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- [00:00]
Rich Mahan
Announcing Dogfish Head Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale Collaborating for over a decade now, Dogfish Head and Grateful Dead have crafted a light bodied pale ale brewed with sustainable kerns of grains, granola and heaps of good karma for a refreshing brew that's music to your taste buds. Check out dogfish.com for more details and to find some Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale in your neck of the woods. Dogfish Headcraft Brewery is located in Milton, Delaware. Please drink responsibly the Good Old Grateful Dead Cast the Official Podcast of the Grateful Dead I'm Rich Mahan with Jesse Jarno exploring the music and legacy of.
- [00:44]
Bob Weir
The Grateful Dead for the committed and the curious.
- [00:48]
Rich Mahan
Welcome to the Good Old Grateful Dead cast. Thanks very much for tuning in. We're glad you're here to hear this one, which focuses on the vocal piece de resistance on American Beauty addicts of my life and in keeping with custom like we like to do, we also take a trip down a parallel highway and dive into an album that was born in the same musical delivery room as American Beauty, David Crosby's if I Could Only Remember My Name. We have 2/3 of CSN here to help us with this one, so grab some popcorn and buckle up. Want some cool visuals to go along with this auditory trip? Drop into our website dead.netdeadcast and check out the extras we have waiting for you to explore for each episode. While you're there, catch up on the episodes from season one, which goes track by track through Working Man's Dead. You can link from there to any and all of the podcasting platforms available, so you can listen where you prefer. Please help this podcast by subscribing hitting that like button and if the spirit moves you, please leave us a review and thank you very much. It is the 50th anniversary of American Beauty and the Grateful Dead have prepared a 3 CD set reissue of this classic album, which includes a pristine remastering of the album's ten tracks as well as an unreleased live show from February 18, 1971 at the Capitol Theater. It was mixed from the original 16 track reel to reel multitracks at Bob Weir's Tri Studios and along with this impeccably remastered three disc set, which you really do need to hear to believe there's also a new batch of Angels Share American Beauty Audio out now not only the full band acoustic demos for American Beauty, but also the rest of the studio outtakes from the American Beauty recording sessions. Be sure to check out the Angel Share American Beauty at your favorite streaming service or download Provider and discover the DNA of these classic and timeless songs. Well, get ready for a marathon episode that really digs into Addicts in a way that you never thought possible. These vocals from the Boys may just be the best harmonies they ever composed and recorded. And we're gonna crawl inside of them and see what makes them tick. Including another of Brian Kehue's fab track breakdowns. Let's get this harmonic convergence rolling, Jesse.
- [03:07]
Eric Davis
We shouldn't go on too long at the beginning.
- [03:24]
David Lemieux
Let's get right to it and listen to some isolated vocals from Addicts of My Life. Thanks to archival engineer Brian Kehue.
- [03:31]
Jerry Garcia
In the attics of my life Full of cloudy dreams Unreal Full of chains no tongue can know and light.
- [04:07]
Steve Silberman
No.
- [04:08]
Jerry Garcia
Eye can see when there was no.
- [04:20]
David Crosby
Ear.
- [04:22]
Jerry Garcia
To hear you sing to me.
- [04:32]
David Lemieux
Addicts of My Life is a non denominational psychedelic hymn rich in simple images spun powerfully and set with those incredible vocals. Here's writer Eric Davis, dead freak and author of the Mind Expanding book High Weirdness, Drugs, Esoterica and Visionary experience in the 70s. Available from MIT Press.
- [04:52]
Eric Davis
I've been re buying good vinyl lately and just really enjoying. It's been my gift to myself under the COVID regime. And you know, I found one of those nice green label Warner copies of American Beauty. The covers kind of beat up, which I actually like. But the disc is really sweet. It's, you know, it's amazing when you upgrade your system, you know, and it's not like I spent that much money, but where you can get a lot more separation on the tracks and you. And you realize how much you're both in your memory and also your listening experiences, how much you sandwich everything. And then when you hear it again, you almost have to claw back through your crappy memory to like arrive at the actual sort of spatial scene of the tracks. And so I've just been really enjoying the record and then just thinking about the strange tension that I think is there on this record. Maybe a little bit less on Working Man's Dead. Between the fact that it's full of these amazing songs that are being presented in a language that is not home base for the band. You're hearing harmonies they'll never sing again, you know, all of that. But that whole attitude is really perfect for addicts because it's both a song of limitation and loss and this kind of transcendence or some beyond that you're actually able to touch. It's a really interesting one for me because you got to ask yourself, who is this you who is this you that it's addressed to doesn't sound like a human being because everything else is about reaching the limits of sensation itself, of your actual experience of reality. Sounds, taste, touch, visuals. And it's. Whatever is happening is not in that realm. So it's some kind of interior realm of either mystical connection or encounter or inspiration. You know, that part of the imagination, which is obviously a major trope for Hunter, you know, but they're here. They're almost the same thing.
- [07:07]
David Lemieux
Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weird.
- [07:09]
Bob Weir
I remember when Jerry wrote that one with Hunter. We were out at Mickey's place in Nevada. Mickey had a studio at his little hacienda, Nevada. And Jerry took me out behind the barn and played Addicts for me.
- [07:26]
David Crosby
I was awestruck.
- [07:28]
Bob Weir
I didn't know he had that kind of stuff in him. I think he might have also played Broke down palace for me in that little sitting. Couple of new tunes Hunter and I came up with. I want you to hear them. And you know, I was blown away. I figured, okay, I got a lot.
- [07:43]
David Crosby
Of work to do.
- [07:44]
Bob Weir
I got some grounding up here.
- [07:46]
David Lemieux
Addicts of My Life began to appear in Grateful Ed set lists in mid May 1970, a little bit before Broke down palace was written. So perhaps Bob is remembering hearing it for the first time with a different song. If Jerry Garcia had just played me Addicts of My Life for the first time, it might warp my space time continuum too. It was pretty fully formed from the get go. Here's how it sounded at the Fillmore east on May 15, 1970 on Road Trips, Volume 3. 3. This is the song's second recorded performance, a good three months before the American Beauty sessions. It's a good bit faster and the vocals need a little. Tales from the Golden Road and Shakedown Stream co host Gary Lambert.
- [08:53]
Eric Davis
My first hearing of Addicts was interesting in that I heard it twice in the same night because the Dead were doing this two show a night format where you would have an acoustic Dead set, new the Purple Sage, Electric Dead, and then they would turn the house and bring in the next audience and do the same thing over again. Interesting sidelight at the Capitol Theater. If you had a ticket for the second show, they didn't make you go.
- [09:21]
David Lemieux
Outside and come back in.
- [09:22]
Eric Davis
They would just check your ticket. I never thought in terms of just going to one after a certain point, you know, if they were doing a.
- [09:29]
David Lemieux
Two show night, I'd go for both, you know.
- [09:30]
Eric Davis
Yeah, the second one was probably more desirable.
- [09:33]
Gary Lambert
Although there were some first shows that.
- [09:35]
Eric Davis
Were spectacular and second ones where they ran out of steam a little bit, you know. But that certainly wasn't true on 624 70. So they played Addicts of My Life acoustic in the first set. That was my first hearing of it. And then they folded it into Dark Star along with Sugar Magnolia in its embryonic form, and then back into Dark star and then St Stephen and whatever else transpired. It struck me as quite a lovely thing to hear. The vocals were a little rough when they sang them live in those days.
- [10:08]
David Lemieux
That show in June 1970 is actually the only acoustic version surviving in the historic record. It was a quiet song, but seemingly there was something about it that made it work better in the band's electric sets. It was a song that the band had plenty of time to practice and perform, appearing on at least a dozen tapes in the spring and summer before they got to the studio. In our Candyman episode, we put a spotlight on the scene In Amir Bar Lev's long, strange trip documentary where the band is hard at work arranging their harmonies, it's probably okay to assume that the same amount or more went into making Addicts of My Life work as well. It was the second to last song they recorded during their early August demo session at Pacific High, now heard on the Angel Share American Beauty. It's a little starker than the final album version, but they're getting there for sure.
- [11:12]
Jerry Garcia
Where all the pages are my grave and all my lights grow old.
- [11:31]
David Crosby
When.
- [11:31]
Jerry Garcia
I had no ways to fly, you flew to me, you feel to me.
- [12:04]
Eric Davis
Eric Davis There are moments throughout his lyrics that approach a kind of mystical Christianity, but kind of veers away, you know, like it never really lands exactly, on something that you can kind of point out it's similar in that way as well.
- [12:20]
David Lemieux
Here's how it sounded when they returned to Pacific High to do proper multi track sessions later in the month. When the tape cuts in, assume that somebody in the room has just announced the title of the song and Garcia is reacting to them. Life Not Mind.
- [12:34]
David Crosby
Addicts of My Life, Take one or what Are We?
- [12:37]
Bob Weir
Or what oh Farad.
- [12:39]
David Lemieux
Even before attempting their harmonies, recording Addicts of My Life was perilous, requiring a fragile five minute instrumental basic track. Whoever was in charge of track sheets at Pacific High that day neglected to write down the instrumentation, but it seems like a trio version of the Dead. Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir on acoustic guitars and Phil Lesh on electric bass. Interesting that they're trying to track it acoustic even after they mostly played at Electric.
- [13:11]
Eric Davis
Oh.
- [13:24]
David Lemieux
We could have just left that out, right?
- [13:26]
Bob Weir
But I said it would realize.
- [13:45]
David Lemieux
The tracking sheet for this early version of Addicts of My Life is fascinating. Take five was a complete instrumental pass and it circled, indicating that they probably considered it a keeper, but it doesn't seem like they overdubbed any vocals. But the most fascinating part of the track sheet is a mystery on the line where there's a blank space for the song's title. The it says Addicts of My Life, as one would expect. But just to its left is the number 10, implying maybe that it was the 10th song in a sequence. Are there more early recordings from American Beauty hiding somewhere in the tape vault? Certainly not impossible. It was clearly a special song with a melody that carries an incredible power even without Robert Hunter's vocals. One version I love is this instrumental cover by guitarist William Tyler from an out of print benefit CDR for WFMU put together by Jeff Conklin called Songs to Fill the Air. Hudson Valley Head should check out Jeff's show the Trailhead on wkvr. Even without the vocals, the feeling of the song comes through so clearly.
- [15:11]
David Crosby
There are a lot of songs that are hard to cover as instrumentals because, you know, they depend on lyrical movement and that style of Hunter Garcia collaboration, you know, I mean, there's. There's a lot of them and they tend to be the ballads, you know, like China Doll or, you know, there's a lot. But like, it's very chord oriented and you can. I knew I could sort of like stretch the three part harmony thing into more of a triad chordal movement on the guitar in a way that probably evokes more guys that I really admire that you wouldn't think of like covering the Dead, some like Frizzell or Raikuter or something. So, like when you break out a Dead song or, you know, it is like a hymn, it's like these. I mean, I think so many of these songs, especially on American Beauty, as being like quasi secular hymns. And those of us who are connected to the spiritual aspects of the Grateful Dead, when that comes on, it's kind of the feeling I had going to church as a kid and like hearing a hymn that kind of unified the room. The thing about the songs on this era, and I mean really specifically American Beauty, is that I always say that all of the seminal songs on this record, or most of them, you know, like Ripple Broke Down, Palace Attucks, and then, you know, of course, like Box of Rain and Going Back to Working Man's Dead, you know, same thing with, you know, some of those tunes as well, they would be appropriate at a funeral, a wedding, a high school graduation, a bar mitzvah, a family reunion. This sort of Jungian, esque archetypal duality to what Jerry Garcia and Hunter were so tapped into, to me as a listener and really what made me obsessed with the band initially was realizing there is so much darkness and light coexisting down to the name and the iconography of the band. And really like, I really don't think any other, like white rock and roll group embodied that the same way, at least as an inclusive kind of thing.
- [17:17]
David Lemieux
Check out Williams many wonderful albums on Merge records and at williamtyler.bandcamp.com Petal Steelhedge direct themselves to the great Lost Colony episode.
- [17:26]
Bob Weir
I.
- [17:29]
Jerry Garcia
Have spent my life seeking all that's still unsung Bent my ear.
- [17:51]
David Crosby
To.
- [17:52]
Jerry Garcia
Hear the tune and closed my eyes to see.
- [18:06]
David Lemieux
In 1996, a UVM student named Deb Neeson emailed Robert Hunter to ask him about Addicts of My life for an English paper she was writing. And miraculously, within a few hours Hunter replied. She posted his response to the Usenet group Rec Music Gded. Deb Hunter wrote, I guess I have to give the stock answer. If I could say it in prose, I wouldn't need to write the song. Poetry is evocative. It's meant to communicate the deeper levels and approach the levels of non verbal experience. I guess the best I could say is that you flew to me is an affirmation of the concept of grace. No, the song is not about being stoned. It's a song about the soul.
- [18:43]
Eric Davis
It's his usual move, like the disavowal move. I'm not going to tell you what it means, but I will say that you flew to me is about grace. And he says the concept of grace. So he's really thinking there too. It's not just like grace, like, oh, it's groovy. It's like, what is grace in Christianity? And the important thing about grace in Christianity is that it's unearned. It's not because you're doing something right. It's not because you do the right prayers or because you've been beating yourself to shit to like, make yourself a good person. Grace is unasked for and unearned. And it's that they call it superfluity, that that excess of God that spills over into your ridiculous, sometimes miserable little life, that's the moment of grace. And there's something about grace that I think is particularly psychedelic. And I see all of Hunter's mysticism as a kind of psychedelic mysticism. But not in a narrow way like the way that Leary and Alpert are like, oh, psychedelics is like the Tibetan Book of the Dead. It's not like that. In fact, it's almost the opposite. It's like an attempt to clear away all the inherited baggage. You know, use a little bit of myth, use some familiar images and stuff like that. But you're really trying to say something new. And particularly in Hunter's case, to articulate the emptiness that's at the heart of psychedelia. Where there's no one home, where no one's in charge, where you don't know and nobody else knows. And that kind of existential aspect of it isn't very spiritual in some ways, according to the ways that most people think about spirituality. But to me it's the most spiritual. And that line runs through a lot of Hunter's lyrics. And here you really kind of get that sense because he's saying, look, it's. I can't do it. I don't know, my senses are limited, my senses lie. But there is some kind of connection that's beyond that. And so that idea of grace, of something leaning in that you didn't expect, you didn't ask for, in a way, it's like the only hope you have when you're in a broken down situation, is it so especially now in like the time of COVID And yes, we got rid of the big Frito, but it's still, you know, it's a very difficult time. And you know, really, this stuff is pretty nourishing to me. I put it on, I was like, wow, I'm really like appreciating this like a prayer again, you know, like I did when I was younger maybe. And then later on, oh, it's just music. It's just something that happens in 1970, blah, blah, blah, blah. And now I can actually hear some of that grace in there. That the psychedelic version of grace. If we're talking about psychedelic spirituality, then the psychedelic version of grace is synchronicity. Synchronicity is that unasked for, unintended extra meaning that appears in the midst of your ordinary day or non ordinary day with this kind of excess. Like, I didn't ask for this. This is more meaningful than it should be. It suggests there's some hand behind circumstances. But I can't really identify whose hand it is. It's really a moment of grace with a more of a trickster wink in there.
- [22:05]
Jerry Garcia
When I had no Wings to fly.
- [22:15]
Brian Kehue
You.
- [22:18]
Jerry Garcia
Flew to me, you flew to me.
- [22:39]
Bob Weir
The way Jerry played it for me, you know, it was just him and a guitar and it rung those lofty bells. I might see if I can remember the drift of how he did that and work that up. Just because whenever anybody thinks of addicts. To think of it in, you know, in big three part harmony. But that's not how I originally heard it from Jerry. That would be an interesting thing to do. To try to find that line that he sang all the way through. Or as close to it as I can get.
- [23:09]
David Lemieux
Archival engineer Brian Kehue in hearing the track.
- [23:13]
Brian Kehue
I was so moved by hearing Jerry's voice. And just the guitar part, which I believe to be his. He's playing just a basic rhythm. And it's through that very spinning rotating speaker called the Leslie. We talked about with how time on the last record. And this is just a guitar and a voice. But it is such a powerful piece.
- [23:35]
David Lemieux
To hear it that way.
- [23:36]
Brian Kehue
This is the actual song that we know. But without all those harmonies, which are so beautiful, it's actually even more stunning. And the message in that song being so sad and kind of final. I mean, obviously people have even had it played to them on their deathbed. And that's a very moving thing to.
- [23:54]
Bob Weir
Have this be your final moment on the earth.
- [23:57]
Brian Kehue
And so with Jerry gone, I could just see it as, you know, the closing of any film that wants to bring your tears out would be hearing this version, which is just a new look at the same record we've heard before.
- [24:14]
Jerry Garcia
In the at of my life. Full of cloudy dreams, unreal Full of chaste no tongue can know and light snow I can see. When there was no ear to hear you sing to me.
- [25:15]
David Lemieux
You can hear the full solo version of Addicts of My Life on the Angel Share American Beauty. It's a mixed down version of the final take with a little leakage from other instruments. And it's wonderful to hear. But of course, it's the band's full performance that gives the song even more power. Here's Brian. To explain how they built the American Beauty recording track by track.
- [25:34]
Brian Kehue
Let's listen to the master tape for addicts this week. Starting with the drums. Here's Bill. The drum kit is mixed a little unusually. You'll hear the kick drum far to the left side and the rest of the drums far to the right. It works very well in the record. And it's kind of a timely holdover from the early days of wide panning, when stereo was a new Thing around the time of, let's say, sergeant Pepper for the pop groups. People started panning things hard to one side or to the other. And so in this case, instead of having all the drums on one side. The kick drum is on its own to the left. And the answer part, kind of ping ponging back and forth. Is the snare drum and the overhead cymbal mics. We can always count on Bill Kreuzmann for a steady, good feeling drum beat. Speaking of steady, here are Phil's bass parts. As we had on the previous tracks. One mic is a little bit brighter, a little bit clearer. And in this case, the second one is not that much different. Combined together, they make the sound from the record and recording at the same time in the room. Bob and Jerry on guitars, both playing electric. On this song, you can hear Jerry's guitar start the song on the right hand side. And then very soon after, Bobby's comes in on the left. At this point, we can listen just to Jerry's guitar. Recorded as it was in the room through a straight guitar amp. It's a very plain, even sound. But one of the things they did to enhance it Was put it through the spinning Leslie speaker cabinet. We discussed that before. It's a rotating set of speakers and horns. That distribute the sound around the room. Create a sort of Doppler effect. And give it this beautiful, shimmering top end in stereo. Now that you can identify that as the main sound of the electric guitar on the song from the record. Let's reintroduce Bob's guitar on the left. He's playing these beautiful answering parts. There's subtle changes in the harmony and the voicings of the chords. That add a nice illustrative part. And add some of the drama to the song. Very subtle and yet very tasteful parts to enhance a record like this. Now that you know the cast of players and the sounds they're making. Let's listen through to some of the backing tracks all together. This is consistently the sound of this record. Just drums, bass, and the two guitars. And we can hear what they sound like without anything else added.
- [29:40]
Jerry Garcia
Sam.
- [30:28]
Brian Kehue
That'S truly gorgeous. And it leaves a nice, soft, supportive bed for something important to go on top. This is an incredible standout of vocal work in their catalog. Some of the best harmony work they ever recorded. And let's look closely at what they were doing here. First is Jerry's lead vocal all by.
- [30:44]
Jerry Garcia
Itself in the aestics of my life Full of cloud she dreams unreal Full of taste no tongue can Know and.
- [31:19]
David Crosby
Light.
- [31:22]
Jerry Garcia
Snow eye can see.
- [31:26]
Brian Kehue
Let's talk about harmony for a moment. On this track, the original lead vocal is the core melody that you just heard Jerry singing on verse one. Then Bob chimes in and Phil chimes in singing harmonies themselves. And what comes out is basically called three part harmony. The original melody plus two different melodies. They are distinct and different, but they work together with the main melody on their own. The other melodies don't sound quite normal as a song melody, but it's this arranging to jump up and down and around the main melody to make a very interesting, complex, textured piece. Here's the strange melody that ends up being Bob's beautiful harmony.
- [32:05]
Jerry Garcia
Of my life Full of cloudy dreams unreal Full of taste no tongue can know and light snow I can see.
- [32:41]
Brian Kehue
Yes, indeed. That melody has its own interesting jumps, unique intervals and places to go that wouldn't normally be found in a song. Putting these parts together is very different than the basic skill of songwriting. Arranging harmonies to be interesting and to complement the main melody is quite a complex piece of cooking. They've done it very well on here, working out their parts. We're going to hear Phil's part next. Quite a bit higher. He's adding the upper harmony in the.
- [33:07]
Jerry Garcia
A tics of my life Full of cloudy dreams unreal Full of taste no tongue can know Headlights no air can.
- [33:44]
Brian Kehue
See Some of these parts heard on their own, may even seem familiar, a little bit like church music or Christmas choir work that you've heard. Having completed a vocal line for each of the three singers, they went back and doubled their parts, simply singing them once again on a new track of tape for each guy. So here's Jerry's vocal double tracked. Second Jerry singing along to the first.
- [34:04]
Jerry Garcia
Jerry in the Edicts Of My life Full of cloudy dreams Unreal.
- [34:24]
Brian Kehue
And notice that he's not singing a new melody, he's simply reinforcing the first one, which gives us a bigger, thicker texture. This is the same reason we have many, many violins in an orchestra and many singers in a choir is just to increase the texture rather than to add more lines. Let's hear Bobby double track his part.
- [34:40]
Jerry Garcia
Ethics of my life Full of cloudy.
- [34:55]
Brian Kehue
Dreams unreal and Phil double track his.
- [34:59]
David Crosby
Part in the.
- [35:06]
Jerry Garcia
Of my life Full of cloudy dreams Unreal.
- [35:20]
Brian Kehue
To get to this stage took a lot of time and effort, specifically rehearsal, before they hit the studio. This is not something you improvise and throw together so quickly to have such a great outcome, but let's listen to it. Each person singing their own melody Three part harmony and double tracked for thickness. This is what it sounds like on the record.
- [35:40]
Jerry Garcia
In the secret space of dreams where I dreamingly amazed when the secrets all are told and the petals all unfold when there was no dream of mine, you dreamed of me.
- [36:54]
David Lemieux
Gary Lambert.
- [36:55]
Eric Davis
When it came out on the studio.
- [36:56]
David Crosby
Album, it was an absolute revelation.
- [36:59]
Eric Davis
I think it is the absolute high point of the Grateful Dead's ensemble singing in the studio. Those layered harmonies, to me, approach some of what Brian Wilson was accomplishing on Smile and those masterpieces, you know, it's really, again, one of those Grateful Dead moments that nothing could have prepared you for. And exquisitely recorded, you know, Barn Cart captured the vocals beautifully. We just didn't know they had it in them.
- [37:29]
David Lemieux
They did. Briefly. The Dead played Addicts of My Life through the end of 1970, reviving it briefly in fall 1972. Here's a little bit of it from Dick's Picks 11. Recorded September 27, 1972, in Jersey City at the Stanley Theatre, where my grandparents went on dates in the 40s.
- [38:05]
Eric Davis
One other thing that's worth hanging with is this attics of my life. So attics, it's a really interesting image. I've never really lived with an attic, but I've been in houses that had them. And if part of what he's talking about is the inner world, you know, it's not all the outer world and all the sensations are. That's not where this is happening. It's happening somewhere else. It's happening inside, in this kind of paradoxical place. So the attic is kind of an image of this, where this is happening. It's the space where this song, where these encounters are occurring. But an attic is a funny thing because in a way it is higher, it's transcendent, it's the upper floor, but it's also kind of dusty. It has memories in it. It's about the past. It's not like a secret garden or something that's just open to the sky. In fact, sometimes it's a little closed. And I think that is not quite an irony, but it's a bit of realism in this picture. It's like if in other ways, there's this kind of almost religious, mystical language. It's also like, you know, it could just be your own head. It's just a weird, spooky, spectral memory zone that has a haunted kind of quality to it. It's set off from my normal. But it's just part of my house. It might not be anything more than that. And that's one of the things that he also does often in his lyrics, is to bring it back to reality, back to the dusty ground, back to the humor, back to the crassness even of life in the midst of something otherwise very poetic and lyrical. And I think that even in this song, which is so lyrical and not sarcastic or jokey, that the Attic sort of plays that role a little bit.
- [40:14]
David Lemieux
After 1972, though, it disappeared again. Grateful Dead legacy manager and archivist David Lemieux.
- [40:20]
Gary Lambert
It was a song that they considered bringing back to the point that they rehearsed the heck out of it in May of 76. And unfortunately they didn't bring it back, but they did in 1980. And there's another song, I Only saw the Dead play it twice. This is a song that I didn't really get at the beginning at 14 years old when I got this album. And so much of the album was songs I could understand. I could understand Friend of the Devil. I understood the story, understood the song structure. Truckin, Sugar Magnolia, Candyman, all these songs. Addicts of My Life and Broke Down Palace I could get. And Addicts struck me as a deeper version, instrumentally, musically, and mostly lyrically of Broke Down palace. And as a 14 year old, when I first heard these songs, Broke down palace was about as deep as I could get. I mean, I didn't have a lot of depth. And Addicts of My Life took me a little while. And I always loved it. I loved it came on, I was like, oh, I just love it. It's beautiful. It was kind of put me in like a daydreamy kind of sense, but I didn't really get inside the lyrics. And it wasn't until I'd say, probably 1988, 89, I'd been listening to the album for four or five years when I would then listen to it. And Addicts of My Life then really started speaking to me. And I kind of really got into it. And then it was in 89 when they started bringing back all the stuff. They started with Death don't have no Mercy, and then a week later, Helpslip Franklin's and then the next day, Darkstar and Addicts. And these were all like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe Death don't. And I Can't Believe Helps the Franklins and I really can't believe Darkstar and oh, that's a surprise. And of all of them, the biggest surprise to me was Addicts of My Life, the one I really. And I didn't expect any of those Songs to come back ever. But the one song that I was really surprised with, and it made me instantly realize that if the Dead have such high regard for this, that they're going to include this song with Death, Don't Help Slip and Darkstar. Of all the songs they could have brought back, they brought this back. This indicates to me what they think of it.
- [42:27]
David Lemieux
Let's listen to the Hampton Coliseum crowd lose their minds on October 9, 1989, when the dead, playing under the pseudonym formerly the Warlocks, performed Addicts of My Life for the first time in 17 years. Never miss a Monday show, as they say, and especially don't skip the encore. Addicts remained an important part of the Grateful Dead set through their last tours in 1995, and band members have continued to perform it since.
- [43:19]
Gary Lambert
I remember when they played fairly well five years ago, 2015, and the Encore of the final, final show was Addicts. And it just. I could not imagine a more perfect ending to the Grateful Dead because it's a song that embodies life and death, and it's beautiful. And the harmonies. I mean, everything about this song is the Grateful Dead. And again, it took me a while to realize that. It took me a few years. Whereas, you know, Truckin is like. It's right on the nose. It's like rock and roll. And it's a story of a band on the road, and anybody can hear it and love it. Addicts isn't that song until you really kind of get into the Grateful Dead and get into the lyrics. And that's when it becomes an essential part of the Grateful Dead canon.
- [44:05]
David Lemieux
Another person who loved the Fare Thee well version of Addicts of My Life was Yola tango guitarist Ira Kaplan, who got American Beauty around the time it came out, but he wasn't there to witness it. He'd played some Dead tunes with Alex Bleeker and the Freaks that weekend and caught one of the shows at Soldier Field.
- [44:21]
Bob Weir
I think because I had had such a great time and probably an unexpectedly great time at the Fare Thee well show, I ended up listening to some kind of stream of. Not the whole last show, because I don't think I was home, but when I got home, I played Put It on, and hearing Addicts in my life, I loved it more than I ever loved it on American Beauty. You know, I think, especially given my age, I was like, ah, too slow. And to hear, especially in the context of that show, that it was my favorite experience of that song ever.
- [45:01]
Gary Lambert
And I know that band members, when they were ending fairly well this was a unanimous choice that this was what they were going to end the Grateful Deads 50 year career on. And even though we've got Dead and company going for hopefully many more years and Phil and friends, that was the end of a portion of the Grateful Dead. These four guys being on stage and playing this way. So to end it with addicts in my life shows what they think of that song. Which kind of, I think will make anybody realize, okay, maybe I'll give this a bit of a harder listen than I might have previously, because if they think of this, maybe I should too. And I do. And I started thinking that going back to 1989. But it was 2015 when it really hit me that, oh, this song's pretty important.
- [45:41]
David Lemieux
Here it is recorded at Soldier Field, July 15, 2015, available in a variety of formats as Fare THEE well, celebrating 50 years of the Grateful Dead when.
- [45:53]
Jerry Garcia
There was.
- [45:56]
Bob Weir
No we.
- [45:59]
Jerry Garcia
To heed.
- [46:04]
Bob Weir
You.
- [46:05]
Jerry Garcia
Slay.
- [46:08]
David Crosby
To me.
- [46:14]
Bob Weir
It'S interesting. I've got maybe one more note on top than I used to, which is unusual. Most people, it goes the other way. It's fun working that one up because when it falls together it's really quite. It's got a lot of punch. It's pretty powerful. It's easy enough to do these days because we have those acapella versions now where we've, you know, we. I think Mickey mixed down some acapella versions and in five, one of just the vocals. And so it's really easy to pick the parts out. And this is your part, it's over here. This is your part, it's over here. And so you can teach it to pretty much any band. I think Dead Go is going to have to probably do that one.
- [46:55]
Jerry Garcia
In the book of love's own dream where all the print is blood where all the pages, all my days and all my lights grow old.
- [47:34]
David Lemieux
Boston Globe music critic Ernie Sanesuso reviewed American Beauty in January 1971 and wrote of Addicts of My Life. It ain't the Gregorian chant, but you'll do a lot of hunting before you encounter finer choral work than heard on Addicts of My Life. This is the album's prime piece. Whether this is rock or pop or folk or country, who cares? The label should be used only on the soup cans. In early October 1970, a week after that Winterland show we discussed in the last episode, the Dead were on the east coast, where journalist Jay Itkiewicz interviewed Jerry Garcia. I work on music a lot, garcia said. I'm into music a lot. I play with a Whole lot of different people in a whole lot of different contexts. I do a lot of studio stuff, and I'm just into music a lot. With me, it's like constantly adding experience and new ideas and new input, and everybody has their own way of doing it. Like Phil Lesh. Buys billions of records, listens to music all the time, gets manuscripts, studies orchestral arrangements and things. In the fall of 1970, during the period when the Dead made American Beauty, Jerry Garcia made music in a wide array of contexts, only one of which was playing in the studio. Let's make a list with a very tight framing and say that the American beauty period was four months long, from August 1970, when the Dead started recording American Beauty, to November 1970, when it was released. And understand that this list is almost certainly missing many names from weekly jam nights at the Matrix. Some of these names we've talked about in past episodes, others we haven't. Some of them played with the Dead. Some of them Garcia crossed with elsewhere. Along with the Dead, during those four months, Jerry Garcia made music with the New Riders of the Purple Sage, Howard Wales, Paul Kantner, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Cassidy, Ned Lagin, Joey Covington, Papa John Creech, Stevie Winwood, Chris Wood, Duane Allman, David Grisman, Brewer and Shipley Lamb, Carlos Santana, Greg Rowley, Will Scarlett, Tom Constantin in the pit orchestra for Tarot, John Kahn, Bill Witt, and for the first time, Merle Saunders. Probably also on that list, though impossible to date. The sessions precisely, are also Graham Nash, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young. And at the top of the list is David Crosby. In fact, virtually the whole Grateful Dead played with David Crosby that fall. Garcia plays on more than half of Crosby's infinitely wonderful album if I Could Only Remember My Name. And with Lesh, Kreutzman and Hart, the Dead essentially back Crosby on four tunes. David Crosby was already a huge dead fan. In July 1970, Rolling Stone asked Crosby, would you dig working with Jerry Garcia? Man, I would now. I think Jerry Garcia probably needs me like a third eye. Excuse me, a fourth. He has a third. But I would be just so knocked out to play or sing or do any kind of music with that dude. I mean, you know, I would. Hey, and he's not the only one. What about Lesh? Man, I'd love to make a record with him sometime. Playing classical music on an electric bass. He's certainly one of the most virtuoso string players on the planet. There's a few more paragraphs of effusive Croz love. You can Read the whole quote@dead.net deadcast it was only a few weeks later that David Crosby started seriously playing with the Dead. Released in 1971. If I could Only Remember My Name is the perfect late night companion to American Beauty. Born at virtually the same moment. This is some of Tamalpais High.
- [51:24]
David Crosby
Here.
- [51:24]
David Lemieux
To talk about if I Could Only Remember My Name and other adventures. Please welcome back to the Dead cast David crosby. In late 1969, David had just moved to Marin county where he was neighbors with Mickey Hart.
- [51:35]
David Crosby
I lived next door. I rented a house in Nevada near the ranch because I liked them and we were all friends and I was looking for a place to live in Marin and my girlfriend Christine and I got a place there. It was totally wonderful and we hung out a great deal. I was over at their ranch all the time. They were at my place all the time because I had a swimming pool. We hung out a great deal until one day my wife took the cats to the vet and got killed in a car wreck. And then one of the dead guys, I can't remember which one it was, drove me to the hospital and there she was, dead. And that was kind of ruined that whole thing for me. But Mickey and the others tried really hard to help me through it. They were really good friends and it was a tragedy, you know, and they, they really stuck by me. I won't forget it. We'd gotten through deja vu in the middle of deja vu is when she got killed. And so that kind of destroyed me. I didn't have any way to deal with it. I didn't know what to do about it. It's like sort of over the top for me. I didn't have any equipment to deal with that, so I didn't have any safe place to be. The only place I knew that I wouldn't like be utterly terrified and crying and distraught was in the studio. So I kept going back to Wally Hydra's and they all knew I was in there and they knew I had a double handful of songs. And Jerry came almost every night. He wasn't working right then, so he came almost every night. Phil, Mickey, Kreutzman, Kantner, Grace. Almost every night. And they knew that I was hurting and the only time I was happy was when I was singing. So they got me singing every chance they could get. It was an act of kindness, but it was also joy, man.
- [53:19]
David Lemieux
Here's neurotribes author Deadhead and serious cross scholar Steve Silberman. Steven David co hosted a limited edition podcast called Freak flag flying for Osiris. If you enjoy this episode of the Deadcast, you should point your antennae in that direction when you're done listening.
- [53:34]
Steve Silberman
It's almost unbelievable how many different musical flowerings were occurring at the same time. And not just in the Bay Area, but at Wally Hyder's, like intersecting at Wally Hyder's. And so there were, you know, as both Paul and Crosby told me, they would pay each other in weed. Paul had this incredible dope called Ice Bag and, you know, they would just stay high at the same time. However, the poignancy of American Beauty has to do with the fact that despite the fact that they were all having, you know, this great time in the studio and very relaxed, there was tons of dying going on. The great love of David Crosby's life up to that point, Christine Gale Hinton, had been killed in a car accident in late 1969 driving her cat to the vet. And if you look at pictures of Christine, I mean, I'm gay, but she was gorgeous and she looked totally alive, like she looked totally happy. And she was also very organized, apparently. And David was already kind of a space case and doing too many drugs and whatnot. So Christine kept his trip together. They moved up to Nevada together and Christine sort of established the household. Like the household back in Venice with Paul and Grace and Freiberg. The household in Nevada was somewhat polyamorous, I believe. So, you know, Crosby had all these great songs. The Airplane had all these great songs. The Dead had all these great songs. And one thing I think is really important is to tease out sort of the rumors that have spread over the years about how Crosby, Sils and Nash coached the Dead to do the harmonies on American Beauty. It wasn't like that exactly. They certainly knew each other. They were certainly all keenly listening to each other. They were influenced by each other. They were working with the same young engineer, Stephen Barnard, who captured their multi part harmonies so well. But it wasn't like, you know, one day CSN came over to Jerry's house and taught him how to sing harmonies.
- [55:55]
David Lemieux
Or something like that, along with the musicians. The link between American Beauty and if I Could Only Remember My Name is producer engineer Stephen Barnard.
- [56:03]
Bob Weir
David's album was all. His solo album was all about performance. I mean, holy smokes, it keeps coming back to haunt me, that record. First of all, it's a great calling card. And also it's a record I can always listen to because it's very listenable and it's very real.
- [56:21]
David Lemieux
The overlap between the two albums was very real. Crosby had been in and out of Hiders all summer, contributing to Paul Kantner's blows against the Empire and occasionally running his own sessions. But what would become his debut solo album picked up steam. Exactly as the basic sessions for American Beauty were wrapping up.
- [56:37]
Bob Weir
We got finished with tracking, and then they hadn't quite booked the mixing time yet. Somewhere in there. And meanwhile, Crosby's sniffing around, and I think he must have been talking to Jerry. I'm sure he was hanging out with Jerry at least, or maybe the whole band, and maybe they were all in Nevada. I never did get down about that. I didn't really. You know, there's a lot of stuff I didn't know. So I get this call from the front office and said, david Crosby wants to want you to work on. Maybe work on a record. And I. And he said, I don't know, tell him I don't want to do it. I was getting really cosmic at this point, and I thought he would be a bad influence on me, and I just didn't. I didn't like his vibe. And, you know, and at this point, I could really call the shots. I could say I could. I could actually. I can't believe that I actually had that power, but I could refuse clients. And they said, well, he keeps calling, and can you please talk to him? And he. And he was real nice. And he said. And I was going, oh, I don't know. And then I'll make it worth your while is what he said, his last words. I said, oh, okay, we'll do it. So at that point, I said, I'm gonna bring my girlfriend in with me as an assistant to help me. And I had her quit her job at Gulf Oil and come to the studio with me full time. I did not ask the studio. I did not have. They didn't pay her. It was a kind of a two for one deal. Nobody said anything. And. Okay. And she was a great assistant. She just was so natural. And she would, you know, make up the master reel and, you know, zero the console and set up mics and stuff. And I could kibitz and plan things and sort of produce, and it was really great. Her name was Ellen Burke, one of the early female engineers. You know, we had a hot plate, and I just basically worked all day with the dead and then mixing. And then I would come in and we put Ellen and I would put something on the hot plate. Plate on some zucchini or something, a canned zucchini, and we'd heat it up and snarf it down. And then that would be. That would be dinner. It was seven o' clock and they had to set up as well. So there was like tear down and then set up. And so I tried to work out a way to. Since I was mixing, I could keep a lot of things set up in the room. So that was helpful.
- [58:45]
David Crosby
He was young and very meticulous and he tried really hard to get it recorded. He did, I think, get the best acoustic guitar sound anybody up to that point had gotten. It was before they had electronic tuners. So it was all tuned by ear. And I tuned until I could hear the overtone structure appear, you know, and then I knew I was in tune. So the guitars on it are pretty spectacularly recorded.
- [59:12]
Bob Weir
By this time he was living in Sausalito on his boat and he had a new stereo cassette machine. So instead of making a reel to reel, I would make him a cassette. And so they sent somebody out to the store and they bought a cassette machine and put some XLRs on it and hooked it up. So it worked with. And surprisingly, it didn't overload the input on the thing. You know, you may think there'd be a problem with that. And so I would make this reel every night of what we'd been working on at the Animic Rough mix every night of every tune. And usually just one song a night or one experience at night. He was very calm. It was again, chill, very chill. I was expecting the tension of the deja vu sessions, which were very, very tense. He was loving the life. He was so happy. He was so happy to have control. I guess Amit gave him carte blanche. And so quickly I came into this thing where. And I had seen how Bill Halverson worked with him and it's like, tape is no object. Okay? Tape was $125 a reel in 1970. I got the drift that. Keep the tapes rolling, Keep it rolling, keep it rolling. Because at some point in the next session there were people coming in and they were just dicking around, basically. And, you know, I didn't know when to stop or start, so I just kept things rolling. So I started using Scotch 207, which is the 1 mil tape. It runs at 15 IPS. It runs for 45 minutes. You know, what a great capture machine. 16 tracks for 45 minutes are real. And so from then on, we just kept rolling and rolling and rolling and. And many of the tunes just sort of showed up as well. They were dicking around. But I hope you got that so anytime anybody picked up an instrument, anytime there was sound in the room, record, record, record, you know, and eventually we better order some more tape, you know, to the front office, you know, get more tape, get a bigger boat, you know, for. For a documentarian like myself, this is heaven because I can really capture. I can, you know, I can be the scribe that gets everything. I can be the Akashic Records. It was really joyful. David was almost 100% so happy jumping up and down, the cheerleader, cheering everyone on. Open to everything.
- [61:41]
David Crosby
So open.
- [61:42]
Bob Weir
And, you know, the thing about, you know, cosmic thing where you leave a space for something to happen. Well, that's what David did. It was phenomenal.
- [61:55]
Jerry Garcia
Be my good partner. We were riding back to Kennel. We were feeling terrified. The air was clear, slightly damp.
- [62:20]
David Lemieux
That was part of Cowboy Movie from if I Could Only Remember My Name, David Crosby with Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart on drums and Bill Kreutzman on tambourine. At least according to one listing.
- [62:30]
Steve Silberman
You know, I mean, there are at least two sort of canonical versions in that. Well, there's the version that was released and if I Could Only Remember My Name, which is unbelievable. And if you've never heard Stephen Barnard's surround sound mix of that album, I would say Cowboy Movie is the most thrilling one because you're standing in the room with Phil Lesh, you know, Neil Young, David Crosby. And the Neil lead was left off the initial release of like, if I Could Only Remember My Name, but included as a bonus track on the re release of if I Could Only Remember My Name. And what most people don't know is that the version that was released on the Crosby box, and if I Could Only Remember My Name is the master take. It's the same version that was originally released, but they overdubbed Neil's lead on it, which is fine. And it's really interesting. I do think the original version without Neil is slightly better. But, you know, who doesn't want to hear Neil, you know, wailing on it?
- [63:37]
David Lemieux
Graham Nash told us a story about that.
- [63:39]
David Crosby
At the same time that we were doing, you know, Deja Vu, we just kind of put that to bed and we were doing. I Was Doing Songs for Beginners. David was doing if I Could Only Remember My Name. David wants to record Cowboy Movie and Jerry is with him. So track three is the one that David chose with the band and Jerry playing guitar, because David thought that he sang it really well. And that was it. And they decided track three, that was it. Then Neil came in and they do track four. And it's killer, but it's not a great vocal performance from David. So he goes with track three, without Neil, on if I Could Only Remember My Name. So now we're coming to do David's box set. Me and Joel Bernstein, my dear friend, and Stanley Johnson, our dear engineer, we're making the box set.
- [64:35]
Eric Davis
And I said to David, I said.
- [64:38]
David Crosby
Listen, you know, I really love track four of Cowboy Movie. I mean, you know, he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, the vocal performance, I said, will you let me put Neil from track four on track three? And he goes, you know, the usual. David, like what? Let me try and put Neil from track four on track three. So now you would have your favorite vocal, plus Jerry, plus Neil playing fantastic stuff. And we did it, and we put it in there. So on David's box set, Cowboy Movie has Neil on it.
- [65:15]
Bob Weir
A lot of the time, we were just screwing around, and sometimes we'd get something to use, and then sometimes we'd get just a terrible version of Cowboy Movie. And we did at least two versions. Maybe I actually had Roman numerals. Cowboy. I think I went up to four, and there was one with Neil and a few with Jerry and a few with Mickey. And nobody was writing down personnel. So you just basically have to rely on style.
- [65:45]
David Crosby
It's Mickey on some of them. They're both. You know, Kretzmann just has perfect time, man. His time is scrumptious. And he swings. He never tries to be fancy. He plays a groove, but he plays a real groove every fucking time, which is like solid gold. Why do you think Jerry loves him? Because he played that group. That's why Mickey loves him, too. They were both wonderful to play with, man. You know, because they're. They're open. They're open guys. They don't walk in with an agenda. They don't walk in with a preconceived idea of what's going to happen. They let it happen. They know about music. They know that it's waiting there to happen, and they open themselves up to it, and then it happens. Not everybody can do that.
- [66:28]
Bob Weir
We just kept recording, and people kept coming in, and I kept recording and kept recording. And we would pull out things, like from these reels and then put them on the master reel. Like, what are their names? I mean, David started playing that riff, and I don't think he even knew what he was doing. And then Garcia started playing something, and then. And then Phil would eventually come. Come in, and I felt something was starting, and I There was like a sign of a false start. And so I, I. The tape wasn't running. So I. Before I. I realized the drums hadn't been plugged in because we had just started the session. It was just like I just finished my can of beans or something. And I didn't have the drum set up. I think it might have been the first drum session or I hadn't have them plugged in. And so on the masters, you can hear me plugging in the mic mics. I started record first, but while the. The intro riffs of what are in.
- [67:20]
Jerry Garcia
The names are happening.
- [67:50]
Bob Weir
The drums hadn't started. And I got the overheads just in time for Bill. I got that just in time. And then later I could cut out the clicks. But that was, you know, pretty hair raising. That was probably the closest I came to losing something. I had no idea, you know, it was just a jam. It wasn't. And they just made this really cool jam. There's no edits. Yeah. And just. And we use this segment. It might have been an edit, I don't know. But it was minimal. You know, we got the best parts. We always got the best parts.
- [68:47]
David Lemieux
The sessions with David Crosby provided the Dead with some very brief crossing points with the Southern California branch of the musical family. And what are their names? The vocals are credited as the Pero Chorus. That's Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra, of course, featuring Crosby, Garcia, Paul Kantner, Phil Lesh, David Freiberg, Graham Nash, and appearing on tape with Garcia for the only time anywhere, Joni Mitchell.
- [69:10]
David Crosby
Terry met Joni a number of times, and I think he might have been there when we did the vocals to. What are their names. I think everybody was there then. I think he was there. And Cantor was there and Grace was there. Joni was there. I didn't even think Nash might have been there. It was a gang saying, you know, because I wanted everybody singing on that one. I think he met her a couple. I don't think they got a chance to play together.
- [69:31]
Jerry Garcia
I wonder who they are the men who really run this land I wonder why they run it Such a thoughtless.
- [69:44]
David Crosby
Man.
- [69:47]
Jerry Garcia
What are their names and on what streets do they do I love like to ride right over this afternoon and you.
- [70:02]
David Lemieux
Though they don't appear together on the original. If I could only remember my name. The sessions provided a musical meeting point for Jerry Garcia and Neil Young.
- [70:10]
David Crosby
Neil, you know, didn't really understand the Dead, and he should have because he likes that same edginess, but he didn't. When I got Jerry and Neil in the same room. Neil was feeling, I think, nervous because he was in there with Jerry and Phil. And I think Mickey was playing that time and me. And he felt, you know, that we all had something going. And he felt like the outsider. And I think he was trying too hard. He was very fierce in his playing. And it was like he was trying to compete with Jerry, which, of course, doesn't work. Jerry won't compete with you. He will play better than you, but he won't compete with you. And he wouldn't do that. It was a little strange. Chemistry was a little strange. I don't think Neil really settled in and figured out what was there to do. I think if he and Jerry had sat down by themselves with a couple of acoustics, he would have figured it out. But he didn't do that. And he got into a situation where he was trying too hard. And I don't think it really worked.
- [71:07]
David Lemieux
There's a photo of Crosby, Garcia Lesh and Young jamming at Wally Hydra sometime in late 1970, which we can date by facial hair forensics. Phil Lesh has a mustache that first appeared over the summer and disappeared by December.
- [71:19]
Bob Weir
That was Studio A. That is what was taken in Studio A. I'll tell you. Jim Marshall, bless him, one of the ornery fuck he was. He was an opinionated guy. He was more opinionated than David. And, you know, we had our mood lights on. We had all the lights to him. And of course, you know, one reason why Jim gets the great pictures of, number one, he engaged. Because he either pisses you off, he usually pisses you off. He'll say something or catch you at the wrong moment. But that's how he gets the great pictures. And also, he takes control of the light. And so he went over to the variation, turned all lights right on. I go, oh, man, you're blowing the vibe. And, well, whatever. And so he took the pictures for that album, and he took some, and some ended up in David's book.
- [72:03]
David Lemieux
The session sprawled into 1971 and didn't all wind up on If I Could Only Remember My Name appearing on various Crosby and Nash albums with some parts still officially unreleased.
- [72:13]
Bob Weir
We were doing Davis this record over a couple of months. In two or three week stretches. There's a whole lot of yuck, yuck. And laughing and jokes and palling around and just incredibly funny, goofy stuff. You know how funny Jerry can be in his, you know, unguarded moments. Or he's always on. I mean, he was always. No matter who you were, he's still Jerry. And that's what I loved about the dude. He was. He was equal opportunity communications person. He didn't draw above the line, below the line. He was the same guy. To everybody, what you see is what you get. Jerry brought tons of just joy and serendipity. And I hate to use the term magic, but that's what it was. It was just stuff out of thin air. Just stuff like you're just breathtaking, you know, moments that. Did I get it? Did I get it? Yeah, it's in record. You know, those. It happened all the time. And that's. That's why I was using Scotch 207 and a lot of it.
- [73:17]
David Lemieux
Laughing is one of the songs where Jerry played pedal steel.
- [73:20]
David Crosby
I was mistaken.
- [73:26]
Bob Weir
Only a Child.
- [73:32]
Eric Davis
Laughing.
- [73:38]
Jerry Garcia
In the song.
- [73:49]
David Lemieux
High Weirdness, author Eric Davis.
- [73:51]
Eric Davis
I just think Laughing is like the most profound spiritual, not spiritual song about that generation. It's just perfect, you know, the. How it's the disenchantment and then the final image is like, on the one hand, an image of like perfect human joy. And yet in the context of the song, it's. It's existentially ambiguous, if not a bit disturbing. And that blend of like the happy child, that kind of archetype of the hippie thing that we don't really have anymore, but then it's got this melancholic loss because it's like it's so difficult to achieve and you've been searching and you're too old and you can't get there anymore. And, you know, it's just.
- [74:37]
David Crosby
I just love that song.
- [74:39]
David Lemieux
Check out Eric Davis great newsletter, the Burning Shore. He also hosted a fantastic podcast called the Expanding Mind with a deep back catalog.
- [74:47]
Jerry Garcia
You can check out Sam.
- [75:14]
David Lemieux
Jerry Garcia didn't talk about his pedal steel playing in depth that often, but here's a fairly long, fascinating quote from an interview he did with guitar player in 1971. I'm playing the place where I think it's supposed to be. The David Crosby record is where I think it's supposed to be. I don't hear it as being another continual lead instrument. I just consider it another possibility. Musically, I don't feel that one instrument has more weight than others. Any sound that you can produce adds to your vocabulary of possibilities. It's like a sitar. Anything you can do with strings, you can do on steel. You can create any number of microtonal variations by rolling the bar. You can get all different speeds of vibrato. The kinds of things you come up with on the pedal steel are usually along the lines of chordal and transitional things. The steel really lends itself to harmonic changes, for example, Chord sequences are really something you fall into on the pedal steel, just goofing with it. It's not really a linear instrument. It's more of a simultaneous instrument, if you know what I mean. With a guitar, you have linear stuff, then blocky stuff, linear stuff, then blocky stuff. With a pedal still, you could conceivably think and execute three lines at once. It can do that. That's the thing that's wow, listen. You can experiment with contrary motion. It's difficult to do that on the guitar musically. I tend to think in long, emotional, expressive lines on the steel. That tends to be what I find myself.
- [76:34]
Jerry Garcia
Sam.
- [77:01]
David Lemieux
Out among the tape traders are what people have called the Pero Tapes.
- [77:04]
Bob Weir
We have these 30 so reels of the continuously running tape, of conversations, of belly laughs, of, you know, I want to make another mix of the dope deal and piano. David paid the band off in pounds of weed for the David Crosby record. The moment where I recorded everything, you know, the moment when the bags of weed were brought in and everybody was yucking up and divided, dividing it up and everything. It's all on tape. I recorded on a place where there was. I guess I had recorded just a piano. David Freiberg playing piano on this sort of circular song. He's a guy I'm gonna have to pay publishing due because it's his tune he's playing piano. I thought it was Grace playing, but it was actually his tune. And it's just this repeating, beautiful little quiet and soft melody. And that was recorded previously. And then I needed to record the weed exchange action. So I opened up some other tracks and that was. I said, well, I might as well just let the music play. And then it sort of covered the conversation or something. I don't know how it came to be that they were. All the tracks were on the same reel, but. Or maybe I put the piano after, you know, I just let it roll and then I'm going to be like, well, I need a place to put this piano. And then nothing happened with that tune. And then when we did the summary, we were playing back all the outtakes to go to a two track that became the Dirty 30. I just had the faders up and there the piano was like on one side and the funny stuff was on the other. And that was dope rap with piano.
- [78:34]
David Lemieux
Ask a taper. But for all the wonderful joy embodied on if I Could Only Remember My name. It was still pretty dark.
- [78:40]
Steve Silberman
And in between recording sessions, David would go up to Marin and sit on the side of Mount Tamalpais and cry over Christine. And that was what was running through his mind when he recorded Tamalpais. I for if I could Only Remember my Name. And, you know, how heavy is this? The day or the week or something that Crosby Czilznash, the debut album, the so Called Couch album. The day or week that that album went gold was the day that Christine Gale Hinton, David's girlfriend, was killed. So imagine the confusion of emotions that David was experiencing. It was both the best time in his life and the worst time in his life completely simultaneously. And David has told me, and we talked about it at great length in the podcast that we did for Osiris Media called Freak Flag Flying, that Jerry's presence was his way of consoling David for Christine's death. Like, Jerry never said, hey, man, you know, I'm coming down to Wally Hyder's because I know you're really bumming out about Christine. You know, he wasn't that. He wasn't an explicit guy like that in the midst of all these flaky hippies. Both Garcia and Crosby had very dark senses of humor. They were rather cynical in a certain way, which is wonderful and delicious, but just by showing up day after day after day. And that was one of the tricks about Wally Hiders that made it so special, was that it wasn't like, oh, okay, we have three days booked at Wally Hiders. It wasn't like that. They had months booked at Wally Hiders. They could just drop in and play all night or, you know, whatever.
- [80:49]
David Crosby
Every time that he and I sat down with two guitars, you know, the front. The front of kids and dogs, okay, that's it. That's me and Jerry. That's what happened. Every freaking time we sat down to play music, we was like that. Completely experimental, completely loose, completely going wherever the fuck it was gonna go and full of joy. That song is a perfect example of me and Jerry. It's pretty much dead music. You hear it. We don't even know what we're gonna play. When we start playing and we're experimenting, we're playing that game where we Pulse, Pulse play. Pulse, Pulse play. And we don't know what the other guy's gonna play. And so we hit a chord that's like, so crazy that Garcia starts laughing on the track. You can hear him laughing, and then we just fooling around. And so he starts. He knows kids And Dogs is in there. So he starts playing something like, you know, he doesn't get it right, but he's suggesting it to me. You can hear him suggest it to me. And I answer him back. I say, yeah, okay, let's go there. And then we. We both look at each other. We hesitate. We stop. We stop fooling around and we start and we hit. That happened all the time, man. It happened all the time with me and him. Every time we sat down in a room with two guitars, that would happen. How can I not worship the fucking guy? You know? I mean, it was just so good. It's what I came to the party for in the first place. Magic. Yeah.
- [83:46]
David Lemieux
In the 80s, Steve Silverman, through suitably esoteric circumstances, found a copy on a bootleg tape.
- [83:52]
Steve Silberman
It was clearly David and Jerry with multi track David vocals and multi track Jerry guitars. And it was like music from heaven. It was like rays of sunshine shining down from heaven. I became obsessed with that track. I would invite people over, get them ultra high, play that track and blow their minds for years. And so then, many years later, chain of events. I end up becoming friends with Crosby, Sills and Nash. Crosby and Nash in particular. And so I'm sitting in a hotel room in La Honda, of all places. I'm sitting in a hotel room in La Honda with Crosby, Stills and Nash. And I say, david, there's that incredible track. They're looking for rarities to put on the CSN box set that came out in the early night. I said, david, there's that track, you know, that you did with Jerry. It never came out on, you know, if I Could Only. And it never came out. And Graham says, oh, yes, it's called Kids and Dogs. And I said, oh, I never knew the title. And Graham says, yes, I have it out in the car.
- [84:56]
Bob Weir
What?
- [84:57]
David Crosby
You know.
- [84:58]
Steve Silberman
So we go out to the car. Graham has an incredible sound system in his car. You know, he pops it in. I hear it. The tape that the dealer, I'm sure had given me had been a very high generation, hissy tape. And it was also just a brief excerpt, really, of the song. So this is like, you know, studio quality, you know, on a great sound system. We spoke a joint, you know, like, ready to hear this song that I've been listening to for, you know, a.
- [85:28]
David Crosby
Decade by that point.
- [85:30]
Steve Silberman
And then Graham turns it off and he says, I just can't listen to it. And I said, why? And he said, oh, it was such a dark time in David's life. And so I'm like, no, no, no, we have to use it, you know, Graham wouldn't hear of it. But I finally, finally, finally convinced David to release it on if I Could Only Remember My Name and the box set. And to do that, I had to convince David that it had not already been released. He forgot, you know. But anyway, so kids and dog, if, like, if you really want to hear what David and Jerry could do when left to their own devices, listen to kids and dogs.
- [86:10]
David Crosby
And there it was, you know, kids, shiny, shiny. And all the time, it happened every time, unless we were busy doing something else.
- [86:20]
David Lemieux
So who rolled better joints?
- [86:21]
Jerry Garcia
Me.
- [86:22]
David Crosby
Absolutely. Hands down, no contest. I'm a better joint roller than Jerry was. No contest. I was a better joint roller than anybody in the Dead. Yeah, the challenge is laid out, for.
- [86:32]
David Lemieux
That matter, who had the better weed?
- [86:33]
David Crosby
Me. Me. Hands down. Me. Still me.
- [86:37]
David Lemieux
The studio sessions with Crosby even led to a very briefly lived band, David and the Dorks, sometimes known as Jerry and the Jerks, Featuring Crosby, Garcia, Lesh and Kreutzman. They played at least one or two shows in the Bay Area in December 1970. There are a few tapes out there, and the set lists are pretty fascinating, with live versions of Laughing and an early draft of Bertha. But it's all pretty loose. Ask a tape trader you know that.
- [87:02]
Jerry Garcia
Your eyes telling lies Steal your chance A shamboing Run a ridiculous dance Like a scarecrow that's hung up to drive on a fence oh.
- [87:21]
Eric Davis
And there's a.
- [87:22]
Jerry Garcia
Space like vacuum waiting inside I sure.
- [87:30]
Steve Silberman
Wish there had been more David and the Dorks material. I mean, to me, the greatest example of what the David and the Dorks band could have done is the uncut performance of the Wall Song, which David wrote originally in that what Steven Barnard calls a skydrop of songs did a demo at Hollywood recorders in 68, so that song had been around. But when they finally did the master take, so they did the master take of Walsong with Crosby and Nash playing with the Dead, minus Weir. So it was like Phil, Jerry, Billy, and then Nash on piano and David on rhythm guitar. And on the album version, it fades out after the vocals. And it's a great track, and it's a better vocal track than the uncut version. But the uncut version then goes on for, like eight minutes of white hot, incredibly exploratory studio jamming by the Grateful Dead minus Weir, plus Crosby and Nash. It is such a rare glimpse of their music at that point, and it's the bomb.
- [89:16]
David Lemieux
Over the next few years, Crosby would occasionally turn up on stage with the Dead to jam, too.
- [89:20]
David Crosby
And I'm going to tell you a bitter truth. This is hard for me. I wanted to play in the Grateful Dead really badly. And I tried several times and I failed every time. Because you can't just step into that band. You can't. You have to know what they're going to do, and they know what they're going to do, and they don't know what they're going to do at the same time. They know where it's going to go, but they don't know what's going to happen there. And they want it that way. And to be in that band, you have to have been in it for years. That's really the truth. Or you have to be a player on the level of, you know, Bradford Marsalis. I'm not Branford Marsalis. I do not carry around a truckload of melody hooked up to my back. I can't do what he can do. I tried to sit in with him and play rhythm guitar. And the truth is, you can't just play ordinary rhythm guitar with those guys, man. That's why Bobby's doing what he's doing. He's playing second lead. They evolved a way of playing that I like to describe as Dixieland, kind of an electric Dixieland. It's four streams of melody going at the same time. Jerry, Phil, the keyboard player, and Bobby. And they're all playing a melody, and it's like DIxieland. It's like four melodies going at the same time. It doesn't sound like Dixie, man, obviously, but that thing of having four melodies going at the same time, bouncing around each other. Nobody else does that. I wasn't good enough at what they were doing to really fit in. And I know that Jerry knew that. What did work was if they came, if Jerry and Phil and Mickey or Jerry and Phil and Kushman would play with me playing my stuff or playing more singer, songwriter kind of tunes that worked like a bandit. We had a lot of fun doing that. We did that several times at the Matrix and other places. And it was just very loosey goosey and really a lot of fun.
- [91:20]
David Lemieux
When we spoke with Graham Nash, he said something similar.
- [91:22]
David Crosby
I'm not a. I'm not a great musician at all. Please. I know how to play simple chords and simple chords on the piano to be able to get my stuff out, But I'm not great, you know. So when Martin decided to make a Graham Nash acoustic guitar model, I was incredibly, you know, flattered and impressed that, you know, because I'm not Stephen Stills, I'm not Neil Young, I'm not Clapton, I'm not Jimmy Page, you know, I'm not one of those kind of. I don't jam, you know, I mean, if you say to me, come on, let's go jam. I'm paralyzed with fear and, you know, no, no, no, no. I'm not one of those guys.
- [92:02]
David Lemieux
But in the context of Wally Heider's studio in 1970 and 1971, Crosby, Nash and the Grateful Dead found a magical middle ground where everybody could hang musically. And songwriting and jamming flowed almost imperceptibly out of one another.
- [92:15]
Steve Silberman
It was a time of great community, great creativity, this collective creed of flowering. But also a time of like, life actually does have limits that don't go away no matter how much orange sunshine you drop. The hard drugs. That many of them embraced, and certainly Crosby, in the wake of Christine's death, eventually led to Crosby going to jail. And then when Crosby got out of jail and opened for the Dead, which was a huge reintroduction of Crosby to fans, he opened for the Dead on New Year's Eve. Crosby told me that when he came off stage, Jerry just went up to him and hugged him. Didn't say anything, just hugged him. And it meant the world to David.
- [93:04]
David Lemieux
Jerry Garcia was clearly a David Crosby fan. Just recently, archivists found a version of Garcia singing the wall song Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra, jam staple that wound up on Crosby's self titled album with Graham Nash. This is From Garcia Live 15, recorded May 21, 1971 at Keystone Corner in San Francisco. Jerry Garcia on guitar, Merle Saunders on organ and bass pedals. And Bill Vitt on drums. Martin Fierron on sax too, but you can't hear him.
- [93:45]
Jerry Garcia
Such a great wide open door.
- [93:53]
David Crosby
Yeah, kind of. Kind of loose and goosey. I've heard him do it before, though. We did it together. I had never heard him, him sing the lead on it. And it was interesting, you know, he's such a fascinating cat man. I wish I'd been there. I would have sung harmony with him. It would have been fun.
- [94:11]
Jerry Garcia
Chance a shambling run or ridiculous dance Like a scarecrow that's hung up to dry on a fence.
- [94:33]
Rich Mahan
It seems the Grateful Dead have a song for every stage of your life and everything that may be going on in it. I echo the sentiment shared in this episode about addicts in that the song didn't speak to me as a teenage Deadhead, but now that I'm older, it has great meaning. And I can appreciate it in a way my younger self never could. In fact, a lot of the slower songs are now my favorites. Kind of like moving from beer to wine as your tastes change. And don't get me started on that Crosby record. It's one of my favorites. I really enjoy hearing Jerry swing with Cross. I love hearing him in different musical environments to see what other players eke out of him. Thanks very much for tuning in. Please visit us over@dead.net deadcast be well. See you next episode. Executive producers for the good old Grateful Dead cast Mark Pincus and Doron Tyson. Produced for Rhino Entertainment by Rich Mahan Productions and Jesse Jarno. Special thanks to David Lemieux. All rights reserved.