Lonesome & a Long Way From Home, 1978

3/17/78, by James Anderson

 

My last post had the preamble about this song, which I won't repeat.  I will, however, reiterate that these jams are like nothing the JGB played before or after and, in most cases, are comparable to the Dead at their wildest in 1977-79.  More folks need to hear these.

 

2/15/78 Keystone, Berkeley, CA (date uncertain per text file)

There is one decent aud recording of this remarkable jam: at 29:15, it's the longest of all the known versions and also the longest single non-Dead Garcia improvisation, besides a very small handful of Garcia/Saunders jams in 1971-72.  Even though some of the jams in the Dead's Jan 78 tour were unusually long for the time, I think this also outpaces anything else he played that year.

Like in the Dec 77 performances, Kahn is the first to pull away from the I-VII vamp that begins the jam and push more aggressively towards an atonal/arythmic space.  Buchanan follows Kahn's lead, while Godchaux either holds tight to the vamp or sticks close to Garcia.  Other listeners might not hear it this way, but I think these two complementary but still somewhat oppositional approaches make for an unusual tension, often very effective and engaging, and never less than interesting.  I won't map out the landscape of this long jam step by step, but there are many twists and turns.  After 3ish minutes of grooving around the vamp, they drop off into a pretty, more minor-keyed space. A couple moments stand out here: starting around 12 min, Garcia and Kahn play a 5-note theme that's repeated and varied for a while; Godchaux takes a brief trip to the foreground at 15:30, playing an almost classical-sounding thing over the slow, churning groove; things follow their own twisty path until, at about 20 minutes, Buchanan leans in with a more assertive groove. Everyone else stays committed to weirdness, but Buchanan's push gets them them all moving in mostly the same direction and the intensity starts ramping up. This final stretch is tremendous! Garcia starts wrapping up around 25:15 with some cool variations on the "I have never been so lonesome" melody, while Godchaux appears to be the one who really corals everyone back into the song itself.  An amazing ride.


2/17/78 - Keystone, Palo Alto, CA - as per Jerrybase, but no tape in circulation


2/18/78 Marin Veterans Auditorium, San Rafael, CA
Official release on Pure Jerry: Bay Area '78; the circulating tape has a splice in it.

This jam has a more discernible structure to it (spontaneously conceived, I assume), moving back and forth between an established groove and freer playing.  As the jam begins, it feels like they're anticipating something rather than just easing in. Garcia & Godchaux play some lovely stuff right off the bat, and Buchanan plays it loose while Kahn is punchy but a little less forward than prior versions. The bottom falls out for a minute before they find some forward momentum and take off, with Garcia staying closer to the normal tonality of the song. This feels pretty good! Just before 11 minutes, the bottom falls out again. Another groove is established, more minor-keyed and less intense; then again things veer back into free territory again, splashing around like the comedown after a big Dead space jam. At 17 minutes they find another groove, this time vaguely funky but sparse.  This one isn't as compelling to my ears, but it's interesting to hear, since since the JGB never did this kind off thing.  It winds down into near silence, then Garcia strums them back into the song.  Structurally, this was quite different from 2/15 and has the most "quiet" spacey playing of any version yet.  23:30 total.


3/9/78 Cleveland Music Hall, Cleveland, OH
The one sbd source runs a little fast, though not too bad. Currently there are no auds, but I would love to hear one. Like a few other sbds from this March tour, Kahn is pretty hot in the mix.

The band returned for their second east coast tour in less than 6 months, playing with a noticeably higher level of energy and more aggressive attack than the fall 77 shows. The jam here starts as usual with everyone slowly pulling away from the vamp.  After a minute and a half, Buchanan drops the bottom out, then snaps back into a steady beat after half a minute, but it's too late: Garcia's going for it.  The jam follows a freer logic, eventually slowing down into a prettier space.  Around 8:45, Buchanan kicks into a brisk groove, pulling everyone else into orbit.  Everything stays pretty loose but with forward momentum, until Garcia whips up a big (and long!) fanning climax at 13:35.  Wow!  This jam is plenty spacey, but with more of a souped-up feel and a linear path than the prior walks in the woods.  True to form, Garcia even goofs once they're back in the song itself and repeats the whole final verse as Buchanan is cueing them up to end it.  Whoops!  Nice little scorcher here, though.  17:41 total on this tape, but longer with speed correction.


3/11/78 Leroy Concert Theatre, Pawtucket, RI
This show has a few recordings: another bass-heavy sbd, two solid aud tapes (I prefer 14931 taped by Tom Dalti), and a fine matrix that will probably be the winner for most people.

The band sure sounds enthusiastic tonight!  Again, they jump ship from the vamp to a quieter groove very quickly, but this time they wait a few minutes to get fully into free space.  At 5:30, Kahn starts playing a clear bassline, something he hasn't done in any of these jams, and everyone else locks in.  This lasts for a minute until Garcia throws out a big trill and everyone immediately follows his lead and starts building the spacey intensity.  Garcia starts to fan up a big one, then backs off, and they splash around. Buchanan lays down a beat again at 10:20, but Garcia and Kahn seem too far gone. Things start coalescing, but the energy remains pretty hairy. Wild! Garcia tries getting them all back to homebase around 11:50, but it takes a little while to circle the wagons and they finally get there at 12:30.  This one was a comparative shorty at under 15 minutes, but they're not skimping on the energy here!  A very satisfying blast of weirdness.

Both 3/9 and 3/11 are pretty amped up versions -- less patient or "exploratory" and more fiery, although still very spacey (maybe not surprising, given the apparent recreational stimulant of choice for this tour). It seems like Jerry is the one driving the ship here, with Kahn sounding totally zonked (um, in a good way) and Buchanan holding for for dear life. In both jams, Buchanan reestablishes a beat after the spacey midsection, although this doesn't really guide anyone back to the song itself.  Godchaux is present in both, but harder to hear because of the bass-heavy sbd mix.


3/18/78 Warner Theatre, Washington, DC 

Given the wide circulation of the original tape (an FM broadcast) over the years and it's official release in the Pure Jerry series, this may be the most well-known of these jams. Inevitable contrarian that I am, it's also my least favorite.

Again, they drop into space pretty abruptly after starting the vamp, more immediately than in any earlier version.  But the general feeling is more hesitant, as if everyone is waiting to see who will get crazy first. It seems like they're having a harder time settling on what to do with this; Kahn suggests a couple ideas, and Garcia plays that impatient "chording" figure a couple of times (around 7:15 and 7:30) that usually indicates that he's ready to move onto something new. But nothing seems to stick, and no one seems willing to just push the boat out of the harbor. Kahn in particular seems less emboldened than he was in earlier versions, while Garcia doesn't seem particularly interested (or able) to find a direction for this to go in. Finally Buchanan throws down a groove at 12:15, and things fall in line for a couple of minutes. But even as Garcia is clearly heading back to the song, they left-turn into some more free interplay before Garcia finally gets them back to the song for real.  At over 19 minutes, this is much longer than the prior two versions, but I preferred both of those shorter jams.  Still, this is all nearly unprecedented stuff for a JGB jam, and still more exploratory and experimental than most Dead jams from 77-78, so it is well worth hearing.

6/10/78 - Keystone, Berkeley, CA - per Jerrybase, but no tape in circulation


10/26/78 - Paramount Theatre, Portland, OR

A well-mixed sbd (Bettyboard?) fragment exists of the end of the show, which thankfully includes this entire jam.  This is a pleasure to listen to.  A few auds also circulate.

Unlike earlier versions, everyone stays grooving on the vamp for a while.  There's no funny business from Kahn and, unusually, Buchanan is the one who seems to first pull away from the groove. Still, there's no abrupt shifting gears at all, just a very gradual move into more open playing. Before 6 minutes, Garcia finds a vein of weirdness that he works, and everyone else reorients to wherever he's going. A minute later, Garcia has found a little rhythmic groove, Kahn begins a walking bassline, and things start to achieve lift off. Godchaux doesn't want to let go of the 2-chord vamp, but everyone else is in fairly jazzy territory, rhythmically speaking. Garcia is eventually pulled back into Godchaux's tight orbit, but Kahn and Buchanan are throwing down, shifting back and forth between jazz and a more driving rock beat. This is really sweet. They jam this for a while until it falls into freer space around 12 1/2 minutes. No tempo here, and it feels like Garcia is slowly turning up the heat, a la older GD space jams. After 3 minutes of this, they start peaking with Garcia trilling away and everyone else crashing around. At 16 1/2 min, they ease off the intensity and downshift into a quieter, pretty, almost melodic space.  Garcia slickly threads in the "lonesome and a long way from home" melody line and brings them right back into the song itself. Great transition! He slips up and repeats the final verse a second time like 3/9/78, and they wrap up at a hair over 22 minutes.  Holy smokies, that was excellent.



10/28/78 - Paramount Northwest Theatre, Seattle, WA

A well-renowned show (this is the best aud recording) and often praised as one of Keith Godchaux's best 11th hour performances. I think the early show deserves all the praise it's been given. The late show is bit more of a mixed bag, and this final performance of Lonesome by this band doesn't reach the same heights as 10/26. But it ain't bad!

Garcia starts doing his late-78/79 superfast 16th note runs right at the start of the jam, and Kahn starts getting pushy after not too long.  This one jumps around much more at first: there's an abrupt drop in intensity at 4:30, and Garcia seems to stick more to the background as Kahn and Godchaux move more to the fore.  Things veer into space at about 6 minutes, things amp up, things ease back, Garcia seems mainly to zip around without finding much of a direction.  They reach a fanning climax around 10:20, but the overall vibe of this has felt pretty tweaky and bug-eyed to me.  The wave crests, they splash around for a minute, and Garcia strums them back into the song.  This one felt solid enough, but it flew by without getting much traction; the feel is similar to 3/18's jam, but more compact at 13:30 total.

 

And that, unfortunately, was that.  A week later this lineup played its final shows, and no other iteration of the JGB ever delved this deep again.  When Don't Let Go returned to the repertoire in 1988, that band delivered a few versions that broke the mold of its general structure and wandered into spacier areas.  But they never sustained this kind of creative group improvisation at such length, making these few version of Lonesome and a Long Way From Home nearly unique in Garcia's side career.

In the summer of 1981, Garcia brought Lonesome back -- only twice.  On 7/26/81 the jam stays in the vamp: not the C-B (I-VII) vamp of the 70's versions, but the same C-F (I-V) vamp that begins the song, and then eventually shifts into basically just jamming on a C chord.  Garcia solos while everyone else bubbles away beneath him.  On 7/26/81, the more exciting of the two, Garcia never returns to the song itself and transitions out of the jam right into Dear Prudence.  On 8/20/81 the energy feels a bit more sluggish, but he does return to song to reprise the verse, then segues into Dear Prudence on the final note.  Both of these are about 10 minutes long.  Eight years later, on the JGB's Sept 1989 tour, Lonesome reappeared as an even briefer show-closer: a nice (if short-lived) alternative to Midnight Moonlight, but nothing that was sustained for more than a few minutes.

 

Dec 1977: a long way from home

12/11/77?  credit unknown

 

The 1976-78 JGB had two "jamming" tunes, Don't Let Go and Lonesome and a Long Way From Home, that were both introduced on the road in March 1976.  Despite periods of hibernation, Don't Let Go remains the standard JGB "jam tune" for most folks.  Of course I love the song and have plenty to say about it, but I can't pretend that the jams in many Don't Let Go's don't follow a really simple formula: everyone lays down a steady one-chord groove while Garcia solos for a very long time.  Lonesome had a much more limited shelf-life: the first half of 1976, periodically throughout Buchanan's tenure in fall 1977 and 1978 (notably, they stopped playing Don't Let Go midway through this lineup's lifespan), then two out-of-the-blue performances in 1981 and a handful of shorter set-closers in 1989.  But a few versions of Lonesome featured improvisations that took far more chances and went to a greater variety of places than the usual Don't Let Go.  Beginning with the last three shows of the Nov-Dec 1977 east coast tour, Lonesome became a launchpad for some very interesting and very extended improvisations that dwarf nearly every other extended jam Garcia played in 1977-78, yet seem to remain relatively unheralded.

One earlier extended version of Lonesome, and likely the most well-known of all of them, is the 22 minute performance from 4/3/76 (you know, the one that ends in a magical burst of energy and furious fanning like a hundred birds bursting into the air all at once).  As great as that one is (and trust me, it's great), it still follows the same form as many of the shorter ones: the song ends, the band eases into a I-VII vamp (think Fire On the Mountain), and Garcia slowly cooks it up over a tasty but still fairly repetitive groove held down by Keith Godchaux, John Kahn, and Ron Tutt.  The approach didn't change when Buzz Buchanan took over for Tutt in Nov 1977.  They played it throughout the first week of that tour, then set it aside for a few shows.  Who knows what the catalyst was, but something serious happened when they decided to bring it back.


12/9/77  SUNY Stony Brook
(there are a few aud masters; imho Kathy Sublette's is the best)

Less than a minute into the jam, Kahn seems like he's trying to stir things up, throwing around some big notes that cut against the groove.  Garcia & Godchaux both keep on grooving as usual, and Buzz Buchanan seems to be audibly deciding whether to stick with Garcia & Godchaux or to follow Kahn's lead.  Kahn wins out, the groove begins to fall apar,t and no one seems real invested in keeping it together.  by 6:40ish they've all surrendered to whatever is going to happen.  At 7:07 Kahn and Godchaux play a little bit in the "Spanish" tonality that JGMF detects, another signpost towards someplace new.  Garcia still occasionally circles back to playing figures from his usual Lonesome vamp; but by 8 minutes in, freedom has won out.  Everyone is listening and responding to each other, but this is following a logic that is changing moment by moment with no predetermined direction or groove.  I hear Buchanan trying to reestablish a groove around 10:45, but the winds keep blowing this way and that.  By 16 minutes, things appear to have coalesced into a single train of thought and Garcia soon reasserts a clear tonality and is heading back in the direction of the song.  The second half of this jam is basically a long swim back to the song: they sure do take their time and build up a good head of steam on the way.  Around 22 minutes, Garcia starts playing the "and a long way from home" melody, tying everything together.  The final few minutes take it down low and quiet, and they groove in this zone for a while; at 23:40 Garcia brings it back into the song itself, but enters a couple beats too early.  Everyone covers for the fumble and no harm done.  Folks, that was just a hair under 27 minutes: by far the longest extended improv/jam on a single tune that Garcia played all year, either with the JGB or that other band.  You'd think just for that reason alone, this would be more widely heralded as a big one, but so it goes in the hinterlands of the JGB.  Tell your friends!  The aud tapes reveal that some of the Long Islanders in attendance tonight were audibly unimpressed with the band's laid back approach to time, and there are a few shouts during this jam for them to get it together and get on with things, but thankfully no one onstage was fazed.  I find more and more to appreciate about this jam with every new listen.

12/10/77  Warner Theater, Washington, DC
(imho Gerry Moskal's aud tape is the best - no etree entry??)

A telling moment in this pleasant but imho not very interesting show is Kahn's solo feature in Russian Lullaby.  Say what you will about those bass solos, but the crowds usually cheered and hollered encouragement whenever Kahn went for it.  This particular solo, however, is five and a half minutes long, and Kahn bails on the chord changes after a couple go-rounds and wanders into the woods, with Buchanan right behind him.  It gets pretty spacey for Russian Lullaby!  Garcia's not interested and gets things back on track upon his return, although Kahn gets points for trying to nudge the boss off course a couple of times.  So it's not surprising that whatever mojo blessed last night's Lonesome jam is still plentiful tonight.  This one is a shorter trip at 19 minutes, but is a completely different excursion.  Godchaux was hanging with them every step of the way in last night's jam, exhibiting a side of his playing that rarely came out in his final years.  Tonight, though, he is nowhere to be found.  The jam begins with Garcia gently cruising through the usual 2-chord vamp, but when Kahn gets more assertive and suggests another course, Godchaux disappears and stays silent for almost the entire jam.  And to be honest, it doesn't sound like Kahn, Buchanan, or Garcia are missing him at all: the three of them are as locked in as they were the night before, but now with more space to try something that (onstage at least) they had never done before.  Donna Godchaux adds some wordless vocalization in a few spots.  In general, Kahn seems like the real driving force here; he really cranks it up and lets loose a couple volleys of buzzing, distorted notes, and more often than not it sounds to me like Garcia is following Kahn's lead, rather than vice versa.  The communication here is more like a jazz trio, inventive and intimate.  Like the night before, the latter portion of the jam is an extended swim back to the song itself, but is still just as compelling as the looser stuff that precedes it.  Around 13:50, Garcia starts playing arpeggios (much like in older Playin' or Dark Star jams when he was signaling a change in direction), then just after 15 minutes he starts playing a melodic figure that Kahn picks up and joins.  Around 16 minutes the pair lock into a descending scale that lands them precisely in the outro of the song.  Godchaux reappears immediately as they land back on solid ground.  Unlike last night's crowd, the audience tonight appears to be with them every step of the way; there's a nice touch at 9:12 when someone yells "beautiful!"


12/11/77 Penn State University
(a hissy sbd has been in circulation for a while; I listened to SirMICK's remaster)

This final show of the tour sounds, to my ears, a little punchier and a bit more inspired than the average.  Remarkably, for this third Lonesome jam in a row, they find yet another approach.  Godchaux sticks around for a little bit longer, but again vanishes as things get unusual.  Kahn isn't as assertive tonight, and Garcia seems to be the one who is taking the boat where he wants it to go.  They abandon the vamp for murkier waters, but this time the majority of the jam feels more like a Grateful Dead 'Space' ca. 1977-78 to me (particularly the May 77 varieties), with Garcia leading the charge and everyone following closely in his wake.  Around 10 minutes, Kahn and Buchanan kick into gear and start getting a bit pushier; Garcia returns the Lonesome vamp (prompting a brief cameo from Godchaux) but then playfully veers off again, as they pull in and out the groove.  They find their way back again, and Garcia drops a perfectly timed theme from Close Encounters into the ending as a little bow to tie everything up, then sails them back into the song.  Oh yes.  This is the shortest of the three at around 18:20.


I'd like to do a deep dive into the rest of the 1978 versions as well, but figured I would get the ball rolling with these three back-to-back jams that started it off.  Most of the Lonesome jams in 1978 keep this same freer, more conversational approach.  Stay tuned for more, hopefully.  But for now I encourage everyone to listen to these three in succession and marvel at what got into them at the end of (imho) a solid but not very adventurous tour -- and maybe give a little extra thanks to John Kahn for stepping out of bounds a bit and throwing a few elbows around.