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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.
- [00:30]
Sally Mann Romano
Foreign.
- [00:35]
Rich Mahan
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. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the good old Grateful Dead cast. This is episode three of Season three and we are on to side circumstances in our exploration of the Grateful Dead's 1971 live release Skull N Roses. New episodes 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 each episode. Also@dead.net deadcast are all of our past episodes and 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 you're up to the task, please leave us a review. Thank you very much. It helps more than you realize. You probably have heard that this is the 50th anniversary of the Dead's live double album from 1971, Skull and Roses. There is an expanded anniversary edition of Skull and roses coming on June 25 that includes more than an hour of unreleased Music from the Dead's final Fillmore west show on July 2, 1971. Several configurations are available including a 2Lp set, a 2Cd set, and it will of course be available on your favorite streaming platform. Pre orders are open now@dead.net well here on side C we have a quartet of covers that the boys love to play. A few racking up plays of several hundred each. We'll pull the covers back on me and my uncle, big boss man, me and Bobby McGee and the prototypical rocker Johnny B. Goode. We also had a last minute guest drop by and give us some witness testimony. We're thrilled to bring you legendary folk artist Judy Collins Climb up in the saddle. Let's head off towards our first stop with tour guide Jesse Jarno.
- [03:06]
Narrator / Host
Leading off side C of Skull and Roses is what would become the Grateful Dead's most performed song of all time. According to the latest statistics generated by the Institute of Jerry Garcia studies, see jerrybase.com Three of the Dead's foremost played songs were on Skull and Roses, probably because he had a smaller repertoire than Jerry Garcia. They're all songs led by Bob Weir. Number four is playing in the band with 592 performances. Number three is Sugar Magnolia from American Beauty with 603. Number two is the other one at 610. And the number one song the Grateful Dead played most often in concert. 650 times, according to recordings and reliable data. Me and my uncle.
- [04:02]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
Me and my uncle Went riding down South Colorado, west Texas bound we stopped over in Santa Fe that day in the park Just about halfway. Hey, you know it was the hottest part of the day.
- [04:22]
Narrator / Host
Before we get back on tour with the Grateful Dead in the spring of 1971, we're gonna go pretty far into the origins of Me and My uncle by John Phillips and how it came to be covered by the Grateful Dead. Taken together, it's why Me and My uncle might be considered not just a cover song, but an actual folk song. Let's let Phil Lesh introduce the song first. April 24, 1971, at Duke University, just a few days before the band recorded it for Skull and Roses at the Fillmore East.
- [04:50]
Rick Turner
This here is a song about an asshole.
- [04:52]
Narrator / Host
The Dead first started to play Me and My uncle in late 1966. Here's a fairly raw tape of what it sounded like in the very early days. Recorded December 1, 1966 at the Matrix in San Francisco. If you're used to how the Dead played it for most of those other 600 plus times, it might sound shockingly different at first, but arrangement wise, it's surprisingly similar. Cowboy music plus spiraling Jerry Garcia guitar. It's just a little less chill. The song was written by John Phillips and first recorded by Judy Collins, released on the live album the Judy Collins concert in 1964.
- [05:57]
Judy Collins
West Texas Cowboys all over town with gold and silver they're loaded down just in from Roundup it seemed a shame so my uncle starts a friendly game hi Lo Jackson Winner takes the game.
- [06:21]
Narrator / Host
Judy Collins was a popular singer in the folk revival, and in 1964, teenage Bob Weir was certainly a student of the folk revival. But beyond everything, I just laid out. The entwined story of how me and my uncle was written and how it got to the Grateful Dead is incredibly tangled, but it's a fascinating exploration of actual folklore, how songs moved around from musician to musician, especially in the years before Bob Dylan and the Beatles were National names. A time when very few performing musicians wrote their own songs. Not only that, but the story behind Me and My uncle has itself become folklore. The credit on Me and My uncle is to the late John Phillips, who would co found the Mamas and Papas, help organize the Monterey pop festival in 1967, and wrote the song in 1963 while he was a member of the folk group the Journeyman. He was also a truly reprehensible human for reasons beyond the scope of the Dead cast. But suffice it to say that John Phillips is well beyond canceled. This here's a song about an asshole. So to help tell the story of me and my uncle, ladies, gentlemen, non binary friends of the Dead cast, please welcome Ms. Judy Collins.
- [07:30]
Judy Collins
In 64. I sang it at Town hall and it was on record and on a record itself. We recorded that show so everybody could hear it. And John called me up and he said, it says on this album that I wrote this song. And I said, john, you did. You wrote the song. And I guess I must have somehow. I mean, they don't put a record out until they check the publishing and so on. So somebody must have reached out to him. But he said, I don't. I can't tell you something. I don't remember. I don't remember the song. I don't remember singing it. What are you talking about?
- [08:12]
Narrator / Host
John Phillips told that story too, starting in the 90s, but beyond that point, his was a little different. He said, In 1995, there was a party after a concert in Phoenix, Arizona, and everyone was in Scottsdale and Roger McGuinn was there and Judy Collins. A lot of people had done this thing. There was a little tape recorder there, and I woke up in the morning and there was no one there except the worm and myself, that is. John Phillips claims to have written, me and my uncle, during a complete tequila blackout, recorded it for Judy Collins at a party and forgotten all about it. Phillips said it was like a spontaneous song. It was never edited or revised. Did it all at once, as he put it, every time he got a royalty check, he remembered more of the story. For reasons on top of other reasons, John Phillips is almost certainly not a reliable witness. But before we get back to Judy Collins, who has an even better version of the story, we need to sidetrack into what John Phillips might have been remembering. The Journeyman and Judy Collins were close friends and collaborators and crossed paths numerous times throughout 1963 and 1964, especially, most notably appearing together on a live broadcast of Hootenanny from Southern Methodist University in Dallas in November 1963. Some of it's on YouTube. If John Phillips was remembering a drunken song swapping hotel room party after a big gig in the Southwest with lots of folkies, it seems like a good candidate.
- [09:38]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
Was fighting on the floor. Par Boy be no Stackolee.
- [09:47]
Narrator / Host
That was the Journeyman doing their version of Stackolee on Hootenanny in Dallas in 1963. The verse we just heard was sung by Dick Weissman, co founder of the Journeyman with John Phillips and folk music scholar. I emailed and asked him what he may have remembered about the infamous hotel room party and the origins of me and my uncle. I could virtually hear him sigh and laugh through the email. This is, in my opinion, nonsense. First of all, we never did a concert in Phoenix. We did play at a coffee house there. I'm certain there was no party in Scottsdale. I do remember John singing Me, Me and my Uncle. He knew I would enjoy it because I was already talking about moving to Colorado and going to music school, which I did. Although it took me another eight years to give up on New York City. Okay, fine. So maybe me and my uncle wasn't written in a blackout stupor. There was still probably a party. Here's a little bit of Judy Collins doing skyball paint from that show.
- [10:41]
Judy Collins
Skyball paint was a devil's name his eyes were fiery red Good men have tried this horse to ride and all of them are dead now I won't Frankfurt Road that Nagul blood began to.
- [10:51]
Narrator / Host
Boil When I hit the ground I.
- [10:53]
Judy Collins
Ate 10 pounds of good old Texas.
- [10:55]
Narrator / Host
Oil so how did Judy Collins learn me and my uncle?
- [10:58]
Judy Collins
I was in the shower this morning thinking about it. It's not something that I do anymore, which is interesting because it was my. My first acid trip.
- [11:08]
Narrator / Host
Excuse me, what did you just say?
- [11:10]
Judy Collins
And I've gotten to know John Phillips really well over the year. He and I worked together at the Shadows when he had the Journeyman, and I just adored him. Anyway, one night he and Michelle were living in the Village on Avenue A. Nobody had, you know, four tents to rub together. My boyfriend at the time was Walter Rame. And he said, you want to go down and drop some acid with Michelle and John? So I said, sure. So we went down to Avenue A and, I don't know, we had something to drink. And then we went on this acid trip. And that night, during that night, in that funky little apartment down there, we started singing each other's songs. And John said, I think I have a new song here. And he started singing Me and My Uncle. You know, I had a very good memory in spite of the fact that I was single stone. I remembered every single word. And I kept saying, repeat that, repeat that, repeat that. Let me hear that again, let me hear that again. And he said, okay, sure. And, you know, me and my uncle went riding down and he'd sing it again and then he'd sing the next verse and he'd sing the next verse. Meantime, we're getting lost in the wilderness. I don't know what. What it was. We took. Took me about two weeks to come down after that, and it was a horrible experience afterwards. Although that night was a lot of fun because of all the singing and the laughing and the carrying on. So I really learned that song that night. So year later, maybe a couple of years later, we were talking about my. My Elector and I were talking about Mark Abelson and I were talking about songs and I sang him, Me and My Uncle. He said, wow, that's. Where did you get that? And I said, well, John Phillips wrote it. And he said, oh, good, let's do it. So we did it. It's become, you know, the story was a strange one, really. But in any case, I recorded it and then I sang it on my. It was 1964, so it must have been 63 that we did the Azotrip. Now, God bless cowboys and God bless gold God bless my uncle and rest his soul he taught me well, boys Taught me all I know Taught me so well that I grabbed the gold and I left him laying there by.
- [13:55]
Narrator / Host
The side of the road The Judy Collins Concert was recorded on March 21, 1964 at Town hall in New York and released later that summer. Earlier this year, Judy actually revisited Town hall itself and recreated the entire performance for a live stream. The concert will be released to streaming platforms this coming August 7th under the name Judy Collins Live at the Town Hall, NYC.
- [14:19]
Judy Collins
It's a very 60s story. It's funny because it's sort of like my showing up the same year, actually. 60. No, no, 63. I was at a party in Woodstock at Al Grossman's, and I woke up in the middle of the night and I heard Dylan singing and writing Tambourine Man. And I was not. I might have been a little bit drunk, but I didn't. I wasn't very drunk and certainly enough to sit still down in the basement three flights down and listen to him for two hours while he wrote Tambourine Man.
- [14:54]
Narrator / Host
It was pretty obvious to her that John Phillips had really worked out, me.
- [14:57]
Judy Collins
And my uncle, he knew it well enough to sing it when he was out of his mind. So I'm sure he had spent a lot of time writing. It's a carefully constructed song, I think. My own view of it. It's a very good song. It stays with you, you know. That's one of the things that is so characteristic about songs that actually have a life beyond their premiere. It is very packed. It reminds me of in the country down below where the little pinions grow and it's nearly always half a day to water There used to stand a town where a creek comes humbling down from the mesa where she surely hadn't daughter the streets were bright with candlelight the whole town joined the chorus and every man in town Let his cattle drift of night Every man in sight Let his cattle drift as nigh Just a mosey to the town of Old Dolores. It's a similar kind of song sort of holds up in the Western, old Western tradition.
- [16:17]
Narrator / Host
Holy Moly. That was Judy Collins singing Old Dolores for us. Thanks, Judy, and thanks for stopping by today. One other way Me and My uncle holds up in the folk tradition is how the song made its way to the Grateful Dead. And here's where it really becomes a folk song, but more in the new Western tradition.
- [16:35]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
Me and Mount Cub went ridin on down west Colorado to Texas town.
- [16:46]
Narrator / Host
Dead bassist Phil Lesch remembered that the Dead learned the song from Dino Valenti, who had helped found Quicksilver Messenger Service before ending up in Folsom Prison for a stint during the summer of 1966. Though both quicksilver and the Dead were living nearby one another in Marin County. Valenti was playing solo gigs around San Francisco later that year when the Dead first started playing the song, and when he recorded it after his Folsom prison Stint for his 1968 self titled debut, the song's lyrics contained a number of variations that would appear in the Dead's version.
- [17:16]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
Also West Texas cowboys all over town with a McCann my name I ran.
- [17:26]
Narrator / Host
So soon after payday it seems shame.
- [17:29]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
So me and my uncle starts uncle friend again we call him High lojack.
- [17:35]
Narrator / Host
And the winner takes the hand. But Bob Weir has a different story. And we're gonna take another left turn here, taking us right back to Texas. Weir told Dead scholar Blair Jackson that he learned the song from, quote, a hippie named Curly Jim. Originally, it was assumed that Curly Jim was Jim Curly Cook, who played with Howard Wales in AB sky before joining the Steve Miller Band. But Curly Jim, sometimes known as Curly headed Jim was Jim Stallero, a friend of the Grateful Dead and the Haight Ashbury. He can be seen in some of the photos of the Dead hanging out on the steps at 7:10, hanging around the column at the top of the stairs. A folk singer, activist, rock band manager and pot smuggler from Texas, he was in and out of the Dead scene for at least a half decade and under the name C.J. stetson, wrote the music for Blind John on Mickey Hart's 1972 solo album Rolling Thunder, with vocals by Paul Kantner, David Freiberg, Grace Slick and other members of the Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra. Lyrics by Peter Monk, who later wrote Passenger with Phil Lesch.
- [18:39]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
That dummy guitar player made up all his dues Blind John the guitar player singing simple blues Blanche on the guitar player Gospel means good news Blanche on the guitar player Tell us something new.
- [19:01]
Narrator / Host
Enormous thanks to Cory Arnold, author of several fantastic blogs including Lost, Live Dead and Hooterollin'. Corey made two different posts about Me and My uncle and Curly Jim, which we've linked to@dead.net deadcast and as so often in Corey's blogs over a long period, the comment section lit up with people making various connections about Curly Jim's true identity, including his friends and members of his family. One anonymous commenter added this intriguing I met Jim Stallero, aka Curly Jim, in the mid-70s. We played music in Houston and wrote a few songs together. He had just gotten out of prison in Mexico from a drug bust. He told me he was at the party where Me and My uncle was written and had provided some of the lyrics himself. Lots of big ifs there, mainly that both Judy Collins and Dick Weissman asserted that the song wasn't written at a hotel room party. But that doesn't mean there wasn't actually a hotel room party where John Phillips played me and my uncle in a tequila blackout somewhere in the Southwest like, say, Dallas in 1963. In November 1963, Curly Jim Stallero was a freshman at the University of Texas in Austin. If, like Curly Jim, you were an aspiring folk singer in Austin and Hootenanny was taping in Dallas, a road trip seems perfectly within reason. He could have heard and learned the song in a song swapping party, made his own changes to it, and taught it both to Bob Weir and Dino Valenti when he made it to the bay area in 1966. Weirder things happened in that era on a daily basis, that is in the possibly real timeline I just described. John Phillips wrote the song and Jim Stallerou maybe learned it directly from him, then taught it to Bob Weir without the intermediary of a recording a genuine folk song. If anybody has any further information, you can find us@dead.net deadcast in the true folk tradition, Bob Weir made his own alterations to the song, notably the very last line. Here's the version from Skull and Roses, recorded April 29, 1971 at the Fillmore East.
- [21:13]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
All I know Running so well I got back home I left this Dead.
- [21:21]
Sally Mann Romano
After.
- [21:28]
Narrator / Host
By the time the Dead recorded me and my uncle for Skull and Roses, Curly Jim had made another interesting contribution to the underground culture. I mentioned him to Deadcast friend Ronie Stanley, who not only remembered him, but shared a fascinating bit of email from none other than Owsley. Stanley himself about the time Owsley synthesized an accidentally powerful batch of the psychedelic 2.5dimethoxy 4 methylamphetamine, an experience that could last multiple days Riffing on the name of a popular engine, Additive hippies called it stp. But where did that name come from? Here's the email from the person we gave the early doses of STP to was a hate dealer and character named Curly Jim, who came back with the name stp, which he said stood for Serenity, Tranquility and Peace. Not something that I was all that comfortable with, but we thought it was as good as anything else. But maybe the most tantalizing thing about Curly Jim Stallero, which we'll use to segue into the main part of today's Dead cast, is that he was the first manager of the 13th Floor Elevators, perhaps the only band in the history of rock and roll who could legitimately claim to be more psychedelic than the Grateful Dead.
- [22:46]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
Alpha information sending states within the heaven Shout from disciples the unending subtleties of river power they slip inside this house.
- [23:03]
Narrator / Host
As they pass by that was slip inside this house from the 13th floor elevator's 1967 album Easter. Everywhere during their brief existence, the 13th floor elevators took LSD for every single show they played, sometimes scheduling multiple gigs in a day to maximize their doses. They didn't play dance marathons like the Grateful Dead did, but they did feature an electric jug player influenced by John Coltrane and LSD named Tommy hall and aching voiced guitarist Rocky Erickson. They were also the first band to call themselves psychedelic rock juggist and bandleader Tommy hall has claimed responsibility for the phrase, which is possible, but According to Tim Drummond's authoritative 13th Floor Elevators biography Eye Mind, it was Jim Stallaro who probably coined the phrase, that is to say, the same person who taught Bob Weir, Me and my uncle was also the literal inventor of psychedelic rock. He also got the 13th floor elevator signed to a label, resulting in a national hit with youh're Gonna Miss Me. They made it onto American Bandstand with Dick Clark. Here's Dick talking to Quick thinking Tommy.
- [24:10]
Sam Cutler
Hall, who is the head man of the group here. Gentlemen.
- [24:13]
Judy Collins
Well, we're all heads.
- [24:14]
Narrator / Host
The Elevators were definitely all heads. They relocated to the Bay Area briefly, but eventually wound up back in Texas. By the end of the 60s, the band was dissolved. With their key players incarcerated, or, in the case of Rocky erickson, institutionalized. The 13th floor elevators had found each other, but they hadn't been able to keep their momentum going and survive as a band. And this is really the key difference between the Grateful Dead and the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other bands that emerged in the mid-60s. More than any other Grateful Dead album before it, and maybe even after, Skull and Roses is the sound of the Grateful Dead surviving and thriving, making big, open, happy music for dancing, music that remains broad and accessible. 1971 was a year when the jams scaled back and the boogies scaled up. It was also a year that the Grateful Dead pretty much graduated from the underground into the mainstream. Here's Dead tour manager Sam the end.
- [25:09]
Sam Cutler
That we were seeking to achieve was survival. And the Grateful Dead would say that's really what they've always wanted to achieve. They just wanted to get by, stay high, make music, and be their collective, their people, with their people.
- [25:27]
Narrator / Host
Though the Grateful Dead had set aside the 16 track live recordings they made at Port Chester's Capitol Theatre in February, one piece of the new live album's original conception remained the same on the final version on Skull N Roses. All but one of the tracks was recorded in New York. Just as Live Dead captured the Dead in the comfort of their hometown ballrooms, Skull N Roses was an intentional picture of the Dead playing for the ravenous East Coast Dead freaks who truly become a breed of their own. Over the next two episodes, we'll explore how the Grateful Dead conquered New York. Sam Cutler was the band's diligent Tour manager through 1971 and will guide us into the craziness of the Grateful Dead in Manhattan.
- [26:08]
Sam Cutler
There is no bigger market, in a sense, than New York, because New York's not just New York. You know, if you do something in New York that you know is happening and everybody in New York is turned on by it, the ramifications of that spread north up to Maine and south all the way to fucking North Carolina. You know what I mean, it's like, you know. Yeah, to play in New York, to be successful in New York was a bit. An important thing.
- [26:36]
Narrator / Host
The 13th floor elevators never made it to New York. It was a key part of being a successful rock and roll band. To paraphrase Herman from the Simpsons. The Greeks knew it, the Carthaginians knew it, and now you know it. The Grateful Dead first played in New York in June 1967 and immediately did their best to cultivate a New York audience, playing two weeks of shows that not only included a nightly residency at the Cafe Ogogo, but free appearances in both Tompkins Square and Central parks and more. They returned for another week of shows in December. Over the next few years, they came back every few months. By the time Sam Cutler began to book the band in early 1970, they were selling out multiple nights at the Fillmore East, Bill Graham's 2,600 capacity theater in the East Village. And they were getting bigger, committed to making a heady time for New York Dead freaks as often as possible.
- [27:27]
Sam Cutler
We did that many times in a year in New York. We can go to New York and play two dates in a year. You know what I mean? On the basis of like, oh, yeah, scarcity is the way to promote a band. No, it's not. Availability is the way to promote a band. And the Grateful Dead love New York, of course, because, you know, there's that certain kind of flash thing of New York that is different from we're so cool and we're so laid back, we can hardly speak. The kind of west coast thing, you know what I mean? We're so trendy. New York's. Yeah, man, this is us, the Big Apple. We're ready. Let's conquer it. You know what I mean? There's a whole other kind of mental gestalt going on in New York, you know. There was in those days, anyway.
- [28:12]
Narrator / Host
The Dead played shows in Manhattan on the Chelsea Hotel rooftop and the palm gardens on 52nd street, operated by the group Image, a New York commune that called themselves a multimedia corporation. They played at the electric circus on St. Mark's Place. Through a sound system designed by synthesizer pioneer Don Buchla. They played for the striking students at Columbia University as well as at the Village Theatre on Second Avenue, where it snowed through the roof. When Bill Graham took over the Village and renamed it the Fillmore east, the Grateful Dead played there even more constantly through 1968-69 and 1970. They played for free in Central park in 1967, 68 and 69. And then started hitting the boroughs and areas around the city. Howard Stein promoted the Dead shows at the World's Fair Pavilion in Queens in 1969 and the shows at the Capitol Theatre in Portchester in 1970 and 1971. But that year, he moved in on Bill Graham's territory, the city itself, booking the Dead for three nights at the Manhattan Center. We asked Sam Cutler about the rivalry between Howard Stein and Bill Graham. As a respected industry veteran, though, we of course understand Sam's need to temper what he says out of respect for his late colleagues.
- [29:24]
Sam Cutler
Bill Graham was a monopolistic prick. He just wanted it all. He was greedy. He wanted it all. So part and parcel of what I did was make sure that Bill Graham didn't get everything. Why? Because it wasn't in the interest of the Grateful Dead that he should have everything. How was doing shows, and he did a good job. Our demands from promoters was that they should sell tickets. We did the rest when we had our own sound and lights, we knew what we were doing, you know, I mean, they had to provide the right amount of electricity, and, you know, we could take care of all the other aspects of a show. It wasn't that hard to sell tickets to the Grateful Dead in New York. The Grateful Dead just represented such a fucking great deal, man. People forget this part of the parcel of the Grateful Dead was not just, you know, how wonderful the music was. Everybody went to a Grateful Dead gig to get stoned, to get high, to have a great time. And, you know, you don't want to have a great time for 45 minutes. You want to have a great time for five or six hours. You know what I mean? So the Grateful that always, like, made it like that, man, the Grateful Dead made it so that, you know, you went. People got very quickly to learn that if they went to a Grateful Dead gig, man, it was going to be great, you know, and it was going to last a long time, be very cool, you know. Then they walk in there stoned, and they walk out of there even more stoned, and, you know, have this memorable, memorable thing.
- [31:01]
Narrator / Host
From Sam's description, one can imagine where Howard Stein might have gotten the idea to build the Grateful Dead's April 1971 performances as, quote, dance marathons. It was also to differentiate it from the seated gigs at the Fillmore East. But as the Dead knew, ideas didn't always play out exactly as planned. Gary Lambert, who wrote the liner notes for the new Skull and Rose's 50th anniversary reissue, was, of course, at all three dance marathon shows April 4th, 5th and 6th, 1971.
- [31:29]
Gary Lambert
The infamous dance marathon at the Manhattan center said to be the most oversold Grateful Dead shows ever.
- [31:36]
Narrator / Host
When Skull and Roses was released in the fall of 1971, Sam Cutler wrote some of the promotional material and we convinced him to read it for us.
- [31:45]
Sam Cutler
The Manhattan Civic center in New York City was the first east coast gig to be recorded live for the album. The center is a 4000 capacity, poorly ventilated 50 year old monument to some past era civic pride, immediately opposite the largest precinct station in Manhattan. For both the nights that the Deads played there in concert, it was packed away beyond any legal or realistic capacity by the diligent efforts of ticket scalpers, ticket forgers and the cops on the back doors, who seemed as if he wanted to let everyone and anyone in for nothing. An hour before the music was due to begin. Nothing could be seen of the stage through the mass of people who surrounded it on every side. Somehow the concert gets advertised as a marathon whose bright idea was that? And all the audience is equipped with sleeping bags and toothbrushes. Everyone's ready to boogie till daylight, believing the band will play right through, or at least until everyone's dropped from sheer exhaustion.
- [32:42]
Narrator / Host
It was neither the worst nor the most far fetched idea. The venue opened in 1906 during New York's grand age of Opera, a cheaper alternative to the Met, but became a ballroom by the swing era. A story that sounds quite familiar down to the last details. Thirty years earlier to the week in April 1941, Benny Goodman was finishing up a residency at the newly christened Manhattan center with guitarist Charlie Christian, broadcast live on the radio. An earlier era of dance marathons and concert tapers that can be heard on numerous bootleg albums. The shows had actually been moved from Radio City Music hall because, according to one newspaper, the jitterbugs who attend the broadcasts insist on dancing. Another newspaper noted the kids begin trucking at 6:30. For music fans looking to dance, it really was ever thus. Here's a tiny bit of Charlie Christian playing Holy Cats with a Benny Goodman sextet at the Manhattan Center, April 7, 1941.
- [34:03]
Gary Lambert
I think Howard moved in there in part because of the problems at the Capitol, because overcrowding or too much demand was becoming a problem at the Capitol. Obviously we didn't know it at the time, but we should have known the writing was on the wall that the Grateful dead playing an 1800 seat room was not going to be that viable for that much longer. And so Manhattan center was considerably larger. I don't even know if I was fully aware of its existence until the dance marathon shows. But obviously it had been there for a very long time, and it was a big space, which they still managed to put too many people into.
- [34:43]
Narrator / Host
The shows were advertised as the Grand Ballroom in the Manhattan Center.
- [34:46]
Gary Lambert
There was some confusion because later on, within Manhattan center, another venue, a smaller venue upstairs, got open called the Grand Ballroom. So people sometimes conflate the Hammerstein shows, the dance marathon shows, rather, having taken place in that smaller space. But no, they were all in what is now known as Hammerstein Ballroom.
- [35:09]
Narrator / Host
The ads for the shows, which we've posted@dead.net deadcast feature a picture of the band performing at an earlier Howard Stein joint at the World's Fair pavilion in Flushing. It also notes lights by Candace. Candace Brightman would become the Grateful Dead's lighting director, but had worked for Howard Stein at the Capitol and then at the Manhattan Center. Please welcome Candace back to the Dead cast.
- [35:31]
Judy Collins
We stole the lighting system from the Portchester Theater to do that, and we just took the sound system and the lighting equipment. Who's going to get in trouble for this? And we installed it overnight, an entire lighting system, and we're still installing it, you know, and then we had the show the next day. That was the kind of thing that we would do. For some reason, they had 700amps. I don't know why. 700. And when you're playing in a big building like that, you'd have to tie in live, you know, working with this big amperage, you know, with just all exposed and sticking the wires in and stuff. That was kind of tattoo, you know. It was just different times.
- [36:10]
Narrator / Host
The bomb threat at the February Dead shows hadn't totally shut down the Capitol. The Dead opened at the Manhattan center on April 3, just following the April 1st and 2nd gigs at the Capitol with Savoy Brown and the Small Faces, featuring Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood. Candace and the crew probably loaded out immediately after the show and set up at the Manhattan Center.
- [36:29]
Judy Collins
I was so worn out that I had a garbage can next to me so I could keep throwing up and still do my thing. But it went fine. I mean, I think it did.
- [36:41]
Narrator / Host
There were certainly some things that people might complain about pertaining to the dance marathon, but Candace's lights were not among them. Candace had worked with the band half a dozen times already. You can hear about that in our first episode of the season.
- [36:53]
Sam Cutler
So when the band, you know, experienced Candace's lights, they realized, you know, that it was qualitatively a step up it enhanced the effect of the music, you know, I mean, when you're in the most psychedelic part of Dark Star, you know, of course, you need the kind of lighting ambience that fits the mood of the music, don't you? You know, and when it's, you know, one more Saturday night, it's a different, you know, lighting ambience. So Candice was very attuned to that.
- [37:25]
Narrator / Host
Candace and the crew had to load out from the Capitol late on a Saturday night for the Dead Sunday gig. The timing reveals something subtly fascinating about the Grateful Dead's east coast fan base in 1971. Their Manhattan center shows were Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. The last five shows they recorded for Skull and Roses were at the Fillmore east later in the month, all sold out, all on school nights on the East Coast. A new kind of Dead freak was emerging in the spring of 1971. Player Jackson was a high school senior. He was a teenage Deadhead. He made it to the opening night of the Manhattan center and had a busy day.
- [38:01]
Blair Jackson
It was a Sunday, and I had. Because I was trying to be hip to all things Grateful Dead, I had bought tickets to go see Tarot, which was the show that Tom Constantin was in. He was playing, like, down in the Village at some off, off, off, off, off St. Mark's Place Theater. And so I went to the matinee of that on that Sunday, and it was totally great. I'd never seen TC in any form before, and there he was, and it was a strange and beautiful show. It was kind of interesting. You know, Paul Drescher, who's like a really a modern major, modern composer, wrote the music for it. So it's got kind of a lot of interesting things, and it was kind of cool and hip and all that kind of stuff.
- [38:41]
Narrator / Host
Constantin had been at work on the project for nearly the full year since he'd left the Dead. There are reports of Jerry Garcia stopping by the Brooklyn Academy of Music when the Tarot Company was there the previous November and joining for some rehearsals and at least one performance on pedal steel. Music from Tarot was released by United Artists in 1972 under the name Touchstone. Here's a little bit of the Birth of the Hermit mandala music.
- [39:35]
Blair Jackson
So then I came back uptown and went to the first of the Manhattan center shows, and it was the most crowded show of all time. And it was. Apparently. I didn't know this until later, although I think I heard about it the third night. Somebody had, like, broken in through the roof and brought in all their friends or Something like that. And it was so crowded you could barely move upstairs. Downstairs. Downstairs was like such a fire hazard. It was just incredibly dangerous and scary. But they were great shows.
- [40:06]
Narrator / Host
Back to Sam Cutler's promo for Skull and Roses, the New Riders of the.
- [40:09]
Sam Cutler
Purple Sage played each of the concerts that were recorded immediately prior to the Dead and took the edge off the evening with their laid back approach, encouraging people to stay cool, get high and dig that the music was being recorded and could they please not stand on the stage and stomp in time. And because it was playing havoc with the microphones, they're not credited on the album. They're paving the way for the Dead and setting the scene for the music that followed them played an important part in the overall success of the recording, allowing the Dead to play to an audience that had already achieved a groovy ambience before their music began.
- [40:45]
Blair Jackson
Like I said, so, so crowded you could barely move. I was, I was a huge, huge, huge new Writers fan. I loved them right out of the gate. So I loved any show where they played. And they opened those shows, of course they were great. Marmaduke said. You know, we open up for them and make people feel good or whatever it was. And that's really the way it was. I mean, I was deeply into the country rock thing. And so you got two great bands in the night and you know, seven hours of being packed like you thought you were gonna die at any moment. But still as fun as you could have possibly had.
- [41:51]
Narrator / Host
That was a little bit of the New Riders. The Purple Sage from a band approved soundboard recorded a little later in the month, April 29th at the Filmoriste. They tightened up considerably and it was in large part due to the arrival of former Jefferson Airplane drummer Spencer Dryden. Solidifying a perfect rhythm section with bassist Dave Torbert, the New Riders opened virtually every Dead show in 1970 and 1971, including all but one that were recorded for Skull N Roses. As Sam Cutler said, they were part of the Dead's ambience. Sally Man Romano was married to Spencer Dryden from the late 60s to the late 70s and recently wrote perhaps the most perfectly titled rock memoir ever, the Bands With Me, which is deliciously entertaining if you're a fan of the vaster California rock universe, and also sometimes a bit heartbreaking. We've posted a link@dead.net deadcast we are just pleased as punched to have with us Sally Mann Romano to talk about drummer Spencer Dryden and the New Riders of the Purple Sage.
- [42:50]
Sally Mann Romano
He was playing in jazz clubs in LA from the time he was, you know, 15, 14, 15 years old and playing and back then, and, you know, Spencer's 10 years older than me, and so was Grace. And they were coming out of the era of the very early 60s, off the tail end of the 50s. And the place where jazz got played was strip clubs. And Spencer had been honing his chops by the time time he got to Jefferson Airplane for serious, serious jazz chops for well over 15 years. And then he joined the Peanut Butter Conspiracy and sort of morphed into rock. But he's an absolutely accomplished musician.
- [43:27]
Narrator / Host
When Spencer Dryden joined the New Riders, he'd recently left the Jefferson Airplane. Flying with the Airplane could be perilous. A group of musicians far less harmonious than the Grateful Dead, filled with voting blocks and tangled lifelong relationships. If you're an Airplane head really do, check out Sally's book. In 1970, Spencer was fired, which pretty much everybody later regretted. But he exited the Airplane with a golden parachute of being a truly excellent drummer, something legitimately always in need in any music scene. And he knew it.
- [43:57]
Sally Mann Romano
I'm sure it was horrible for him the day that he was fired. I can't even bear to even say it. I think I took it harder than he did. I just thought the whole thing went down really funky. And we almost immediately, we got married right around that time, and then almost immediately moved to Sausalito, and he just bought a boat and, like, grooving, and he was playing all these sessions and doing commercials and working with Lonnie Turner and sort of the melding into the Marin county thing. And he's a very in demand drummer. So we went camping and I mean, I guess we were on vacation or something.
- [44:36]
Narrator / Host
But then Spencer Dryden got an offer he apparently couldn't refuse.
- [44:39]
Sally Mann Romano
The way it happened was so cool, you know, Spencer wasn't home one day, and Garcia showed up at the house and just hung out for a long time waiting for Spencer to come home. And when Spencer came home, Jerry talked to him about joining. But I really like the new writers because they're so down to earth. And just me and Torbert were, like, inseparable. I just loved him absolutely to death. And unfortunately, we were united in our love for dangerous things, Me and Marmaduke and Nelson. I mean, they're just a fantastic bunch of guys. David Torbert is the best thing that ever happened to the new writers in the history of the world. He just doesn't get enough credit. He's just the most fantastic bass player and songwriter and Singer and human being. I just love him to death. He's just. I'm so sorry that he had to die so young. He's a great, great guy.
- [45:31]
Narrator / Host
Until then, Sally had kind of ignored the Dead.
- [45:33]
Sally Mann Romano
They're just too granola to capture my 100% attention. Of course, when we play shows and the Dead were there, it was like, hail, fellow well met. And I knew all of them and all the. I mean, to be honest, at the time, the Grateful Dead's roadies were a whole lot more interesting than the Grateful Dead. I mean, you know, they just have the most fantastic crew that ever lived. And we sort of got Spencer and I got absorbed into the world of the Grateful Dead. My impressions changed and of course stopped being so stupid. And they all became my really good friends. One of the coolest differences between the Dead and the Airplane, there was much more of that communal sort of family vibe happening with the Dead. But people misunderstand about bands. They think everybody sort of hangs out together when they're not on the road. And, you know, nothing could be farther from the truth. You've been on the road with these jackasses for eight weeks. You. They're the last person you want to see when you come back. And people tend to hang out with their wives or their other friends that aren't in the band. But the Dead, it's such an extended bunch of people. Bill, what I wanted to say, putting together these, the softball games, everything, that was just wonderful. You know, it was just. It really was such a wholesome kind of family thing. And like Frankie Weir, she's just the most freaking ace softball player. And she had softball games going out of the Mill Valley Tavern. And that was a lot of fun. Very different from the Airplane. But Thanksgiving, there was always this big deal at Cotati. That Mountain girl and her team put together, catered, and there was all these parties and stuff to go to. So we were stepping out a lot more. A lot more, what I call them, events, gatherings. There'd be parties at the office and stuff like that and for various things. And we got together a lot.
- [47:26]
Narrator / Host
We'll have more with Sally Man Romano down the line. We've posted a link to her memoir, the Bands with me@dead.net deadcast also@dead.net deadcast is a link to an absolutely extraordinary set of photos taken by Robert Brenner on one of the nights during the Manhattan center run. The photos start at the front door, plunge into the saucer eyed backstage scene with the Dead and the New Riders and their friends hanging out. Frankie Weir is there. Spencer Dryden's looking cool as a cucumber in a bunch of the shots. Then it's out onto the stage, shooting behind the band and looking out into the crowd, up into the balcony and beyond. If you move through them fast enough, it's like a little movie. Here's Sam Cutler on the backstage scene at the Manhattan center from his 1971 promo letter.
- [48:10]
Sam Cutler
In the hour that it took to get everything set for the Dead to begin, everyone breathed a little. Cops removed jackets and caps. One even removed his shoes and wiggled his toes a little. Garcia sat absentmindedly charging at neck breaking speed through endless variations and varieties of scales on an unplugged guitar, grinning, rapping token and in the stifled atmosphere, drinking hot sweet coffee. Weir combed his hair. Phil Lesh bravely attempted to explain the intricacies of the 16 track to a blonde newspaper reporter who seemed to be having a hard time getting a portable Sony tape recorder together enough to catch their conversation. Ramrod and Jackson and Sonny Hurd labored on stage between the bodies. This over here, this one over there.
- [48:59]
Narrator / Host
We heard a bunch about the Dead's growing sound system during the last episode of the Dead. Cast assembled by Alembic and outfitted with an array of tie dye covers by Rosie McGee and most lately, Courtney Pollack. It had gotten bigger and bigger. Last episode we spoke extensively with Rick Turner, builder of the so called peanut guitar that Jerry Garcia played through this period. But Rick was involved in many parts of Alembic.
- [49:22]
Rick Turner
At one point the Dead decided that we were charging them too much, it was costing too much to rent the PA from Alemc, and that they save a lot of money by owning the.
- [49:32]
Narrator / Host
PA.
- [49:38]
Rick Turner
Oh boy, yeah.
- [49:40]
Narrator / Host
And other jokes according to Dennis McNally's long, strange trip. That point was the spring of 1971, and along with their new PA, the dead required a bigger crew to keep it on the road. The early April shows at the Manhattan center were the beginning of an east coast tour that marked several firsts for the Dead. It was the first tour with a fully expanded crew that included Steve Parish, Kit Candelario and others to handle the pa.
- [50:06]
Sam Cutler
The last microphone lead gets untangled, two obtrusive bodies get moved to the side of the stage, and finally the drummer gets nailed down his drums and we're all set. Pig Pen strolls through the back door one minute too late and reaches for the organ as Harry Stein introduces The band pandemonium. Two nights of mildly hysterical New York binge 95 degrees and everyone wasted before the music's even begun. The dead play for 4 hours, non stop hard, sweating music with everyone breathing down their necks because there's no place else to catch any air.
- [50:53]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
Well my mama told me my papa told me to well my mama told me Mama told me too well, I shouldn't be here Trying to sing these.
- [51:09]
Narrator / Host
Railroad Blues Roughly a quarter of Skull and Roses would be recorded at the Manhattan center in the venue now known as the Hammerstein Ballroom, including that version of Noah Lewis big Railroad Blues from side A which we talked about on episode one this season, as well as the album's big Not Fade Away Going down the Road Feeling Bad finale, which we'll get to next time. Here's the part where the conceit breaks down slightly and I admit that none of the songs on side C of Skull and Roses were recorded at the Manhattan center, but please don't say mean things about us at the Manhattan Center. The Dead were rolling tape for sessions 8 through 10 for their new live album.
- [51:46]
Sam Cutler
The control booth is a little larger than a closet stuck between the stage and the back door. The back door cop who doesn't want to be a cop at all, at least not on this night, keeps sticking his head around the door and trying to fathom what the hell these freaks are doing. The freaks, blissfully ignorant, token and record the music.
- [52:04]
Narrator / Host
In the first episode this season, Bob Matthews described what he called the Bob Matthews method of recording with every microphone getting its own track. Here's Alembic's Rick Turner to explain the live recording setup behind Skull and Roses in a little bit more detail. It was the same as their studio recording technique and using the same Ampex 16 track master recorder used to make Live Dead and which formed the core of the Alembic studio. And though the technology was slightly more available in 1971, the dead were the first band in the world to have unfettered access to one to record their live shows virtually whenever they wanted.
- [52:38]
Rick Turner
The mm1000. Our recording method was to as much as possible not use mic preamps, not use a record board, but to take the mics directly into the 16 track machine. The Ampex AG440 electronics. The input is transformer coupled. Normally it's a one to one transformer, but you can put in a step up transformer and take mic level in and bingo record. You set your record levels on the machine, which is not the most convenient thing, but as long as you're not riding gain, what the hell, you just set your set your recording level and you go for it, you know, with the live rig we had the stage boxes, everything was working for us. Everything was working on nine pairs. In those days, those were still the days when you couldn't buy this shit. You couldn't go to Sweetwater and buy a snake and a stage box. I mean, you had to make this stuff, you know. And so with the nine pair, you got eight channels one way and one channel the other way if you, if you wanted to. So we could do whatever or you had a spare or whatever. So our snakes, we would use two pairs of nine pair snakes for everything. The stage boxes had splitters so we could send one signal to the PA, to the PA mixing, and one signal to the 16 track, you know, the 9th was often used for talkback communication stuff. It's a great way to record because you wind up with so little in the signal path. And it's a matter of choosing your mics, which is of course the best way to record in a recording studio. Also, it's one of the reasons why those recordings still sound awfully good.
- [54:45]
Narrator / Host
Gary Lambert was out in the crowd at the Manhattan Center.
- [54:48]
Gary Lambert
It was unlike the Fillmore, which was about to close, or the Capitol, a venue with an open dance floor, which were not that common for Dead shows at that point in New York at least there were some ballrooms. They played obviously around the country. But this had that liberating factor of being able to move around, except you couldn't because it was so crowded. But I managed to get reasonably close to the stage a couple of nights, and some of those songs that had premiered at the Capitol were better. By the time they got around in April, they were developing more. And that was always a thrilling process, to be able to see the Dead. Several times over the course of a year, hearing a song that you had heard in its very embryonic state, blossoming into something bigger.
- [55:32]
Narrator / Host
Playing in the band is one of the songs they debuted at the Capitol. No apostrophe, by the way. We got into the song's mechanics in episode one. They finally nailed it at the Manhattan.
- [55:41]
Sally Mann Romano
Center SA.
- [56:11]
Sam Cutler
After four hours. Garcia, dripping in sweat, explains that everyone's had it worn out. The audience hits the street Tired, confused, happy and high garbage knee deep at the end Naked freaks strolling in the happiness the emotional Armageddon of New York. Nobody knows what the tapes are like Nobody cares too much Tomorrow's another night in the same place and the same scene.
- [56:35]
Blair Jackson
Blair Jackson afterwards, as everybody stumbled out into the darkness at the end of the street, you know, which is always such a Gas in Manhattan. You know, when everybody spills out of the show and it's this chaotic thing and people are running into each other and it's. It's just so fun. That was. That was great about the film Maurice too. But anyway, I that's where I bought my very first Grateful Dead T shirt, which was a bootleg shirt and it had an orange thing. It was a picture of Garcia with an acoustic guitar. Kind of not fine fine art or anything, but you know, it was a photo from a photo obviously, but all you saw was orange and white and. And then it had Grateful Dead written in the American Beauty lettering, which I.
- [57:13]
Narrator / Host
Love there had been fan made Grateful Dead merchandise since at least 1966. In fact, this very podcast takes its name from a pin that some early Dead freaks sold in the Haight Asbury when the band was still less than a year old. Good old Grateful Dead. The band had put out a few T shirts on their own by 1971, but Blair's post show score is the earliest homemade Deadshirt for sale that I know about. Feel free to leave a comment@dead.net deadcast if you know of earlier examples. The second night, the overcrowding only got worse.
- [57:45]
Sam Cutler
Incredibly, even more crowded. How many people can this place hold? It becomes like the marathon as advertised. The marathon of heat and holding it up in all the jostling, push, shove, mind your elbows. I only want room to breed New York zaniness.
- [58:03]
Narrator / Host
While the tightly crammed Hammerstein Ballroom wasn't exactly the place to unfurl into a dark star, the Dead did actually do as advertised and made music for a dance marathon. It was how they started when they went electric as the Warlocks in 1965, making music for dancers. The psychedelic ambitions, hi fi sound, entwined song suites, big jams and symbolic lyrics all came later when Mickey Hart began his furlough in February 1971. Though they were once again the five core warlocks before the Dead had songs of their own, they played the songs of others and continued to make them big parts of their sets. It was the norm for virtually all bands of the era, but the Dead really leaned into it in late 1970 and early 1971, learning new songs, reassessing old ones, and continuing to play old standbys because of accidents of fate, but mostly because Owsley Stanley was in jail. The fall of 1970 is among the least documented in Grateful Dead history and contains a few songs that only appear once on surviving tapes, though may have been played more often, including covers like an electrified jam on the folk song Darling Corey and the early rock standard Mystery Train. The Manhattan center shows feature a few songs that fall into that category. On the first night, they did one song they'd almost definitely never done before, Merle Haggard, Sing Me Back Home. Garcia and Weir fool around with it off mic, and Garcia remarks, gotta learn it. But they play it anyway. Here's a bit from Night two that could have easily turned up at an unrecorded show, but this might be the debut. Weir counts it off first, then Garcia.
- [59:48]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
You don't know what you meant so far maybe you're with me oh boy Want the world to see that you were men for me all my life I've been waiting Tonight there'll be no.
- [60:06]
Narrator / Host
Mistake no more that was Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir gleefully taking on Buddy Holly's oh Boy, possibly the song's Dead debut. Released on the Golden Road Bach set, it probably didn't get played again until they started performing it at acoustic benefits in the late 70s. Immediately following that, they did a song they'd done way back in the olden days. Not only did the Warlocks perform a number of tunes by the great black rock pioneers the coasters in 1965, they actually did a stint backing former Coasters member Cornell Gunter at the Inn Room in Belmont. No tapes, sadly, but here's the Coasters doing their hit version of Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller's I'm a hog for you baby from 1959.
- [60:47]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
I'm a hog fight baby can't get enough of your love I'm a hog fight baby can't get enough of your love When I go to sleep at night that's the only anything I'm dreaming.
- [61:09]
Narrator / Host
Number 38 with a bullet. And here's Garcia and McKernan singing it at the Manhattan Center. Released on the Golden Road box set in 2001, the only known time the band performed it after 1966.
- [61:31]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
This little pretty strong over your house don't love you all time.
- [61:49]
Narrator / Host
But until the 1980s and 90s, when Deadhead started piecing together collections like Dead Bass, no Dead fans would really understand how rare some of the songs were. Other than that, they'd almost certainly never seen the Dead do them. That was true for Blair Jackson.
- [62:03]
Blair Jackson
When I went back and I don't think I've ever owned a tape of this in my whole life, the 4671 Show, I said, oh, they did oh boy and Hog for your Baby and I would have known. Oh boy But I didn't know Hog for your baby at that point and had no idea if that wow, that was so rare or something that they played that. So I guess it was fun. No, I know I had a great time. I just didn't know whether it was important that they played those songs at that point. That's something that you get that context later, you know?
- [62:30]
Narrator / Host
Was it important? Hard to say. During the 15 performances they recorded on Prototype 2 for Skull and Roses, the Grateful Dead played 54 different songs, winnowed down to the dozen that made the final cut. This is the context, especially for side C of Skull and Roses. Side A is anchored by new originals. Side B is the big Jam. Side D has another new original and part of the band's usual set finale for the era, but side C is a straight down the middle slice of the band's covers. Three of the four songs on side C had been introduced into the band's repertoire by the end of 1966. We heard a bunch about me and My uncle before. After that came Pigpen's first and only vocal appearance on the album.
- [63:28]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
Big Boss man can't you hear me when I call?
- [63:41]
Narrator / Host
Big Boss man was recorded originally by Jimmy reed, released by VJ Records in 1960.
- [63:46]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
Big Boss man, can't you hear me when I go well you ain't so big, you just told us so.
- [64:08]
Narrator / Host
Big Boss man was written by VGA staff writer Luther Dixon and Al Smith, Reed's manager at the time. This was a bit unusual for Jimmy Reed, who usually wrote his own songs in collaboration with his wife, Mama Reed. Released as the civil rights movement was heating up, the song was powerfully anti authoritarian. As fellow Dead scholar Matt lynch has suggested, Big Boss man and its chorus would make an excellent paper topic for an article about labor relations. You ain't so big. Big Boss man is an even older tune in the Dead's repertoire than Me and My uncle, first appearing on Dead tapes from early 1966, though it could have been performed earlier. Here's a version from the Birth of the Dead set, recorded on an unknown date in early 1966. It got to the Dead, most likely more directly than me and my uncle. Both Pigpen and Garcia were definitely Big Jimmy Reed fans, and as discussed extensively during our Operator episode last season, Pigpen's father, Phil McKernan, was a veritable scholar. It's not that hard to imagine teenage Ron McKernan picking it up from his father or on his own. Here's a little bit of Garcia singing it at a jam session in 1969 at the Jefferson Airplanes House.
- [65:36]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
Can't you hear me when I come? Well, you ain't so big.
- [65:50]
Judy Collins
You just don't, that's all.
- [65:57]
Narrator / Host
Jerry also sings it with a variation that makes me wonder if he wants to did it in solo sets back in the old folky days, and after Pig died, Garcia started doing it again. Here's a little from view from the Vault 3, recorded June 16, 1990 in Pittsburgh.
- [66:36]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
Won't you hear me when I call?
- [66:56]
Narrator / Host
The real question posed by Big Boss man is why didn't Pigpen have more tunes on Skull and roses? Early 1971 was a particularly potent time for Pigpen and his musical showcases. Two thirds of the show recorded for the album contained deeply jammed versions of Otis Redding's Hard to Handle. For example, here's a bit from the Fillmore East, April 29 from the Ladies and gentlemen, the Grateful Dead set, where Pigpen was certainly quite well represented, and we'll get into that next episode.
- [67:50]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
I can give you what you want, but you got to come But I.
- [67:54]
Narrator / Host
Have no real answer as to why there wasn't more Pig on Skull and Roses. I have one piece of information only more an anecdotal point, but something to consider. It doesn't explain anything, and there's surely some missing link here, but just more pieces moving under the surface in John McIntyre's plans for 1971 that we detailed in the first episode. Proposed item 1D is a solo album by Pigpen, something long rumored and never delivered. There were some sporadic sessions over the years, but nothing coalesced. In the later summer of 1971, Pickpen was scheduled to play some solo dates in San Francisco just before the health crisis that would sideline him for the band's fall tour. Check our Operator episode from last season for more about Pigpen side trips. The third cover on side C of Skull and Roses was one of the band's newest, credited to Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster.
- [68:45]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
Busted flat in bat inversion Waiting for a train Feeling nearly faded as my jeans and Bobby flagged a diesel down Just a Ford Rain took us all the way to New Holy me and.
- [69:12]
Narrator / Host
Bobby McGee was an enormous hit by the time the Dead released their version in the fall of 1971. It was virtually an instant standard from the moment it was a number 12 smash for Roger Miller in 1969.
- [69:24]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
I took my harpoon out of my dirty red bandana and was blowing sad while Bobby sang the blues with them windshield wipers slapping time and Bobby clapping hands we finally sang up every song.
- [69:43]
Narrator / Host
That driver knew There were at least another 10 versions released by the end of 1970, when the dead first started playing it, plus countless others who performed it without putting it on an album at the time. Kenny Rogers and First Edition did it. Even Bill Haley in the comments, recorded it on one of their final LPs.
- [70:01]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
Freedom'S just another word but nothing left to lose Nothing ain't worth with nothing but it's free I bet Feeling Good was easy Lord, when Bobby signs the blue Feeling good was good enough for me Good enough for me and Bobby McGee.
- [70:29]
Narrator / Host
But there was no question where the Dead picked it up.
- [70:36]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
From the Kentucky coal mine to the California.
- [70:45]
Narrator / Host
That was Janis Joplin on acoustic guitar, accompanied by Jerry Garcia, John Marmaduke Dawson, Buddy Cage and a bunch of drunken others recorded during the Transcontinental Pop Festival train tour across Canada in July 1970, immortalized in the amazing Festival Express documentary. Here's a scene report from David Dalton and Jonathan Cott of Rolling Stone. Someone handed Janice her Gibson Hummingbird. I only know one song, honey, but I'm gonna sing it anyhow. And Janice began singing Bobby McGee. She sang it with her incredible intensity so that it no longer sounded like Kristofferson's vaguely country folk tune, but more like a gospel blues. And Jerry Garcia picked out sweet steel guitar licks like a subtle playing on CSNY's Teach youh Children well, that danced around Janice's raunchy voice. Everyone joined in the chorus. It's the theme song of the Festival Express, and it must have been sung a hundred times on this trip. In bars, backstage, in compartments, late at night, in hotel lobbies and along the tracks seemed to sum up everything that everybody went through on this journey.
- [71:55]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
Mar next to mine Freedom just another word for nothing left to lose Nothing was all she left for me.
- [72:15]
Judy Collins
Feeling.
- [72:16]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
Good was easy Lord, when Bobby sang the blues Feeling good was good enough for me Good enough for me.
- [72:34]
Narrator / Host
Janis recorded the song in October 1970, just days before her untimely death. It migrated into dead sets by the next month. It's just one of those absolutely perfect songs. Here's Jerry Garcia and Charles Reich discussing it in the March 1972 interview known as a Stone Sunday Rape, available in the book a signpost to Newspace from Da Capo and Hachette wherever books are sold. We've posted a link@dead.net Deadcast2 in Bobby McGee when Janice sung it, she said one thing showed one face. When you did it, you showed another face two whole different places. When Kris Kristofferson does it It's a whole other face, sang Bobby McGee.
- [73:14]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
She was singing about loving one man.
- [73:17]
Narrator / Host
Yeah. That was what the song is about when you sing it.
- [73:20]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
It's like the whole thing of being.
- [73:22]
Narrator / Host
In a truck and traveling across the country is incidental. And it's really. The freedom is just another blah, blah, blah part. That's the part that we punch.
- [73:30]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
You're talking about what it feels like.
- [73:32]
Narrator / Host
To be free, and she's talking about loving a guy.
- [73:36]
Sally Mann Romano
Right.
- [73:37]
Narrator / Host
It's like two different songs. And that's what I've been trying to, like, tell people.
- [73:41]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
It's two songs of about two different.
- [73:43]
Narrator / Host
Subjects have nothing to do with each other. Right. It's only a vehicle. It's only the same changes in the same words. I've always known that. And the same melody. Right. It's not the same song. It's completely.
- [73:54]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
There's no resemblance.
- [73:56]
Narrator / Host
I disagree that Janice's version wasn't about freedom, too, but still a fascinating way to think about the song. The Dead kept playing the tune through their road hiatus in 1974 before it disappeared from sets. The Bob Weir has brought it back in recent years, like this recent gig with the expanded Wolf Brothers.
- [74:30]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
Good enough for me. And Bottom.
- [74:39]
Narrator / Host
You know, I'm just not sure I have much to add about the final song on side C of Skull and roses.
- [75:02]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
Deep down, Louisiana.
- [75:13]
Narrator / Host
But in case anyone wasn't sure about it, Chuck Berry's hit 1958 single Johnny B. Goode is a cornerstone of rock.
- [75:19]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
And roll who never ever learned to read or write so well but he could play a guitar just like a ring in a bell Go go Go Johnny Go go Go Johnny go Go Johnny Go go Go Johnny go Go.
- [75:39]
Narrator / Host
Johnny be good Like a lot of rock bands, the Dead played Johnny B. Goode a lot. They covered it in the mid-60s during the Warlocks era and came back into the band's repertoire in 1971, just before they began recording Skull and Roses. Of course, it was a vehicle for Jerry Garcia. That was from an early version at The Capitol Theater, February 19, 1971. Released on 3 from the Vault. The Dead played it a lot, nearly 300 times through their spring tour in 1995. But there are a few connections to highlight. Taken individually, they're sort of coincidences. Taken cumulatively, they represent Bob Weir's serious musicological devotion to blues, R and B, Chuck Berry and rock and roll. The original single of Johnny B. Goode featured the same bassist as the 1960 version of Big Boss Man Willie Dixon, the legendary blues songwriter of Little Red Rooster and many others in the 90s. He'd collaborate with none other than Weir and Rob Wasserman on the song Eternity, one of the final originals introduced by the Dead. Here's a little bit from a 1993 version released on the so Many Roads box set. Weir's other connection to the song is Johnny Johnson, Chuck Berry's longtime piano player and the original inspiration for Johnny B. Goode. The Lafayette Leak plays on the hit single in 1996 and 1997, Johnny Johnson was also a member of Bob Weir's Rat Dog. Here they are doing Johnny B. Goode in Sunrise, Florida, October 13, 1996. The version on Skull and Roses was picked from March 24, 1971 at Winterland, take number 7 of 11 in this case the only west coast recording on the album, but it was played at almost every tour stop for the dead in 71 without a whole lot of variation, almost always as a coda to the new Weir Heart Hunter song Greatest Story Ever Told Take number nine was the closing evening of the Manhattan center, where it was somehow even more packed than the previous two nights.
- [78:49]
Gary Lambert
Gary Lambert Very crowded, I would characterize as insanely oversold and perhaps in the estimation of some of the most oversold Grateful Dead shows ever, although there are some theories that had the attendance at winterland swelling to 9,000 for certain shows. But this was really kind of unconscionably overcrowded to the extent that Howard Stein took out an ad apologizing, not offering refunds, I don't think, but apologizing and promising it'll never happen again. And then that August when I tried to go to a Leon Russell Freddie King show, I think it was more oversold. So thanks, Howard.
- [79:32]
Narrator / Host
The New Yorker reviewed the Manhattan center shows and observed the coat check room had no coat checker and was run on sound anarchistic principles. Gary Lambert observed this too, in his own way.
- [79:43]
Gary Lambert
The atmosphere at the Manhattan center was sufficiently anarchic that the coat check room, I only very ruefully found out later, was being staffed by people who didn't work there who just got behind the counter and said, check your coat, check your coat, check your coat. And I think they had little tickets they handed out. Maybe they found the stash of coat checks. And on the last night I'm pretty sure this was, I checked my coat, a beautiful western buckskin fringe jacket, sort of of the sort you'd see someone like David Crosby or Neil Young wearing in those periods, which I had bought at a store called Tipi Town, which would probably not pass Muster these days, given sensitivities about Native American stereotypes. But it was called Tipi Town. It was on 42nd Street, I think, just off Times Square. And they had an annex in that bastion of fashion forward activity, the Port Authority Bus Terminal. And they sold things like cowboy boots and trinkets and southwestern jewelry and these beautiful buckskin coats. Now, I had lost one of these buckskin coats the previous fall in a mugging on Waverly Place in Greenwich Village. Coming back from a show at Fillmore East, I think I can't remember or pinpoint it, or maybe it was the dead show at the Anderson Theater, but it was sometime that fall. And then, completely trusting these people at the coat check at Manhattan Center, I handed them my coat, got my little ticket, came back after the show and the coat check was completely abandoned. I said to someone who worked there, hey, where are the coats people? He said, co check wasn't open tonight. And I just went. And there was an empty hangar where my buckskin coat. So I did not purchase a replacement for that one. I thought maybe buckskin fringe jackets and me just weren't meant to be. My thought was, did these people just abandon it and let people ransack and steal it, or do they now have a very ritzy collection of clothing that they're going off to sell somewhere at secondhand stores? Unfortunately, there was not a comprehensive police investigation of the crime.
- [82:01]
Narrator / Host
We have come to understand that true crime podcasts are very popular, in which case the humble hosts reopen and solve cold cases. As much as we'd like to, and against our better judgment, we're not going to pivot to that for the remainder of the season. Perhaps somebody else would like to take up the case of Gary's stolen buckskin jacket. We'll sign off with a little more from Sam Cutler.
- [82:20]
Sam Cutler
Even the floor is wet from perspiration. The very garbage glistens. And when it's all done, people hit the street in the same way. The New York air, fresh air. Who'd ever believe it would be a joy to breathe that city's atmosphere? But the dead and freaks alike hang at the back door gasping in springtime of 2 o' clock in the morning Manhattan. And over in the precinct station, two cops having a hard time getting a drunk to walk up the steps and be booked like a bad guy should. Everyone smiles. The freaks go home and wait for the next time the dead leave the sardine can and strike out for three weeks on the road. Jesus, this is long.
- [83:00]
Narrator / Host
See everybody next time.
- [83:29]
Rich Mahan
There are so many cool versions of these songs by a wide variety of artists. One that was recently unearthed is an early version of Me and My uncle by Joni Mitchell from last year's Archives Volume 1 release. Check out her version.
- [83:53]
Narrator / Host
Me and my uncle came riding down from Colorado west Texas bound and we.
- [84:01]
Judy Collins
Stopped off in Santa Fe, it being a place about halfway, and besides it.
- [84:10]
Various Singers / Performers (e.g., Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen)
Was the hottest part of the day.
- [84:13]
Rich Mahan
Contrast that version with the Dead's version of Me and My uncle and it really highlights how the Grateful Dead grab a song written by somebody else and completely make it their own. That's some strong magic. Take care of yourself and each other out there and we will see you next episode. Executive producers for the good old Grateful Dead cast Mark Pincus and Doran Tyson. Produced for Rhino Entertainment by Rich Mahan Productions and Jesse Jarno. Special thanks to David Lemieux. All rights reserved.