During the summer of 1970, the Dead continued to tweak their
concert format. With the addition of the New Riders into the shows, along with
the acoustic sets, the Dead could now provide an entire evening of music on
their own. However, the June 1970 Fillmore West run of the group was
transitional in that the billing followed the traditional Bill Graham three act
format, with the poster listing the Dead, the New Riders, and Southern Comfort.
My father and I went to the Friday show of the set, which meant dealing with
end-of-week traffic that resulted in us getting in a bit after the show had
started. Based on the format of previous Graham-booked Dead shows, we pretty
much expected the Dead’s acoustic set to be folded within their electric set at
the top of the bill. Therefore we were surprised to walk into the Fillmore to
the strains of acoustic guitars and Bob Weir singing “Silver Threads and Golden
Needles.” The acoustic
configuration of the Dead sounded more polished than it had in April, and again
both Hart and Pigpen were absent. The repertoire was pretty familiar, the still
unreleased “Friend of the Devil,” “Me and My Uncle” transferred over from the
electric repertoire, and two tunes from the recently released Workingman’s
Dead: Black Peter and the set closing “New Speedway Boogie,” for which Garcia
switched over to electric guitar. Unlike the previous evening’s acoustic set, a
tape of which recently surfaced, neither
David Nelson nor John Dawson from the New Riders participated in the evening’s
acoustic set,
Following the acoustic Dead set was a great set by
Southern Comfort, a band of seasoned Bay Area blues players that included
drummer-vocalist Bob Jones, organist Steve Funk, guitarist Fred Olson, and a horn
section comprising trumpeter John Wilmeth and saxophonist Rev. Ron Stallings.
The group had recently released their debut album on Columbia, produced jointly
by Nick Gravenites and soon-to-be Garcia sidekick John Kahn. Their big band
blues-rock sound was very much in the style of what Gravenites and guitarist
Michael Bloomfield were dishing out in that era – not too surprising as several
of the Southern Comfort musicians, notably Jones, Wilmeth, Stavro, Olson, and
Stallings, also played in the Bloomfield/Gravenites bands of that era. Sadly,
Southern Comfort proved a relatively short-lived experiment, releasing only the
one, eponymous album in 1970, but they sounded great live.
Next up were the New Riders, playing what may have been
their first Fillmore West run (I have seen the New Riders listed as having
played the evening of 2/7/70, but this is unconfirmed and doubtful). The Riders
had tightened up considerably in the couple of weeks since I had seen them at
Peninsula School, another indicator that David Torbert was a very new recruit
to the band in spring of 1970 (see discussion here). No real surprises in their
set, which was mostly first NRPS album material augmented by tunes like “Truck
Drivin’ Man” and “Six Days on the Road.”
Weir and Kreutzmann 8.19.70 Photo: M. Parrish |
The Grateful Dead played a particularly long, expansive
electric set, starting out with their most frequent opener of that era, “Cold
Rain and Snow.” “Easy Wind” brought McKernan to center stage, and provided an
early opportunity for some open-ended jamming, followed inevitably by one of
Weir’s cowboy covers, Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried.”
For whatever reason, the Dead rarely played "Dark Star" on
their home turf in 1970 (2/8/70 and possibly 4/11/70 are the only verified Dark Stars
played in northern California that year), but they seemingly loved to trot out
the "Cryptical Envelopment/Other One" suite on home turf. A napkin compilation
shows the Dead playing Dark Star once (possibly twice if they played it on
4/11/70) in Northern California out of 24 shows for which complete set lists
exist. By contrast, they played
the "Cryptical" suite (or sometimes just "The Other One") at 12 of those 24
shows. By contrast, looking at shows in greater Metropolitan NYC (28 total), "Dark Star"
and "Cryptical" were played 11 times each. Needless to say, the long number on
6/5 was again "Cryptical Envelopment" leading into a short drum duel followed by
“The Other One" and back into a long, mellow “Cryptical" Coda, which threatened
to go into "Cosmic Charlie", but eventually wound down, leading directly into the
first hometown version of “Attics of My Life,” which the Dead would shortly be
recording for inclusion on American Beauty. Laced with complex vocal harmonies, “Attics” was always hard
for the Dead to pull off in concert, and this version has its share of shaky
harmonies. Neglected mid-set,
Pigpen was given two showcases in a row, a rollicking, if flub filled, “Hard to
Handle” followed by one of many long, snaky versions of “It’s a Man’s World”
that the Dead played between March and September, 1970, when it mysteriously
vanished from their repertoire for good. As curfew time approached, the main
set wound up with a nice electric version of “Uncle John’s Band.” The encore
consisted of a dynamic twofer of “St. Stephen” charging into “Casey Jones.”
This show was notable for me as the only 1970 Dead show that I was able to hear
all the way to the end although, as fate would have it, I missed its beginning.
Two months later, the Dead announced an early week August run
back at the Fillmore West (this time a full “Evening with the Dead with no
support other than the NRPS), and I convinced my brother, home from college for
the summer, to go up with me for the Wednesday, 8/19/70, show. Contrary to the
report in Deadlists, there was no opening bluegrass group unless they played
well before the 8 PM start time. By August, the Dead’s acoustic sets had become
more arranged and complex, with an acoustic piano onstage and an extended
segment featuring Dawson and Nelson from the New Riders. The band was recording
American Beauty concurrently with the Fillmore run, and thus it was no surprise
that the show featured a good chunk of material from that album, along with a
good selection of traditional folk and blues tunes.
Acoustic Dead 8.19.70 Photo: M. Parrish |
Weir kicked things off with “Monkey and the Engineer,” a
tune he learned (along with “Beat It On Down the Line”) from Oakland one man
band Jesse Fuller. Garcia came back with the traditional “How Long Blues”
augmented by some gospel tinged piano. The keyboardist was not clearly visible
from my vantage point (or in the photos), but my thesis is that some of the
piano was played by Ned Lagin (who was visiting the Dead from back east that
summer and played on American Beauty), and the rest was played by
Pigpen. "Friend of the Devil" was composed by John Dawson, Jerry Garcia, and
Robert Hunter in late 1969, and became a hallmark of the Dead’s acoustic sets
from late February. Friend of the Devil had entered the acoustic dead
repertoire early on, but was much more polished in its incarnation that
evening, thanks in part to the addition of the piano part. Weir, whose
compositions on American Beauty consisted of "Sugar Magnolia" and a co-writing
credit on “Truckin,” dipped back into the public domain for the bluegrass
chestnut “Dark Hollow.”
8.19.70: Acoustic Dead - Kreutzmann, Nelson, Garcia, Weir Photo: M. Parrish |
Another Garcia-Hunter ballad, “Candyman” had shown up in
March, and formed the first part of a three song medley of American Beauty tunes, rounded out by the combo of “Brokedown Palace” and “Ripple,” merged the way
they are on the album. These two songs made their live debut that weekend, and
"Ripple" flowed effortlessly out of "Brokedown Palace." Curiously, this pairing was
apparently abandoned as an in-concert vehicle following the August Fillmore
run. Best known as an electric
tune, “Truckin” had debuted in the Dead’s repertoire as an acoustic shuffle the
night before, and was performed that way in concert through September, first
emerging as an electric piece at the 10/4/70 Winterland gig. The acoustic
version was predictably more concise than the expansive versions that emerged
in later years, but was a good vehicle for what was essentially a story song.
The brisk workout on another traditional tune, “Cocaine
Blues” was sung energetically by Garcia, and ornamented by some very fine
mandolin work from David Nelson. Nelson was also instrumental in driving along
Garcia’s version of another bluegrass standard, “Rosalie McFall.” Next Garcia
switched to electric for a couple of tunes, “Wake Up Little Suzie” and “New
Speedway Boogie,” which also featured piano work that I believe is too nimble
to be attributed to Pigpen.
Gospel Quartet 8.19.70 Photo: M. Parrish |
To close out the extended acoustic set, Nelson returned, along
with John Dawson, to fill out a bluegrass gospel quartet for a couple of
sweetly sung sacred tunes, “Cold Jordan” and “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”
These shows and the September runs at the Fillmore East were
arguably the pinnacle of the Dead’s acoustic sets. They had experimented with
entire unplugged shows in San Diego on August 5 and at the Family Dog back in
March, but the decision was ultimately made, possibly for logistical reasons,
to scale back the frequency of the acoustic opening sets as the year
progressed, and they were gone entirely by year’s end, replaced by the familiar
format of one or two long electric sets.
After a short break, the New Riders were given a nice long
set, comprising some new Dawson material including “I Don’t Know You,” “Last
Lonely Eagle,” and “Dirty Business,” which was a showcase for some
spectacularly outside Garcia steel playing. By this time, Dawson was sporting a beard, and had traded his Guild acoustic for a Fender Telecaster.
Garcia and Lesh 8.19.70 Photo: M. Parrish |
13 comments:
This is fantastic, crypt, thanks! The pictures are great additions, too. Thanks for sharing them.
I have to check notes on the piano player. I think I should know whether it was Ned or not.
I am fascinated by the little gospel quartet thing (you have a typo in the caption, 80 instead of 70, by the way). This little mini-sets and fluid configurations really are really evocative for me, what the An Evening With The Grateful Dead format is all about. As Phil Elwood said about the 8/18/70 show, it might also be thought of as "Jerry Garcia and His Musical Family".
Thanks again for sharing. I love this stuff.
As always, these are beyond amazing. A couple of quick points:
I have often wondered if John Kahn was present at the June 5, 1970 show. I have to think he was. He had produced Southern Comfort, and he had started playing with Jerry at the Matrix. I wonder if he had seen the Dead before that?
As to the mystery piano--if Ned can be eliminated, does anyone want to try on speculation that its Vince Guaraldi (the new biography about him is great by the way)?
JGMF and Corry:
Thanks for your comments. My thoughts on the piano player being Ned stem from the timing (we know he was out in the bay area right then and contributed to American Beauty) and the fact that the playing sounds to me too facile to all be Pig. The Guaraldi angle is fascinating. We know that Vince played with Jerry and/or the Dead, but when and where remains elusive. Corry, thanks for the heads-up about the Guaraldi bio, which I look forward to reading. Does it offer any clues as to when he and Garcia hooked up?
Nice - it's a shame you kept getting yanked early from 1970 Dead shows!
I was hoping for a photo of Crosby onstage with the Dead on 8/19/70... Given how frequently he guested with them, is there a single photo from any of those shows?
You're right that hometown Dark Stars were pretty rare that year. Out in the Fillmore East or Capitol Theater, they'd bring it out every other show... New Yorkers demanded the best, I guess!
It's kind of surprising (though musically logical) that Southern Comfort followed the acoustic Dead set on 6/5/70. That's an unusual way for a Dead show to be structured.
I think we've discussed the piano playing on 8/19/70 before... My stance is that it's well within Pigpen's capabilities, and sounds like him to me. (He's presumably the one playing piano in New Speedway Boogie on 6/13/70, for comparison.) He could do more than just block chords.
You're right that Ned Lagin would've been in town around that time. But not only would he probably rather have played in the electric-set jams (as he would do in '71), but he is sure in his interviews that he did not play live with the Dead before fall 1970 in Boston.
(Guaraldi also seems like a highly unlikely candidate. Dead guests tend to appear in the jams, not to learn a few acoustic songs beforehand.)
To return to the piano playing -
Though Ned Lagin did not remember (or mention) playing in these shows, there are several other reasons I believe it to be all Pigpen in these August 70 shows.
Listening again to 8/19/70, what strikes me is not how nimble the playing is, but how limited & awkward it frequently is. The player mainly sticks to simple chording and has a small number of techniques he keeps returning to.
(In Candyman, for example, the piano does very little. And notice how the piano starts playing in Ripple, then stops for most of the song.)
The piano-playing is most forward & confident in the blues & boogie-based songs - How Long, Truckin' & New Speedway - the kind of repertoire that Pigpen would be most familiar with.
(In Truckin' the piano even takes the lead, since Garcia had not yet started playing lead guitar in this song.)
Also, the playing is very similar to Pigpen's playing in other 1970 shows: such as the 6/13/70 NSB, or the 9/20/70 Truckin'. (And check out Tastebud, the outtake from the first album, for an example of Pigpen's best blues piano playing.)
But most tellingly, we have an eyewitness review of these shows - Michael Lydon's "Evening with the Grateful Dead" article in Rolling Stone refers to "Pigpen on piano" during the acoustic set, noting that "Pig doodled around when he wanted and just sat there when he didn't."
(BTW, there's no piano in Friend of the Devil on 8/19/70, but there may be a little in Dark Hollow.)
And, to return to the case of the vanishing California Dark Stars, it was the start of a long trend - they played a grand total of one Dark Star in California in 1971 (on 11/7). Anyone near SF hoping to hear it again would have to wait til the August '72 Berkeley shows!
LIA:
You make good points, and I am certainly not wedded to the idea that the piano is played by Ned. However, when I spoke to him several years ago, he indicated that he had played onstage with the Dead prior to Boston, but was not forthcoming about when or where. In his interview with Gans, he mentioned that he and Pig would often switch off on keys, which was what I thought might have taken place that evening.
Thanks for the amazing research found throughout this site. This piano discussion brought to mind a question I've always had -- I'm sure this is old news, but do we know who played piano on the "Skull and Roses" version of "Wharf Rat"? Thank you!
Thanks for the kind words Nathan. No, I don't think a definitive answer is forthcoming on who played piano on the album version of Wharf Rat, which comes from the Fillmore East 4/28/71. Since we know Merl Saunders overdubbed organ, the best speculation seems to be that he overdubbed the piano part as well, but that's really just speculation. There is no piano in the mix on the soundboard from the show, so it does not appear to have been a Lagin sit-in, and the piano sounds acoustic rather than electric in any event.
Thank you for the response. I thought it might be Saunders, but, given that it’s an overdub and a simple part and progression, seemed like it could be any number of people, even Garcia. Thanks!
Thank you many times over for this and other contributions to this site. I am the author of Deadlists entries for 1969 & 1970 and I saw this show. A four member acapella group singing bluegrass material opened. It is entirely possible that they went on before 8:00. They went on early and were a surprise. As you say, Jerry's solo in Dirty Business was completely off the hook but this was true of his pedal steel playing throughout the set. At one point between tunes he made the guitar say "Oh wow." Pigpen was definitely the piano player on Truckin but I can't comment on whether he was the piano player all through the set. Thank you again. Jim Powell
Jim:
I did not hear the bluegrass group's set. If memory serves, we arrived right at or near 8 PM. Thanks for the additional info!
There was a three-member acapella group that came on -- to our surprise, they were unbilled and unexpected -- and did a set of maybe 20 minutes duration and then there was a break of maybe another 20-30 minutes before the Acoustic Dead came on. The hall was far from full when the trio came on. I am quite positive about this. I have the impression that they were "the Rowan Brothers" but this might be mistaken. I am not mistaken about the set. You must have arrived afterward.
Jim Powell
I have recently listened to the superb digital upgrade of the audience master of this show posted on Internet Archive. Pigpen's piano is audible on Monkey & The Engineer, Truckin and New Speedway. Nelson's mandolin is heard on at least a half dozen tunes. There is a fiddle on Cocaine Blues and Rosalie McFall, both bowed & pizzicato. Jerry switches to electric on Wake Up Little Suzie and New Speedway and there is a second electric guitar on Speedway (Crosby?). Marmaduke and Nelson add backup vocals on several tunes.
In the electric set Crosby's guitar is audible (turned down) on Cold Rain and Me and My Uncle, Easy Wind, China Cat and Good Loving, and, turned up, on NFA > Lovelight. Pigpen's harmonica is audible (obviously) on Easy Wind but also off-mic in parts of it.
The acapella blue grass group that played a short, apparently impromptu set, early in the evening, before much of the crowd was there, had three members. (Sorry for the confusion above.)
This was my second Dead show and my first chance to get a good look, close up, at the band, so I had no idea who was who in the acoustic set, except that Marmaduke and Nelson were identifiable in retrospect after they came on with NRPS. I had no idea that Crosby wasn't just another band member. I don't remember the fiddle player but he (or she) is plainly audible -- but ya gotta listen close. It's possible there's a second mandolin on this tunes but more likely its the fiddle played pizzicato.
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