My Season with Kingfish Part 2

After their first show at the Chateau, Kingfish started gigging relatively regularly around the Bay Area, but more or less established a weekend residency back at the Chateau for much of the winter.  Confirmed dates were December 13,14; January 3,4; and 1/26; but I believe they played some other dates in the intervening weeks as well. I went to at least one night of each run with Judy, and got to hear the group developing their sound and their repertoire. One novelty during the mid-December run was a single version of Johnny B. Goode, which failed to make it into the band’s regular repertoire. 

I also started seeing the group at the Keystone Berkeley. The first show of theirs I attended there was Sunday December 29, which was notable for a couple of reasons. First, it was the first time I saw the group change up their instrumental lineup for a few songs. Torbert switched to guitar and Kelly took up the bass for a trio of tunes, all sung by Torbert. “California Day” was one of Torbert’s most memorable originals from his days in the New Riders, a gorgeous ballad evoking the mystique of the northern California coastline. He also sang “Lonesome Fugitive,” one of Merl Haggard’s many songs about outlaws. The third tune in this mini-set was a bouncy, uptempo version of Hank Cochran’s honky tonk lament “A-11,” which was best known from Buck Owens’ 1964 version. Another notable aspect of the show was that Weir’s bandmate Phil Lesh was in attendance, and actually watched part of the show from a chair on the side of the relatively tiny Keystone stage, but did not play.  Incidentally, contrary to the Lost Live Dead tour history, James and the Mercedes did not open this particular show, although they appeared with Kingfish a few times in early 1975.  

By the mid seventies New Year’s Eve was already a big night for music in the bay area. Although the Dead themselves had not played a show that night since 12/31/72, Garcia and Bill Kreutzmann had brought in the previous new years jamming with the Allman Brothers at the Cow Palace. Thus it was a welcome surprise to learn that Kingfish had been booked to play a show near most of the band’s old stomping grounds, at the Stanford movie theatre in downtown Palo Alto.

I had been going to the Stanford theatre since our family moved to Palo Alto at the end of 1960. I remember going to summer double features there for a dime in my pre-teen years and had seen many a movie there in subsequent years. By the mid-seventies, the movie palace had fallen on hard times, and the Kingfish show was an early attempt to transform the theatre to a venue for live performances. The theatre’s heyday as a live venue is chronicled in  one-time promoter Andrew Bernstein’s immensely entertaining memoir California Slim: The Music, the Madness, and the Magic. Miraculously, the increasingly decrepit theatre was rescued from giving way to another franchise store by the generosity of film buff David Packard Jr., who  convinced the David and Lucille Packard Foundation to spare no expense in restoring the theatre, now an archival film showcase, to its former glory. 

Back at the close of 1974, the theatre was not in great shape, but it was a fine, relatively intimate place to spend New Year’s Eve with Weir, Torbert, and friends.  You can find an extensive discussion of this show here.

Opening the evening was another band with a strong Dead connection. Osiris was a Palo Alto based blues-rock band whose keyboard player, Kevin McKernan, was the younger brother of the Dead’s late singer and keyboardist Ron “Pigpen” McKernan. Their lineup was very  Dead-like with two guitars, bass, keyboards, and two drummers, and I believe they used some equipment salvaged from the Wall of Sound.  The most vivid memory of their set was an amazing version of “Hard to Handle” with Kevin McKernan, who bore an eerie physical resemblance to his sibling, channeling Pigpen’s trademark delivery of the song.

           Kingfish played two sets, with no real surprises to those of us who had already seen them a few times. They had started to work a number of other tunes into their repertoire by this time. Weir’s contributions included a really nice uptempo version of Dolly Parton’s “My Blue Tears” and a snazzy arrangement of “Saturday Night” with some twin lead guitar from Weir and Hoddinott. Over the next several weeks, they worked in a number of other tunes – classic soul tunes including “Shop Around,” “Roadrunner,” a rock arrangement of Bill Monroe’s “Muleskinner Blues” that was often paired with Torbert’s version of “Mystery Train,” Bo Diddley’s “Mona” and the blues standard “C.C. Rider” (these latter two found their way into the Dead’s post-hiatus repertoires).  Torbert added “I Hear You Knocking,” “Carol” and a few cover tunes he did with the New Riders, including “School Days,” “Willie and the Hand Jive” and “Sea Cruise,” as well as his own “Groupie.”

Because Kingfish had been playing such small venues, and spending considerable time in the Santa Cruz mountains, I got it in my head that it might be possible to convince them to come play at UC Santa Cruz. Having never promoted a show in my life, I nonetheless thought it was something worth pursuing. I was a member of Gotterdammerung, a student group that showed films every Saturday night in the Crown College Dining Hall, so I figured we could get use of the Dining Hall for a show if we could pull it off.   So, at the next Kingfish show we attended,  January 25 at the Keystone Berkeley,  I approached Kingfish sound man Tim Hovey during the break to float the idea of their coming to UCSC. Since, as noted above, I had no promotion experience, and they knew nothing of the venue,  he seemed somewhat dubious, but he took my name and number and said they might be in touch. I didn’t really expect much to come of it.

Tim Hovey has a significant role in Kingfish/Horses history. He was co-writer, with Torbert, of “Important Exporting Man” on the third New Riders album, and “Wild Northland” on the first Kingfish album, and the pair wrote another Kingfish mainstay, “Goodbye Yer Honor” with Matthew Kelly. Earlier, he had collaborated with John Carter, Scott Quigley, and Tim Gilbert on “Jump for Joy” which had appeared on the Horses album and became a mainstay of the Kingfish repertoire. Earlier, Hovey had been a child actor who appeared in a number of 1950s television shows. Hovey was a friendly chap, and seemingly a good soundman, as I recall all of the Kingfish shows of that era having a bright, clear mix.

Opening that Keystone show was another interesting band with Dead connections. On the 1970

Festival Express tour, the band members met up with a Canadian folk-rock ensemble called James and the Good Brothers, comprising singer-songwriter James Ackroyd and .twins Bruce and Brian Good.  James and the Good Brothers subsequently made it out to California, and eventually recorded a fine eponymous album for Columbia that was produced by Betty Cantor and included contributions by Bill Kreutzmann and an uncredited Jerry Garcia. There has been much speculation at Lost Live Dead and Jerry Garcia’s Middle Finger about the politics and economics of some of the Dead-related signings by other labels. Columbia, then run by Clive Davis, seem to have signed several loss leaders from other labels during the early seventies, including the Rowan Brothers, James and the Good Brothers and even the original incarnation of the New Riders of the Purple Sage.  In Davis’ recently published autobiography, he indicates that he was courting the Dead as early as 1969, and these signings could have been part of that effort, which ultimately resulted in the Dead signing with Davis’s subsequent label. Arista, after Grateful Dead records folded in 1976.  At any rate, James and the Good Brothers splintered after their album failed to generate much interest, with the Goods split back to Canada, where they recruited younger sibling Larry and became (and remain) one of Canada’s more popular country acts. As an aside, Bruce Good’s sons Travis and Dallas are mainstays of Toronto’s remarkable alt-country ensemble the Sadies.

Back in California, Ackroyd had assembled a rock group, which he dubbed James and the Mercedes that comprised a second guitarist, bass player, drummer, and two female vocalists, one of whom was Frankie Weir, Bob’s partner at the time. We saw this group on two consecutive nights, at the Keystone and then the Chateau, and they were enjoyable if not particularly memorable.  These were the only bookings I remember for this particular ensemble, whch probably broke up after a rather public separation of the Weirs shortly after the two shows with Kingfish. Ackroyd seems to vanish from the musical radar around this time, and the Good Brothers website indicates that he has passed away.

Kingfish Chateau Liberte 1/26/75 From left to right:
Hoddinott, Weir, Herold, Kelly, Torbert
Photo: M. Parrish

The next night, Kingfish was back at the Chateau, and I believe this was their last gig there. I took some photos at that show, but the very dark ambience of the good ol’ Chateau rendered them pretty sketchy, even with the assistance of photoshop. As noted, James and the Mercedes opened, and about the only person visible in the shots of that group is Ms. Weir. That show was memorable because I did speak with Hovey again and, more significantly, was introduced to the group’s imposing road manager, Rex Jackson. Jackson, a tall, muscular fellow who clearly could take on any of the Chateau’s bikers, was a bit brusque on our first meeting, but turned out to be a really nice guy. 

James and the Mercedes Chateau Liberte 1/26/75
Frankie Weir in spotlight. Photo: M. Parrish

I did not keep Kingfish set lists, but I think this may have been the first show at which I heard Weir sing “All I Need is Time,” the  Bud Reneau ballad that had previously been a hit for both Gladys Knight and the Pips and Roy Orbison. Kingfish’s arrangement was one of the highlights of their shows during that era, with Weir doing his best crooning and the band, especially Hoddinott displaying a beautiful combination of chops and restraint.

Well, this has gone on long enough. I will wrap this up in Part 3, hopefully more quickly than I got this piece done. 

Cryptical Reviews

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. I'm working on a long one that I hope to have up soon. In the meantime, I have started a second music blog focusing on reviews of recordings, books, and shows:
www.crypt-rev.blogspot.com. I hope to add to this weekly.

The Chateau Liberte and a Season with Kingfish and Garcia/Saunders– Part One

The retirement of the Grateful Dead from touring in October 1974 came as a blow to fans who had gotten used to seeing them several times a year, particularly in their bay area home base. Other than Jerry Garcia, who performed regularly with Merl Saunders, the remaining band members kept a low profile – rarely, if ever, venturing out as performers outside of the context of the Dead.  Even Garcia’s solo ventures had, up to that point, mostly focused on San Francisco, Berkeley, and Marin, which presented a conundrum for me as a student at UC Santa Cruz without ready access to transportation. To add insult to figurative injury, almost all of Garcia’s performances at the time were in bars that weren’t accessible to me as a 20 year old. Thus, it was a miracle of timing and geography that the Dead’s two guitarists discovered the legendary Chateau Liberté, located back in the woods of the Santa Cruz mountains not far from the summit of Highway 17. The Chateau, easily a two hour drive from Marin County, was a favored hangout for some of the alums of Moby Grape (notably Skip Spence, who played a pivotal role in the formation of Chateau regulars the Doobie Brothers), and Hot Tuna had also used the club for woodshedding, and recorded their second album, First Pull Up and Then Pull Down, at the club.

The first Dead related performance at the Chateau that I am aware was also my first visit there, for a Jerry Garcia/Merl Saunders performance on October 11. Why Jerry was playing at a tiny club in the Santa Cruz mountains five days before beginning the farewell Dead shows at Winterland that became the Grateful Dead movie speaks volumes about his attitude towards playing and the music business. Don H., one of my college dorm friends, a fine musician himself, had a large van, and a bunch of us piled in the back for the trip up the mountain to the Chateau. Traveling Hwy 17 in the back of a Dodge van can be a disorienting experience, but it was even more eerie pulling off onto Summit Road and then Old Santa Cruz Highway in pitch blackness. Fortunately, Don had been to the Chateau before, so he had no trouble finding the way. Out of the darkness, a jumble of cars, motorcycles and people appeared surrounding a small shack-like structure that seemed impossibly small to be hosting a Garcia show. We paid our three bucks to the formidable doorman and made our way into the dimly lit club. Close to showtime, the Chateau was comfortably full but not so crowded that a fire marshall would be concerned (assuming s/he could find his way there).

Not having accurate figures of capacity, I would venture that the Chateau held at most half the people that could fit in the Keystones in Berkeley or Palo Alto. The main concert room was the size of a large living room, and the building was divided in half by a two sided bar parallel to the stage. On the other side of the bar was another, smaller room that held the pool tables, which were always in use, even when the musicians were onstage.

Although this was the fourth time I had seen Jerry and Merl, it was really the first full two set show I heard them play, and it was one of the most memorable of the many shows I heard them play over the next eight months. The ensemble was rounded out by John Kahn on bass, Martin Fierro on sax, flute and percussion, and LA session veteran Paul Humphrey on drums. At this stage in their musical partnership, Fierro played much more of a support role than he did during the Legion of Mary era in 1975, when his continued full bodied roar on sax could get overwhelming. Instead, this was a delicately played, very jazzy show, full of subtle nuances that could be seen as well as heard by the rapt and attentive audience (at least those of us in the front room). I attribute some of the magic of this iteration of Garcia and Saunders’ band to the presence of Humphrey, whose tasteful playing was more restrained than that of the group’s more rock-oriented drummers of the era such as Bill Kreutzmann, Bill Vitt, and Ron Tutt. All of those guys could certainly swing in a jazzy vein, but Humphrey brought something unique to the mix that took the band’s sound in a different, more understated direction that was unique to the shows during his tenure in the group.

My friends and I positioned ourselves by the soundboard, which, although in the back of the room, probably wasn’t more than 20 feet from the stage. I wasn’t keeping setlists at that time, and the Garcia-Saunders songbook of the day was sufficiently eclectic and often obscure that the names of many of the tunes were not pinned down by Garcia researchers until the last few years. Although rockers like “I’m a Road Runner” and “Mystery Train” were played, the bulk of the show was lush instrumentals and mood pieces like Saunders’ take on “Wondering Why,” which featured some beautiful flute work from Fierro. The transcendent point of the show for me occurred late in the second set, with a long, gorgeous version of Jimmy Cliff’s “Sitting in Limbo,” which had just entered the group’s repertoire a couple of months previously. All in all, I couldn’t have hoped for a better initiation into seeing Dead related ensembles in clubs.

Another opportunity was afforded just three weeks later, when a tiny ad appeared in the pre-Thanksgiving edition of Santa Cruz weekly Sundaz announcing back to back shows by Garcia and Saunders on Saturday and, on the preceding evening, a hitherto-unknown group called Kingfish that featured Bob Weir and bassist David Torbert, who had left the New Riders of the Purple Sage a few months previously.  For reasons that elude me now, the second Garcia show wasn’t workable for me, but I did end up going to the Kingfish show, curious to see what this new group had to offer.

The early history of Kingfish has been detailed in depth elsewhere, but the players other than Weir and lead guitarist Robbie Hoddinott that comprised this lineup had intertwining histories that went back to the mid-sixties. Torbert, drummer Chris Herold, and New Riders guitarist David Nelson were core members of the legendary New Delhi River Band,who played regularly in the Santa Cruz mountains and the south bay from 1966-69. Late in the band’s tenure, Kingfish harmonica and guitar player Matthew Kelly, who had led another group (St. Matthew’s Blues Band) that often opened for the NDRB, apparently joined the group as a full time member following Nelson’s departure (For a comprehensive history of the NDRB, go here). Kelly, Torbert, and Kelly subsequently moved into another band, named Shango, and ultimately to a recording 1969 recording project released under the name Horses, which was the brainchild of the Los Angeles songwriting team of Tim Gilbert and John Carter, and which included future TV star Don Johnson as lead singer-guitarist. Whether this group displaced Shango or was solely a recording project is unclear. Regardless, Kelly, Torbert, and Herold went their separate ways by early 1970, with Torbert becoming permanent bassist for the New Riders when they began touring regularly with the Dead and Kelly moving to the UK to play with blues rock band Gospel Oak.  By 1973, Kelly was back in the US and began playing with Herold and pianist Mick Ward in a primarily instrumental group called Lonesome Janet, back in the South Bay-Santa Cruz mountains axis. When Torbert quit the New Riders in near the end of 1973, he hooked up with his old cronies and hot young guitarist Robbie Hoddinott to form the first version of Kingfish. Ward died in a car accident in mid-1974, leaving a void that Weir stepped into when the Dead’s hiatus began.

I was home in Palo Alto for Thanksgiving, but ended up going to the show with a few friends from school who lived on the peninsula, including my roommate Chuck and his sister Judy. Strangely, the Chateau seemed more packed than it had been for the Garcia show a few weeks earlier, possibly because this show was promoted more broadly. Nonetheless, we had no trouble getting in, and finding a good vantage point near the stage. Any doubts that this Kingfish thing was a scam evaporated when we saw Bob Weir onstage a few feet away fiddling with his equipment.

However, before Kingfish was to take the stage, an opening set was provided by Santa Cruz Mountains stalwarts Timbercreek, a five piece psychedelic country rock band that owed more than a passing debt to the Dead, the New Riders and their ilk. I had heard Timbercreek several months earlier at the Boulder Creek Theater, co-billed with one of the earliest public screenings of Sunshine Daydream, a professionally shot (and still officially unreleased) film of the Dead’s 8/27/72 performance at the Springfield, Oregon Creamery. Timbercreek released one album, Hellbound Highway, in 1975, and played the Chateau frequently, but rarely ventured out of the Santa Cruz mountains. I remember them sounding good on both occasions, tight instrumentally and with some good originals, but can’t provide a lot of additional detail about their sets. A few decades ahead of their time, Timbercreek would have found a comfortable niche in today’s jam band scene.

Kingfish’s gig at the Chateau appears to have been their third or fourth show with the new lineup, and Bob Weir was still finding space within the band’s instrumental mix and repertoire. Weir had really never played outside of the context of the Dead (other than a handful of appearances as Bobby Ace doing C&W and folk covers in 69-70), so the audience literally had no idea of what material the band would play.

What they delivered was two fine sets of surprisingly polished music that showed them realizing their potential right at the outset. Torbert took the lion’s share of the lead vocals, opening with a slow, funky version of “Next Time You See Me,” the Junior Parker blues tune that was a mainstay of Ron “Pigpen” McKernan’s repertoire with the Dead. Torbert’s slippery, melodic bass work was a key element of Kingfish’s sound. Equally distinctive was the truly remarkable telecaster picking by twentysomething lead guitarist Robbie Hoddinott, who had seemingly come out of nowhere as a fully formed Danny Gatton-style guitar hero. Matthew Kelly alternated between rhythm guitar and gritty blues harmonica. Weir initially played more rhythm than lead, but gradually worked more of his trademark arpeggiated embellishments into the band’s sound as his time in the band progressed.

The Horses Circa 1969 Torbert (l) and Herold (r)
in the second row, and Kelly back row (l)

Many of the other Torbert-sung tunes that were the core of the Kingfish repertoire came from the Carter-Gilbert tunes penned for the Horses album, where they were sung by Johnson. However, they were by and large a great fit for the Kingfish bassist, and the band quickly made them their own. These included the soaring “Jump for Joy” (titled “Run Rabbit Run” on Horses, and the oddly syncopated and exotic “Asia Minor,” which was written by the duo in conjunction with Quigley and Tim Hovey, who had a long association with the Kingfish core and we’ll get to in part 2.  A couple of tunes faked us out as potential Dead covers. Torbert and Kelly’s “Hypnotize begins with an AM7 riff that sounded just like the intro to “Eyes of the World” and Kingfish’s funky take on “Battle of New Orleans” started out with a slow shuffle that sounded like the intro to “Sugar Magnolia” on quaaludes. The group’s sole instrumental was a cover of Little Walter’s “Juke” which had shown up on the Horses album with the unlikely title Horseradish (and a Carter-Gilbert writing credit). For most of the band’s career, Hoddinott sang a single tune – a cover of Junior Walker’s hit “Shake and Fingerpop” (Hoddinott also sang another Walker single “Peace and Understanding” with Kingfish on occasion).

For most of the first year of his tenure in the band, Weir sang only covers (except for his own "One More Saturday Night"), and only a very small number of tunes he did with the Dead – initially only two Chuck Berry tunes – Promised Land and Around and Around, which closed the first set and the show, respectively. For his other tunes, Weir went back to El Paso composer Marty Robbins for another gunfighter ballad, “Big Iron,” referenced Bill Monroe with “Muleskinner Blues,” Bobby Womack with “It’s All Over Now,” and Bo Diddley with “Mona.” Although Weir would later add these latter two tunes to the Dead’s repertoire, this was the first place he played them, at least in a rock band context. Torbert dug deep into the R&B repertoire for Rufus Thomas’ “Jump Back,” the Lieber and Stoller classic “Young Blood,” Dave Bartholomew’s “I Hear You Knockin’” and Junior Parker’s “Mystery Train.”

Kingfish at the Chateau Liberte 2/24/75
Photo: M. Parrish

Thus Kingfish’s repertoire, at the outset, was fundamentally different than those of the famous bands the two lead singers hailed from. They clearly dug deep into their mutual love of all kinds of roots music to fashion a repertoire that established Kingfish as its own entity. Although they added a number of other covers and originals throughout the 1974-76 tenure of the original band, the songs they played that night at the Chateau remained the lion’s share of Kingfish’s repertoire during their time together, and in the several reunions that followed later in the century.

From the outset, Kingfish was a ferocious live ensemble that had clearly spent a lot of time woodshedding before playing out. Torbert, whose skills and prominence as a lead vocalist and songwriter had increased dramatically the last two years he was in the New Riders, seemed confident and relaxed as putative leader of Kingfish, and Weir clearly relished the challenge of moving into a more traditional rock/R&B ensemble. The band dug deep into their collective musical tastes to develop a distinctive repertoire that drew little from either the Dead or NRPS songbooks. The group also never took on the Dead’s penchants for extended improvisation, focusing instead on vocals and tight instrumental arrangements that gave Hoddinott plenty of leash to display his flashy and virtuosic licks. The assembled throng of mountain folks and Deadheads enthusiastically embraced the group’s style and repertoire. Over the next couple of months, the Chateau became somewhat of a home away from home for the quintet as they continued to hone their chops, and I will delve more into their residency there in a subsequent post.

Grateful Dead - August 1972

Upon returning from their winter-spring 1972 jaunt through Europe, the Grateful Dead chose to spend the summer into fall alternating between large outdoor shows and mid-sized, theatres. This week marks the 40^th Anniversary of a run of Dead shows that culminated in the much-heralded Veneta, Oregon performance on 8/27/72 that was memorialized by the unreleased but oft-bootlegged film Sunshine Daydream and was lauded by John Dwork in the first volume of the Deadhead’s Taping Compendium as one of the high water marks of western civilization. I went to two of the  less heralded of the six shows of that run,, and took a few pictures at the 8/20/72 show, so I thought I would take this occasion to share a few reflections here.

In the summer of 1972 , I was between my frosh and sophomore years at the University of California Santa Cruz and home in Palo Alto for the summer. As was the case every summer during my undergraduate years, I scrambled to find employment that would allow me to fund the next year’s schooling. After quite a bit of searching, I secured a temporary gig at plastics company Raychem in Menlo Park, creating heat-shrinkable tubing for electronic wiring on the graveyard shift. This was my first and only job on a production line, and it gave me a deep appreciation for what my colleagues in the plant – and their counterparts in similar facilities throughout the world – did every day. I think it also gave me an even greatea appreciation of the privilege I had to gain a college education.  In the meantime, the graveyard shift schedule, which began at midnight Sunday night and ended at 8 AM Friday mornings (unless we worked overtime on Friday night as well) wreaked havoc with my biological as well as social clocks.  I would get home, eat breakfast, try to sleep during the day, and emerge, vampire-like in the late afternoon or evening. It never quite worked, and I always attempted to revert to a conventional schedule on weekends, which meant that I spent most of the summer in a sleep-deprived state.

In July, when tickets were announced for a run of four Dead shows at the relatively intimate Berkeley Community Theater, I realized that the only one of the shows my work schedule would permit me to attend was the Friday, August 25 show. I and a few of my college friends, went to the local Sears Ticketron outlet and got tickets which, if memory serves, were either in the first or one of the closest rows. Roughly a week before this run of shows began, a last-minute addition to the Dead’s schedule was added, for Sunday, August 20 at the equally intimate San Jose Civic Auditorium. Since I didn’t have to be at work until midnight that evening, I figured I would have time to see that show as well, so it was back to Sears for general admission tickets for my friends and I.

The Sunday show was the only time the Dead played the San Jose Civic Audirorium, Although the band had roots in the mid-peninsula, and had famously played the San Jose Acid Test in an old Victorian house on the current site of the San Jose City Hall Rotunda the night of the Rolling Stones’ 1966 show at the Civic, they never gigged at the Civic Auditorium during the sixties, when the auditorium hosted shows by a wide variety of rock acts including the Byrds, Cream, the Airplane,  and the Buffalo Springfield. Garcia had played there a few weeks earlier (7/1/72) with Merl Saunders, Tom Fogerty, John Kahn, and Bill Vitt, and apparently liked the intimate, funky confines of the Civic enough to bring the Dead there as part of their west coast August run. 

San Jose Civic Auditorium

San Jose Civic Auditorium in its heyday

The Civic is a gorgeous, 3300 capacity mission-style auditorium that was built as part of the WPA project and opened in 1936. The horseshoe-shaped seating arrangement made for good sightlines from the floor, the mezzanine seating, and the balcony.  After years of relative disuse during the late 20^thcentury, the audirorium underwent an extensive makeover in the last several years, and now again serves as a mid-sized venue for south bay concerts. I saw veteran rock bands Yes and Procol Harum there a couple of weeks ago, and was impressed with the improvements in seating, lighting, and sound reinforcement, while maintaining the feel of the old facility.

Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir 8.20.72 Photo: M. Parrish

Bill Kreutzmann and Phil Lesh 8.20.72 Photo: M. Parrish

Although the San Jose show was held on a Sunday night and was a last-minute addition to the roster, it was the Dead’s first local appearance since the trip to Europe, and drew a respectable, if not sold out crowd. Their set included a few songs that local crowds had not heard before, including the Garcia-Hunter ballad “Stella Blue” and “He’s Gone,” Hunter’s not to Mickey Hart’s father Lenny,  the one-time Dead manager who had absconded with a bunch of the band’s money a couple of years before. What was most striking, to me at least, was the extent to which Keith and Donna Godchaux had been incorporated into the band.  Keith’s jazzy piano chops proved a powerful foil to Garcia and Lesh, as evidenced by the extended improvisational workouts on “Playing in the Band” and “The Other One.” Donna’s vocal role was most evident on choral arrangements such as the coda to “He’s Gone” and the almost doo-wop harmonies that now ornamented Bob Weir’s “One More Saturday Night.” The relatively concise show was over by about 1030, giving me plenty of time to make it to work by midnight.

The 8/20/72 gig was, sadly, the Dead’s only performance at the San Jose Civic, and they only played the city of San Jose one more time, an outdoor show at San Jose State University’s Spartan Stadium in 1979 that was the debut of keyboardist Brent Mydland.

Berkeley Community Theatre

The Berkeley Community Theatre which seats 3500, is similar in size to the San Jose Civic, but configured more of a conventional theatre than the arena-shaped south bay venue. Throughout his years as a promoter, Bill Graham used the facility for more upscale acts that benefited from its fixed seating and acoustics far superior to Graham’s other venues like Winterland and the Cow Palace. The Dead first played the BCT in 1968, and had played two shows there the previous August, but the decision to play four nights there rather than two or three at Winterland this time out was clearly was an artistic rather than a financial one. 

The band’s BCT run is considered by many to be a high water mark of 1972, leading up to the infamous Oregon Field trip show the following Sunday. Excellent soundboard tapes circulate of the shows on the the 21^st, 22^nd, and 24^th, but the Friday show is one of the few shows for which neither a complete recording or even a full setlist exists. A fragmentary soundboard recording is known that has the song order jumbled, based on my memory of the show. 

After waking from my Friday afternoon slumber, I collected my college roommate Tim and on and off girlfriend Debbie for the trip up to Berkeley. Arriving there, we made what proved to be a serious tactical error by chowing down at the Giant Burger on University Avenue, a perennial Berkeley landmark for many years previously and afterwards. We got to the Theater early, which proved to be a good thing. At 730, Bill Graham came out to announce that the show, scheduled for 8 PM, would be starting early with an unannounced set by the New Riders of the Purple Sage, who played their distinctive cosmic cowboy country rock for a good hour.

After a break, the Dead came on and got a rare person-by-person introduction “for all the folks from Boise” before the band slipped into their slow, funky rendition of “Cold Rain and Snow.” The first set was relatively textbook, save for a rare, and very rough, rendition of “The Frozen Logger,”which tended to show up when the band was dealing with some onstage equipment woes. The set ended with an uncharacteristically ragged version of “Bertha,” with Garcia mangling the words of a song he had performed at practically every show for the previous year and a half.  The second set opened with Weir’s spirited reading of Chuck Berry’s “Promised Land” which was followed by another wild and wooly voyage through “Playing in the Band” which, clocking in at 18 minutes plus,  was half again as long as the version we had heard in San Jose a few days before.

During this era in the band;s existence, the extended segment during the second set almost always alternated between sets of songs built around either “Dark Star’ or “The Other One.” As fate would have it, the Dark Stars occurred on Monday and Thursday, so both the San Jose and 8/25 Berkeley shows featured sets of music that opened with “Truckin’ and wound their way into “The Other One,” terminating in a slow ballad.  For the San Jose show, the transition between the two songs was punctuated by a Bill Kreuztmann drum solo, but the Friday Berkeley show found Truckin’ gradually giving way to one of Phil Lesh’s infrequent but always adventurous bass solos which drove the band powerfully into  another long, frenetic version of“The Other One,” which is separated by a break (presumably because of  a tape flip) from “Black Peter”on the soundboard tape.  

The Berkeley Community Theater was (and presumably still is) a union house, and stiff penalties were assessed if shows went beyond the contracted midnight curfew. Although the New Riders had started early, their set placed time pressure on the Dead’s usually open-ended time schedule. Thus the show ended somewhat abruptly without an encore with a “Sugar Magnolia” that just squeaked in before the witching hour.  Our show actually ended even a bit earlier, as the Giant Burger in Tim’s stomach had been making its presence known more and more strongly through the latter part of the show, and had us taking our leave just as the band was swinging into “Sunshine Daydream.”

After this run, the Dead did not play the BCT for many years, although Garcia played a benefit there with Merl Saunders in 1974 and some of the band participated in an acoustic set for a 4/15/81 benefit for SEVA.  1984, 1985, and 1986, the band did an annual run of shows there that were benefits for their chairtable arm, the Rex Foundation. Their last show there, a benefit for the music programs of the Berkeley public schools, was an acoustic set billed as Phil Lesh and Friends on 9/24/94.  The BCT has fallen into relative disuse in recent years, but recently had a new sound system installed, so perhaps it will, like the San Jose Civic, experience a 21st century revival as a live music venue.

Fillmore West 11.6.70 – Zappa, Boz, and More.

Frank Zappa Fillmore West 11.6.70 Photo: M. Parrish

Freak Out!, the first double album by the Mothers of Invention, was among the first dozen or so albums I bought, and Frank Zappa’s compositional skills, the eclectic musicianship of the original Mothers, and their greasy, sarcastic personae held great appeal to me as a mid-teen aged music nerd. Although I had all of their albums, the first opportunity I had to see Zappa in person was in November of 1970. Zappa and the Mothers topped a typically eclectic Bill Graham quadruple bill at the Fillmore West. Not unlike something out of one of Zappa’s cheesy teen anthems, a planned date to go to the show fell through at the last minute, so I once again headed up to San Francisco on a Friday night with my dad to Market and Van Ness.

At the Fillmores, Bill Graham was extremely fond of throwing together eclectic mixes of performers. Some made for artistic magic and others seemed – well – thrown together, and that was more the case for the Zappa show. Opening were two solid touring power trios from the UK. Bottom of the bill (and absent from the poster) was Irish band Skid Row (not to be confused with the later hair metal band), who played the familiar loud blooz rock that Cream had adopted from Chicago bluesmen like Buddy Guy a few years earlier. Skid Row’s guitarist was a young Garry Moore, who later became a regular guitar foil for Cream’s Jack Bruce,. They had briefly included future Thin Lizzy front man Phil Lynott on bass, but he was gone by the time I saw them. I honestly don’t remember much about Skid Row’s set – they couldn’t have played too long because of time constraints.

Next up were Liverpudlians Ashton, Gardner, and Dyke, who are best remembered today for one significant hit – “Resurrection Rag.” A bit proggy, A, G, & D put on a reasonable show that ended up with them doing that “Rag.” After splitting up in 1972, Ashton, Gardner, and Dyke performed in a number of short lived bands with former members of Deep Purple and Yes. They put on a pretty good show, but didn’t make much of an impression.

After departing the Steve Miller Band in 1968, guitarist Boz Scaggs disappeared for a year or so, re-emerging with his sublime eponymous solo album on Atlantic, which he had recorded in Muscle Shoals with the studio’s crack session team augmented by Duane Allman, who played a particularly dazzling solo on “Loan Me a Dime,” the Fenton Robinson blues that became Scaggs’ signature tune. After the album’s release, Scaggs assembled a large ensemble that became one of the best live bands during their time together from 1970 to 1972. The group’s first album together, 1970’s Moments,  was quiet, elegant, and jazzy – a strong departure from much of what was coming out at the time,  and a record that has stood the test of time much better than some of Scagg’s later disco efforts. Scaggs built his band around a set of talented and seasoned players, including former Mother Earth drummer George Rains, guitarist Doug Simril,  keyboard player Jymm Joachim Young, and a horn section made up of trombone player Pat O’Hara, sax and flute player Mel Martin, and trumpeter Bill Atwood (later replaced by Tom Poole). Scaggs’ sets of that era relied heavily on material from his first two solo albums, as well as a long, spacy version of“Baby’s Calling Me Home” from the first Capitol Steve Miller Band album.  The horn section did a lot more jazz blowing than R&B punctuation, and Young’s organ was a perfect counterpart for Scaggs and Simril’s heavily reverbed guitars.

Jeff Simmons, Flo, and Eddie 11.6.70 Photo: M. Parrishj

Frank Zappa’s original Mothers of Invention had been a relatively stable group for nearly five years, and that was the ensemble I fully expected to see at the Fillmore. However, Zappa had broken up the Mothers the previous November and, since June, had been touring with an entirely different group of Mothers built around former Turtles vocalists Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan (who assumed the nom de plumes of the Phlorescent Leech [later shortened to Flo] and Eddie during their tenure with Zappa).  This group was as theatrical, if not more, than the previous group, but relied much more on physical comedy,  pubescent humor, and heavily vocal arrangements. In addition to Zappa, the group had some very accomplished instrumentalists in jazz keyboard player George Duke, multi-instrumentalist Ian Underwood (the sole carryover from the 'classic' Mothers), and drummer Aynsley Dunbar. Bass player Jeff Simmons was also a solo artist on Zappa’s Straight label who had recently released Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up, which has subsequently become a cult classic.

Aynsley Dunbar and Zappa 11.6.70 Photo: M. Parrish

Zappa had recently finished filming his first movie Uncle Meat in 1969,  but announced at the Fillmore that the show was being filmed for a second movie, 200 Motels. Uncle Meat was not released as a film until a video version came out in 1987, but the 1969 double LP of the same name was one of the best efforts by the jazzy, middle period Mothers. 200 Motels, on the other hand, was released commercially in 1971. The film, starred a bizarre cast including Theodore Bikel and Ringo Starr. No footage from the Fillmore show was included in the movie proper, but much of the material filmed showed up in a 1971 VPRO TV documentary on Zappa and was also excerpted in Zappa's 1988 documentary The Real Story of 200 Motels. When you take into account the widely distrubuted soundboard tape of much of the performance, this stands as one of Zappa's best documented concerts. 

Zappa and Cameraman 11.6.70 Photo: M. Parrish

The set of music the band played the night I saw them was similar to much of what was released on Fillmore East June 1971, mixing  old Mothers songs like “Call Any Vegetable,” “Little House I Once Lived in” and a greatly shortened “King Kong” (all modified to incorporate the new vocal-heavy lineup) with new material like “The Sanzini Brothers” and “Do You Like My New Car?” which was built around comedy routines by Kaylan and Volman and allowed them to trot out the Turtles hit “Happy Together.” Although the group’s instrumental chops were still considerable, I was pretty disappointed that there wasn’t more Uncle Meat-style instrumental extrapolations. Still,  I was glad to have seen Zappa during this period and, if nothing else, he and his bandmates proved great photographic subjects, probably due at least in part to the film crew's presence.