Someday Baby: a proposal

 

Dunno what on earth possessed me to go down this rabbit hole today, but I saw the song Someday Baby credited, as it always is on Garcia releases, to Lightnin' (Sam) Hopkins, and something inside me snapped. I like Someday Baby. I like its sly little strut, and I like how it weaves its way periodically through Garcia's career, first as a regular thing for Garcia/Saunders, then with Reconstruction, and then in brief spells with the JGB until 1991. I have probably said elsewhere that I take it as a good omen when it pops up in a JGB set, maybe a little sign that Jerry was feeling extra spritely that night (granted, this list doesn't necessarily prove that theory but, hey, um, never miss a Sunday show? whatever. I feel the same way about Money Honey).

Texas blues singer/guitarist Lightnin' Hopkins is always credited as the composer on official releases, although Deaddisc gives the composer of the song as Traditional / Sleepy John Estes / Lightning Hopkins, noting that "the song is attributed to Lightnin' Hopkins on the Garcia recordings but the origins of the song pre-date Hopkins."  But I propse that we go one step further and, for Garciacentric purposes, just credit Estes and co-writer Hammie Nixon - not Hopkins at all.

Sleepy John Estes (1899-1977) first recorded Someday Baby Blues for Decca in 1935, accompanied by his longtime partner Hammie Nixon on harmonica, and both were credited as the songwriters. (note that Deaddisc lists one earlier Someday Baby by Buddy Moss, but that one has almost no similarity to Estes' song). Structurally and lyrically, Estes' original version is essentially the same song that Garcia performed.  In 1938, Estes recorded an updated New Someday Baby, keeping the same structure and chorus, but changing all of the verses.  In 1962, post-"rediscovery," he re-recorded the song with its original lyrics for his Delmark LP The Legend of Sleepy John Estes. Ultimately, the song became so associated with Estes that it was used as the epitaph on his gravestone.

Lightnin' Hopkins recorded his own Someday Baby in 1948 (this recording was reissued several times on LP by Crown, first in 1961).  His version is the same basic song as Estes' but with a new set of completely different verses and a slightly modified chorus (from "you ain't gonna worry my mind anymore" to "you ain't gonna worry my life anymore"). His unaccompanied performance is also quite different from Estes': imho, the lyrics aren't nearly as good, but Hopkins' guitar playing is much more exciting: looser and more spontaneous-feeling, with two impressive breaks.  Deaddisc has a handy list of further versions/variants of the song, including one that you may be familiar with: Muddy Waters' Trouble No More from 1955, which kept most of Estes' original lyrics intact, and went on to become a staple for the Allman Brothers Band.

In 1960, B.B. King recorded Someday Baby for his My Kind of Blues LP (*see tangent below. Also, the LP was on Crown, the label that released Lightnin' Hopkins' 1948 recording in 1961). The arrangement is for a 4-piece band in King's trademark urbane style, but the song itself is the same as Estes' original 1935 recording, with nearly identical lyrics. King's record credits the songwriters as Estes/Nixon.

It is unmistakably B.B. King's version that Garcia "covered" with his own groups. Through various permutations from 1973-1991, Garcia's arrangement stayed basically the same as King's, from the opening lick, to the solo that precedes the first verse, to the way that Garcia phrases the line "you ain't gonna woorrrry my mind anymore."  The biggest difference, actually, is that Garcia often sang Estes' original line, whereas B.B. King and Lightnin' Hopkins both sang "worry my life."  And, if there's any doubt remaining, on 7/5/73 you can hear someone (Kahn, I think?) say off-mic "let's do that B.B. King song" before they play it (see fileset 79032, track 1 @11:40; I'm not sure if this is edited out on the GarciaLive official release).

But every official Garcia release still credits the song to Lightnin' Hopkins. It's an understandable error, I suppose, given how well familiar Garcia was with Hopkins' music (see here for two mentions); Garcia even said that Pigpen "picked up, just by watching and listening to me, the basic Lightnin’ Hopkins [guitar] stuff" (see here).  So it seems probable that Garcia knew of Hopkins' version of Someday Baby (he may well have had the 60's Crown lp) and possible that he might even have referred to it as a Hopkins song, which could be how it wound up being credited that way on Live at Keystone and every subsequent release.

Authorship and attribution in the blues tradition can be a very murky issue, and I am not saying that Estes is 100% responsible for the creation of the song. But he is absolutely responsible for the variant of it that came to Garcia via B.B. King - not Lightnin' Hopkins. So I nominate that henceforth everyone credit the song to just Estes/Nixon, not Hopkins.

* [sidenote/tangent: I can't help noticing that My Kind of Blues was released within a year of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue (1959). The liner notes for My Kind of Blues (scans) devote a lot of space to discussing jazz, concluding that B.B. King is the exemplar of a "particular form of jazz." Genre, presentation, reception - ain't it a bitch?]

6/4/74 - One Mint Julep?

 

My Europe 72 marathon hit a little snag (or rather, life failed to clear the wide path that listening to Europe 72 deserves), but writeups of all that stuff will be coming very soon.  Sigh.  

But in the meantime, here's one for the Garcia/Saunders setlist completists: I wrote up a lengthy review of 6/4/74 many years ago, but there's been a tiny piece of that show that's been nagging at me ever since: at the end of All Blues, Martin Fierro starts playing a blues lick that I could never quite place, and today it finally clicked: it's "One Mint Julep."  Fierro tries it once at 20:13, then gets it right the second time, and Garcia picks up on it and joins in on third go-round.  They riff on it for a few minutes until the song ends at 23:11 (times are for this transfer).

"One Mint Julep" (wiki), by Rudy Toombs, was an early Atlantic Records R&B hit for the Coasters and then found even greater fame as an instrumental when Ray Charles played it on his Genius + Soul = Jazz album in 1961.  A quick look at discogs shows that a variety of folks recorded it after that: R&B instrumentalists like King Curtis and Booker T the MG's, but also more modern jazz players like Milt Jackson, Jimmy Smith, and Freddie Hubbard (Hubbard's version was the one I was listening to today when it clicked), and also Nashville guitarist Chet Atkins -- among certainly hundreds of others.  It's hard to say which version Fierro et al were most influenced by here, since they're playing it over the same groove as All Blues rather than a more typical R&B rhythm.  They also don't play the entire tune: they don't ever play the bridge, just the main blues lick, which was probably in the DNA of every working R&B or jazz musician of the era.  So I don't know if the setlist keepers want to label this as All Blues > One Mint Julep, or just put the ol' asterisk in there with a little note about it.

Carry on.  Or go listen to this show again!  It's great.

Does anyone hear something different?

Jan 21-22, 1975 - or, the case of "7/21-22/74"

Some years ago I came to the conclusion that the Garcia/Saunders tapes (er, filesets) labeled as 7/21/74 and 7/22/74 were mixed up and mislabeled -- it was pretty obvious that what circulates as 7/21/74 couldn't be from one show.  I did some close listening to where the tape cuts were and came up with a convincing reassembly of these fragments that made more sense.  I can't think of another way to reassemble these fragments that would work, so I just went ahead and reordered/retagged them and have been listening to my own modified version for a while, so I figured I would expand my usual listening notes with the full argument.  JGMF has covered the unlikeliness of the tapes really being from 7/21 & 7/22/74, and it seems far more likely that the real dates are 1/21 & 1/22/75 at the Keystone in Berkeley.  JGMF has also confirmed that the lineup on these nights was unusual: Tony Saunders on bass (all of 19 years old, I believe) and Gaylord Birch on drums, in addition to Martin Fierro, Merl Saunders, and Jerry Garcia. 

Tony Saunders, from the back cover collage on Merl's s/t 1974 album

The music on these tapes is phenomenal and, in a few instances, utterly unique, and I believe that the confused presentation of these filesets has caused this music to be overlooked by all but the most fervent Garcia fan (no knock on anyone who was part of the distribution chain of these tapes, of course).  Maybe you are someone who hasn't given them close attention for this very reason.  If that describes you, dear reader, then read on and listen anew and be wowed.

In the interest of saving the fine print until the end, I will dive into the music first and assume you're willing to buy my reasoning re: the dating and organizing of this music as closer to what was actually played. 

On a contextual note: it is established that,

• Ron Tutt joined the band in December 1974, prompting the formal name change to Legion of Mary several months later.  Even after LOM was formalized as a band, there were still occasional local listings for "Garcia & Saunders" gigs.  This meant that Tutt was not present for whatever reason (more info; there was no Elvis conflict in Jan 1975, fwiw).
• In 1974-75, Merl Saunders was performing concurrently with his own band, Aunt Monk, including Tony on bass and Martin Fierro on sax.  Garcia would occasionally show up at these shows as well, playing material both familiar and unfamiliar to him from the Garcia/Saunders repertoire (more info).
• Despite being two separate bands, there was the occasional overlapping of personnel between Garcia/Saunders and Saunders' own gigs.  One such overlap were three remarkable shows in June 1974 where Tony replaced John Kahn on bass, which I have covered here.  
• The musicians and repertoire on these tapes in question seem to live right in the middle of the venn diagram of Garcia/Saunders and Aunt Monk.

 courtesy JGMF (surprise!)

 1/21/75


The Harder They Come - very fine, with an excellent groove and feel, especially compared with many 1974-75 performances that I often find more plodding.  Interestingly, it sounds like Fierro is playing his usual tenor with lots of wahwah during the song itself, but soloing on a higher-pitched horn (a soprano maybe?  I am sure it's him and not a guest, and you can hear him fiddling with his tenor again shortly after his solo is over).  After a high energy finish, Jerry announces the set break.

When I Die - the reel cuts in at the beginning.  This is funky!  and arguably one of the best of the versions that we have (at least until the next night!).  Merl & Tony play a cool little rhythmic figure that they keep up throughout most of the solos, and Birch absolutely nails this.  There's a snafu near the end when Merl finishes his solo and Garcia jumps back in, not hearing that Merl has transitioned back into the bridge of the song.  No harm done.  Afterwards, someone (either Tony or Birch?) laughs, "whoo! yeah, Jerry! what's up!"  Garcia noodles around a bit and someone asks,"wanna do it? you gonna do it?" which prompts:

Pennies From Heaven - They shift gears into classic organ combo mode for Garcia to serenade this standard from the 30's that is probably associated with Louis Armstrong as much as anyone else, although Garcia's idol Django Reinhardt is among the many who also recorded it.  There are plenty of examples of Garcia hanging with Saunders on jazz material that was not his typical forte, but it's amazing to hear him taking the lead here in digging into a standard like this!  He's clearly having a blast, even if he's chewing the scenery just a little bit.  Fierro solos next, then another quick chorus from Garcia, then Merl.  Just as his solo is ending, the reel cuts off and cuts back in as they go into the head of the song, with very little missing.  It sounds like folks are patting Garcia on the back when they're done: Merl says, "that's good!" and someone else adds, "that's all right!"   [edit 2025: Legion of Mary also played Pennies From Heaven on 2/28/75! please oh please, someone circulate this tape!]  Then Garcia suggests, "we could do Reggae Woman."

Boogie On Reggae Woman - Excellent again.  At this point, there were only a small number of performances of this on tape (it became a staple for LOM in 1975), but they are all on top of it tonight.  Check out after the last verse how they keep it going a little longer, verrry quietly.  Nice touch!

Some inaudible off-mic talk follows.  After Midnight and Mystery Train are mentioned.  Merl and Tony play with the beginning of Creepin' (Stevie Wonder), until Merl suggests, "why don't we just - you wanna do Wonderin'?  Wonderin' Why?"

Wonderin' Why - sounds wonderful, if not all that different from many other wonderful versions.  Then Garcia counts right into a stompin' How Sweet It Is.  This one is interrupted by another reel flip, missing a bigger chunk of music this time.  He says good night, and the crowd sounds particularly appreciative and vocal with their thanks.

Well then.  This was amazing.  Top drawer Garcia/Saunders, in outstanding Bettyboard sound.  What could be better?  Glad you asked:


1/22/75

After Midnight - this cuts in at the peak of Fierro's solo, so watch your eardrums.  But it's really hot!  High temperature stuff.  Afterwards - Jerry: "You wouldn't happen to have any matches, do you? ... but don't even worry, don't worry about it."   Then, a guy in the crowd: "Jerry, want a hit, man?"  Jerry: "Do I want a hit, man?  No thank you, I just had one."  Classic.  Merl calls the next tune.

When I Die - Betty's mix is a little hot, but so is the playing.  As hot the last version was, this one is even better and also a few minutes longer.  My goodness.  This time, rather than jump right into the bridge out of Merl's final solo, they opt to keep jamming loosely for a little bit before wrapping things up.  What a version!  C'mon, deadheads, you all need to hear this.

You Can Leave Your Hat On - this takes things down a notch, perhaps inevitably given how high energy the first two songs were.  But it ain't bad at all!  There's another small reel flip in this one.  Notice how during Merl's solo (after the flip), Garcia is messing around a bit with playing octaves a la Wes Montgomery, something that he did occasionally in early 75 and another clue as to the dating of this tape.  Afterwards, someone says "we can only do one more" and Garcia counts off

That's What Love Will Make You Do - Birch's beat here is distinctive from other 74-75 versions and this feels a little stiff at first, but they loosen up as the solos gain momentum.  Garcia's guitar volume drops @4:23, and I wonder if he blew a tube or something else, but he plays on without a hiccup.  Nice near miss @11:02 when he catches them by surprise by repeating the "when you speak of beauty" break, but whoa, they all nail it anyway!  Amazing.  "We're gonna take a break, we'll be back pretty soon."

Cucumber Slumber - the first of two tunes unique to this show.  The oft-repeated story behind Weather Report's Cucumber Slumber is that bassist Alphonso Johnson came up with its classic bassline in the studio and the tune was a spontaneous jam (although the album track is actually a second take made after some evident arrangement, including a melody played in unison by the sax and keyboards; lots of info here) .  The song moves back and forth between two distinct sections, one in Db7 (the band is playing this section as the album track fades in) and one in E7 (with Johnson's famous bassline), with a transition between the two.  Weather Report spends more time jamming in the Db7 section, although the E7 section is probably what most listeners remembers about the song.  If you want a more technical explication, see Mark Frandsen's analysis in his dissertation on Weather Report's bass players (which clarified all this info for me).

Tony commented at etree, "that was a song we played with Aunt Monk and Jerry liked it so we played it together."  Their arrangement is looser and emphasizes the E7 section almost entirely, with Tony holding on to that bassline for all its worth.  Like Weather Report, they begin playing in Db7 briefly (it sounds maybe like Fierro is alluding to Weather Report's melody, though they never play it), but once they get into the E7 section, they stay there for a long time: both Fierro and Garcia solo, and when Merl's turn comes, he leads everyone into the Db7 section briefly (this is around 9:15) and then back into E7 for his extended solo, and then another turn for Garcia.  During Garcia's second solo, things get looser and the playing becomes more interactive and "jammy" (Tony abandons the bassline for a little while as well).  They shift back to the Db7 section in the final few minutes, and wrap it up by playing the transition figure at the end.  Wow!  Given that they're mostly jamming out on one chord, everyone has plenty of room to flex and they all sound comfortable digging in. 

The Harder They Come - a little looser in spots, but this is still great and like When I Die from this show, it sounds like they're pushing a bit further than the prior version.  Check out how they get real quiet at 12:16 for the end of Garcia's solo -- he's playing the melody and Martin creates a guitar-like effect by tapping the keys of his horn while working the wahwah, which leads right back into the vocals.  Very cool, and something I don't recalls ever hearing in THTC before.

What's Going On - the second unique song.  I'm sure plenty of folks with gigs like Merl's were playing this tune in the early 70's; one way to approach it was to have everyone solo over the form of the entire song, like this version by organist Johnny Hammond Smith.  But Merl also must have heard Donny Hathaway's incredible live version which features both vocals and a keyboard solo over just the instrumental bridge of the song.  Notably, Hathaway also made a minor but pretty hip adjustment to this part by adding some additional changes (hear it in his solo).  Merl opts to have it both ways: Fierro plays the tune on flute, and then he, Garcia, and Merl take a turn soloing over the entire song form, which imho makes for some unavoidably long-winded solos.  Everything glides along well enough but a bit sloppily, with the tempo wavering and speeding up as it goes.  But after Merl's solo ends (at 16:20 into the song) he shifts gears and solos again, this time just over the instrumental bridge, like in Hathaway's version.  Everyone goes for another round of solos, but now it sounds like they're finally taking flight, since no one has to follow the contours of the actual song and can just dig in and blow.  The cut at the end is negligible, just a fraction of a second.  Wow!  Overall it's a little shaky, but is redeemed by the funkier second half.  And given what a unique performance this is, it's hard to be too critical. 

How Sweet It Is - another high-energy set closer, with no cut this time.  The last 50 seconds of dead air as they break down is a nice touch: "awright, Jerry, cut that shit out!"

I am out of superlatives.   Much like the June 74 shows with Tony, these performances are both unique and, despite a few looser-than-usual moments, feature some incredibly high caliber playing.  Mid 70's solo Jerry doesn't get much better than this, and if you haven't spent time getting up close and personal with these tapes, you really should.


THE RATIONALE

If you've made it this far, I am sure you cannot wait to hear how I came up with this order for the songs.  These are the digital filesets for these tapes as they circulate:

"7/21/74" = jg1974-07-21.jgms.93mins.sbd-Betty.117653.flac1644
"7/22/74" = jg1974-07-22.jgms.146mins.sbd-GMB.86198.flac1644

And if you split the filesets into reels, based on the tape breaks (the tape runs continuously between songs unless noted), you get this:

7/21/74 d1t01 [18:24] Harder They Come > "we're gonna take a break"
7/21/74 d1t02 [13:01] /When I Die
7/21/74 d1t03 [15:56] Pennies From Heaven//

7/21/74 d2t01 [12:32] /After Midnight
7/21/74 d2t02 [18:40] When I Die
7/21/74 d2t03 [11:32] You Can Leave Your Hat On//

7/21/74 d2t04 [3:18] //How Sweet It is > "see y'all later"

7/22/74 d1t01 [3:30] //"instrumental" (actually the ending of Pennies From Heaven)
7/22/74 d1t02 [22:34] Boogie On Reggae Woman
7/22/74 d1t03 [17:21] Wondering Why
7/22/74 d1t04 [5:06] How Sweet It Is//

7/22/74 d1t05 [6:16] //You Can Leave Your Hat On
7/22/74 t1t06 [13:07] That's What Love Will Make You Do > "we're gonna take a break"

7/22/74 d2t01 [21:27] /Cucumber Slumber
7/22/74 d2t02 [19:43] Harder They Come
7/22/74 d2t03 [26:26] What's Going On (tape cuts the last second)

7/22/74 d2t04 [10:32] How Sweet It Is > "thank you, we'll see you all later on."

Then rearrange the reels like this to make the pieces fit together.  I can't think of any other way to arrange the music that makes sense:

"reel #1"
7/21/74 d1t01 [18:24] Harder They Come > "we're gonna take a break"
7/21/74 d1t02 [13:01] /When I Die
7/21/74 d1t03 [15:56] Pennies From Heaven//

"reel #2"
7/22/74 d1t01 [3:30] //"instrumental" (actually the ending of Pennies From Heaven)
7/22/74 d1t02 [22:34] Boogie On Reggae Woman
7/22/74 d1t03 [17:21] Wondering Why
7/22/74 d1t04 [5:06] How Sweet It Is//

"reel #3"
7/21/74 d2t04 [3:18] //How Sweet It is > "see y'all later"

"reel #4"
1st set:
7/21/74 d2t01 [12:32] /After Midnight
7/21/74 d2t02 [18:40] When I Die
7/21/74 d2t03 [11:32] You Can Leave Your Hat On//

"reel #5"
7/22/74 d1t05 [6:16] //You Can Leave Your Hat On > "do one more" 
7/22/74 t1t06 [13:07] That's What Love Will Make You Do > "we're gonna take a break"

"reel #6"
7/22/74 d2t01 [21:27] /Cucumber Slumber
7/22/74 d2t02 [19:43] Harder They Come
7/22/74 d2t03 [26:26] What's Going On (tape cuts the last second)

"reel #7"
7/22/74 d2t04 [10:32] How Sweet It Is > "thank you, we'll see you all later on."


This means that the actual shows would look like this:

one show:
end of 1st set:Harder They Come (7/21) [18:24]
complete 2nd set:When I Die (7/21 d1t02) [13:01]
Pennies From Heaven (7/21 + 7/22) [15:56+3:30]
Boogie On Reggae Woman (7/22) [22:34]
Wondering Why (7/22) [17:21]
How Sweet It Is (7/22 + 7/21) [5:06 + ? + 3:18]


the other show (nearly complete?):
1st set:After Midnight (7/21) [12:32]
When I Die (7/21 d2t02) [18:40]
You Can Leave Your Hat On (7/21+7/22) [11:32+6:16]
That's What Love Will Make You Do (7/22) [13:07]
2nd set:Cucumber Slumber (7/22) [21:27]
Harder They Come (7/22) [19:43]
What's Going On (7/22) [26:26]
How Sweet It Is (7/22) [10:32]


I believe that the two sets from the latter show are from 1/22/75, because these versions of When I Die and The Harder They Come are better than the ones from the other show: both are played longer and with more apparent ease.  They are all more careful when ending When I Die, and THTC has some unusual interplay that seems more likely to have happened when they were more comfortable with the tune and each other.  I know that doesn't prove anything, but that's how I am choosing to label each show. 

Why 1/21 & 1/22/75?  It can't be 7/21-7/22/74, but the provenance of the tapes is pretty good and those dates had to come from somewhere.  I know that when I write 1's, they usually look like 7's [edit: JGMF sent a pic of the tape reel boxes and yup, Rex Jackson wrote 1/22/74].  And I am usually still writing last year's date when it's only three weeks into a new year.   The existence of G/S gigs on those dates plus some stylistic details all point in the same direction. 

edit: Just to make sure I am giving credit where it is due, the understanding that these tapes couldn't be from July 1974 is all JGMF's work and research.  I came to the Jan 75 theory on my own, although I know others have arrived at that same conclusion, likely all stemming from JGMF's blog.  The reel re-ordering was from my own listening.

Favela

Just a quick hit on this, since I've been revisiting some old recordings of this cool tune.  Antonio Carlos Jobim, its composer, hopefully needs no introduction -- and if you don't know who he is, you have probably heard a couple of his more famous compositions.  The Instituto Antonio Carlos Jobim (what I gather is the official Jobim museum in Rio de Janeiro) gives the title as "Favela (O morro não tem vez)," although Jobim's original copyrighted melody (1962) is just in the Portugese title.  "O morro não tem vez" translates to "the hill has no time," or something like "there are no opportunities in the hill," though I have also seen recordings of this titled "somewhere in the hills," which is where a favela would be (favelas are slums, which are up in the hills surrounding Rio).  (sidenote: anyone who feels like learning it and/or studying the arrangements can see all the original manuscripts at their online archive! #librarianenvy)

As far as I can tell, the first American recording was by Stan Getz with guitarist Luiz Bonfá (and Jobim) as "O Morro Não Tem Vez" on his Jazz Samba Encore! album, made and released in early 1963.   Jobim recorded it a couple of months later for his own American debut, The Composer of Desafinado Plays, then again with a bigger orchestral arrangement for his second album.  Sergio Mendes (pre easy listening) also recorded it in 1965 for his American debut, The Swinger From Rio, and I can't resist pointing out this lesser known but totally cookin' trio performance also from 1965 as well; wrap your head around that bass/drums intro!  There were probably more as well.  Martin Fierro seems to have brought the tune to the Garcia/Saunders band, so I presume that he heard it on Stan Getz's record.  G/S play it in the same key as Getz, as well.

The first time Garcia played Favela, that we know of, was 8/15/74.  The band played it at nearly every show through December, and then it was played periodically, but far less, by the Legion of Mary.  Paul Humphrey plays the shit out of it on nearly every version, many of which are quite fast and pretty damn furious.  They really bit down on it every night.

The original recordings, by contrast, are at a much more languid tempo.  I strongly recommend both Getz's Jazz Samba Encore and Mendes' Swinger From Rio to anyone who enjoys this kind of jazz, and both are a perfect fit for the waning days of summer.

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?

4/17/79: we in church today!

wrong Nicasio gig, but I love this poster

Good gravy, this place was tiny!  According to jgbp, the Rancho Nicasio was a resturant/bar that held all of 150 people, in a tiny, idyllic Marin County enclave.  Their site has some nice pictures (funny coincidence, but Peter Rowan and the Rowan Bros are playing there tonight.  Anyone got an extra (plane) ticket?).  I assume the place was far enough off the beaten path that most Bay Area heads wouldn’t have bothered (I get that sense from posts like this about west coast deadheads’ willingness to travel in the late 70’s).  But thankfully taper Phil Jaret did, and his recording is the only one that we’ve got at the moment (the newer transfer is pitch-corrected).  It’s a pretty good, upfront recording that sounds fine on headphones.  Not pristine, but it hits all the right spots and is plenty satisfying, and the music makes it well worth it.

The main reason to sing its praises is another (heretofore unknown to me) version of the mighty Sama Layuca, mislabeled in both filesets as Welcome to the Basement.  It’s not quite as wild as the nutso 3/30/79 performance (ahem), mainly because only Ed Neumeister and Garcia take solos (Ron Stallings, Merl, and John Kahn also all get a turn in the 3/30 version).  But holy moley, they throw down hard here.  Garcia’s chomping at the bit, but Neumeister goes first.  The band grooves hard underneath him, slowly loosens their grip, lets it get wild and hairy, then locks it back down, then loosens up again, and so on.  I don’t know if Stallings was having a problem with his horn, but there’s a bit of float-time after Neumeister’s solo until Garcia steps up to bat and just nails it.  After the same wild back-and-forth, it spills into some loud noisy space — listen close to how seamlessly Gaylord Birch snaps back into the groove of the song as the return for the ending.  He’s such a fantastic drummer: over a very fast tempo (like 175 bpm), he easily shifts from tight control to unhinged freer playing with nary a stumble.  Impressive!  I associate him mainly with funk and R&B, but he more than holds his own in a freer context like this.

The rest of the show is pretty hot, too.  Less than a week before the Dead debuted with Brent Mydland [edit: there's a long rehearsal tape that circulates dated 4/16/79], Garcia sounds like he’s pushing harder than usual.  He’s particularly on fire during a breathtaking tear through Another Star — very fast, but precise, and totally synched up with the horns’ accompaniment that frames the solo.  He comes to a great (and perfectly timed) climax, then basically starts over immediately for a second go-round!  He also seems pretty fired up for a long Soul Roach, not a song that usually registers for me, but he’s really belting here.  Linda Chicana, Mohican and the Great Spirit, Long Train Running; all the instrumentals sound great, and they dig in pretty hard on the vocal rave-ups Lovely Night for Dancing and Make It Better.  After the a cappella ending to Lovely Night, Merl says something like, “yeah, we in church today!”  Amen to that, Merl.

postscript: if you're inclined, take a close listen to Ron Stallings' sax solo in the show-closing Long Train Running.  That sounds like a soprano sax after his tenor solo, but the transition sounds way too quick for it to be Stallings switching horns (he does play soprano in Sama Layuca, though).  Could it be a guest musician?  Jaret's aud tape is tightly edited between most songs, so if something was said, we don't have it.  It's no big thing, but it's worth noting.

(Finder(’)s) (Keepers)

scan courtesy 45cat.com

[update 7/16/2024: big update to this regarding the song's initial attribution on the original Keystone lp]

 I’ve been having myself a fine time digging into those newly circulating Garcia/Saunders shows from late 73.  The ‘new’ 11/5/73 has a stone-cold, stanky version of Finders Keepers that’s doing it for me, with some really outrageous keyboard from Merl.  Finders Keepers is a song that pretty much never fails me.

Finders Keepers also must be most misattributed song on official Garcia/Saunders releases.   correctly credits it to General Johnson and Jeffrey Bowen, of the soul group the Chairmen of the Board, who released it in April of 1973 as a vocal tune with an instrumental version on the single’s b-side.  It was one of the group’s biggest hits and Garcia/Saunders recorded it that July, making it one of the rare tunes in their repertoire that was a more-or-less current hit single.  [edit 2024] I only just realized that it's actually credited correctly on the original 1973 double-LP release of Live at Keystone as well, although there it's called "Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers":

But starting with the reissue of the album in 1988 as as Live at Keystone, Vol. 1 (on both CD and LP), the title is changed to just "Keepers" and credited to Merl Saunders & John Kahn. On Saunders' 1997 collection Keepers, it was changed to "Keepers (Finders)" and credited to Saunders alone. The song also appears on several of Saunders’ albums from the 1990’s-2000’s, but I don’t know how it’s credited on those. On 2004's Pure Jerry: Keystone 9/1/74 it's back to "Keepers" and Saunders/Kahn, which was repeated on the 2012 release of the Keystone Companions complete July 1973 recordings.  The most recent release with the song is GarciaLive Vol. 6: 7/5/73, released in 2016, which finally corrects the attribution to "Finders Keepers" by Johnson/Bowen.

So what the heck happened? How did they get it right the first time, then manage to repeatedly get it wrong for 18 years? I haven't dug into the many live performances, but I did find one example of Saunders claiming credit at a show on 11/10/91 where he introduces the song, "we wrote this song for the Live at Keystone album." Hmm. The changing title almost seems almost like a sly inside joke about the incorrect songwriting credit, but unless Saunders actually has some claim to the song, it just seems like a questionably shady move -- Saunders even named an album after it!  Deaddisc generously posits that perhaps the misattribution is because Saunders and/or Kahn rearranged the tune, but they didn’t really (besides slowing it down, which was pretty much SOP for Garcia).  Have a listen:

 Merl did overdub a cool, soaring ARP synth part on the original Live at Keystone recording, so there's that -- but, as far as I know, he never tried recreating that in performance.  He sure knew how to work the hell out of that clavinet though, as 11/5/73 and many other renditions show.  It turns out Merl was paying homage to one of the all-time greats: that’s Bernie Worrell (RIP) of Parliament/Funkadelic playing the clavinet part on the original.

And, just for fun, here’s the original vocal version, which is giving no trouble to the Soul Train gang:

3/30/79: Sama Layuca

[edit, Dec '17: FYI, it turns out that the correct date is likely 3/31, not 3/30.  see jgmf.]

I’ve been a bit dormant with the late onset of winter around these parts (reading, family, work, jazz) and not listening to as much Dead or Garcia, but I did want to give some shine to a pretty remarkable gem I stumbled upon from an unknown-to-me Reconstruction show: 3/30/79 at the Catalyst in Santa Cruz, CA (a very nice aud recording).  Sama Layuca was a McCoy Tyner tune that Reconstruction performed only a small handful of times (only five versions circulate), and while the earliest performances stuck to the usual head/solos/head format of most of Reconstruction’s jazz numbers, two other versions were rare occasions for the band to open up into freer, more uncharted waters.

On 3/30/79, Sama Layuca starts off with Stallings and Neumeister soloing over a tight groove that stays stable but threatens to unmoor itself, and by the time Garcia steps up front, things have started to fray and stretch.  His solo is outrageous, essentially one loud, fiery duel with drummer Gaylord Birch, with Kahn at his heels.  Saunders picks up the pieces, but Kahn’s solo tips things back into loud, noisy Space as Garcia rears back up.  It's all pretty crazy stuff, much more akin to a fired-up GD Space jam than anything Reconstruction usually did.  The only other version (or indeed any other Reconstruction performance) that gets this far out is another Sama Layuca from a few months later, 8/10/79.  Garcia, now rocking his brand-new Tiger guitar, takes it to similar places but winds up drifting away from the song and into a gentle, floating, spacey interlude that segues into Dear Prudence.  Just as sweet, but not quite as demented.

The rest of 3/30/79 is fantastic, maybe one of the better Reconstruction shows I’ve heard, but Sama Layuca is the clear highlight.  It’s definitely worth checking out, particularly for those not sold on the “disco” sound of this group.

btw, jgmf's huge Reconstruction overview a must-read for anyone into this particular side trip of Garcia's.  I have more to say on the significance of this band to the overall arc of Garcia's side career, but that's for another time.

with Reconstruction, 4/23/79, courtesy jerrygarcia.com

I'll Take a Melody

I was listening to a little Allen Toussaint playlist I made for myself and the original(?) recording of "I'll Take a Melody" came on, sung by Frankie Miller on his 1974 album Frankie Miller's High Life (groan), which Toussaint produced, arranged, and wrote the bulk of the material for.

It's a great song, and one of the many things I like about it is that it slyly makes reference to its own chord progression -- "I'll take a melody and see what I can do about it / I'll take a simple C to G and feel brand new about it" -- a small testament to Toussaint's cleverness as a songwriter.  My discographically sensitive brain is drawing a blank on other song lyrics that refer to their own chords [edit: got one! "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen], but it's not exactly a common songwriting device.  Given that, it was always a tad disappointing to me that the chords aren't actually C or G: the verse and chorus are an A, D, E.  Just now, however, I noticed that the Frankie Miller version has the line: "I'll take a simple D to E and feel brand new about it."  Hmm.  Given that Garcia was singing the lyric and playing the chords, you would think he'd have noticed.  I wonder what was up with that?  Maybe his poet's ear was pleased more by the consonance of "see what I can do ... simple C to G" than the clunkier sounding "simple D to E"?

The other slight lyric change that I'd never noticed before was that Garcia sings "I understand why the old fisherman sail along, sail along [etc] / someday he'll be gone," while Miller sings it, "someday you'll be gone."  I'm not sure which one I like more, but both are appealingly opaque.

RIP Allen Toussaint

everything he did gon' be funky

Given what a major contributor to American music he was and how much he was in spotlight over the last decade, I know there will be far better tributes to the late, great Allen Toussaint than I could ever offer beyond my continued love for his work.  With the staggering amount of wonderful music that he wrote, songs like "I'll Take a Melody" and "Get Out of My Life, Woman" feel like a drop in the bucket.  If you are inclined to track it down, this great compilation of others' famous recordings of Toussaint's songs is well worth it -- or you could just blindly drop your finger on any collection of New Orleans R&B from the 1960's-70's and find some Toussaint-penned gold.

Tomorrow: an actual post about the Grateful Dead!  I promise, it's all written and everything.

B.B. King RIP

RIP to a true icon of American music and a cornerstone of electric guitar playing.  Suffice it to say, almost nobody exemplified the "less is more" maxim than B.B. King.

JGB fans certainly know this one:

On official releases, it's usually credited to Lightnin' Hopkins, but this is clearly the version they're covering.  I can't remember which tape it is, but there's at least one recording where you can clearly hear someone (Kahn, I think) refer to this as a B.B. King tune.

And, while B.B. King didn't write or originally perform "The Thrill is Gone" either, it's another song that everyone associates with him.  Garcia sang this one as well.  I always think of Garcia/Grisman's work as casual get-togethers at Grisman's home studio, but I just remembered that actually made a real music video for this one.