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- [00:00]
A
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. Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Deadheads, welcome to Season eight of the Good Old Grateful Dead cast. I'm your co host Rich Mahan. Thank you very much for tuning in. We have a very special episode of the Good Old Grateful Dead Cast in store for you today. Make sure you fasten your seatbelt and line your living room floor with a tarp because we're pretty sure this episode is going to blow your mind. We're taking a slight detour from covering the official Wake of the Flood release and we're very excited to present a previously unheard recording. It is the 50th anniversary of the Grateful Dead's wake of the Flood and to celebrate this, we're Rhino has a grand 50th anniversary release which includes the original album, remastered, some really cool early demos of songs from the album, and six songs from a live show at Magaw Memorial hall at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois from November 1, 1973. There is special vinyl as well as standard black vinyl, a very cool Wake of the flood picture disc. CDs and digital versions are also available. More info and orders are happening now over@dead.net while you're there, head to dead.net deadcast and check out all of our past episodes, including complete seasons one through seven, and you can link from there to your favorite podcasting platform so you can listen how and where you like to listen. Please help the Deadcast by subscribing Hit that like button. Subscribe and leave us a review. While you're at it, share an episode on social media. Tell a friend. Thank you. We have transcripts from many of your favorite Dead Cast episodes available for your reading pleasure. So head over to dead.netdeadcast index and check them out. And thanks to everybody who's left their stories@stories.dead.net we're always looking for an epic tale of Dead related Crazy osity.
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The weirder the better.
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No story too big or too small. Share yours by recording them@stories.dead.net and there's a good chance you could hear yourself on the Dead cast. There is an option to write your story there, but if possible, please record yourself telling the story. If you need longer than the time allotted, leave a second one or a third. Thank you very much. During the recording of The Grateful Dead's 1973 studio album, Wake of the Flood, the band recorded a special session that was uncovered recently while going through the vault to put together the Wake of the flood 50 releases. I don't want to give too much away about this unheard recording before we formally sit down at the table, so instead I'll just hand you off to Maitre d Jesse Jarno.
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C
The point is never quite the freeway. The point is never quite refueling.
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B
Friends, we've got a weird one today. As you may have sussed out already by the title of this episode and that little excerpt of music we just heard. And as such, we're going to structure things slightly differently than usual in this episode because it looks like what we've got on our hands is a lost tape. I'm going to set up a few details, then we're going to listen to it in full and and then double back and fill in as much of the story as we can fill in. What we're about to hear is something that defies categorization even in the extended and bizarre canon of tapes that exist around the Grateful Dead. We did find one very important participant in the session who remembers it pretty vividly, though. Welcome back, Donogene Godshow McKay.
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D
My son Zion said when he heard this tape, he said, mom, this is pretty much like it might have been the Acid Test. And for me it was very cool because I wasn't there during the Acid Test. This was before I left Alabama and came to San Francisco and got back into the Grateful Dead. And so to me it was just like, bring it on. I love. I loved it.
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B
I'm going to start with a very brief description of how I first experienced it. Over the summer we got the first transfers of the complete Angel Share session tapes from Wake of the Flood and set to listening. I tried to pace myself and go through the sessions one by one, but one day I loaded the rest of them onto my phone and went for a long walk around the neighborhood. A lot of what I experienced was the sounds and the smells of a hard working rock band in the studio.
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E
Wait a minute.
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D
Could I suggest that we do the.
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C
There's a delay on Weir's vocal for.
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B
Some obscure reason, but we got more, a lot more. I wasn't totally paying attention at first when the last sounds, the last Weather Report Suite sessions, faded and something new began. First there's the sound of a flexitone, a bendable metallic percussion instrument often used for cartoon sound effects, and then a voice you don't often hear on Dead tapes, drummer Billy Kreutzman saying something you especially don't often hear on Dead tapes.
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D
Hey Phil, come out here and play some rhythm instrument.
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The band starts into noodling. There's piano, some guitar that's not Jerry Garcia, and some stray percussion. Not playing much of consequence at first. But then things continue in this mode and I was more than a little intrigued. But it wasn't until this happened that I finally realized what was going on and my brain snapped in a nice way.
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Titled variously Is this Vermouth or Just a Loose Tooth, it's hard to synthesize without explaining.
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B
That is unmistakably the voice of Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. And it was here that I did a double take and had to restart the whole track. The title of the file was simply Prelude, which didn't explain a lot by itself. Thankfully, the paperwork for the session survives and offers a little bit more context. On Thursday, November 1, 1973, the Dead finished up the second leg of a four part fall tour in support of Wake of the Flood, performing at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Now on Wake of the Flood 51, the band returned home to California and Jerry Garcia got right back to his side trips playing gigs with Merle Saunders and Old Men the Way that weekend. The Oldman the way show from November 4th has just been released by Acoustic Disc, David Grisman's longtime label. We've posted a link@dead.net deadcast on Tuesday and Wednesday, November 6th and November 7th, 1973, the Grateful Dead returned to the Record Plant in Sausalito, where they'd recorded Wake of the Flood in August, which had been released in mid October. Ostensibly, they were there to edit Eyes of the World down to a length suitable to be the second single from the album, which they did on Wednesday. But the day before Tuesday, November 6, all of the Grateful Dead assembled at the Record Plant without Jerry Garcia. According to paperwork found by the great Joe Jupiel, this is the week that Olden and the Way was working on their lost studio album. But along for the evening at the Record Plant was Robert Hunter, whose handwriting appears on one of the tracking sheets and who is orchestrating this evening's session, such as that was possible. The box is labeled with two Prelude and Tuesday Night Jam. That's the info we're going to start you with, though you can skip forward 34 minutes if you'd like to hear the story. First, let Rich Mahan thread up the virtual reel to reel and away we go.
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D
Hey Phil, come out here and play some rhythm instrument.
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It sa titled variously Is this vermouth.
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Or just a loose tooth?
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C
It's hard to synthesize without explaining. Someone had a name for it we forgot to ask him and now he hardly comes around that's fine anyway the only foot to step off is the right and the only way to sew is with the needle flat change six hand runs and no need to call you alone the caller calls for you every time an inside anyway four dora leads in ten directions you charge three bars what it's worth is anybody's guess outside anyway there's one less car to bother parking jelly rack went outside trolley hasn't come yet anyway come what may seem the last reason been in any way it screws point is never quite when you ain't right that this point is never quite when you ain't right at the point is never quite what you ain't right at the point is never quite for you ain't right back or boy never quiet were you ever boy is never quite when you ain't right back the point is never quiet when you ain't right back the point is never quiet the point the point is there's never the point never quite give me one good answer you to the question that I raised what's the point standing we both feed in the race we're locking horses Brutus swapping lobster sand maybe someday you come down tell exactly where I am forget yourself on a big white horn ride yourself right into the sunset get yourself on a big clue that is what you mean to say get up on the south for a steamer take it all the way to Arkansas hop upon screwing and nothing left to do you stand yourself and let us see.
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Sa.
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Sam dream Sam one last dream in one last dream Sa Sam.
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It.
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It'S it.
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What.
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I saw is all I see every time I turn around to see I see my face looking back at me every time flew around I see it all back on the ground with a way ready to stay all I saw is what I mean face of the desert looking at me what I saw is all I see every time I turn to see I See my I need your sweet inspiration I need your ear on my mind every hour of the day I need your soul sweet inspiration to keep on living to keep on giving this way, way back Y John told Jezebel about the way say the evil deeds done ruined the land and prepared for the kingdom of God was inhabitant she got mad at John Cause they told about the gospel and told the servants to boil him in oil. They tell they got a death homeless window in heaven Spoke one word and they all was small Me raise his hand Creation, speed and time strut still racist, boys but down and thunder John, we're going to do my business oh when I was in favor My smiling did extend from one and to the other Cross this faded land When I was in darkness the shadows fell upon the mountain and valley Where I didn't look upon When I was in power and power can be well I never slept at all for the things I could foresee Sam, it's all over. Stop the tape. That's it.
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Donna Jean Godsho McKay.
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D
Before I would get into the session itself, it has to be about Robert Hunter. He was the most unusual specimen of humanity. He was like a mystical leprechaun, darting in and out like a sprite. He didn't make much of himself. He was not gregarious and all of that. He was the most incredible human being. I, I, I can't even. There are not words to describe this guy. And Keith and I adored him. I adore him to this day. In Europe, this was Europe 72, and Keith and I were getting to know the guys in the band and, and then talking with Hunter, I always called him Hunter. Never Robert or Bob or anything, just Hunter. And then talking with him and getting to know him. And Keith alluded to Hunter as being this intellectual and Hunter, like the sprite that he was, he quickly rebuked Keith and said, I'm no intellectual. I'm a street cat. And that's how he described himself. He was a street cat. He really was. And it was incorporated in everything that he wrote musically, lyrically.
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B
Though Robert Hunter's partnership with Jerry Garcia, the Dead as a whole, and its other individual members would continue for decades, this session represents the closest the band and leaders has ever got in some ways. Nicholas Merriweather is the founder of the Grateful Dead Studies association and wrote liner notes for the new 50th anniversary edition of Wake of the Flood.
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E
What I hear is a remarkable project in collective band improvisation and Grateful Dead community. Really, what I hear is all of them coming together under Hunter's direction, which is itself absolutely fascinating to me. Hunter as musical director and getting amazing input and participation from everyone. The kind of conviviality and collegiality and willingness to court the muse collectively and together and just let things go where they want to go. It's almost like the spirit of Oxamaxua, but a little bit more grown up and a little bit more focused, but still that same sense of a quest for wherever the spirit and the muse are going to guide them.
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B
Perhaps the only session that remotely resembles Prelude is the infamous Oxumaxoa outtake called the Barbed Wire Whipping Party, which pretty much sounds exactly like that.
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C
The Barbed Wire with a party in the razor Blade forest Sweet live meat My fangs could unravel you the truth.
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Is out there Ask a taper. But Hunter didn't like the results. Not that Hunter and the band didn't collaborate musically again. Garcia and other band members would appear on a few Hunter solo albums in the later 70s, and Hunter would appear on stage with the Jerry Garcia Band a few times in 1980 to sing promontory Rider and other songs, like this version from February 28, 1980, released on after Midnight.
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Promontory Rider. Promontory Rider. Territory Ranger. Promontory Rider. Territory. Ranger. Territory Ranger.
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B
But Hunter recording experimental music in the studio with the Dead wasn't the norm before or after. And despite the fact that Jerry Garcia isn't there, this is very much a Grateful Bed session, both formally and spiritually. As mentioned before, the tape box has two titles on Prelude and Tuesday Night Jam. Both have resonances with the Dead. Tuesday Night Jam was the weekly soiree in 1968 at the Carousel Ballroom, the venue that the Dead operated with the Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service and where session engineer Dan Healy worked on Sound Makes Sense. Prelude caused confusion, though. Brian Kehue transferred all of the angel share tapes, including the Prelude.
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E
I think the huge discovery is this track called Prelude. It feels like some chemically altered moments, and it feels like it's worked out, but certainly less structured, less composed. And it is a real. I mean, it's really long. I'm looking. It's like 36 minutes long.
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D
Unbelievable.
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E
And it's not talked about. It's not even a rumor.
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B
Prelude is the name the Dead used for one of the instrumental excerpts of the May 26th other one jam on the final disc of Europe 72. It actually does sound a little bit like how the 1973 Prelude starts, though. The Europe version had Jerry Garcia.
- [49:19]
E
This piece, which has the same name as some other piece of music that's confusing, but that we were assuming it was the wrong title. And then maybe something comes up, which is another tape that says, here's a rough mix of it with the same title.
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B
Obviously, this isn't that, but as Donna Jean described, Robert Hunter mostly kept the background, and this piece of music fits perfectly within that role.
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D
I think in Hunter's mind, the conception was that this is something that we record as the impromptu and be played during the hours, you know, before the Grateful Dead concert.
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B
As we'll learn, this is exactly what happened.
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D
I don't know how many times they played it, but I know that was the Hunter's way of doing something different that he could participate in musically as well as lyrically. To play it for the audience who was coming into a Grateful Dead concert, it was like the perfect thing.
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B
Well, that certainly explains the title Prelude, something that came before the main event. We have some ear witnesses to at least one airing of the tape that we'll get to shortly. The piece of music came at a fascinating point in Hunter's own career. He'd started writing lyrics for the dead in late 1967 and had explored several roles that allowed him to find a place somewhere between public and private. In the spring of 1970, when working man's Dead was released, Hunter spent time promoting the lp, visiting radio stations, and even recording an ad.
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I don't know but I've been told it's hard to run with the weight of gold. The Working Man's Dead by the Grateful Dead.
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Available on Warner Brothers Tapes and Records.
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C
You should be able to get your.
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B
Copy by May 15th.
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C
Working Man's Dead by the Grateful Dead steal one.
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B
He tried a different experiment in Deadhead communication in the fall of 1971, when the dead released Skull and Roses, Warner Bros. Bought the band airtime on a number of radio stations to broadcast full Dead concerts at at least the tour opener in Minnesota. They also broadcast this Robert Hunter tape during the set break.
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C
I thought I heard a baby crying. Roger has reverted back to infancy in the space warp. What will happen next? Listen for part three of A Message for Roger.
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B
This Hunter tape, a five minute piece apparently titled A Message for Roger, is one sonic prelude to Prelude, and certainly a conceptual prelude.
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C
Roger. Roger. Roger. Roger.
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B
And when the Dead launched their newsletter in late 1971, Hunter found himself with a new platform. The Grateful Dead are often given credit for their early use of direct marketing with their newsletters. They're loaded with useful information, but they're also really, really weird. Alan Trist of Ice9 Publishing told us about the band's early efforts.
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D
I was the editor of those newsletters in the 1970s at Fifth and Lincoln. Eileen Law, she supplied some material from.
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E
The Deadhead office, which she oversaw. Marianne Meyer, who was a great photographer.
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D
And part of the old light show world, she was a graphic artist. But most of the written material I.
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Got from Hunter, occasionally from Garcia, too. You know, I leaf through some things that he had left with me and.
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D
Can I use this?
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E
Some of the newsletters included Hunter's hypnocracy drawings.
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B
The Dead's newsletters in 1972 and 1973 were filled with the utterings of St. Dilbert mixed with odd doodles and collages that were often collaborations between Hunter, Trist and Garcia. We've posted some links@dead.net deadcast they were one of Robert Hunter's communication methods with Deadheads. Nicholas Meriwether has done some incredible work transcribing the poems from the Deadhead newsletter, eight in all. They're included in a program for the 2020 edition of the Grateful Dead Scholars Caucus, which we've linked to@dead.net deadcast this.
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E
Is really the height of his Deadhead newsletter collaboration and communication, where he's really talking directly to Deadheads. And in the process, he's really acting as kind of the voice of. Of the Grateful Dead community. He's shepherding those communications. He's sharing. He's being funny, but he's also being serious. He's also being poignant. It's easy to get distracted by the whimsy of his St. Dilbert drawings and parables. The poetry is much more serious. The poetry is much more expressive. The poetry is really about how he sees things. It's kind of the start of what I see as Hunter, the role that he increasingly adopts over the long term, which is not only the prophetic poetic vatic voice, but also the conscience, in some ways, of the scene. Even in the height of what critics and fans would call the Dead's, you know, turn to Americana, Marin county, pastoral era, they're still reminding people, hey, these are our roots.
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B
That is. The Grateful Dead had embraced what's now called roots music, but their roots ran weirder.
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The acid test is everywhere in this spaceship.
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D
Everywhere you are.
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You're all acid testing and acid tasting.
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B
Their early albums had attempted to carry that vibe into the studio somewhat. On tracks like what's Become of the Baby. Thinking about all of these elements together, the newsletters, A Message for Roger and this tape. It Seems like Robert Hunter was thinking about the project of the Grateful Dead as something bigger than just a band that made albums and played shows. What was recognizing the community that engaged around them and figuring out new, abstract ways to communicate them through forms that weren't just songwriting. Or to put it another way, do you see what happens, Roger? This is what's become of the baby. Yet it was also the same window that Hunter was assembling songs for his solo debut, Tales of the Great Rum Runners, a project he was deep into by the time of the Tuesday Night Jam, though it wouldn't come out until June 1974.
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C
Sinking down down down upon the sand upon the sea on the hills of liquid green Their eyes to fall they rise again Their dreams a tattered sail in the wind.
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B
Musically, I hear the Prelude's structural roots in another Hunter involved project recorded at the same moment as a message for Roger. Jerry Garcia made his first solo album at Wally Heiter's in San Francisco in the summer of 1971, with a small crew that included co producers Bob Matthews and Betty Cantor, drummer Bill Kreutzman, crew member Ramrod, and lyricist Robert Hunter. Some of the songs had been worked out ahead of time, but for what became the album's second side, they rolled tape, then overdubbed and shaped the results. This is how Bob Matthews described the process to us when we visited him back in 2018.
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E
I was happy to say that was one of the times when I recorded more than I erased. And so they came back in to listen to it because it really was the first complete arrangement framework of the Wheel. And while we were listening to it, Bob Hunter. This was back in Studio D, second floor, where there was enough room for a peanut and a sneeze. And Hunter was writing words on his notebook, with his notebook on the wall, because there wasn't anywhere else to sit or stand as we went through the first playback. Here was an example of spontaneous improvisation that just felt so good. I mean, it was that smile that I was able to give Jerry when he said, did you happen to record that? It's a great feeling.
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B
From the sounds of things. That was the basic working process behind the Tuesday Night Jam as well.
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D
The foundation was totally improvised. Nobody knew what the hell was happening from one second to the next. And that was quintessential Grateful Dead. I was near Delivering Zion when we did that. And I have. I really do have a remembrance of how extraordinary it was and how different it was than anything that we had done. It was so impromptu that when I say the music Started from scratch. Nobody knew anything about what was going to happen. Nobody knew anything. It really was an experiment.
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B
There are two sheets of paper with the Prelude tape. The first is a tracking sheet, either written by engineer Dan Healy or assistant engineer Tom Anderson, indicating what instruments were on which tracks. It includes piano, synth, percussion, congas, drums. And spots for vocals. Guitar and bass aren't listed, but I hear them too. The other sheet is, I think, in Robert Hunter's handwriting and seems to have been written in the studio while tape rolled, with timings that either map to a studio clock or the tape reel itself marking down different sections and giving them names without Hunter or his notebook to know for sure. I'd guess there was a round of studio improvisation with Hunter taking notes, comparing the tracking sheet and what are probably Hunter's notes. The piece had eight or nine parts. The first was called Whatever It Is. Whatever It Is also happens to be the name of the final big psychedelic happening in San Francisco before LSD became illegal in October 1966. But that's probably just a coincidence. The next segment is labeled, titled, variously.
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C
Titled variously. Is this vermouth or just a loose tooth? It's hard to synthesize without explaining.
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B
There's lots of weird wisdom coming.
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C
The only foot to step off is the right and the only way to sew.
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B
I hear the track break happening here when Hunter starts to speak sing. The next piece is called the Point. It comes to a reframe with some familiar voices coming into Buoy Hunter.
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C
Jelly rack went outside. Trolley hasn't come yet. Anyway come One thing you see the last reason bending anywhere screws Point is never quite you ain't right there. This point is never right. You ain't right. This point is never. Why would you ain't rather.
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B
Those voices, best as I can discern, are Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Donna Jean Godshow and Keith Godshow. One thing to ponder while listening to this tape is that it was intended for people to listen to in the background as they entered a Dead show. So any messages would have really had to cut through the crowd noise to stick out. It's very grateful led thinking and pretty merry prankstery, too.
- [63:34]
D
His perceptions were so keen, they defied being defined. And that's what gave him the extraordinary writer that he was. His brilliance was that nothing had a fine point on it. And that was his point.
- [64:09]
B
Nice counterpoint, Phil.
- [64:10]
D
In his writing, anybody could get anything out of any lyric. And that's what gave him such a wide berth and such a deep volume when it came to his music. Having everything to do with everybody. It didn't matter who you were, what color you were, no matter what you believed. It all translated to somebody, sometime, somewhere. And that was Hunter strength and how he did that, managed it. So no one was excluded from having access to its meaning. Whatever that was, you know, it meant something to everybody, individually and personally. Just brilliant.
- [65:03]
B
Floatin down begins around 8:45 into the recording, as the overdubs dissolve back into the original improvisation. Then we get a pretty wonderful new piece with Donna Jean at the center. Donna's voice is in the middle. I'm pretty sure that's Hunter's voice in the right channel and Keith Godshow's voice on the left.
- [66:26]
C
In one last stream.
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B
What's funny about the next bit of tape is that it seems to mirror the form of drums into space. About a half decade before that became a regular feature of Dead shows. There was a drum breakdown, but the mystery synth comes back. They actually do build to some pretty inspired improvisation. From that comes a new piece of music. Keith and Donna sing first. It's lovely to hear them sing together.
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C
When I went to the river to see what I saw was all I see Face in the river looking back at me what I saw is all.
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B
I see the first male voice here is Weir, followed by Keith Godchau.
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C
Every time I turn around to see I see my face looking back at me Every time flew around I see it all back on the ground what.
- [68:55]
B
Intrigues me about this segment of performance is that it seems to provide an early hint at both a Keith and Donna album from 1975, as well as the gospel influence that would move into Jerry Garcia's solo music in the next years. Hunter gets to do it too. Nicholas Merriweather.
- [69:25]
E
The wonderful gospel touches that you find in this tape. The fact that the Dead and Hunter would all embrace this notion of. Think about the range of musical styles and motifs that are being presented and compressed into this tape. It's pretty much a statement that for the Dead, this is all one seamless continuum.
- [69:49]
B
A continuous flow from space to gospel. But then comes the piece of the tape that grounds our story in numerous ways. We spoke with Dead Bass co founder Mike Dalgushkin during our Dead Freaks Unite episode a few years ago.
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E
It was November 10, 1973. We got in line early. It was at 10 o'.
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D
Clock.
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E
We were like fourth or fifth in line or something at Winterland. In the afternoon it started raining. So first they let us all come in under the overhang. And then about 4 in the afternoon, they let Us inside.
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B
This would be the middle Saturday of the three show weekend. That's now on the Winterland 1973 the complete recordings box set. Melko Parish got in early too.
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E
There are people who got there for a lot of shows, like two or three days early, I guess, but I never did that, you know, probably 11 to noon would be like the standard. They opened the doors and there was a sound check going on. But it wasn't okay. It wasn't the Dead. It was the Roadies band, which was known as Sparky and the Aspies from Hell. I have no idea what they were playing. I think it may have just been like old rock and roll songs. But it was somewhat of an effort to sit through it, I have to say. Then after they were done, we heard a tape over the PA of it was like an instrumental. Other one into Sweet Inspiration with Donna singing. It was done by the Sweet Inspirations for Aretha's backup band. They usually did play some kind of music at Bill Graham shows before the show started, but it was almost unheard of to hear members of the Dead playing stuff. And you know, I think people I was with, we were like speculating if they were doing some. They were just backstage doing it because it just seems so weird. But it also sounded like studio looking.
- [72:02]
B
Through the scene reports@dead.net, it seems like this was maybe the only night of the three that people were let in early.
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E
Bill Graham had done that before. I went to the. I think it was the first of the four Rolling Stone shows at Winterland and it was a matinee, but they let people in at like 10 in the morning or something. We got there really early for that. And I remember they showed the Tammy Show.
- [72:25]
B
If you haven't seen the Tammy Show, a 1964 concert film with the Stones, James Brown, the Beach Boys, the Barbarians starring Multi the drummer. It's highly recommended. Our Michaels Parish and Olgushkin both remember the Prelude tape being featured as part of an afternoon of bonus entertainment. Sparky and the Ass Bites from Hell. The Prelude tape and then some cartoons.
- [72:45]
E
All I can remember they showed were a bunch of Roadrunner and other Warner Brothers cartoons.
- [72:52]
B
All fun ways to set up some heads for a night of righteous Grateful Dead music. I don't know whether the tape was played before the shows on the 9th or the 10th. If you were at any Dead shows in the fall of 73 where you think you may have heard an odd sounding tape, get in touch with us@stories.dead.net the prelude has even One more forgotten precursor, when the band played an instrumental tape by their friend, the young composer Ned Lagin, during the intermission of a show in Boston in 1971, noted by the Harvard Crimson, but unknown to Ned until I forwarded him their review. It's entirely possible that the Dead used the airspace created by their concerts to air other tapes in the early years, transmitted ambiently into individual and collective Dead free consciousness. This is from the expanded Seastones, which we've linked to@dead.net deadcast maybe not the same as what audiences heard at the Boston Music hall, but it'll do for now. Michael raises a point I hadn't considered about the Prelude tape.
- [73:58]
E
That's probably the first time most Deadheads heard Robert Hunter's voice. And no one would know it because his albums hadn't come out yet. So, you know, there was no context really for. For what he sounded like. And he's very prominent in that thing. Nicholas Merriweather, what is also really interesting and worth pointing out, he's doing all of this at the same time that he is remaining resolutely out of the limelight. So he's doing all of this, but he's really not putting his face out there, even though he's beginning to think of himself very much as an independent recording artist.
- [74:42]
B
Even when Tales of the Great Rum Runners came out in 1974, Hunter refused to let his photo appear in the media.
- [74:48]
E
He did a really hysterical self portrait sketch that he sent to the Oakland Tribune when they did a Sunday magazine feature on him. And it's this hysterically abstract sketch, and that's what he gave them instead of an offer photo.
- [75:07]
B
Though they might not have known it was Robert Hunter, both Michael Parrish and Mike Dalgushkin instantly identified the tape as a product of the Dead.
- [75:14]
E
I really wish that was surfaced sometime.
- [75:18]
C
I need your sweet inspiration I need a hero mama every hour of the day.
- [75:40]
B
Sweet Inspiration was a hit single for the sweet inspirations in 1968.
- [75:45]
C
I need your sweetie inspiration I need you here on my mind Every hour of the day without your sweet inspiration the lonely hours of the just don't go my way.
- [76:20]
B
But it had an incredibly deep connection to Donna Jean God show. By now, you probably know that Donna was a studio singer in Muscle Shoals, singing on some of the biggest hits of the mid-60s. We did a whole episode about her during our fourth season. In addition to performing musicians, Mussel Shoals was also home to some of the era's greatest songwriters.
- [76:38]
D
The song Sweden's was written by my Two of my best friends, Spooner Oldham and Dan Pan, you know, became a hit. I was there when they were writing the song. I was some of the office furniture that was in Fame. I was around all the time. And they would be, both of them sitting at the piano in Fame, smoking cigarettes and writing songs was just what was happening then. It was no big deal back then.
- [77:14]
B
The song made its way to Memphis and became a huge hit in 1968.
- [77:18]
D
And those were the girls that Elvis chose to take on the road with him when he went out to Vegas instead of us. And I think, if I'm not mistaken, that he asked us and we declined because we were right in the middle of a bunch of session work. And that was our gig, was doing sessions, and it was coming up with a lot of different artists. And then the Sweet Inspirations came into play. And I'm sure that had a lot to do with Elvis's choice of sending them with him.
- [77:55]
B
That certainly would have been a different timeline. If Donna Jean and the group sometimes known as Southern Comfort became Elvis's backup singers. The Sweet Inspirations would sing with Elvis for the next few turbulent years. The impression I get from Peter Goralnik's authoritative Elvis biography is that joining the Grateful Dead would have been a lot more fun. This is Elvis with The Sweet Inspirations, Feb. 19, 1970, in Las Vegas, featuring Ronnie Tutt on drums, feeling the boogie slightly differently than he would in a few years with Jerry Garcia.
- [78:32]
C
Oh, I see CC Rider oh, see what you have done oh, I see TC Rider oh, see what you have done I know you made me love you oh, yeah.
- [78:56]
D
How crazy is that? And everything that we did vocally, the Sweet Inspirations did with him. Like, every note, everything was the same. That's a cool thing to be able to remember in your life that with Elvis Presley, you had, like, an ounce of influence on anything that happened to.
- [79:18]
B
Him, or, you know, the Grateful Dead, for that matter.
- [79:21]
D
When Keith and I got together, one of the first songs that we actually sang together and Keith played and I sang and we both sang together was that song Sweet Inspiration. And it was just a moment that kind of defies just natural thinking, that half. And it happened to be written by two of my best friends. When we auditioned, just with Jerry that first time without the band, he invited us to come to Grateful Dead rehearsal, but rehearsal had been called off, so he didn't know that. So it was just Jerry and Keith and me. Keith and I had recorded on this reel to reel some things that we had done. Me singing And Keith playing and that's how it all started was with introduction. And Sweet Inspiration was one of the songs that was on that tape. And I wish to God I still had that.
- [80:28]
B
There's now this lovely tape of them singing together in the studio.
- [80:32]
D
Just getting to hear him sing in that format and just spontaneously and everything, which just brought me to tears, I have to say.
- [80:43]
C
I need your sweet inspiration to keep on living to keep on giving in this way.
- [81:06]
B
It's such an unlikely song to emerge from this session.
- [81:09]
D
I don't know how it happened because most of everything that's on that session was just impromptu. There was no direction, there was no nothing. It was just from scratch. And so I really can't tell you anything more about that, how that came to pass, but it did.
- [81:29]
B
The song stayed in Keith and Donna's rotation. It's not on their 1975 album, maybe because they just recorded it. But if you've ever checked out a tape by the Keith and Donna Band, there's a good chance it's on there. This is from the band's debut in san Anselmo in April 1975. Ask a taper if you'd like to hear the rest of their smoky late night version of the song.
- [81:54]
C
He Inspiration. Yeah, only hours of the night just don't come.
- [82:17]
D
That when the Keith and Donna band were playing in San Francisco, it just so happened we were singing Sweet Inspiration in the Keith and Donna Band. And Spooner and Dan Penn, who were the authors of that song, were walking right by and heard us singing that song. And they were walking right by that club in San Francisco and Keith and I were singing Sweet Inspiration. I can't remember the name of the club, but we played there several times.
- [82:50]
B
They played it with the ghosts and Donna's kept singing it too. The version on the prelude tape makes a left turn though.
- [82:57]
C
Way back yonder evil deeds done ruined the land and prepared for the kingdom of God was at hand.
- [83:08]
B
From Sweet Inspiration, Bob Weir sings a segment from the traditional spiritual Jezebel. The Golden Gate Quartet recorded it in 1941.
- [83:17]
C
Way back yonder in the olden days John told Jezebel about Always said of evil deeds that ruined the land and.
- [83:24]
E
Repent for the kingdom of God was at hand.
- [83:26]
B
It's certainly an escalation from the bliss of sweet inspiration.
- [83:30]
C
She got mad at John cause they told about the gospel and told the servants to boil him in oil.
- [83:35]
B
They tell they got a dead woman's.
- [83:37]
C
Window at heaven sparkling one word.
- [83:58]
B
But then they modulate into something new.
- [84:05]
C
My smiling did extend from one end to the other across this faded land When I was in darkness the shadows fell upon the mountain and valley where I didn't look upon.
- [84:25]
B
There are three quick verses or stanzas, depending on how you want to define them. All of them sound biblical, but using the publicly funded World Wide Web to search, I can't find anything that matches. Any ideas on the proper tracking sheet? The last segment is titled Last Blast, and it's the sound of the studio session coming to land. In some ways, the studio session at the Record Plant would prove to be a last blast for Hunter himself. After the band's December 1973 newsletter, his regular dispatches abruptly disappeared from their pages. The last one filed probably around the same time as the session. Sometime in early 1974, he began a relocation to England, where he would remain part time during the next years. The reasons were complicated and many. He would speak of a vibe shift inside the Grateful Dead as the road crew assumed more influence. But it was also in these years that Hunter started a family, all topics just outside our purview today. I assume Hunter was at Winterland on November 10th when they played the tape, but I can't say for sure. It's a beloved Dead show now on the Winterland 1973 complete recordings Box set. It features a classic sequence of playing in the band into Uncle John's band, into Morning Dew, back into Uncle John's, and then back into playing. So now when thinking about this classic Dead show, we might also think about the very strange tape that also debuted that same night. And at the very end, Robert Hunter returns. Which is of course, how we're going to end our epilogue to the Prelude. It's all over.
- [87:07]
C
Stop the tape. We're done it.
- [87:12]
A
Thank you very much for tuning in to this special episode of the good old Grateful Dead cast. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed putting it together for you. We'd like to thank our guests in this episode, Donna Jean Gottshell McKay, Bob Matthews, Alan Trist, Nicholas Merriweather, Brian Kehue, Michael Parish and Mike dilgushkin. Extra special thanks to friend of the Dead cast David Ganz for ongoing contributions of audio from his interview archive. Thanks very much for tuning in. Don't forget to like subscribe and share an episode on your social media and give us Grateful Dead related stories by recording yours@stories.dead.net 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.