(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:

8/21/80: Uncle John's set

jam and Budweiser?  eww.

Time for a little anniversary shoutout to a favorite under-the-radar show: 8/21/80 at the Uptown Theatre in Chicago.  The acoustic-electric Warfield/Radio City runs define 1980 for many, but, for my money, the band’s best playing of the year happened on the August-September tour.  There are a lot of great shows from that stretch, and I wouldn’t claim that this one is the best, but it has a distinct flavor and a unique vibe that never fails to please me, particular in the dog days of August.

Take your pick between a nice sbd and an excellent aud.  I think the aud is the better bet:
https://archive.org/details/gd1980-08-21.sbd.miller.99034.sbeok.flac16
https://archive.org/details/gd1980-08-21.akg-beyer.stankiewicz.126369.flac1644

The first set is nothing to write home about: it has a fine setlist and nothing is really lacking, but there’s also nothing that ever much jumps out at me, beyond a nice Peggy-O and a rare late-set Shakedown.  But the second set is one of those magical performances where individual songs are all pieces of a very complete whole, emerging and sinking back into a tapestry that feels as unified as any symphony.  Shades of 7/17/76 perhaps?  I don’t want to get your hopes up, but this takes me to a similar headspace as that classic [disclaimer: 7/17/76 is a much better show].  Mickey and Billy take the stage to start things off unusually with a quiet duet on tar and talking drum for a few minutes before the rest of the band enters softly to join in for a prelude to a long and stunning Uncle John’s Band.  Not your usual opener, and not your usual Uncle John's either, as it jams its way into something that resembles more of a Playin’ jam.  It’s some of my favorite music from that year, and it’s all right there in the first 20 minutes of the set!

I don’t know if the rest of the set necessarily holds up to a blow-by-blow style of review.  There are no ups and downs: the enchantment has been cast masterfully, and the spell isn’t broken until the very end.  They come back to earth for Truckin’, dive back in the pool for the Other One, then the drummers take another turn, and the boys forego any spacey exploration and ease right into the Wheel, jam it back into the end of Uncle John’s in a most satisfyingly symmetrical close to a wonderful 45 minutes of uninterrupted music.  A mere 45 minutes?  Yeah, well, quality over quantity I say, and I’m happy to sacrifice the more standard combinations and set-closing standards for a jam as unique as this.

The whole Uptown run is worth a listen: 8/19 is more well known and probably the “best show” of the run from top to bottom: there's a dynamite Half Step > Franklin’s > Minglewood and a fine Stranger that bookend the first, and the second is a top-to-bottom heavyweight muscle set.  8/20 is rightfully lesser known, but anyone under the spell of the other two shows will appreciate the heavy Space > NFA > Dew at the end.

Have fun!

Jerry Week 2016

Commence Garcia Week!  There's another reason to celebrate Aug 1 as well:

Garcia: …And on my 15th birthday my mother gave me an accordion.  I looked at this accordion and I said, “God, I don’t want this accordion, I want an electric guitar.”  So we took it down to a pawn shop and I got this little Danelectro, an electric guitar with a tiny little amplifier and man, I was just in heaven.  Everything!  I stopped everything I was doing at the time[…]

Reich: Can I ask for the date?

 Garcia: August 1st — let’s see, I was born in ’42 — Christ, man, arithmetic, school, I was 15 — ’57.  Yeah, ’57, there you go, it was a good year, Chuck Berry, all that stuff.

Reich: I wanted to get an historic date like that.
 

Garcia: Yeah, well that’s what it was, August 1st, 1957, I got my first guitar.

- Garcia: A Signpost to New Space, 1971.

2/15/87: Drums of Petaluma

This show had been languishing on my harddrive forever, and I finally gave it a close listen and enjoyed it quite a bit.  The occasion for the show and tape was a benefit performance by Babatunde Olatunji and his group Drums of Passion, with guest stars Jerry Garcia, Carlos Santana, and Mickey Hart.  Honestly, I can't say much about the music itself, but I've never seen much comment about this and most setlist information out there seems to be incorrect, so I figured I'd post a little something about it.

ticket pic courtesy Thomas Patrick

I won’t go much into Olatunji’s career here: the short version is that he was a pivotal figure in bringing African rhythm and culture to western awareness in the 1950’s, peaking with his landmark and extremely popular album Drums of Passion, released in 1960.  By the 1970’s, though, his career was in serious decline and was effectively on the skids until Mickey Hart approached him after a San Francisco club performance in 1985 with an offer to produce new recordings and, later, an invitation for him to open for the Dead on New Year’s Eve.  Those recordings, made in January 1986, yielded two albums: Dance to the Beat of My Drum (on the local San Francisco label Blue Heron, later reissued by Rykodisc as Drums of Passion: The Beat) was squarely aimed at a crossover comeback and prominently featured Santana’s guitar; the other, belatedly released in 1989 as Drums of Passion: The Invocation (also on Rykodisc), featured only his core drum ensemble.  Olatunji, who had prefigured the demand for “world music” by 25 years, was back in the public eye and had Mickey Hart and the Dead to thank for it.

On Feb 15, 1987, Olatunji’s group of percussionists and dancers played a benefit in Petaluma, CA for the local World Music in Schools foundation, augmented by Garcia, Santana, Hart, and bassist Bobby Vega.  Hart appears to have orchestrated the whole thing, and the 90 minute PBS special about the show (at youtube) credits the Dead’s crew with holding down most of the technical aspects.  Hamza el-Din opened the night with a beautiful 20 minute solo performance, then Olatunji’s group played for nearly two hours.  I presume Garcia must have rehearsed some for this, especially since he was the only one of the guests not involved with the 1986 recordings.  Although he and Santana clearly aren’t central to the music, they both fit in well and Garcia sounds comfortable and quite good when the spotlight falls on him.  Presumably in deference to him or (more likely) to the fans who were there because of him, the group plays "Fire On the Mountain," which comes off well enough — but for my money, Garcia’s best moment of the night is the solo he rips on “The Beat of My Drum” (d1t08).  Not bad, Jer!  He looks plenty happy in the video but, hey, playing on a stage packed full of master African drummers is probably harder than it looks.  The night belongs to Olatunji, of course, and the bulk of the show is heavy African percussion, which suits me just fine.

Santana, Garcia, and (I think) Sikiru Adepoju.  pic by Jay Blakesberg

From a Garcia-centric perspective, this appearance marks a start to his post-coma period of increased health and a much greater level of engagement with the musical world around him.  He returned to making appearances on friends’ studio projects (starting, probably around the time of this show, with the Neville Brothers), returned to his bluegrass roots with the JGAB, and showed more of a willingness to put himself in unfamiliar contexts, not least being his guest appearance with Ornette Coleman in 1988.  It was the start of the final golden phase of his career, and it’s neat that this one-off appearance with one of the most famous African musicians of the 20th century helped kick it off.  Maybe there are some comments to be made about Garcia's position in relation to the African musical diaspora, but right now it feels like a stretch and I'm tired.

Here’s the video.  Head to 47:50 for some heat:

Charlie Miller’s transfer of Dan Healy’s sbd sounds excellent, but the tracklist (and some of the tracking) is off.  They play all of the 1986 album material and I was able to get some other titles by googling, so here is the best I'm able to come up with:

d1t01 introductions
d1t02 ??? (Hamza el Din: oud + vocal)
d1t03 ??? (Hamza el Din: oud instrumental)
d1t04 ??? (Hamza el Din: oud + vocal)
d1t05 ??? (Hamza el Din: tar + vocal)
d1t06 intro parade/??? ; Akiwowo (acapella intro) ->
d1t07 Akiwowo *
d1t08 The Beat of My Drum *
d1t09 Loyin Loyin *
d1t10 Odun De
d2t01 Ife L'Oju L'Aiye * ->
d2t02 Ife L'Oju L'Aiye * (continued from d2t01)
d2t03 band intros, speaking
d2t04 Yambela
d2t05 Fire on the Mountain *
d2t06 ??? **
d2t07 Se Eni A Fe L'Amo - Kere Kere *
d2t08 Ilere *

notes:
Hamza el Din tracks are unaccompanied.
* with Jerry Garcia, Carlos Santana, Bobby Vega (bass), Mickey Hart (drum kit)
** d2t06 Olatunji introduces percussionist Kwaku Dadey, who sounds like a special guest.

Jay Blakesberg

PS.  During the introduction to the show, the foundation director mentions Garcia's recent appearance in Doonesbury.  If you're curious: http://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1987/02/05/

6/20/74 Truckin>space>Eyes

7/31/74, courtesy jerrygarcia.com

Just a little something in honor of the anniversary of this overlooked goodie:



https://archive.org/details/gd74-06-20.sbd.clugston.2179.sbeok.shnf
 
Truckin' starts a little too slow, but they kick it up into gear and are already in full flight by the time they wrap up the lyrics.  I like the upfront, syncopated rhythm figure Jerry plays starting @4:50 that shifts them up into the jam (it's a little similar to the New Speedway Boogie rhythm, but not related) before he starts soloing.  They nail the big E chord peak, keep on chooglin', and after some tentatively suggested changes in direction, they pull out the roadmap after around 13 minutes.  Without missing a beat, Jerry takes off down his own path -- Phil and Billy drop out, and Bob and Keith provide some very sparse accompaniment.  We're out in space now!  It's mellow, spacey solo Jerry, until Phil rejoins the fray and the thorns start growing on the vine.  He immediately gets aggressive, throwing down some nice big chords, as Bob and Keith patiently stir up the weirdness.

At about 5 min into this jam, some form starts to emerge from the ruckus -- Bill, Keith, and Bob all playing fast and jazzy, driving things wildly forward -- but Jerry and Phil are still off on their jag and the push-and-pull tension that ensues is sublime.  Just when Phil seems to be pulled into the rhythm section's orbit, he pokes back out and pulls the tide back with him -- there's a big ol' nasty chord at 7:06 that tips the scales back into chaos.  Wonderful!  Finally, the wave crests, recedes, and Jerry immediately kicks it into an uptempo, brisk Eyes of the World.

To my ears, some of these 73-74 Eyes can feel like they're grinding their gears a little too hard, but this one is kicking all the way through; it's arguably just as good as the lauded Eyes from 6/18 -- not to mention almost 10 minutes longer.  My untested theory is that first set Eyes of this era tended to be a bit more uptempo and energetic than second set versions (though not necessarily better), but this one flies right along in high gear for the full duration.  It's also noteworthy because they keep jamming for a good 5 1/2 minutes after the proto-'Stronger Than Dirt' riff, and Jerry threads in the nascent Slipknot figure that he'd been messing around with intermittently since at least February of that year (it's tracked separately on this copy, but I don't think it should be: it's still the extended Eyes jam, and I don't hear any Slipknot until 2:45ish into the track).

June 1974 was one of the band's best stretches without a doubt, and also one of the few periods when the band was regularly willing to burst into fully spontaneous exploration without warming or precedent -- most of the canonized and beloved jams from this month all center around an unusual jam segment that sprouted up in some unexpected spot.  The spotlight usually (and rightly) goes to shows like 6/18 Louisville, 6/23 Miami, 6/26 Providence, or 6/28 Boston, but this jam from hot 'Lanta is well worth 40 minutes of your day anyday.  Did I mention that this Truckin>Eyes is over 40 minutes long?

11/14/74: Garcia/Sanders, Boston

Happy Memorial Day!  It’s always a good day for some Garcia/Saunders, but the vibe feels especially right today.  So: our heroes check in on the last night of a 3-day stretch at the small Paul’s Mall club in Boston.  I asked a friend who had lived there in the 70’s what the place was like and the first thing he said was, “it had really low ceilings.”  Photos show that, indeed, the ceilings were pretty low.  Here’s the best pic I can find of the stage (from a great Jimmy McGriff/Groove Holmes record):

The Paul's Mall stage.  Watch your head!

courtesy Music Museum of New England

The Jazz Workshop, from what I understand, was essentially the same club, a different room right next door and under the same management.  I remember reading somewhere that Miles Davis always opted to play on the Paul’s Mall side rather than the Jazz Workshop in the 1970’s.  I also appreciate that saxophonist Joe Farrell (formerly of Return to Forever) was playing opposite G&S that week — nice! 

courtesy JGMF

From the sounds of this early show, Garcia & Saunders may have been better off playing next door, too.  The set is unusually heavy on their jazz material: four instrumentals (five if you count the People Make the World Go Round coda) and one Merl tune, plus two Jerry rockers.  The band comes flying out of the gate: Favela is played a little faster than usual, and Let it Rock blows by nearly too fast for Jerry to sing.  There’s a woman near the taper who calls it and seems super-psyched to hear it, though.  Then they ease back into a thick, swampy groove for Merl’s Problems and the show starts really clicking.  This is the kind of stuff that Paul Humphrey did the best with them: Kahn locks in, and everyone else takes their shoes off and gets soulful.  Yes yes yes.  They choogle through Mystery Train, with a mystery female singer adding a little bit to the end: it sounds like someone from the crowd, and they wrap it up pretty quickly after she gets her 15 seconds.  My Funny Valentine is a relatively succinct 14 minute version and sounds excellent (sax-haters be warned, though, that Martin gets a little squonky here) with a small space-out > PMTWGR tacked on the end that's always lovely.  The Meters’ great Just Kissed My Baby is a tune that G&S never seemed to quite get on top of (why didn’t Merl sing the lyrics? it would have been ideal for his voice), but this one simmers over a low flame and I’m loving Martin’s stanky electric effects.  Valdez in the Country sounds about as good as it got, everyone cruising along in the groove, and Garcia sounds dialed in here with a particularly tasty solo.  He could sometimes take a back seat to Saunders and Fierro on the jazz material, but tonight he sounds right on top of it.  A great set, and a very good aud recording by Jimmy Warburton is out there for your listening pleasure — a little muffled, but pretty ideal under the circumstances and nothing you won’t get used to.

The late show is less jazz-heavy with more emphasis on the rock/R&B side of the band.  This recording (from a different master) is also rougher on the ears, another reason why I tend to favor the early show.  They’re playing just as well, but the material is a bit more standard: the one extended “jazz” piece is Wonderin’ Why, great and expansive as always.  Garcia’s more staple vocal tunes (That’s a Touch, Mystery Train, How Sweet It Is, Second That Emotion) are all well done, but not quite where my head is right now.  They wrap it up with Favela again, again taken at the same breakneck tempo as earlier and played just as well.  Not as necessary as the early show, overall, but another fine document of a fine band.

Ultimately, I think this group's most representative recording is the excellent 11/28/74 Bettyboard, though 11/27 and 10/31/74 are also favorites.  I agree with JGMF that this 11/14 early show may be the best set of their east coast tour, and 11/16 is also an excellent performance as well.

JGMF has some written some notes about the night before, 11/13:
http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2012/12/ln-jg1974-11-13jgmslateaud.html

and lightintoashes has posted some contemporary reviews:
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/12/november-12-1974-garcia-plays-boston.html

new Alexandra Palace '74

There's nothing like a good case of "I need more shows" to jolt me out of my blogging doldrums.  If you haven't seen it already, lightintoashes put out a call for some known-to-exist-but-not-digitally-circulating tapes.  One taper, Simon Phillips, has very kindly uploaded copies of the songs missing from the currently circulating fileset for 9/9/74 and a never-circulated(?) patched version of 9/10/74 (the Dark Star night), neither of which are at LMA or accessible to the masses.  His links expire very soon, but now that they're out there, they shouldn't be hard to find in the future.  I'm happy to pass them along if anyone is reading this too late and missed them.

tbh, the extra 9/9/74 material will satisfy the completionist in you and that's about it, and the 9/10 "matrix" isn't a sbd/aud mix, but a transfer of the sbd with a few aud patches to make the show complete, including the Phil & Ned set.  The true matrix will have to wait, but it's a mouth-watering proposition.  9/11/74, as you may recall, is a pretty tasty show.

EDIT: Goes to show: Charlie Miller has new transfers of all three of these shows now at LMA: 
https://archive.org/details/gd1974-09-09.135655.sbd.new.patched.miller.flac16
https://archive.org/details/gd1974-09-10.135699.sbd.new.patched.miller.flac16
https://archive.org/details/gd1974-09-11.135802.sbd.miller.flac16

The patches are great to have, of course, and this new 9/11 transfer includes all of the Phil & Ned jam in sbd (prior versions had the first 15 min patched in from the aud tape).


Also, if you want another perspective on these shows, there's this:
https://archive.org/post/342038/europe-74-notebook

Here's hoping that aud tape of 2/24/73 makes it out into the world soon, too!