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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 the Grateful Dead for the committed and the curious. Hello friends, welcome back to the Good Old Grateful Dead cast. We've got the last of our three episodes about St. Louis for you today as we dig into the music and stories from the Grateful Dead's 1973 shows at the Keele Auditorium. All of this wonderful music is featured in the new Grateful Dead box set Listen to the River St. Louis 717273 and through season four. You can get new episodes of the Good Old Grateful Dead cast right here every other week. Visit us at our website dead.netdeadcast and check out the extra materials we have for you to explore for this episode. Also@dead.net deadcast are all of our past episodes including complete seasons 1, 2 and 3 and you can link from there to any and all of the podcasting platforms available so you can listen where you like to listen. Please help us by subscribing Hit that like button and leave us a review. It helps more than you know. Thank you. The new Grateful Dead Live archival release has arrived. It's in stores. It's entitled Listen to the River St. Louis 7172 73. This set includes seven previously unreleased concerts from St. Louis recorded on December 9th and 10th, 1971 at the Fox, October 17th, 18th and 19th, 1972, also at the Fox and the focus of today's episode, October 29th and 30th, 1973 at the Keele Auditorium. Production of the 20 CD set is limited to 13,000 individually numbered copies and will also be available in its entirety as a digital download and exclusively@dead.net in Apple, Lossless and FLAC 19224dead.net will also exclusively release Light Into Ashes, Fox Theater, St. Louis, MO 101872 as a double LP on 180 gram custom vinyl. Limited to 7200 copies, the set focuses on an exceptional hour plus jam plucked from the Grateful Dead's October 18, 1972 show at the Fox. The breakout show from this set is Fox Theater, St. Louis, MO 121071 and will be available as a 3 CD set and a limited edition 5LP set, also on 180 gram vinyl. All of these configurations of Listen to the River, St. Louis, 71, 72 and 73 are available now. You can get more info and check it all out@dead.net well, we've come to the last two of the St. Louis shows in the Listen to the river box set. Keel Auditorium October 29th and 30th, 1973. The band was getting bigger. The audiences were growing larger. They had outgrown the Fox Theater and needed to play a larger room. The Grateful Dead had just released Wake of the Flood, so there was a fresh batch of tunes to play for the citizens of River City. And play they did. Both of these shows are filled with great jams and deft performances. We've got another stellar assemblage of guests in this episode, including Sep Donahuer, Tony Dwyer, Steve Brown, Tom Palozza, Dre Stein, John Ellis, Jan Mahan, Bill Mahan, David Lemieux, Graham Boone and more. Archival interview audio with the band Time to head on down the river with Jesse Jarno.
- [04:55]
Narrator/Host
In October of 1973, the Grateful Dead returned to St. Louis for two shows at the Keel Auditorium. The shows now comprise the last discs and narrative conclusion to the new Listen to the river box set. Grateful Dead archivist and legacy manager David Lemieux the thing that I love about.
- [05:11]
David Lemieux
The box, amongst all the great things in it, is the story it tells. Mickey's just left, Pigpen is back, Skull and Roses. That is one band. That is one version of the band. It's all very distinctly Grateful Dead music, but it's very distinctly one style. October 72 very different than it was in December 71. And then October 73 is a very different band once again. And that's what I love about the Dead, really. I mean, amongst everything. The one thing I can always come back to is, is how different Grateful Dead music is, if not tour to tour year to year. But it's still very distinctly Grateful Dead music. And that's why I have no trouble at any time putting on a 1994 tape or 1984 or a 1977 or a 72. To me, I get such great joy in all eras of Grateful Dead because they're so distinctly Grateful Dead and not like anything else in my entire music collection.
- [06:05]
Narrator/Host
Backstage at the Kiel Auditorium before the second show, a college student named Danny Ruby interviewed Jerry Garcia and asked about the future. Garcia told him, we roll like a river. We just ride out the course. If we are headed in a particular direction, then it's irreversible anyway. Today we point the Dead cast back down the big river of the mind to the keele Auditorium. Fall 1973 the Grateful Dead in St.
- [06:30]
John Ellis
Louis Keele Auditorium Oct. 29 Auditorium, 1400 Market Streets in St. Louis at 7pm The Grateful Dead. All seats 5. All seats reserved. Keel Auditorium in St. Louis the Grateful.
- [06:43]
Narrator/Host
Dead Come on, Pretty women got it. After eight shows and three years at the Fox Theater capacity 4501 at the similarly sized Keele Opera House, it was time to move up once again. Our story begins with Tony Dwyer of Sky High Associates, who with Step Donna Hauer and Pacific Presentations co promoted the shows in St. Louis in 1972 and 1973, working with Sam Cutler and Out of Town Tours. Thanks to Tony for these great radio ads and thanks to David Ganz for transferring them.
- [07:19]
John Ellis
Don't forget, see and hear The Grateful Dead. October 29th and 30th in St. Louis. Produced by Pacific Presentations and Sky High Associates.
- [07:26]
Steve Brown
Arrows of me and are flashing my.
- [07:27]
Tony Dwyer
Keys out on Main street going back.
- [07:30]
Sep Donahuer
To this buddy of mine, Jim Maxwell, who had made the guitar straps for Barcianne, Weir and me, and he was doing front work for Barry Fay for various shows this summer of 1973. I get a phone call from Maxwell. I'm in St. Louis and he's in upstate New York, and he says, get your ass over here. And I said, to where? He said, watkins Glen. So I hop in the car with my girlfriend at the time and we drove to Watkins Glen and we get there and you know it's the band the Grateful Dead and the Almonds.
- [08:40]
Narrator/Host
That was Garth Hudson of the band jamming his way out of a rainstorm at the Watkins Glen Summer Jam in July 1973, attended by an estimated half million people. The biggest music festival of the 60s and 70s. If the Dead's gig at the Hollywood bowl in 1972 is a breakthrough, except Donahauer told us in the last episode, Watkins Glenn was another leveling up.
- [09:01]
Sep Donahuer
I get there and I've got my. My briefcase, I got a fucking lacoste shirt on, pair of jeans, my girlfriend's got frizzy hair four feet out on either side. And we get up to the stage and Sam's up there and he sees me and he throws his two backstage buttons. We go back, every promoter in the World was there. I mean, everybody. Graham was there, Sepp Donahauer was there, One of the Balkan brothers was there. Shelley Finkel and Jim Koplik obviously were there. So anyhow, we get there and Sepp says, tony, come on over. You know, we go, let's talk about what we're going to do in October. And that's where the whole thing for the 73 shows was hatched. I wanted to do Halloween and we couldn't get it because they were going to do Chicago set.
- [09:56]
Narrator/Host
Donhauer of Pacific Presentations.
- [09:58]
Tony Dwyer
I don't know whether it was a date issue, might have been an availability issue, or they just wanted to make some more money. You know, it could have been financial reasons because the cost of touring and everything. You know, it's a business. Acts like to work their way up to larger rooms. Well, and also it might have been like, after you've done one thing a couple of times, maybe it's time to try something new.
- [10:18]
Narrator/Host
By email, Tony added that he and Sky High associates proposed a five night Fox Theater run for October 1973, which would add up to slightly more than two nights at the Keel. But the band's schedule was tight and they promised their new sound system would be able to tame the arena.
- [10:34]
Sep Donahuer
I was concerned about the sound and I was promised that there wouldn't be an issue, that we would be using the same sound system as used at Watkins Glen, sans speakers in the back. I go to Long island and hang out on the beach for a week and then go back to St. Louis to get to work on the show. And I realized, this is a monumental tour. We gotta sell 20 fucking thousand tickets. 21,000 tickets. We better get to work.
- [10:57]
Narrator/Host
1973 was a monumental year for the Grateful Dead. That year, the band took nearly all of their business into their own hands, launching Grateful Dead Records and releasing Wake of the Flood. They had their very own press department for the first time, and they mobilized their forces. They were also a huge band, playing stadiums and arenas. In the months surrounding the band's fall tour, Rolling Stone, popular Music's magazine of record at the time, devoted multiple stories to the band and their world, including a feature on Alembic, the band's sound offshoot, and culminating in a cover feature a few weeks after the trip to St. Louis, helping to run the radio promotions for Grateful Dead Records in the fall of 1973 was Steve Brown. A while back, Rich and I visited Steve in California. Steve went way back with the Dead before they were the Dead, to palo alto circa 1963. Please welcome to the Dead cast the most excellent Steve Brown.
- [11:52]
Steve Brown (Interview)
We went to the tangent, and there was this guy playing guitar with this gal. You know, we didn't know who they were, you know, and stuff. And then later on, when I went back down there later, a year or Two, this was 63, I think, so about 64, was it? Yeah. There was this bluegrass band that he was also in. This guy Jerry, you know, and some other people. He was the same guy, but he was playing banjo and doing stuff. And he had about four guys, I think it was after that. I didn't really see them until they appeared as the Warlocks all of a sudden at a couple clubs. At this point, I'd been out of local San Francisco radio, KSFO, where I'd worked when started when I was 15 years old, you know, working there. And I got into the record distribution business and promotion business by 65. And so I was the. My route was the Peninsula. So all of a sudden, everybody's talking about this band, the Warlocks. You got to go see them. You know, they're playing down here, playing over here. You go see them and stuff. I checked them out at one point, and then it's a pizza place. And then another time, they were playing a run at the In Room in Belmont, and I went to all those gigs. Those were great. And we'd go out in the back where the cars were parked and stuff like that. Sit in the cars with them and smoke. What was cool about the In Room is you go in and it's this long bar, and it's like stewardesses and guys that work in insurance and stuff all along sitting at the bar. And then it makes an L down at the end, and that's where the stage was. And that's a bunch of hippies that are new, seminal new hippies that had transferred from beatniks or whatever or their parents were beatniks, and now they're hippies, whatever, and college kids. And here's this guy that looks like he's in a biker gang doing the lead singing on this thing. And these guys are all, like, playing behind him, basically, and he's like the show, you know, he's the one you're watching. But I'm noticing the guitarist is kind of cool, too. You know, he's playing okay, and there's this young guy playing rhythm with him and stuff. And so it was really kind of seeing this Pigpen band when I was seeing. But I recognized Jerry, of course.
- [14:08]
Narrator/Host
A few years later, Steve Brown actually got the Grateful Dead Some of their first airplay in the most unlikely place. Steve was in the Navy, in the fleet in Vietnam.
- [14:17]
Steve Brown (Interview)
Because that was my job for the Navy, was to run the recording studio for WESTPAC Fleet, which was the entertainment system on all the ships, where they had speakers in all the different compartments of the ship and they had four different channels that they could tune into. So I had a whole slave of tape machines that I would put the masters on and then make copies from albums or from tapes. I made whatever, you know, reel to reel in those days, Right. And those tapes then were on a menu that went out to all the ships in the fleet, and they would order what they wanted to have for their ship, you know. And so I'd be sending out all these different kinds of music. Country, western, comedy, you know, blues, rock and roll, A lot of rock. God. I mean, the timing was perfect for the good stuff and San Francisco music, of course, but the other stuff that went out is, hey, wait a second. I'm on the radio every night for, like, you know, five, six hours, depending how long I can keep it on, you know. So I started air checking those and making tapes and sending those out to the fleet. And this was wild stuff because I had people come in and play, you know, live on the air and stuff. So it became like this thing. And then I'd go up and take the Euro tape recorder that the Navy had given me to go around and do these inter. For hometown radio stations and stuff like that. I'd go on PSA for 13 bucks with my military and get on a plane and fly up on the weekend to San Francisco in my wife's apartment there where we were living, and go to Winterland, you know, and record Cream, you know, live with the. Your Navy's, you know, tape and the Navy's recorder. And then as I'm leaving, like that Cream concert, somebody says, you know, the Dead are playing on Haight street tomorrow. And it's like, oh, wow, H Street tomorrow. How much battery and how much tape do I have left? You know, that kind of thing. And so, yeah, sure enough, noon, you know, standing there with my. Your Navy recorder and Navy tape. You know, Navy camera with Navy film. My camera actually with Navy film in it, you know, some trikes. And that's that picture of Jerry walking up Haight street that I just turned around.
- [16:16]
Narrator/Host
You probably know the photo of Jerry carrying his guitar down Haight street walking under the marquee of the Straight Theater taken by Steve Brown on March 3, 1968. It's hanging in the Fillmore. Steve's recording, made with Navy equipment, is one of the very first Grateful Dead audience tapes.
- [16:32]
Steve Brown (Interview)
What's funny is when I made this government made concert tape of Cream Live and the Grateful Dead on Hay street all in one weekend, I came down and at midnight on Sunday night, I played both of them. Yeah, because I only had five songs on the Dead. And the last song is like Pig Pen getting the voice getting higher and higher and higher because the tapes going slower and slower, Slower. So.
- [16:58]
Sep Donahuer
So.
- [16:59]
Steve Brown (Interview)
So, you know, it hurts me too, or something is getting. You know, it's very weird. But in any case, yeah, I played both of them. So it was kind of a delayed simulcast. That's our tax dollars at work.
- [17:11]
Narrator/Host
Needless to say, Steve was more than qualified to do radio promotion for Grateful Dead Records, who were gearing up to full speed in the summer of 1973, trying to make it clear that they would be genuinely running things independently and that this wasn't merely a vanity imprint belonging to a major label.
- [17:28]
Steve Brown
Me and another partner there at Grateful Dead Records were both involved with that. Getting into the radio people, especially the ones at the universities where they had radio stations playing that kind of music a lot, especially Grateful Dead. We were going around. I even traveled around for a while, going to these stations before the record was even completed. We were trying to set them up to let them know we'd be doing these albums on our own now as Grateful Dead Records, and that they would be the ones getting early copies as soon as we had them, and that we would, in fact, be able to get them into the shows and all that. So it was kind of just milking the whole record company radio scene out there, because we went to the record store distributors and all those people as well. Mainly I did a lot of northeast travel where we had a real good backing already with Grateful Dead East Coast. Most of my stuff was done there, and it was done, in many cases with locals who knew who the people were there. And I'd connect with them, and we'd drive around and go to all these places and talk to the people at the universities as well.
- [18:35]
Narrator/Host
When the band themselves were on the road, they too were dispatched to radio stations.
- [18:39]
Steve Brown (Interview)
We do the interviews, and the interviews counted as promo. I could get Bobby in easier than I could get Jerry, oftentimes.
- [18:46]
Narrator/Host
So it was that a month before the St. Louis show, during the run up to Wake of the Flood, Bob Weir, Keith and Donna Jean Godscho, and manager John McEntire stopped by Waer in Syracuse when the band was playing in The Northeast. We'll be hearing bits and pieces from this interview today. It's pretty much the only audio I've ever found of Keith Godshow speaking, so it's cool to get his perspectives, too. When's the album coming out?
- [19:08]
Tony Dwyer
Bob October 15, I believe, is the release date. We took the entire month of August off and and went in there every day. Started the day we got back from Watkins Glen. Yeah. Started recording the day we got back from Watkins Glen. Finished recording the day the day before we left.
- [19:25]
Narrator/Host
So what songs are on it?
- [19:26]
Tony Dwyer
Bob the first side starts off with Half Step, Mississippi, Uptown, Toodaloo. And then the second song is Keith New Song Singing Blues Away. And the third song is Row Jimmy Rowe. The fourth song is still of Lips, Song One. Side two is Here Comes Sunshine in the Eyes of the World, and then My Sweet the Weather Report Suite Parts or the parody Parts One and Two.
- [19:56]
Narrator/Host
It was actually the second new Grateful Dead release in a few months. Over the summer, the band's now former label, Warner Brothers, released the last record from the Dead's old contract, their third live album in three years. This one featured tracks recorded at the Fillmore east in February 1970. It was called History of the Grateful Dead, Volume 1. Bear's Choice. Wake up, little Susie, Wake up.
- [20:34]
Tony Dwyer
Wake.
- [20:35]
Narrator/Host
Up, little Susie Wake up.
- [20:39]
Tony Dwyer
We had a commitment to Warner Bros. And for the sake of experience, yeah, I guess what we did was gave them some old tapes that I found and we had for a while named Bear Has Collected.
- [20:49]
Narrator/Host
It represented the first release of some of Owsley Stanley's sonic journals, which we've talked about on two bonus Bear Drops episodes. Bear's Choice included the first appearance of the now infamous Marching Bears appearing on the back cover via artist Bob Thomas.
- [21:03]
Tony Dwyer
We tried to at least initiate a sort of a History of the Grateful Dead program with them by labeling that History of the Grateful Dead Volume One, so that hopefully they'll follow suit and say History of the Grateful Dead, Volume 2, Volume 3. And that's what they can name their best of albums. But you know, it's all together up to them.
- [21:22]
Narrator/Host
You can tell the interviewers are heads. They even ask if the band is cool with a taping scene that was self organizing at full force by 1973. Keith is cool with the taping scene.
- [21:32]
Tony Dwyer
I think it's far out. I think it's okay as long as they don't try to make a lot of grit off it and try to promote it in a big way. Because most of those performances and the recordings are just not up to any sort of quality scenery. As far as I can tell, the people that are in like the music and that's the reason they do it, right? I mean, if they want to take it, tape it and take it home and listen to it and roll in or whatever, it's perfectly fine by me.
- [22:01]
Narrator/Host
A few weeks after this interview, Rolling Stone would publish an article titled Mr. Tapes of Brooklyn about Les Capell of the Dead Relics Tape Club, soon to be the founder of Relics magazine. Les and the Relics Crew, which included All Timer Hero concert recordist Jerry Moore, were the vanguard of the Deadheads live taping revolution. The band didn't officially sanction concert recording until 1984, more than a decade later, but by 1973 there were free Grateful Dead tape exchanges in a half dozen cities. Clearly the demand was there.
- [22:31]
Tony Dwyer
Maybe someday we'll release another sort of Beer's Choice album, which is just sort of a pico of some of our tape archives. Our tape archive grows with every performance. So that, I mean, it'll be a good long time before we get around to doing anything like that again, but we might do to the end.
- [22:51]
Narrator/Host
Weir was right on both counts. The archive certainly did continue to grow, and it certainly was a good long time before the band put out anything else that resembled Bear's Choice culled from a two track live recording. 20 years in fact. The very first Dick's Pick, released in 1993 and recorded at the very tail end of the full fall 1973 tour, which John McIntyre announced on that radio broadcast in Syracuse.
- [23:14]
Sep Donahuer
The whole country will be covered starting the 15th of October and going through the middle of December.
- [23:22]
Narrator/Host
The band's machinery was both growing and constantly changing.
- [23:25]
Sep Donahuer
Sam Cutler, out of Town Tours. He was the road manager and then he was road manager and booking agent and his booking agency, he handles more than just the Grateful Dead, you know, so that was consuming more and more of his time. So right now, Rock Scully's doing being the road manager, Sam's being the booking agent.
- [23:44]
John Ellis
You know, we switch around a lot.
- [23:46]
Narrator/Host
Back to co promoters Tony Dwyer and Sep Donahuer.
- [23:49]
Sep Donahuer
And I realized, I said, you know, we did 13, 4, 8, 12, 13,500 seats last year and now we're talking about 20, 21,000, 21,000. He said, that's a big jump.
- [24:06]
Tony Dwyer
Tony and I collaborated on these dates. We'd sit down, figure out a marketing plan, where to put what dollars, agree on a marketing plan. He'd executed part of it and I'd do some of it and then put the show on and he was a delight to work with. We still talk like every week, 50 years later. They weren't a shoe in act back in the days, you had to promote them. You just didn't like, whispered on the sidewalk and it would sell out. Few markets like that, but most of the markets, you had to work the dates to fill the house. A lot of promoters didn't know how to reach their audience because, you know, the Grateful Dead's audience was a specific segment, you know, the demographic and the age demographic, you know, for concerts. And you had to know how to go get the word to them, you know, within a wide geographic range. So you had to be. You had to know, have some marketing expertise to their customer, which goes along with what style of graphics you do, how you do your radio spots, what radio station you're on, which counterculture tabloid are you in. A lot of stuff goes into getting the word out and getting everybody there.
- [25:26]
Sep Donahuer
I write a letter to Rakow, I get on the phone to Sam, get on the phone to John McIntyre, and I said, you know, guys, I need some help. I mean, I know it's on me, but I need some help. Wake of the Flood had just been pressed. I said to rack out. I said, you know, put Steve on a plane and bring a copy of the fucking record. So he did that. Steve stayed at my house and we went out to Casey Radio, providing a.
- [25:57]
John Ellis
Wide spectrum of progressive music from all over our planet. 95 FM, rock and stereo constantly. Casey Radio.
- [26:12]
Sep Donahuer
KSHE.
- [26:14]
Narrator/Host
Steve remembers it being closer to the day of the show.
- [26:17]
Steve Brown
I wound up being flown there, I guess it was the day before. And I remember it was either I don't remember the person as Tony, or if it was somebody else that worked in the staff for the auditorium for the show promotion that picked me up and took me through a little tour of St. Louis, which was really interesting because I'd never been there before. I mean, this travel in some parts of the country was new to me. So he was going through a lot of what I guess kind of the racial thing that was going on at that time during those days. And it was kind of an interesting way to wind up going to the auditorium when we went through all these different little parts of town. And he described what was going on.
- [27:08]
Sep Donahuer
Between people there one afternoon, early evening, and Bob Birch was there, and we walked in and he said, what do you got? Well, we got a new Grateful Dead recording and we got a show in two weeks, so we need some help. And Bert says, eh, okay. So he puts Inegada DeVita on or something, you know, that's 20 minutes long and puts some headsets on and starts listening to it. He hears Weather Report Suite. And he hears a couple other things. He goes, holy shit, my sweet.
- [27:42]
Tony Dwyer
That's more or less the Weather Report Suite. Yet another song about the weather.
- [27:47]
Narrator/Host
Listen to the thunder shout I am my hand, my hand, my hand.
- [28:15]
Sep Donahuer
The album was Dick debut premiered there at KSAT that night, two weeks before the show. And they played the out of the album. Just played it constantly.
- [28:53]
Steve Brown
It was a treat to be able to hear it on the radio because it came out on the 15th of October, and this was a show on the 29th and 30th.
- [29:03]
Sep Donahuer
It was a big help. It was a big help. New music, you know, completely different than what they had last heard. And it worked well.
- [29:12]
Narrator/Host
It had been a somewhat bonkers fall in the offices of Grateful Dead Records.
- [29:16]
Steve Brown
We were setting up a lot of the stuff from our office there at fifth Admission in, you know, San Rafael, taking care of all the stuff on phone calls and getting contact with people all around the country as the album came out. We also ran into a thing almost immediately, which was really weird that we started finding out there was bootlegs coming out of the New Jersey area there and stuff. And we wound up having to talk to people from the FBI, you know, on our phones in the office, which was very weird to get a call at the Grateful Dead office from the FBI. There was that kind of thing happening just right after it came out. They were starting to bootleg it, which was, you know, finally looked at and broken down. And we came up with our own way of printing these things so they could be different looking than the bootleg ones and change a few things on our. On our production of the albums.
- [30:10]
Narrator/Host
The piracy of Wake of the Flood would play. The young record company. Though the Dead were one of the biggest bands in the United States, they suddenly found themselves with a whole range of new challenges while also continuing to grow. Except Donahue remembers, they were still in.
- [30:24]
Tony Dwyer
A building stage, you know, and that's why Sam liked working with us, because we knew how to go out there and really promote dates. Back in those days, you know, you had to go print tickets and you had to take them out to, you know, make sure you had to go constantly be shuffling the ticket inventories between ticket outlets, make sure nobody runs out, you know, it's laborious. A lot of. Lot of lot of work goes into it to maximize the gate.
- [31:01]
Sep Donahuer
The Grateful Dead, October 29th and 30th.
- [31:03]
Narrator/Host
At 7pm in Keel Auditorium, 1400 Market Street, St. Louis.
- [31:07]
Sep Donahuer
Reserved seats are $5.
- [31:09]
Tony Dwyer
Tickets are available on campus at the.
- [31:11]
John Ellis
Record Service, 704 South 6th.
- [31:18]
Tony Dwyer
Back in those days, maybe a third of the audience was hardcore Deadheads and the rest was the general concert audience, you know, and that over time, the Dead quantity of Deadheads built, of course, but in this initial exposition of the band, you know, and touring them, you know, in the early 70s, they were building that base, you know, so they had to put, you know, the shows had to pull in the ones that are curious too, and the general concert audience to see what they were all about.
- [31:48]
John Ellis
The incomparable Grateful Dead is coming to St. Louis. All seats for both nights are on a reserved basis at $5 each. Tickets are available at Discount Record, 611 South Illinois in Carbondale. The Grateful Dead October 29th and 30th in Keele Auditorium, St. Louis.
- [32:10]
Narrator/Host
Produced by Pacific Presentations and Sky High Productions.
- [32:14]
Tony Dwyer
They weren't everybody's cup of tea, you know. And that's why there was a limited number of promoters that worked with them because, you know, they wanted to do things their way, not your way. So you either were somebody that could work with a Grateful Dead or you weren't, you know. And there was a lot of promoters that, you know, because, you know, they wanted to play extended length sets, you know, play all night. And they had all of this equipment demands, you know, and set up costs and so on. Well, we got into sort of a spiraling scene where we had have a lot of employees and a huge overhead in this PA that we've been building. In order to pay for it all, we had to play bigger places. In order to play bigger places and get decent sound, we have to buy a bigger pa. And in order to buy a bigger pa, we have to make more money and play bigger pa.
- [33:11]
Sep Donahuer
That was a fucking nightmare. Because Pacific Presentations, Danny Kresge of Pacific Presentations would get configuration, get blueprints for the towers, and he would send them to me and I would order the scaffolding. Scaffolding. And do the timing and whatnot. And then three days later they said revision. I'd call the scaffolding company and say, you know, we need, you know, 14 more four by eight, three quarter inch plywoods. And we need to go, you know, 10ft, we need to go another frame higher. And we got to do this, we got to do that. And then three days later I'd get another fucking revision. And Danny would write, guess fucking what?
- [33:56]
Tony Dwyer
We make sure that we stay broke. We make sure that we spend anything that comes in. The whole wall of sound thing was interesting because you're sitting there with the speakers behind you, which you know everybody is. You can't do that. It'll all get feedback, you know. And the technical element that makes that work was the twin microphones out of phase. They cancel each other. So you eliminate the feedback.
- [34:22]
Narrator/Host
A month after the Kiel shows at the Boston Music hall, the Dead's crew would stack the speakers vertically and the wall of sound would rise from there. But at the keel, it was already an imposing skyline of speaker cabinets. Most of the Tye Dye sound system had been replaced with the newest utilitarian speaker cabinets from Alembec, with no speaker grills at all. By early 1973, the phase canceling double microphone system to eliminate feedback was already.
- [34:48]
Sep Donahuer
In effect the night before the first show. So it's October 28th, I go to the Hilton and everybody's there, everybody and their friends. And McIntyre's sitting there and he goes, hey Tony, what's up? He said, is the scaffolding up? And I'm not going to tell him that it's not up yet because I wasn't going to pay rent for the fucking theater. Well, you know, for keel overnight when I can get the guys there at 7 o' clock in the morning. So I just said, oh yeah, don't worry about it, John. You know, towers will be up. And you know, sure enough they got there and we got the scaffolding up and it was, it was a fucking trip. Then we had to go out and get a motorized fucking lift to get the speakers up because guys were too tired. I mean, it was fucking unbelievable.
- [35:32]
Narrator/Host
Tony had watched the Dead's equipment grow since he first met the band in 1970.
- [35:37]
Sep Donahuer
That equipment that was used at the Fox in the 1970s show came in a Ryder Fox truck And then in 72 it was four 40 foot semis. The 73 shows, I mean, I would say there was at least twice the equipment, if not three times the equipment that went into the 72 shows. Easily the amount of equipment was massive. When it came to the 73 shows, I mean, it was shit everywhere.
- [36:01]
Narrator/Host
According to the Rolling Stone feature by Charles Perry that ran the next month called A New Life for the Dead, There were some 459 speakers in the new system spread between the musicians, the scaffolding and the monitor systems. In 1970, the only non musicians that arrived with the band were Owsley and ramrod. By 1973, alongside the band was a support crew of 17, one road manager, two truck drivers, a four person lighting crew led by Candace Brightman, nine quippies and someone selling merch. But like the Dead, it could change on any given night. They were in big rooms. Now, the Kiel Auditorium definitely wasn't the fox Theater, as St. Louis head Tom Palazzolo remembered.
- [36:42]
Sep Donahuer
I mean, I saw more shows at Kiel than I did practically anyplace else.
- [36:47]
Narrator/Host
I think I saw a lot there.
- [36:49]
Sep Donahuer
You know, it didn't have the sound that the Fox did. And it wasn't intimate. You could get.
- [36:55]
Narrator/Host
If you had the full floor filled and all of the seating, I think.
- [37:00]
Tony Dwyer
You could get around 15,000 people.
- [37:03]
Sep Donahuer
So it just wasn't as intimate.
- [37:05]
Narrator/Host
Dre stein, host of KDHX's Other One, was there. She'd seen the Dead for the first time at the fox in 72. But the keel Auditorium was a more regular spot for rock shows.
- [37:16]
Jan Mahan
We went to a lot of the.
- [37:17]
Tony Dwyer
Shows at Kiel, which was, I think around a 12,000 seat venue or maybe even more. It was, you know, huge. It was a very sterile environment in terms of it was a building, it was square.
- [37:31]
Jan Mahan
There was none of this Art deco insanity that filled the place. Like the Fox or even the Keeler.
- [37:38]
Tony Dwyer
Or the Keele Opera House was once.
- [37:40]
Jan Mahan
Again much more Art decoish.
- [37:42]
Tony Dwyer
It had a lot of just environment that was conducive to creativity.
- [37:47]
Narrator/Host
To me, Keele depended on where you sat.
- [37:49]
Jan Mahan
The sound could be good, could be bad.
- [37:52]
Tony Dwyer
I found at Kiel, the further away from the stage you were, if you got back by the balcony, the sound got much better. It boomed a lot if you were.
- [38:00]
Jan Mahan
In the middle, if you weren't up.
- [38:02]
Tony Dwyer
Front, you know, and then when you were up front, you were outside of the cone, so you lost some of the sound that way too.
- [38:09]
Sep Donahuer
So if you get back, you got.
- [38:11]
Jan Mahan
Like the perfect spot where the V cone was.
- [38:14]
Narrator/Host
But it did have the new sound system.
- [38:16]
Tony Dwyer
But it was an interesting experiment, no question about it. Visually, of course, it had a big wow factor. You know, when people walk in, they look at the stage and go, wow.
- [38:31]
Sep Donahuer
It was unbelievable seeing the wall of speakers there.
- [38:35]
David Lemieux
I think the 73 show, if I.
- [38:37]
Sep Donahuer
Remember right, was the first time that they, at least in the St. Louis.
- [38:41]
Tony Dwyer
Area, they had part of the wall.
- [38:43]
Sep Donahuer
With them in the Opera House. They can only get so much of it in there.
- [38:47]
Narrator/Host
And while the Dead certainly drew an unusual audience of returning Deadheads who hung on the band's every move, the St. Louis 73 shows are a good reminder that the Grateful Dead were also playing to new, curious listeners at every stop. Who'd never seen the band before. On the first night at the Keel that included the parents of my co host Rich. Please welcome to the good old Grateful Dead cast, Bill and Jan Mahan.
- [39:10]
Jan Mahan
We were from Southern California and when we moved to St. Louis, the people that ended up being our friends thought we were probably the wildest couple initially that they would ever know. Being from Southern California, the den of iniquity. And it turns out we were the babes in the woods. We hadn't ever been to a concert like that. When somebody said concert, I was thinking of dressing up, maybe dinner first and you know, seeing something. Well, I can't say that the dad wasn't remarkable, but at any rate it was. It was something entirely different.
- [39:48]
Tony Dwyer
You know, we knew the Beatles and Elvis Presley and stuff like that, but we never knew any of the groups like Emerson, Lake and Palmer and the Dead and the other groups like that until we moved to St. Louis. And a friend of ours, Don Logie, was a rock and roll enthusiast and he introduced us to all of these groups that we had no knowledge of or at least weren't aware of before. We enjoyed doing things with Don and Susan. So anything they suggested that they wanted to do, we were willing to try. I mean, that's how we got started with skiing is because they all went skiing and it sounded like a lot of fun. The same thing with the music. So going to the Dead concert really led us to a lot of other concerts.
- [40:37]
Rich Mahan
Who was my babysitter?
- [40:40]
Tony Dwyer
Probably one of the Martineau kids.
- [40:42]
Narrator/Host
So while young Rich was at home with one of the Martinoff kids off, Bill and Jan went to see the Grateful Dead at the Keel.
- [40:48]
Tony Dwyer
As we were walking in, I do remember one young man walking along the street and this is funny commenting, spare chicks, spare change. Spare chicks, spare change. And that's. We've kind of carried that forward over the years.
- [41:06]
Jan Mahan
Oh yeah, we have. John dropped us off. I remember it was dark and he dropped us off on the east side of Kiel and I think he went to go park. But it was complete melee inside. Even, you know, like when you even go to the movies or you go to any symphony or anything, it's a quiet, hushed lobby and so forth. Not at all. It was bright lights when we went in and gave them the tickets at the door. And it was just this scene of complete buzz. I mean, it was just fun. Loud, noisy, not small groups, just packed people in the foyer. I remember that.
- [41:47]
Tony Dwyer
And smoke filled and.
- [41:49]
Narrator/Host
Well, already another person whose parents were at the Keel was grateful then manager.
- [41:53]
Sep Donahuer
John McIntyre, John McIntyre's parents lived in, I think in Belleville, Illinois, someplace across the river. And they were elderly and they wanted to go to the show. So John had called me and asked me to reserve two seats for him and I reserved them. Row one, seat A and B. We get there, the tickets are at the box office for him. And John comes over, he said, tony, where are my parents tickets? I said, where are your parents? He said, well, they're coming shortly. And I said, well, tell them pick him up at will call. So he said, well, let's walk over there. So we walk over there and we meet his parents and I hand them the tick. I get the tickets and I hand them to him. And John looks at him, he goes, tony, what the fuck are you thinking? He said, you put my parents in the front row. So we take the tickets and he said, let's walk back and we find these two people that are sitting on the first level above the floor, front row. And we switched tickets with them and we saw two kids just fucking ecstatic that all of a sudden they're sitting front row, nearly on stage. And John's parents were, you know, we're not going to be blasted.
- [43:10]
Narrator/Host
It was only a few days after Steve Brown's birthday on the 26th, I.
- [43:14]
Steve Brown
Was 29 years old. And on the 29th, there I was on the stage and took a picture of me hanging on the stage there on the amps. And I keep that in my album here. Anyway, that was a good time for me because I was just really ripe. I'd been in record business and radio and had a band out of the Haight Ashbury that I played in and jammed a bunch with other people stuff. Yeah. So there was a world that just ripened on that particular time when I wound up there in Kiel and had this whole new world blossoming even further out for myself, you know, which was really a real special, special time.
- [44:00]
Jan Mahan
They blinked the lights, just the perfunctory blinks, and then in we went. And there were already a lot of people in there. And I don't remember the whole seating area being even lit up. I think it was dark when we went in and the stage was all lit.
- [44:16]
Narrator/Host
It was showtime. The Dead took to the stage in front of a backdrop featuring the Wake of the Flood album art by Rick Griffin.
- [44:42]
Jan Mahan
The crowd was so enthusiastic and they did sing along and they were on their feet and there was a lot of dancing up in front of all the seated area, just like there was at any Dead concert.
- [44:53]
Narrator/Host
Besides alternating songs between Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir. The Dead didn't play on their set list at all. As Keith and Donna and Weir told waer.
- [45:02]
Tony Dwyer
Kind of a natural pattern, but we never discuss what we're gonna play. We've got a few starter tunes and we've got a few ending tunes. And in between, it's just whatever happens.
- [45:12]
Narrator/Host
Danny Ruby of the Daily Ill and E asked Jerry Garcia about this backstage the next night. We hope that the audience will like what happens naturally, but it all starts on stage. Sure, a lot of people come only to hear Casey Jones, but there are others that come only for Darkstar. We play what seems right at the moment. All the decisions are made on stage. Are we Deep and wind by the.
- [45:40]
Tony Dwyer
Bl streaming it will grow, grow, grow Sing a L.
- [45:54]
Narrator/Host
Inside the water.
- [45:58]
John Ellis
Lovers.
- [46:00]
Narrator/Host
Come at door the river. Danny Ruby also made another astute observation, writing rivers are another significant Dead image. Possibly the reason lies in the nature of the waterways. Perhaps it's because they lead somewhere.
- [46:18]
David Lemieux
We get to 73, which is a totally different band by this point than it was even in 72. We've got all of the Wake of the Flood material that had been introduced in February of 73. Plus they'd now recorded Wake of the Flood in August of 73. It had come out two weeks earlier, October 15th. So this was again a new band with a whole new business outlook as well. Maybe that had something to do with why they played the Keel. They had Grateful Dead records that had just begun. They needed to make some money, at least.
- [46:45]
Narrator/Host
In the balcony of the Keel Auditorium, though. The prototype for the Wall of Sound wasn't working for John Ellis.
- [46:51]
Tony Dwyer
Man, you know, that's the one that, you know, I kind of walked out on. That's true. But I have to back up a little bit that the first time ever that I didn't have incredible seats, it became much harder to get tickets. By the time they played Keogh Auditorium, it was. It was easier to get a ticket, but it was easy to get a really crappy ticket. As great as they say the. The Wall of Sound is, you know, it's. That thing was designed for certain or came off best in certain venues. My seats were not only on the side they were up, you know. So for me, it was kind of slap in the face, like, hey, who are these new fans? And it's like, I'm used to going to see these guys when there's only 1,000 to 2,000 people there, you know, or the later Fox shows, you know. It was still manageable because it Was, I think the fox holds 4,000 people or so. So, you know, it still seemed like a private party if you had good seats at the Fox.
- [47:54]
Narrator/Host
Thankfully, Kid Candelario's recordings at the Kiel Auditorium are warm and full.
- [47:58]
David Lemieux
The Kiel Shows. Dick had given me DAT tapes. I still have the DAT tapes in my CA cabinet behind me. Dick had given me dat tapes in 1999 of the Kiel shows. It was the first time I'd heard them. And again, they are very, very good shows. And one is an other one and one is a dark star. In addition to that, you get weather reports, suite, the whole suite. You get Eyes of the World. You get the songs that they weren't playing yet in 1972.
- [48:22]
Narrator/Host
Near the end of the first set, on the first night, they get to the material. New to the repertoire since their last pass through town at the Fox Theater the previous October. There's an electrified version of the George Jones hit the Race Is on, written by Don Rollins, previously sung in 1969 and 1970 by Bob Weir with Bobby Ace and his cards from the bottom of the Deck, the New Riders of the Purple Sage and the Acoustic Dead. In the spring of 73, not long after sitting in with the new writers, they revived it with the updated Bakersfield Dead sound.
- [48:58]
Tony Dwyer
The Inside My tears are running back.
- [49:02]
Narrator/Host
Trying not to.
- [49:06]
Sep Donahuer
Rub it.
- [49:12]
John Ellis
And the.
- [49:13]
Steve Brown
Winner loses all.
- [49:23]
Tony Dwyer
The.
- [49:23]
Narrator/Host
And then it was on to three of Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter's most beautiful new songs. Broken Heart don't feel so Bad.
- [49:38]
Sep Donahuer
You.
- [49:38]
Narrator/Host
Ain'T got half of what you thought you had. Rock your face back to and fro not too fast and not too slow Row Jimmy was among the new songs written with parts for Donna Jean, God.
- [50:01]
Sep Donahuer
Show.
- [50:16]
Narrator/Host
Way to Go, Tom Palazzola. Song wise, they were kind of working.
- [50:32]
Tony Dwyer
On some of the things that were.
- [50:34]
Narrator/Host
Coming out on Wake of the Flood.
- [50:35]
Tony Dwyer
So there was some of that that.
- [50:37]
Sep Donahuer
I wasn't familiar with.
- [50:38]
Narrator/Host
But, you know, getting to hear some.
- [50:40]
Tony Dwyer
New music from them was pretty, pretty fabulous.
- [50:42]
Narrator/Host
And there was, of course, Eyes of the World written with swing to spare and a big gang sing along with entwined guitar parts by Jerry Garcia and Bob. Weird. Wait now discover that you are the song that the Mormons play. The dead freaks at Waer made Weir speak out Robert Hunter's lyrics for them.
- [51:28]
Tony Dwyer
We couldn't find out that you are the eyes of the world. What's the line after that? I'm curious. The heart has its beaches, its homeland and thoughts of its own. The song that the morning brings, the heart has its seasons, its evenings and songs of its own. Who wrote that the words are hundred and millivolts at the keel.
- [51:51]
Narrator/Host
As with most versions of Eyes of the World from 1973, it was performed as it was debuted earlier in the year, seemingly conceived as the first half of a two part suite, in which it was followed by a delicate Jerry Garcia Robert Hunter song China Doll. I love the way everybody in the band is playing little delicate bits of lead parts. Yesterday I begged you before I hit.
- [52:20]
Tony Dwyer
The ground.
- [52:26]
Narrator/Host
All I leave behind me.
- [52:31]
Tony Dwyer
Is only.
- [52:35]
Narrator/Host
What I found the song would become an outtake from Wake of the Flood, but returned on from the Mars Hotel in 1974. Jacob, your China doll Jacob your china it's only fractured just a little Nervous from afar Played live the eyes of the world Shine it all suite is everything the studio Dead couldn't contain. The album version of Eyes of the World was truncated.
- [53:21]
Tony Dwyer
It's edited down to just the head of the song. A couple bars in between each verse of Up Riffing and then at the end, a sort of extended bass solo.
- [53:32]
Narrator/Host
The Dead Freaks grilling Weir were obviously fans of the tune and have a pertinent question.
- [53:36]
Tony Dwyer
Does it get into the 74 jam? No, it does not.
- [53:38]
Narrator/Host
You know the part in 74. That was the version from the first night at the the Keel. Thankfully, that piece of music survived in Eyes of the World up through the end of 1974 when the band took an extended break from the road. Recorded nearly every single night by the band's crew. Though Eyes of the World is credited to Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter, that piece of music developed organically over the course of several performances in early 1973, beginning from a bass riff by Phil Lesh.
- [54:31]
Tony Dwyer
Anything you like that. Before we got more material.
- [54:36]
Narrator/Host
From the Sounds of Things. It was a pretty different vibe at the Keel compared to the Fox. Jan Mahan.
- [54:40]
Jan Mahan
I remember one thing that's a bit off color, but I'll tell you anyway. It was intermission and Susan suggested that she and I would go to the ladies room. And I use the term loosely and so she knew where it was and she took me there and we walked in and there was sawdust all over the floor. And I said, Susan, what is this for? And she said, I'll tell you later. So we were in the ladies room and we finished. And before we had left the ladies room, I understood what the sawdust was for. There were a number of young women who were quite ill. It was not a typical theater restroom experience.
- [55:28]
Narrator/Host
And at the end of the show, Rich's parents and their friends got the song they wanted to hear.
- [55:32]
Jan Mahan
I do know that Susan was very happy because I think they closed with Sugar Magnolia, the ones that Susan and Dawn introduced us to. And they played a lot that they liked. Susan's favorite was Sugar Magnolia. And I've always liked it. It's so up.
- [55:51]
Tony Dwyer
Sugar Magnolia, that's all out there.
- [55:55]
Narrator/Host
I don't care so that baby down by the river Knew she'd have to come up soon forever Steve Brown was out and about both nights. Somehow it was his job.
- [56:10]
Steve Brown
I got to enjoy the shows. That was the good part of it. Sometimes it was backstage, just rolling joints and putting them in Jerry's guitar case. But, you know, a lot of it was being out there with the crowd in the audience and seeing the responses and then being able to talk to people that were there again from radio or press and keeping them, you know, jacked up, that kind of thing. And it's really fun. It was a good job to have that week.
- [56:39]
Narrator/Host
A student from the University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana named Danny Ruby followed the band on tour writing a story for the Daily Illen e and offered this scene report outside the Kiel Auditorium in a park Tuesday, waiting for the final show. All around people are accumulating. Most of those that show up at noon for a seven o' clock show are genuine Deadheads. A carload from Tennessee with the license plate Jed share our bottle of wine and a guy from Long island showed up with a tape of Monday night's concert. It was an extremely fertile period for the Dead's music. You can understand why the tapers abounded.
- [57:15]
David Lemieux
Every time we've ever done a 1973 release. St. Louis shows were given consideration, and I can think of several. 10. 1973 is one of them. The Winterland box set from Boy 13 years ago. The November shows, UCLA San Diego, the Denver shows.
- [57:31]
Narrator/Host
It's a well plumbed period, and for good reason. Like pages in an artist's sketchbook, you can see themes and variations emerging and evolving. One fun part about tracking the Dead's music through the early 70s is hearing the jams and themes that evolved from show to show. For example, the band debuted Truckin in 1970, played it at the Fox in 71 and 72. But it was only by 73 that the song had finally developed one of its signature moods. From 1969 through 1972, a variation on Paul Simon's Feelin Groovy appeared regularly in Dark Star. Here it is in Dark Star, recorded at the fox Theater in October 1972. But by 1973. The feeling Groovy Jam moved over to the transition between China Cat, Sunflower and I know you Rider. Here it is from the second night of the keel in 73.
- [59:32]
Steve Brown
Perhaps.
- [59:32]
Narrator/Host
Obviously there was no vehicle for these jams like the interstellar wonder called Darkstar. In many ways, this was why they went through all the fuss to build a giant high fidelity sound system to record their shows, to do these tours in giant bulky arenas. It was to find moments like these when they were comfortable enough to play Darkstar. Jerry Garcia famously said of the acid tests that they had the freedom to play or not play. That wouldn't be true in later years with tickets and contracts and tours and such. But the Dead always held onto that freedom about whether or not to enter into the intimate, open musical space represented by Darkstar. For two years in a row, the St. Louis Heads got extended versions. Please welcome back to the Deadcast, musicologist Graham Boone of Ohio State University, our tour guide for some extended stargazing as we once again pass through the transitive Nightfall of Diamonds.
- [60:37]
John Ellis
I think that in the early Dead you do have that idea of a little bit of a mostly shorter form songs. And it's because where they're coming from, right, they're coming from R B, they're coming from the Beatles and all this early 60s short form music. But they've been listening to jazz, so they're super interested in long form music. But how do you make long form music? And so they have to craft a sense of time where they have a way to open up. And so, yeah, Dark Star and some other songs, they're able to start to let go of the chord progression and start to find a way to. It's very frontier music, you know, to make a music that isn't just relying on a clear chord progression like Love Light or something, right? So, yeah, I don't know, how do you analyze. That's a lot to think about. For me, the Dark Star thing really hinged on that 27th of February 1969 on Live Dead. And of course I got that album when it came out. And I just lived inside of that performance of that whole double album for a long time. And I think it did stimulate in me an awareness of the incredible emotional power of harmony and this idea of a free counterpoint that the Dead excelled at and that exploration of the limits, you know, where could it lead? And you know, at that time they did not yet do kind of freak out spacey music in Dark Star.
- [61:55]
Narrator/Host
Right.
- [61:55]
John Ellis
They did that in other places. But for me, that movement Away from a secure harmonic underpinning into this exploration of really what was E minor. That other chord was emotionally very intense because it was unhinged from that home chord. Where was it leading, you know? And so toward the end of that song, there's that climax where all the band comes together. And then with Jerry's climactic riffing, they center it back on the Dark Star progression. And they center it back on A major. And on that Dark Star progression. There's a sense of coming home. It's extremely romantic, it's extremely existential. But, you know, retrospectively, you can understand why Gerry could have come to hate it, right? Because it's just such a pat answer to the drama of Dark Star. Because after that, after that moment in February, March, they really start getting into space. After that, they start introducing things that go beyond this idea of a romantic climax and a return to the home harmony, and they eventually give up the second verse. I mean, all this, I think, is part of a trajectory of searching for meaning that goes far beyond that original container.
- [63:04]
Narrator/Host
Over the next few years, between the versions in early 1969 and autumn 1973, where we're tuning in today, the Dark Star jam continued to loosen and change shape.
- [63:14]
John Ellis
This is a really wonderful Dark Star for many reasons. It doesn't go into a lot of extremes, but there's a lot of contrapuntal interplay among the musicians. And the recording of this performance is very beautiful in the way it distributes the band. You have Jerry on the left channel, you have Bob clearly on the right channel, and then around the middle you have Keith, Phil and Bill. It makes a really nice distribution. You can really hear things. There's a lot of wonderful definition. It's an improvement over the old tapes that were circulating, for sure. And it creates such a nice spectrum of sound.
- [63:46]
Narrator/Host
It's a great way to focus on the musical personalities of the players. As we'll hear. This is Bob Weir describing his own musical voice about a month before this on waer.
- [63:56]
Tony Dwyer
I just like chords, and I like to stretch a chordal texture as far as I can and see if I can create a mood by making richer and richer chords or more simple chords, if the situation calls for it. I guess a lot of my chordal ideas come from either Baroque influences or people like Gil Evans.
- [64:15]
Narrator/Host
A key to the Dead's improvisation, especially 1973, is, of course, Phil Lesh's lead bass playing. Here's how his bandmate Keith Gottscher described it in the same.
- [64:26]
Tony Dwyer
The typical position of a bass player In a band, Phil doesn't really play that role because he doesn't play solid like Robbie Danko. Rick Danko in the band plays really straight. If there's four beats in A major, he'll play.
- [64:45]
Sep Donahuer
All on the majority.
- [64:48]
Narrator/Host
Phil's bass playing had other charms.
- [64:50]
Tony Dwyer
His tone is at the bottom and it fills in that space. But in terms of he plays a melody oriented type of bass and in terms of where he places the notes he chooses to play in the chords, they're not traditional bass notes. Like you rarely catch him playing a root.
- [65:11]
Narrator/Host
And it pushed his bandmates to new places.
- [65:14]
Tony Dwyer
Phil's playing really stimulates, makes it impossible to play straight chord changes. And really he is really brilliant in the inversions and voicings of his bass. And just the flow with him kind of leads you naturally to play chord changes which flow more in, have different structures than just straight ahead.
- [65:37]
Narrator/Host
With all that in mind, it's time for dark.
- [65:40]
John Ellis
What you're going to hear as we go into this recording is that it starts out with your classic dark star rhythm, which is a swing rhythm. So bump, buh, bump, buh, bump, bump, bump. Which you can break down into 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1st, 2, 3, if you want. And that's as opposed to a classic straight rhythm, which would be a 1 and 2 and 1 and 2 with even beats and divisions of the beat. Now that's significant because we're going to see through this recording that they actually switch, thanks to Bill, largely from swing to straight rhythm and then back to swing. And there's all kinds of play on that swing to straight, which is just classic dark star strategy. So of course the classic dark star tag. Audience is so excited. Jerry playing his classic riff. Listen to how Phil is all over it. Beautiful chords on a. The home note. And there you have a beautiful riff from Keith which is going to come back. Bob is playing a little bit of that dark star progression, but Phil is free. Really interestingly here Jerry is not in the foreground. In fact, in this whole recording he really isn't totally emphasized, partly because of the balance, but probably because there's so much going on. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. 1 and 2. You can hear that nice swing rhythm. Now they're back to one.
- [67:21]
Tony Dwyer
There.
- [67:22]
John Ellis
That riff comes back from Keith and then they go to 5, the E.
- [67:29]
Sep Donahuer
Minor chord.
- [67:36]
John Ellis
And then to 1 to A again. But. But Bob is playing A minor. He often flirts back and forth between A minor and A major. So you know already here at the very beginning, beginning, you know, there's some ambiguity about what the chords are. And that's classic, dead right beautifully articulated. It's like a poly counterpoint. So here we have the feeling of being in one again. And then five. A feeling, something suspended harmony in this counterpoint. And then a five. And there's that little riff from Keith coming back. And then back to a. You know, we haven't had the dark star progression fully played. It's all being. You know, they're dividing the wafer and passing it around among the apostles of this progress progression. And everybody's got their own take on it. Keith articulating strongly the dark star progression and yet still moving. And so Jerry hits that high note and then come back down. And already Keith is off into another idea.
- [69:16]
Narrator/Host
In the early 70s, there were a number of motifs that appeared in the Dead's jams. Putting names on what exactly they are, though, gets a little ontologically tricky.
- [69:27]
John Ellis
So here they are in the middle of a jam. It's the first jam still. And they're really getting into this counterpoint. Now you can hear them hitting this on D keys imitating Phil.
- [69:47]
Tony Dwyer
And then.
- [69:51]
John Ellis
An F sharp. Nah Y. But they're moving. Phil's moving around. And what happens here? 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. Bill has switched out of swing rhythm into a straight rhythm. And this sets up 10 minutes of Janick right there.
- [70:10]
Tony Dwyer
4.
- [70:11]
John Ellis
1, 2, 3, 4. Now here it's as if they're playing a chord progression. Chord of A, the chord of B. And then into what sounds like E minor. Keith picking up the sense of E minor. Really nice harmonic wandering. Everybody contributing. And then all of a sudden the getting into a funky rhythm. And then in B minor. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5%, 6, 7. 1, 2', 3, 4, 5, 6. It's the Solomon's Marbles riff from Blues For Olive. Beautiful seven beat cycle. But, you know, not everybody's onto it. So he kind of smooths out into an eight beat cycle. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3,4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Solidly on B minor. Here we get a little bit of Wes Montgomery from Bob. Interesting jazz stylings in his comping in this era still on B minor. And they're exploring that Solomon's marbles idea, which is just coming together, you know. Fascinating is that Jerry's right in the middle of it, but he's not leading the pack. He's just part of what's going on. It makes this really very special.
- [71:58]
Narrator/Host
Dead scholar. Light Into Ashes made a deep dive into what he calls the proto King Solomon's Marbles Jam, a genetically related musical idea we've linked to it@dead.net deadcast it's a jam motif led by bassist Phil Lesh that the band played throughout late 1972 and into 1973. Here's the jam coalescing in the February 26, 1973 Darkstar from Pershing, Nebraska, released on Dix Picks 28. Doesn't actually sound much like the song King Solomon's Marbles as recorded on Blues For Allah, but it's still an identifiable mood. Another one of the Dead's most famous improv motifs appears in the next segment of the keel 73 Darkstar, the descending pattern that tape collectors often label the Minelift body jam.
- [73:19]
John Ellis
So really nice rib from Keith here on the key, in the key of A. And listen to the clip notes from different players. This pointillistic style is really a key part of the Dev's ethos at this point in time. Clip notes from Jerry, clip notes from Bob. Of course, the drumming can sound very pointillistic. So they're in A, but then Phil is pushing B and then Keith comes into B minor. So is it going to be another B minor jam all of a sudden? No, because Jerry slows everything down and plays the mind Left Body jam and within 10 seconds everybody's together on it. Now this is back in the key of A, nicely setting up the first verse and chorus later on. Now this Mylet Body jam is completely different from a lot of what came before because it's in such a strict pattern. You know, it's a four beat feel and it's a four bar pattern. So 2, 2, 3, 4. 3, 2, 3, 4, 4, 2, 3, 4, 1. And it's still in a straight meter, right? So that that shift from swing to straight is still happening 10 minutes later. Beautiful. Bob has a phasing on his guitar and Jerry still sitting there back. But he's about to start his own solo, which is where things get really interesting. Very slow, pensive solo from Jerry rising up to the higher levels of the guitar. Really nice filler from Keith. And then up to the yet higher level, the top octave. Jerry's getting into the slide. So he's taking out a slide. It sounds like a National Seal guitar. Rough floating, sliding pitch, evoking that great early blues and all of those traditions that he loved so much. So they really get behind sharing.
- [75:41]
Steve Brown (Interview)
Now.
- [75:47]
John Ellis
Throughout this jam, it's the same four beat four bar pattern. Listen to Bill. Bill's gone just into simple accompaniment. He's Gonna come out of it a.
- [76:01]
Tony Dwyer
Little bit.
- [76:05]
John Ellis
As this thing moves forward. So everything's about interpreting. Each four bar run through is a little bit different. Each one Bob is hitting different notes. Keith is exploring different rhythms, gifs and accompaniments and a course fill. So they bring it to conclusion, slowing down. And there it comes, Bill on the classic Dark star line, but still embroidering it. Jerry hits his own Dark star riff and the progression is off. Really slow, quiet, Just beautiful setting up that first verse. It's the first time we've heard the progression like this in the whole song. It's been 15 minutes. Just wonderful creation of a long chant.
- [77:40]
Narrator/Host
The name Mind Left Body is derived from the Paul Kantner song your Mind Has Left yout Body, released on Baron von Tollbooth in the chrome Nun in 1973, on which Jerry Garcia played pedal steel guitar. But your Mind has Left yout Body was recorded in December 1972. And the theme appeared in Dead Jam starting about eight months earlier.
- [78:27]
John Ellis
The thing about it is that that descending riff is so fundamental and it comes up in so much music that it can come up for different reasons. I mean, Phil doesn't, apparently he has no interest in the idea that would have come from Paul Kantner. Right. And he could see it from other places. Dear Prudence, of course, uses that riff. And you know, there's been a number of different songs that people have talked about. It actually goes back for centuries. The Falling Tetrachord, as it's called, is one of the most important stock bass lines in the Baroque era and often tied to laments, but also used for other things. So I think when it comes up, I mean, it's just a great. It's just a great thing, you know, that falling line. And it isn't always in the bass. You know, for example, on that Marvin Gaye recording that people cite from 1968, the bass is actually playing a drum note on the tonic. And it's the. It's the high voice that descends so you can articulate it in all kinds of ways. It's a song called you'd're All I Need To get by by Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terr.
- [79:30]
Tony Dwyer
To get by.
- [79:37]
John Ellis
Like.
- [79:37]
Narrator/Host
Sweet morning dew I took one look at you and it was plain to see you were my destiny. When Dick Lotfila began releasing shows from the Dead's vault In the early 1990s, he sometimes labeled it the Mud Love Buddy Jamie and has he referred to it on KPFA when filling in for David Ganz In 1995 my armpit left.
- [80:01]
Tony Dwyer
The Universe theme, which we'll rename soon.
- [80:05]
John Ellis
There's also an issue because if you name something, that changes it, you know, you objectify it, you make it into a thing, and in a way, you control it by naming it. Right. So, you know, in my own analyses of Dark Star, I gave names to various things, but I feel mixed about it because should they have names? I mean, everybody who loves this music knows this stuff through perception that is not verbalized necessarily. And although people like to talk about it, if you start naming things in a kind of an official capacity, like, oh, that's the Mind Left Body Jam. And, you know, Phil didn't like that.
- [80:40]
Sep Donahuer
Right.
- [80:41]
John Ellis
And I think a lot of musicians balk at the idea that their feeling of serendipity and the complex emotions that they bring to playing something would then be reified into some simple name. Oh, that's this. You know, as if we couldn't handle the fact that it's actually very contested at any moment and comes out of a rich store of memories and possibilities. So, yeah, it's fascinating problem, right.
- [81:04]
Narrator/Host
It was hardly a fixed piece of music. For comparison, here's a version of the theme for May 19, 1974, coming out of truckin, released on the Pacific Northwest 19731974 box set.
- [81:47]
John Ellis
As listeners, you tend to fixate on something. It's materialized, and so it exists as a thing. Whereas as a player, there's a lot going through your mind, and things can. Can be very fluid. Things can come out, memories can come back, and your fingers can lead you into areas that you haven't thought about or that you had gone into before. So it might be. Be feeling very different. For a player, the difference between an improvisation, a serendipitous moment, an actual strategy of playing something very specific. A lot of things come up. And in Dark Star, you know, you have a lot of things that come up at different times. And you can hear echoes of all kinds of ideas, harmonic moves, melodic riffs, all kinds of things that pop up all over the place. You know, how do you actually. How do you actually set them into an order? You know, I don't know if you should really. It's this art of improv. It's this art of improvisation. You know, improvisation is not about just inventing something. It's also about who you are and where you've been and what's in your toolkit and how you feel.
- [82:44]
Narrator/Host
That day, the theme disappeared from the Dead's jams when they took their break from the Road starting in late 1974. But the next year, a very similar progression appeared in Bob Weir's new song, the Music Never stopped. Hear from August 13, 1975 at the Great American Music hall, aka One from the Vault, the song's debut performance. There's a band out on the way, out on the way. Danny Ruby reporting again. By the end of the second night in St. Louis, when the band had started to crank up their closing tunes and it was clear that everything had come off well, the people got into a partying mood that matched the sincerity, if not the frenzy of the audience all around. The people crowded into the spots where they could get a view of the band between the piles of speakers and amplifiers. I positioned myself to watch Jerry as he played a new riff to going down the road feeling bad. In 1974, the band didn't come to St. Louis, only getting as close as Des Moines and Louisville. Jerry Garcia played local solo shows in 74, 75 and 76, continuing a low key connection with the city. But by the time the Dead made it back in 77, it was no longer Pacific Presentations and Sky High Associates. Things had changed. As Tony Dwyer remembers, we had tried.
- [84:41]
Sep Donahuer
To engage them for shows in 74, I think, and they had written back and said that they would Entertain offers. In 1975, Sky High Associates and the Grateful Dead never did another show together. And basically Pacific Presentations may have done one or two after that, and that was it. And they did a of them, they did a ton of them.
- [85:02]
Narrator/Host
Septonhauer of Pacific Presentations recalls the period fondly and for good reason.
- [85:07]
Tony Dwyer
That whole time window of like 71 through 74, to me, I, you know, I listen to the old stuff. I think that was, that's my favorite time window of the Grateful Dead's music because they were young and on fire, you know, and I was young and on fire. But you listen, you know, and I look at all of the box sets and releases that have come out of the Grateful Dead and how many of those are my shows, and I go, wow. So that's really the fertile period, I think, for a lot of these releases, because you can hear the energy level.
- [85:37]
Narrator/Host
In early 1974, Sam Cutler and Out of Town Tours were relieved of their duties as the Dead's booking agents for reasons far too complex to address here.
- [85:46]
Sep Donahuer
David Parker and Richard Loren pretty much took over, and the Dead went on hiatus at that point.
- [85:53]
Narrator/Host
And so ended that era of the grateful dead in St. Louis, covered by the Listen to the river box set. When they came back in 1977, they tried the St. Louis arena, which is worth mentioning as a postscript here in early 1979. Jerry Garcia recounted that show May 15, 1977, to WLIR DJ Ray White.
- [86:13]
Sep Donahuer
It's really hard to tell whether it's going to be a good night or a bad night. Sometimes we've gone into those places. I remember one, there's one in St. Louis that we played about a year ago. I guess maybe a little longer than that. The place is so totally atrocious. I mean, the sound was horrible, you know, it just. It was like, you know, every one of us, everybody in the band, you know, after, during our intermission, you know, it was like laughable. I mean, you couldn't even complain about it. It was so horrible. It was a horrible fucking room. But it was cheap. It was an old fucking basketball and hockey arena. I mean, it was a dome. It was the worst fucking acoustics in the world. I think I saw the Dave Clark 5 there in 1965 in an afternoon show. It was worse, far worse than the Armory. There never should ever have been any shows produced there, but there were.
- [87:04]
Narrator/Host
But the Dead show at the St. Louis arena was a good example of how even the band could continue to expect the unexpected. And perhaps doubly so in St. Louis.
- [87:12]
Sep Donahuer
When we came back for the second half, it was this magical transformation sort of occurred where we sort of gave up, you know, he said, golf it. I mean, we'll never. Pardon me, folks, those of you out there who belong to the law. We just said, you know, the heck with it, you know, I'm not on the log. We'll just do as we'll just do as well as we possibly can. And it came together, you know, we sort of overcame the acoustics or something like that.
- [87:37]
Narrator/Host
I don't know, maybe there really was something in the water. That show can be heard on the May 1977 box set released in 2013. Of course, there's only one song that can soundtrack our goodbye to St. Louis in the 70s. But for now we'll just sit right here and watch the river flow.
- [88:22]
Rich Mahan
Thanks to all of our St. Louis guests throughout these episodes who have helped uncover these unsung tales surrounding the dead St. Louis legacy. Many moons ago, my buddy George Rankin and I were barbecuing some lunch at my folks place. We took advantage of being the only ones home, fired up the grill and a fat one and dropped the needle on side one of my parents original vinyl copy of American Beauty As Sugar Magnolia came to an end. We both remarked about what a great song it is and then looked at each other quizzically as the song started over on its own.
- [88:57]
Steve Brown
Whoa.
- [88:58]
Tony Dwyer
Heavy.
- [88:59]
Rich Mahan
I walked back in the house from the patio to investigate and found my mom dancing in the kitchen as she exclaimed, hope you don't mind. I just love this song so much. My parents turned me on to all kinds of great music and it was nice to have that in common with them as I was growing up. It was an honor to have them on the podcast today. Thanks for listening and take care out there. 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.