's not the same as making it a thing, as the kids say -- touring around, making records, all the attendant hassles.  Keeping with that old wife/mistress metaphor (used by Garcia himself, somewhere), I wonder if the Legion of Mary wasn't the mistress that started making more serious moves into the master bedroom after the wife left town for a bit.

Obviously Saunders and Fierro wouldn't have seen it that way, and to be honest, one thing I enjoy about all their music from 1974-75 is that Garcia isn't always the most comfortable sounding guy onstage, and that there are times when Fierro and Saunders just smoke him.  But no mystery why Garcia would at some point want to put that down, particularly when it became the Main Event.

But I do have to snicker at the idea that the JGB ca 1976 didn't indulge in a little bit of "severely testing the endurance of the audience" of its own (exhibit A).

Rockwell, John.  "The Pop Life."  The New York Times, April 4, 1975.  Online. 

Weitzman, Steve.  (unknown title).  The Music Gig, Aug 1976.
(clipping saved in Dick Latvala's scrapbook, Book 1, p. 31.  A later revision of this piece -- without this quote -- is at Dead Sources)

OAITW '76: sure ain't Dead

Grisman, Wakefield, Rowan, 7/4/76, by Les Kippel

 

Nothing hugely significant about this, but worth putting a pin in, at least.  This reemerged at Lossless Legs, an older source (transferred 2006, seeded 2009) of a tape labeled Old & In the Way 7/5/76 at the 6th Annual Green Mountain Country Banjo Festival in Castleton, VT, taped by Jerry Moore.  Moore confirmed that "actually, THIS set was billed as 'Old and in the way.' The festival ran several days, and this was the final set. There were two other sets under the 'Good old boys' name."  It's really three-fifths of OAITW: David Grisman, Peter Rowan, Vassar Clements (all of whom played with Frank Wakefield's Good Old Boys at this fest), plus Bill Keith on banjo and an unidentified bassist (maybe Rick Lindner, who also played with the GOB at the festival).

They run through some OAITW faves, clearly a little rough around the edges -- there's no third singer, for one thing, so some of the harmonies are a little off.  Grisman takes the lead where Garcia used to sing.  In between two such songs (Pig in a Pen and White Dove), there's this little exchange:

Grisman: We'll send this to Jerry, wherever he may be.  
Rowan: We love that boy! We want to bring him home to bluegrass music!  
Grisman: He's out there being Grateful, y'know.  This is one he sang on the album, and we'll try and, uh, get by.  
Rowan: It's called "I'm Grateful But I Sure Ain't Dead."

Haw haw.  The album had been out for a year and a half at this point, and hadn't there been some issue over money?  Paging JGMF.  This comment isn't anything more than a data point, but it does take on a little extra edge if there was a fresh bruise on these men's relationship at this point.

Meanwhile, the Good Ol' Grateful Boys were booked to play Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City on July 2, but were postponed after local concerns about violence (a possible 7/4/76 JGB gig in San Francisco appears to be spurious).  There can't be a snowball's chance in hell that Garcia was actually planning on performing at this festival -- a bluegrass reunion on the US bicentennial! -- is there?  But I wonder if this was really advertised as an Old & In the Way reunion (as the final set of the festival) and if people were really expecting Garcia to show.

Later during this set, before Wild Horses, Grisman tells a little story about how the tape used on the live album was just being threaded into the tape deck at the song started, cutting off his mandolin intro.  Sure enough, as you may remember, on the OAITW album, Wild Horses does cut in a second before the first line of the song.  And now you know why.  On the complete Boarding House set, the take from 10/1/73 is complete, whereas the take from 10/8 does cut in after the first couple seconds, which were edited to make a clean start with Rowan's vocal. 

3/30/76: the first Don't Let Go meets Sugar Magnolia

4/1/76 by Jim Anderson

3/30/76 at the Calderone Concert Hall in Hempstead, NY is a show that probably doesn't get much airtime in our age of digital abundance: the aud tape of the early show is rough quality and the late show is even worse.  It's a little surprising that there is only one recording of a NYC-area Garcia show out there, but it's what we've got for now.  If the reward for braving a poor 76 JGB aud tape is something you need to be convinced of, then I direct you to this Don't Let Go, currently the earliest known performance.  Warning up front: there's a big ol' cut of death that truncates this one mid-jam (judging from later versions from this tour, they still had a while to go).  Blarg.

So why bother?  Because this version is the only time I've heard Garcia do this unusual thing: the jam, like all of them, begins with him grinding around the A blues scale, but at around 7 minutes, he shifts gears into A mixolydian.  For you non-modal types, that's a different scale that he used more frequently in more 'major' sounding jams.  There is plenty of stuff online about the modes and approaches that Garcia tended to favor in his improvisations, and I am not the person to go into depth about it.  But what struck me -- and what may strike you, even if you don't play or usually think about this stuff -- is how Garcia's decision changes the color and direction of the jam, giving it a flavor that sounds a lot like Sugar Magnolia, of all things.  Keith Godchaux picks up on it and, though I wouldn't quite label it a "Sugar Magnolia jam," it does sound like they are both thinking along those same lines.

Later Don't Let Go's made that modal shift a standard thing: versions from the 80's-90's start in the blues scale (or pentatonic, I guess) and then usually shift gears into a "jazzier" jam with Garcia centering on a different mode (paging any more experienced musicians here).  But he never did it like he does here, as far as I know.  All other 1976-78 versions that I know of either stick to that blues feel straight through, or jump ship at some point for freer spacey playing.  Which makes this debut version unique in my book.

The rest of the show is cool, too, if you're inclined to listen through the aud tape realities.  After Midnight has a hot jam, Who Was John is a good time as always, and there is some beautiful Keith/Jerry counterpoint (a 76 hallmark) happening in Sitting in Limbo.  If you're eying the text file suspiciously, fear not: Knockin' is not really 24 minutes, just a glitched file with some cuts and repeated sections (although the climax is excellent).  Plus, this is probably the best they ever pulled off the Stones' Moonlight Mile, with Tutt and Kahn thundering away before a nice vocal climax.  All in all: worth it for all you 76 JGB lovers.  All 11 of you.

10/1/76: some slipknot

courtesy gdsets

I took in the bulk of the 2nd set jam while cooking dinner, and then again just now.  The sbd is just dandy, but this great aud tape is the way to go:
https://archive.org/details/gd1976-10-01.aud.unknown.118468.flac16

(it's even better than the Jerry Moore sourced tapes, imho, although either this tape must be from the same source, or the taper must have been set up right near him?)

ramblings: 

• Slipknot!  Oh Slipknot!  This is masterful.  After about 9 minutes, it seems like everyone else is ready to wrap things up and move on -- but Jerry waits, defers, then slowly spreads his tendrils off in another new direction.  This is a beautiful moment of Grateful Dead communication.  The nudge from the drummers and Phil's little slide at 11:40 cues the walk-up into the ending very nicely. 
• 11 minutes of Franklin's Tower is just enough.  I'm sorry, but this feels, you got it, just exactly perfect.  Not an all-timer, not blowing the roof off, not just cruising either; just the right amount of bounce and Jerry heats it up just when he needs to.  I am happy.  
• They didn't really have the whole disco Dancin' thing down until 1977, and a lot of the earlier 76 ones feel more clunky than funky to my ears.  This one has found its groove, though it doesn't have the same git down as it did in 77-79.  Jerry uses his wahwah pedal to great effect here, giving the jam a more smeary, psychedelic feel than the cleaner wompwompwomp of his trademark Mutron.  Again, it's short and sweet, but not too short: a hair below 8 minutes total before they break the jam off for Drums.
• After 5 minutes of the Wheel, everyone is clearly rarin' to get back into Dancin', but Jerry ignores it and wanders off the path.  The next 3 minutes are yet another of those low-key, only in '76 kind of jams: everyone is game to just see what happens, and Jerry's in no hurry to get them anywhere in particular.  And what happens is quite lovely -- shades of Crazy Fingers in spots, but really just another one of those funny '76 corners, like finding a room in your house that you didn't know was there.  Jerry lands it right in Ship of Fools, not a tune that I typically get excited about.  But after that trip, it's a welcome arrival.  It ends, and after some uncertain splashing about, Jerry guides them all back into the Dancin' reprise.  Kinda messy in spots, but hey man, they're just making this up as they go along.
• But it's not quite over.  Why not slide a little bonus GDTRFB in there just for good measure?  Why yes, thank you, I will.  All of it is great, but I find myself rewinding to 7:14 when Phil does that great tumble down into the AWBYGN riff and they're all playing everything all at once.  They even finagle a slick little transition into the closing Saturday Night, something they definitely did not have to do.  But they did stuff like that in 1976.

I do like 1976.

PS: This was the first of three times that they played at the Market Square Arena.  Each show was very good, and there is fantastic aud tape of each one.  How 'bout that.

3/3/76: I could wait forever / I've got time

courtesy gdsets.com

This show first popped on my radar a while back when I was thinking about Garcia playing outdoors sans GD, but I only just got around to giving it a close listen.  A couple things:

First: good gravy, this is a really nice aud tape!  The whole terroir thing is happening in a serious way here.  One of the gold standards for this period, in terms of sound quality, is the well known 3/6/76 recording made by Pat Lee & friends at Seattle's Moore Theater, but Don Wolfe and Matt Williams' 3/3 tape may be an even more satisfying listen in terms of atmosphere.  The Lane County Fairgrounds Auditorium is more like a big vaulted shed holding around 800ish, and while the tapers succeeded in capturing the intimacy of the space, this is one of those tapes that still inspires a cognitive dissonance between what you know and what you're hearing: to me, this sounds like I'm experiencing the JGB at a house party or maybe a small bar, in the company of a few friends, all very enthusiastic and very attentive.  One great moment of many is when Donna steps up to sing her gospel feature, "A Strange Man," which was brand new to most of the crowd.  They love it, and she has them in the palm of her hand: maybe one of the better Donna vocal moments from this era of the JGB, made all the more sweet by the particularities of this great tape.

Second: in terms of performance, this is a pretty solid early '76 JGB show.  Granted, that's a period that tends to rub many folks the wrong way because of the slowness of the material.  At times I agree (3/6/76, I'm looking at you), but typically I can get down with this stuff just fine.  All we have of this night is the second set, but it's still a satisfying 90 minutes of music. An early "The Way You Do the Things You Do" has a delightful energy to it, and dig how Keith and Jerry slip in a subtle hint of I-VII for a sec in the jam (the "Fire on the Mountain jam" or Eb-Db in this case).  "Friend of the Devil" is divine; "I'll Take a Melody" and "Mystery Train" are satisfying, but not standouts for the period, and the Rolling Stones' "Moonlight Mile" is done about as well as they did it -- I don't mean to sound back-handed, but it's a tough song to pull off!  Much better, however, is this great version of "I Want to Tell You," which they played only a handful of times in early '76 and then dropped abruptly.  Garcia returned to it for a few post-coma shows in 1986-87, then brought it back with the Dead in 1994-95, but these 1976 versions are the real deal, with solid vocals, energetic delivery, and a few minutes of jamming that finds a nice little space to nestle into (more I-VII/"FOTM" again, somewhat similar to the jam in "Lonesome & A Long Way From Home").  The segue into "Sisters and Brothers" is sweetly done and makes for a nice little combo.  A final rarity closes the show, their take on Ray Charles' "Talkin' 'Bout You," not quite as hot as some of the Legion of Mary versions, but par for this lineup.

Finally, if you read the not-so-fine print on the poster, you may notice that the show was put on by Acidophilus Productions/Springfield Creamery, which may ring a bell for any committed deadhead.  Garcia's connections to and performance history in Oregon probably warrant a small book of their own, and the Creamery folks also produced the "Second Decadenal Field Trip" [and potluck!] on the 10th anniversary of their first one (see Blair Jackson), the 1983 and 1984 Hult Center shows (in Eugene), and maybe more.   Unlike the more storied fairgrounds that are a few miles down the road in Veneta, the Lane County Fairgrounds are, I believe, in the middle of downtown Eugene, so this could hardly have been a psychedelic backwoods tribal stomp.  From a pragmatic standpoint, this show may have been just a midweek add-on to two bigger gigs (a Friday in Portland and a Saturday in Seattle), which wasn't unheard of.  There's an Old & In the Way listing for 5/8/73 at Churchill High School (Eugene) and Garcia/Kahn shows at South Eugene High School in June '82 (JGMF), all of which were adjacent to larger gigs in Portland.  Other Dead/Garcia trips to the northwest seem to have been either bigger "professional" productions or college gigs (besides those Hult Center shows), and I have no idea what other events, if any, were organized under the Creamery's auspices.  But I suspect that there must be some story behind Garcia's playing for the Springfield Creamery on a Wednesday night in downtown Eugene, and I'd love to know what it is.

8/28/82: bring a dish to pass (acidophilus not required).  courtesy deadlists.

And the biggest question, of course, is... was this guy was in attendance?

July 1976: Orpheum Theatre

edit: I just noticed now (6/9) that there was a post about this run and the Orpheum at lostlivedead a month ago, so I've amended some of the info below.

This is a repost of my reviews that were posted on a now-defunct forum.  There was some more discussion between myself and others involved, but I figured now would be a good time to resurrect these and clean them up somewhat.  

I'm elated over the announcement that an upcoming Dave's Picks is going to be 7/17/76 at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco.  It's one of my favorite shows, but one that I suspected would never actually be picked for a release: what I like about it feels even more personal and introverted than what I like about other favorite shows, and besides, the next night, 7/18, seems like a far, far more popular choice among deadheads, particularly deadheads who don't like 1976.  Which, from what I gather, is a lot of them.

I won't go so far as to say that 1976 is the band's most polarizing year among fans, but it has enough qualities that make it feel like their most sui generis period.  The contrast between it and its neighboring years is striking: the Dead were a very different band in many ways in 1974, and they had yet to attain the polished, muscular grooming of 1977 (well, as groomed as the Dead ever got, anyway).  Many others have covered this, so I'll spare the explanations, but one standard line is that they needed time to readjust to Hart's return to the band.  While true, I've never fully bought that as the primary reason for the uniqueness of the "1976 sound."  Whereas 1974 had an extroverted, pushed-to-the-limit style of improvisation and a quicksilver responsiveness (helped, to be sure, by having one drummer), most of 1976 feels almost chastened and introspective by comparison.  "Exploratory" is an overused adjective in Dead-dom (guilty!), but 1976 feels like the most appropriate place to use it: a lot of their improvisations do really feel like they're actually exploring something: not so much bravely plowing forward to uncharted spaces, but taking some time to root around in the corners of spaces already charted, maybe now with a more reflective frame of mind.  To my ears, this particular feeling or mood dominates more than almost any other year.  It's like you're listening more to 1976 first, and a particular individual song second.

At any rate, they hit the road in June 1976 for a tour that was different in nearly every way possible, then finally took the stage in their hometown for the first time in 9 1/2 months, a week after the country's bicentennial (apparently a free concert in Golden Gate Park was rumored).  I'm sure the connected local heads had a sense of what to expect, but I really wonder the average fan thought of all this.  I shall, however, limit my speculation and focus on the music itself.  This run of shows, in short, deserves a full-scale box set release, and the happy news that 7/17/76 (and most of 7/16) is coming our way in high quality is only slightly shaded by the fact that we'll probably never get the rest.  Maybe, at least, some upgrades will come leaking through the usual channels?  I sure hope so.  The currently circulating sbds of 7/12-7/17 don't sound terrible, but they don't sound great, either.  7/18 was broadcast (locally on KSAN and nationally via the King Biscuit Flower Hour) and has always circulated in good quality.  Bob Menke taped every other night and his recordings are very good, but I prefer the thicker, more viscous sound of the sbd recordings.
 
side note: um, the Orpheum?  Any insight from the more knowledgeable heads as to why the band played here?  I know they'd scrapped much of the Wall of Sound and had been touring smaller venues, so was Winterland suddenly too big?  Seems unlikely.  The JGB played a wonderful concert there on 5/21 (released as Don't Let Go) and the Dead apparently rehearsed there a bit for their June tour, so there seems to have been a short flurry of activity, but that was it until Garcia played a string of shows there in 1988-89.

edit: Corry has answered all of these questions and more...

 
the soundcheck
edit: Corry convincingly argues that this video isn't actually from 7/12/76 or anytime from this run, but from the pre-tour rehearsals in May.  But what the heck:
The week begins with an hour-long video tape of the band rehearsing (the audio sounds like it's sourced from the video), apparently on the afternoon of the first show.  As you'd expect, it's more a curiosity than an inspiring listen, but still worth visiting once.  Besides a long stretch of working through the bridge of Stella Blue, there's very little "work" on this tape, just a string of nearly complete performances with few interruptions: a workmanlike Dancin', a brisk, chipper TLEO, two runs through The Music Never Stopped, and then the highlight, a great, flowering Eyes of the World with the standard '76 arrangement of a very long intro jam and and (presumably) very little at the end: the tape cuts after the last verse, unfortunately.


night one: 7/12/76
https://archive.org/details/gd1976-07-12.sbd.unknown.10362.sbeok.shnf

The opening night in their hometown, and they start off on the right foot, full of energy and in a tight groove.  A great Music Never Stopped opener (an appropriate choice for their first official home gig in a year and a half!), then BEWomen and Cassidy make a great opening trio, although it doesn't sound like they're ready to push the boundaries much.  Garcia's playing in each is mercurial, creative, and energetic, but also very concise: these are all little gems, but may disappoint anyone looking for the boys to just cut loose and wail.  Listen closely, though, and you'll hear kinds of great left-field little fills and solos cut from fresh cloth. I especially love that little moment of zen in the first TMNS jam.  Bob breaks out Minglewood for the first time since 1971 in a cool, funky arrangement that was dropped by the fall; but listen to Phil going to town on this!  Typical for '76, there's a questionable setlist call of three slow numbers in a row (Candyman/LLRain/Row Jimmy), but take some time to revel in how nice the vocals sound.  Donna really shines in a small room with good acoustics and decent monitors, and the interplay between her and Bob is noticeably more present than in 72-74: there's this great moment in LLRain when he sings, "you were listening to a fight," then emphasizes, "that's right" and she sweetly replies, "yeah."  It's a little detail, but one that makes a real difference.  (serendipity! I just noticed this excellent and long, long overdue post on Donna at lostlivedead.  Hear hear!)

Sugaree is a laid back kick-off for the 2nd set, but you can feel them digging into the groove and seeing what happens when they take the scenic route through the song.  After Bob's nightly Samson, they settle down into a very good Help>Slip>Franklin's, fairly tight (minus that intro) and full of the exploratory playing with dynamics mentioned above -- I can't help but think that a lot of fans seeing this in person would have been confused or underwhelmed (especially if their last experience seeing the Dead was in 1974!), but on tape the subtleties really glisten.  Franklin's pops along with its trademark mellow bounce and some fine Garcia soloing.  Dancing in the Streets is only decent -- even after a month on the road, they don't seem to have figured out how to reliably make this soar yet -- but the following Wharf Rat is excellent, with great vocals and a lovely outro jam that hints at the golden summer glory to come later in the week.  A brief Drums>Wheel>Around and US Blues wrap it all up.

A fine but not outstanding show, and a nice relaxed start to the week.  There's definitely less of a jubilant "welcome home" feel and more of a low key, warming-up/getting-everything-just-exactly-perfect feel to this show, and the real magic was still to come. 

Orpheum rehearsals, Ed Perlstein

night two: 7/13/76
http://www.archive.org/details/gd76-07-13.sbd.vernon.18480.sbeok.shnf

Everyone says they'll take quality over quantity, but the length of shorter sets is such a standard deadhead complaint that I wonder sometimes.  Many folks want a 3+ hour feast rather small portions of gourmet delicacies.  But even though we get barely an hour of music to start with, I remember this night's first set more fondly than almost all of 7/12 as a whole.  This was the breakout for Half Step (last played 10/20/74; it was last song they played that night, actually, before AWBYGN) and much like Sugaree, you can hear them testing how far to extend it and where.  They don't reach the pinnacles that versions from the following years shoot for, but it doesn't seem like they're trying to, either.  Once again, the M.O. is to find the hidden backroads in these tunes and see where they go.  I'm absolutely in love by the time Peggy-O comes around with it's wonderful slow roll and two Garcia solos.  Later versions have a punchier groove to them, but there's an appealing lazy feel to this that fits the back-porch vibe of the song perfectly.  The meat of the set is nearly 30 minutes of Crazy Fingers>Let it Grow, one of the year's unique combinations that works perfectly.  76 was really the only year they took Crazy Fingers as far as they could, and nearly every version is worth hearing.  Might as Well gets its hometown debut before the break.

The second set opens with another TMNS, longer, looser, and more jammed than the previous night.  Roses and High Time glisten as usual, particularly High Time, another treat for the crowd (not heard in San Fran since April 1970).  I like how they keep this sweet and low compared to some of the 77 versions, which to me can sometimes sound a little shrill (I! was! losing! time!) and almost melodramatic.  Then, if the old-timers weren't satisfied, they certainly get what they've been waiting for with the return of St. Stephen to the west coast (last played in SF on 8/19/70!).  This has great energy and the jam jumps right away into a NFA jam with a bouncy, calypso-ish feel to it.  Heads up for some great Fender Rhodes from Keith, who even takes a little solo.  I really liked this jam, which lands in NFA, keeps jamming, tapers down to a quick little Drums back into Stephen.  Sugar Magnolia breaks off for a beautiful Stella Blue, of all things; a little slippery at first, but with a gorgeous solo at the end, then back to SSDD.  Maybe to compensate for the short sets, we get a long Dancin' encore, sounding already much better than the night before.  Garcia even gets on the wahwah for a bit at the end.  Great encore!  Great show!  Folks will naturally complain about the length, but there's really no down spots in this one at all.


night three: 7/14/76
http://www.archive.org/details/gd76-07-14.sbd.vernon.18594.sbeok.shnf

The first set tonight is well done, but most of it doesn't do much to grab my attention.  There's a questionable positioning of a late first set Ship of Fools, but the ending jam more than makes up for all of it, a 35 minutes Playin>Wheel>Playin sandwich.  The first jam stays relatively close the surface before breaking for Drums, then a fine Wheel, whose jam quickly shifts back into a cool Playin' groove.  They drift off into a very long, deep Space that starts pretty sparse, but gets more involved and intense  after a good low-end Phil rattling, then culminates in a very long, wonderfully slow swim back to the Reprise.  It's not as moving a first set as the shorter but much sweeter 7/13, but not at all bad.

The second set, however, is one of the more underrated sets of the year, and given the eye-popping, unique jam segment, I'm surprised more folks haven't happened upon it.  BEWomen was a very rare opener, but I'll take it anyday.  Let it Grow kicks off the jam, one of the better '76 versions, and I believe the only one that dispenses with the drum interlude.  They take the end jam down a nice quiet place, then up into an Eyes of the World that zings along with that perfect elastic snap.  Unfortunately, most of the whole song is missing from the sbd, though Menke's aud makes for a fine patch.  The ending dissolves into maybe two minutes of a quiet, floating jam that's mostly just Garcia completely solo, an early incarnation of the solo theme he played a few times in May '77 that served as a prelude Wharf Rat, and that's what it does here.  Wharf Rat is a soft, gentle version and winds down without much fanfare, but then the band throws a sucker punch with the Other One, another hometown first (and the first one of '76, though on 6/29/76, they got pretty close to it).  Garcia got on slide for the tail end of Wharf Rat and even starts off the Other One with a little bottleneck.  Nice!  Things never get too wild, certainly nothing like 7/17's Other One, but this one simmers along with a quiet intensity that I quite like.  Phil grabs the spotlight for a quick solo at the end, setting up one more unique transition into the Music Never Stopped.  Whoa!  No one thing about this segment really jumps out like a thunderbolt, but taken as a whole, this exemplifies some of the best of the year: everything that makes 76 special put together in a one-time only package.  I say it's must-hear stuff, well worth an hour for the many folks who appear to have missed it.

the night off:I would hope that both the band and the fans all got a good night's rest, but I wonder if any folks took the night off to go see Robert Hunter's short-lived band Roadhog playing at the Shady Grove in the Haight?  There's no digitally circulating tape (edit: Corry says there's a Jerry Moore recording?), but there is a recording of the band from two weeks later if you're curious:
https://archive.org/details/rh1976-07-30.83233.AUD.flac16

Ed Perlstein

night four: 7/16/76
http://www.archive.org/details/gd76-07-16.set1aud-set2sbd.miller.23569.sbeok.shnf

The Dave's Picks release will be augmented by almost all of 7/16, whose first set is the only set of the run that currently circulates only as an aud tape.  Allowing for differences in quality, this first set stills comes across as nearly ideal for the year.  They must have all gotten a good night's sleep on the night off, because this one seems to have an extra energetic kick -- it's hard to say for sure, but they seem to be pushing a little harder and stretching a little further on stuff like Cassidy, TMNS, and an especially nice bonus Scarlet to close the nearly 80 minute set.  Excellent stuff!

Playing in the Band opens the second set, which is the first of many remarkable things about the next 66 minutes.  Framing a larger, nearly set-length jam segment with both ends of Playing in the Band eventually became a standard practice, but at this point it was still quite rare.  The main song itself has a strong start, but to my ears it drifts away into a fairly nondescript Playin' jam for the first few minutes.  It starts to drift into space, but Lesh pulls it back together with a bassline that's reminiscent of Stronger Than Dirt, but also not too far removed from his 72-74 era nameless "jazz theme."  Labeling this "Stronger Than Dirt" seems like a stretch, but the resemblance is there.  Garcia doesn't seem particularly interested at first, but as he brightens up, the jam starts to cohere more fully.  There's some stunning Jerry/Phil/Keith interplay before the end as Phil cues different chord changes.  Pretty hot stuff!  Jerry gets out his slide and leads the way into Cosmic Charlie, another big moment for the older hometown heads.  Honestly, I've never been all that moved by this tune, either in the 60's or in in '76, but they certainly nail this one.  Here, though, Bob makes a questionable call with yet another Samson.  There's a moment's pause, then they rise back momentarily to the Playin' jam.  Bob, however, seems to have made the faux pas of needing to retune in mid-jam.  Rather than disrupt the flow, they opt for a very quiet space jam, Jerry playing flurries of harmonics either to cover Bobby's tuning or maybe to retune a little himself.  I find myself torn: couldn't they have just taken a break and let the drummers do their thing?  does this disrupt the flow of an otherwise interestingly structured jam, or is it a clever, on-the-fly adjustment?  I've loved it in the past, but this last time through I wasn't convinced.  From here, Bob nudges into the Spanish Jam theme, which I believe is its only appearance between 1974 and Brent's entry in 1979.  Again, it spills back into the Playing/Stronger Than Dirt jam and, amazingly, they're able to immediately find their way back to the same space they were in two songs prior.  Even with a Drums break, they're able to keep the deep groove going on through the Wheel and a particularly beguiling Playin Reprise, and Bob ties it off with Around, maybe thinking that the set was done.

This Playing in the Band sequence is remarkable for a number of reasons, but, unfortunately for me, musically it never quite adds up to something truly special.  There are some really breathtaking moments of brilliance that the band almost unearths by accident, but the meat of the jam just doesn't really get me going.  Those moments of brilliance, however, are the first glimmers of the x-factor that lift the next two nights to their respective ecstatic heights.  Also interesting is that, in this case, the entire jam has a notable lack of Garcia lead vocal tunes.  Cosmic Charlie and The Wheel are his songs, of course, but they strike me more as ensemble performances.  For that reason, maybe, the set keeps going.  After some lengthy tuning, Jerry gets to sing his only lead vocal of the set, a lovely High Time that nevertheless feels a little out of place.  They take another beak to fix the drums, during which Phil wishes a mock happy birthday to Bill Graham, before they close with Graham's favorite Dead tune, Sugar Magnolia.  Another so-so US Blues encores for the second time.

I go back and forth on the merits of this jam.  The first set is great and I'll be glad to hear the sbd on the new release.  I'll certainly revisit the second set, too, but it's ranked behind 7/13's 1st set and 7/14's jam in my mind, and certainly isn't at the level of the next two nights.


night five: 7/17/76
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1976-07-17.mtx.chappell.sb25.95734.flac16
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1976-07-17.sbd.fricker-fix.tetzeli.34708.sbefail.flac16

I know I'm reading too much into this one, but Promised Land's travelogue to California is almost a subconscious announcement, "okay, we're home now" to the crowd, signaling a special night to come.  Full disclosure: I have listened to this show more than any other from this run (more than the more famous 7/18), and it's a treasured personal favorite of mine.  The magic starts with Half Step, another a low-key version that stands out for the delicate, lovely interplay between Garcia and Keith during the jam.  Mama Tried, Deal, and Minglewood (again, special note for this short-lived slower, funkier arrangement) all keep it moving in the right direction, then we hit highlight #2, a perfect, slow, soulful Peggy-O.  Big River is a good nudge, but Garcia is already following that fat summer sun and unleashes a wonderful Sugaree.  Part of the smoothness is a result of the drummers easing back and letting Keith and Garcia really drive the groove.  And was this the first time he fans/scrubs the climax as he would do so often in 77 and beyond?  It looks incongruous on paper, but the JBG closer feels like just what's called for.  The opening/closing Chuck Berry combo wasn't unheard of, but it's a nice surprising kick that sets us up for what's to come.

For whatever reason, Donna never makes it back onstage for the second set.  Given my love for her singing in 76, I still can't say I miss her particularly here, since the vocals aren't what stand out about this set.  7/17's jam may not look as outrageous as 7/16's.  It may not twist and turn unexpected corners, but as much as 7/16 seems to exemplify Bob's uniquely twisting turning approach, 7/17 is all Garcia and that sweet, sun-baked, flowing groove.  He starts it off with Comes a Time, a tune we would expect to hear at the end of a set-long jam like this, not at the beginning.  This Comes a Time, though, unrolls before us as the song sweetly fades way, leaving only that beautiful outro.  Why didn't they ever repeat this?  Why did they never again squeeze more than a minute or two out of this jam, and what inspired them to stretch this one as far as they do?  It's not as emotionally charged as other famously beautiful moments like 2/18/71; rather, it just plants itself on that cosmic back-porch of neverending summer evenings and pops open a cold one (in a rocking chair right next to the 6/23/74 Ship jam).  Seeds of future songs start to sprout from this fertile soil: I hear Eyes for a sec, but the Other One wins out.  After a quick minute of drums, they begin in earnest, jamming the Other One with a surprisingly aggressive feel, and jumping fairly early into a longer space.  This, paradoxically, is the darkest they got during the whole run, tucked in the heart of their warmest jam.  Ain't that just the way? 

Space gets noisy, but nothing too crazy, but then they find their way back into a beautiful jam and this amazing slooow transition into Eyes of the World.  This is one of my favorite moments of the whole run, and maybe of the whole year, actually.  Just listen to these few minutes, listen to how subtle everyone's individual transitions are.  Listen to Keith's amazing Rhodes sound, too (how did he get that sound, btw? is it a Leslie speaker?).  Eyes itself crackles and glows in prime style, but this is one of the only versions of the year to feature any substantial jamming after the last verse.  It sounds like Keith returns to a vamp he was playing with during the previous night's Stronger Than Dirt jam, but Phil is definitely still rooted in Eyes, and between the two of them it almost sounds like a half-forgotten variation on the 73-74 Eyes jam.  It peps up towards the end and sounds like it's headed for GDTRFB, but Jerry takes a quick left and pulls the Other One back in for the second verse before turning right back around and zipping into GDTRFB for real.  A bombastic, joyful ending to a most enjoyable sequence, and One More Saturday Night is a preferred Bobby closer for me (and yes, it was a Saturday), so I'm left smiling.  Nothing missing, nothing extraneous.  An absolutely ideal second set.

The usual US Blues encore seems like a pretty paltry offering after all that, but they're not done yet.  They had already played a few standalone Not Fade Away encores that year, so it's not a total surprise, but after the concentrated brilliance of that jam, you'd think they would be ready to call it a night.  And, to be honest, they do sound a little drained as they wind across 14 minutes of this, but it's involved and creative enough to make it a memorable encore for a very memorable show.

This is one of my very favorites, like I said, and one of those Dead sets I'd put above most others.  For a much less gushing review, I direct you to http://www.deadlistening.com/2008/02/1976-july-17-orpheum-theatre-san.html

Ed Perlstein

night six: 7/18/76
http://www.archive.org/details/gd76-07-18.sbd.bertha.14838.sbeok.shnf
https://archive.org/details/gd1976-07-18.pre-fm.kbfh.berger.107832.flac16

By this point, the band was certainly on top of their game.  They don't, maybe surprisingly, sound all that tired or worn out, but it does feel like they're maybe a tad overly conscious of the radio broadcast.  The opening Half Step is a well executed version and probably "better" for many folks than 7/17 in terms of excitement, but to me it seems like they're playing it pretty safe.  The first few songs have that feel, actually.  Scarlet Begonias is the highlight of the set for me, with a long, sweet jam that builds and crests naturally -- a great version, and one of many fine 1976 Scarlets that tend to be overlooked.  The second half of the set kind of slumps for me, personally, with a lackadaisical LLRain-Jed-Loser stretch, though the Music that ends it is probably the best one of the whole run.

A strong Might as Well starts the second, but the Samson and Candyman feel a bit like unnecessary finger food before the main course.  Lazy>Supplication has its usual gooey center that the band work into a hot jam, and Bobby wastes no time in leading the charge into a breakneck Let it Grow.  It's not as hot as 7/14, but still a smoker.  The drums break sounds more juiced up and energized, but the second jam already sounds like they're anticipating the jam to come.  That's usually a good sign, in my book, and this LIG drifts into a smooth, pretty, floating jam for a few minutes that sounds like it could be… I mean it doesn't sound exactly, but… well, I mean they hadn't played it that tour, and the last one was 10/18/74, so it could have been possible, but… is that it? … If/when an aud of this part ever surfaces, I'll bet whatever you want that every meathead in the place was hollering DARK STAR! as loud as he could.  Nope.  It's a pretty spectacular transition to a pretty titanic Wharf Rat.  After a very strong reading, the last three minutes are given over to another Jerry/Keith night flight.  These always are breathtaking little jams in my mind, and Jerry really does us right in this one.  He soars higher and higher, finally climaxing by cascading into the Other One theme, then dropping out for a few seconds for the drummers to properly set it up.  This Other One certainly isn't the ride that the previous night's was, but the energy is right.  Phil sets up Stella, Jerry's not having it, they do the push & pull for a minute, and St. Stephen it is.  Am I being curmudgeonly, or does it feel a little like this Stephen>NFA sandwich was an obligatory one?  It's not as fresh sounding as 7/13's return celebration, but it's still a pretty slinky NFA jam, and the transition back to Stephen almost falls apart for whatever reason.  Garcia throws another curveball with the Wheel with some nice slide on the outro, then Phil abruptly rolls it back into the Other One for a quick return to the second verse for symmetry's sake, then the final kiss goodnight.  This right here is exactly what we want in a Stella Blue, that ideal moment of silent purity, those pinpoint stars that Jerry dots the sky with at the end.  He's most definitely painting the skyline tonight.  Gorgeous, gorgeous.  One of my very favorites, actually.

Everyone gets one final group-hug footstomp through Sugar Mags and one last shoo out the door with JBG.  And so ends a week with the hometown heroes, returned from exile.

Upon reflection, this was a most impressive jam, not least because of it's length (nearly 80 minutes).  Given the setlist, it's almost strange that the most magical parts of it are centered around the Wharf Rat and, while none of it feels like an afterthought, it does feel somewhat tossed together towards the end.  Bonus points for finishing that Other One, though, and for spinning out such a long jam for the radio broadcast.  I'm sure everyone taping at home must have been scratching their heads (and no doubt gnashing their teeth about where to flip!).  Compared with most of the rest of the year, it's a top drawer set.  I'd say that for the run, it definitely takes 7/16's equally eye-popping jam.

7/17, though… man.  7/17…

4/2/76 video

I saw this at jgmf but it certainly warrants a reposting here and everywhere: 45 min of the JGB at John Scher's Capitol Theater in Passaic, NJ.

davidaron on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

A lot of heads aren't fans of the dinosaur's pace of the 76-77 era JGB and, while I can't exactly say I blame them (though I love it myself), I do think that actually seeing the band in action is pretty important. Maybe it's just me, but actually seeing what's going on can be the key to "getting" music that you maybe weren't connecting with before (this is what happened to me with Ornette Coleman and Sun Ra's Arkestra when I was a teenager: didn't get what the big deal was at all, then got to see them both play and something just clicked). Not saying that any 76-era JGB naysayers will necessarily be convinced by this, but who knows? If nothing else, this video certainly turns over the notion that Jerry & co. were simply stoned and slow rolling during this period. Look at how animated Jer looks! Look at his little truffle shuffle dance during Tore Up Over You! Look at how goddamn happy they all look just to be there. Look at the mind-meld going on with Kahn during Don't Let Go (did I mention that this vid has a complete Don't Let Go!?) and how Jerry's eyebrows show more life than his whole body would years later. Too much. So take 40 minutes to revel in this video, even if you're not a fan of this era. You may be surprised.

It's also the only circulating document of this show that we have (there's no audio yet), and the only video we have of this JGB lineup.

 fyi, 76 fans have been spoiled rotten lately. The mighty Voodoonola put these up not too long ago, also from the Capitol Theater:


Drink it up, folks.  Ain't the internet great?