Friday, August 19, 2011

Grateful Dead Hiring Practices (Ian McLagan Edition)

The cover of Ian McLagan's 2000 autobiography All The Rage (Billboard Books)
Ian McLagan was the organ and piano player for both the original Small Faces with Steve Marriott and the Faces with Rod Stewart. Among many other great performances, he played keyboards on "Itchycoo Park," "Maggie May" and "Stay With Me." He also played with the Rolling Stones in the late 70s and 80s (from Some Girls onward), Bonnie Raitt and numerous others. He is a flexible, versatile player, and, as it turns out from his 2000 autobiography All The Rage (Billboard Books) one of rock's great storytellers. All The Rage is one of the great rock books, from a true insider who knew and knows everybody, warm to his friends, wry about his might-have-beens and matter of fact about the shortcomings of his famous bandmates. Every rock fan should read it.

One of the most unexpected footnotes in the book was his remark that he was asked to audition for the Grateful Dead keyboard chair in the Fall of 1990, after the unfortunate death of Brent Mydland. According to McLagan, the offer to audition came from his old friend Chesley Millikin, an Englishman who among many other things seems to have booked the various Grateful Dead European tours, and seems to have been some sort of European agent for the band. According to McLagan, Millikin said that he could live anywhere (at the time he lived in Austin, TX) and he would be promised a minimum of $250,000. McLagan turned down the opportunity, saying that the Dead's sound had never grabbed him and he didn't think it would work out.

At the time McLagan's book was published, there had been nary a hint that McLagan had been asked to audition. Over the years, people have noticed the remark, and McLagan has been asked about it various times. Based on some casual web surfing, it seems that McLagan now says he didn't audition for the Dead "because they sucked." Cruel as that sounds, in the context of McLagan's autobiography, it's just another remark. McLagan likes to tell stories, and he's more than willing to tell stories on himself or his friends, all with a spirit of charm and good humor. I have no doubt he would have said "the Grateful Dead suck" to Garcia's face, and they all would have laughed and auditioned him anyway. McLagan has figured he can get some mileage out of the non-audition, and he's doing it: good for him, in the spirit of the laddish Faces.

My interest in McLagan's non-audition, however, was not how he would have sounded with the Grateful Dead. In fact, much as I love the Faces and McLagan, I don't think he would have made a good choice as the Grateful Dead's keyboard player, and I think he knew it. I do think he would have made an awesome choice as keyboard player for the Jerry Garcia Band, and Ronnie Wood would have dropped by, and--well, it didn't happen. Nonetheless, the issue for me isn't McLagan, it's Chesley Millikin. When Brent Mydland died and the band needed a new keyboard player, what process was used to find a replacement? How was Millikin, or anyone, involved? To put it in more formal terms: looking at the Grateful Dead as an institution, what was the decision making process by which players were asked to audition?

The Grateful Dead As Institution
The Grateful Dead had had very few personnel changes over the years. Mickey Hart was simply invited, Tom Constanten was sort of "tried out" and then invited, Keith Godchaux mysteriously 'appeared' when needed and Brent Mydland was talent spotted by Weir and then Garcia before Keith's inevitable departure. However, when Brent died in 1990, while the Dead needed a new keyboard player as soon as possible, the band's status and economic obligations insured that the choice of a new player could not be made in isolation, nor delayed.

With no obvious candidate, the Grateful Dead had little choice but to hold auditions. However, arranging the auditions so that the various candidates could jam with the band meant a major organizational effort. While this subject may not be of interest to everyone, anyone who has every worked in a fair sized corporation or other institution, such as a government agency or University will appreciate the implicit choices that the band had to have made. Since no band member or inside source has every discussed this process, I am left with little to do but speculate based on some very scarce information, but that is the purpose of this blog after all.

Although learned Political Scientists may be able to provide a sophisticated analysis, as a layman there seems to be two basic institutional choices: either a "Hiring Manager" or a "Hiring Committee." In most corporations, a given manager makes the choice about new hires, subject to oversight by his or her own boss, Human Resources and so on. In many not-for-Profit entities, particularly Universities, where a group of people make the final decision, a small "Committee" of two or three look for candidates, and those candidates are presented to the hiring group as a whole.

It seems pretty clear that there was no "Hiring Manager" for the keyboard player of the Grateful Dead. The "hiring" entity would have been the band as a whole, but it is both unlikely and unwieldy to have the entire band meeting to discuss not only candidates but the tedious mechanics of auditions. It seems clear that there had to have been a small "Committee," even if not called that, consisting of a couple of band members and a couple of other functionaries. Weir, Lesh or Hart would have been the band members, but not all three, and maybe only one, and perhaps one or two other Grateful Dead insiders, such as Ramrod or attorney Hal Kant, would have sought out potential candidates.

Anyone who has ever had any experience with a hiring committee knows that one of the key goals is finding candidates who will meet the expectations of the "key stakeholders," a big term that translates in Grateful Dead terms to "Jerry." Jerry Garcia himself would not have been directly involved in finding the candidates, but everyone involved would have started with the question "What Will Jerry Do?" By the same token, numerous outside parties would have been working the phones with the hiring committee, suggesting different names and making pitches for different players. All of those outside parties could have had any number of motives, but the general point to make here is that the hiring committee would act as a filter for the Grateful Dead operation as a whole: if someone proposed a player to audition, the hiring committee would have had to approve the opportunity. Presumably, the auditions themselves would define the choice on mainly musical grounds, but a player would have to get the audition in order to shine. In that respect, the hiring committee, however informal, would have acted as "gatekeepers" to the Grateful Dead keyboard chair.

What Is Known About The Auditions?
The official history suggests (to my knowledge) that only three players were auditioned: ex-Jefferson Starship member Pete Sears, ex-Dixie Dregs member T Lavitz and The Tubes keyboard player, Vince Welnick. There is a general understanding that Bruce Hornsby was offered the chair prior to the auditions and seems to have turned the band down. Nonetheless, since Hornsby did in fact play with the Grateful Dead for much of the next year, he obviously didn't turn the band down completely. As to rejections, other than McLagan, the only player to claim to have refused to audition for the Grateful Dead was apparently Merl Saunders.

It seems that the effort to get Hornsby to join the band was comparable to the invitation to Brent Mydland: he was such an obvious choice that his assent would have obviated any other process. Unlike Brent, however, Hornsby had a substantial solo career and lived in Virginia, so he seems to have chosen an adjunct role. This left the Dead little choice but to audition. The Merl Saunders case is more ambiguous, and I will return to it later, but the essence of it is that Merl claimed he received a call about auditioning, but he never returned it and went on tour instead. Otherwise, all we know about the auditions are the three who were known to try out: Pete Sears, T. Lavitz and Vince Welnick. I am interested in viewing these candidates in terms of the Grateful Dead hiring process, rather than specifically as musicians.

Pete Sears
Pete Sears
Pete Sears was an Englishman who had migrated to the Bay Area in about 1970, as a member of the San Francisco group Stoneground. He had joined Stoneground when they had toured England in 1970. Subsequently, Sears mostly worked out of the Bay Area, primarily with the Jefferson Starship. He had worked with Rod Stewart in England throughout the 1970s, but the bulk of his work was with Starship related activities. Sears would have been known to every member of the Grateful Dead, and had played with Garcia a variety of times. Most recently would have been the very interesting performance with Nick Gravenites on April 29, 1990 at the South Of Market Cultural Center. Since Garcia had played with Sears in April, and he was asked to audition in the Fall, it must have made an impression on Garcia.

Since Sears was a band friend, a successful rock musician in his own right and had recently jammed with Garcia, he looks like a traditional "inside" candidate. Since Sears is a fine player, I have to assume that a principal concern must have been Sears's lack of experience as a harmony vocalist. In any case, Sears would have been an obvious choice to audition after Hornsby turned the band down, and there is little mystery about why he was asked.

T. Lavitz
T. Lavitz
Terry "T" Lavitz (1956-2010) was the keyboard player for the progressive Southern rock band Dixie Dregs. The very improvisational Dregs broke up in 1983, and Lavitz played with a variety of groups, including one called The Bluesbusters, including Catfish Hodge and Little Feat's Paul Barrere. He also played on a variety of different projects. Lavitz was a tremendous player, well used to improvising difficult music on stage in front of large audiences. Lavitz was an excellent candidate to audition for the Grateful Dead's keyboard chair.

What interests me about Lavitz was that he not only had no connections to the Grateful Dead, he had no connection to the West Coast either. Someone on the Grateful Dead side had to have done some research to have found him, and there had to be some phone calls to take care of due diligence: any new member of the Grateful Dead had to have his ego in a safe place and no outstanding personal problems. What interest me is the process--who called whom? Whose word was good enough to insure that Lavitz's personality was in line with his playing? Who in the Grateful Dead family made the push to audition Lavitz? I assume that Lavitz's musical status was similar to Sears, in that he was a fine player who had no standing as a singer. I do wonder if anyone every made that clear to the band in the first place, yet another thing that makes me wonder about the "committee" and its "process," such as it may have been.

Vince Welnick
Vince Welnick was originally from Arizona, and played in a band called The Beans. The Beans and some other Arizonans moved to San Francisco in 1971 and changed their name to The Tubes. In the mid-70s, The Tubes had a spectacular stage act and were rock's next big thing. I saw The Tubes a few times in 1975, and they were truly amazing, if very different than the Grateful Dead. If Jerry had stayed with us, sooner or later Quay Lewd himself would have made a guest appearance with the Dead, so that everybody could have sung "White Punks On Dope" together.

By 1990, The Tubes were well past their Moment, and only played occasionally. Welnick played regularly in Todd Rundgren's band, but Todd only toured periodically. Despite Vince's Bay Area residency, there were few meaningful connections between the musicians that had played with Welnick and the Grateful Dead. Nonetheless, someone seems to have sought out Vince, since he had never met the Dead himself when he got the call. Interestingly, much as I like The Tubes and Todd Rundgren, neither of those acts improvise on stage--quite the opposite--so someone who knew Vince's playing very well must have suggested him. Who suggested him? Who in turn needed to be persusaded? And finally, whose word was good enough for Jerry? Having Vince Welnick audition is not at all an obvious choice, so someone had to have confidence that Vince was worth trying out.

Given that Vince is no longer with us, no one really talks much about the process of his hiring. From that point of view, Vince was musically as unlikely a choice as Ian McLagan, and he won the audition, so for all McLagan's joking whose to say what would have happened if Mac took up Chesley Millikin's offer?

Coda: Merl Saunders
Merl said that the Dead called him to audition, but he never called them back. It's hard to judge this from afar. On one hand, for all of Merl's friendship with Jerry, he doesn't seem like a likely choice. On the other hand, perhaps the call was a sort of backup call: the Dead had booked a tour, and Hornsby wasn't certain, so perhaps they would have gone out with Merl for one tour if everyone else flunked the audition. The important part to me remains unstated: who called Merl on behalf of the Dead?

I think numerous people close to the Grateful Dead started making phone calls as soon as the auditions became a reality. By the same token, the same people calling keyboard players were also calling the key people in the Grateful Dead organization, whom I have dubbed "the hiring committee," to pitch their various candidates. Ian McLagan's reference to Chesley Millikin is our only hint to this. Millikin was definitely a well respected member of the family, and he could have made a good case for McLagan on the grounds of all his great recordings, which Garcia and the rest of the band would have known about.

I think a Grateful Dead insider called Merl, but even if Merl had returned the call, that insider would have to persuade the hiring committee to audition Merl, so Merl may have preferred not to face rejection. This is a common scenario for all senior level hirings, where a senior outsider knows they have no real chance despite a few supporters inside.

In Hollywood it's considered bad form to say what films you turned down, and I'm sure it's the same in the music industry. But a lot of keyboard players must have gotten calls, some of whom turned them down, and others of whom never got past "the committee." If Grateful Dead documents ever indicated some of these suggestions, refusals and rejections we would learn a lot about the Grateful Dead as an institution.
Ian McLagan's most recent album, Never Say Never

40 comments:

  1. A very interesting post!
    You would think the Dead's search for a keyboardist in 1990 wouldn't be so shrouded in secrecy, but apparently it was a hasty process.

    By the way, Jackson & McNally say that the Dead also auditioned Tim Gorman. He had played with Paul Kantner's band & the Jefferson Airplane reunion in '89, so he would have been known within Dead circles.

    I have to point out what I think is one huge error in your assumptions. You state that the "hiring committee" within the Dead would NOT have included Garcia; perhaps based on his non-involvement with Garcia Band hiring?

    And yet, throughout the Dead's history, Garcia had been absolutely key in getting ALL their keyboard players - every one of them was chosen by him. The Warlocks started as a collaboration between Garcia & Pigpen - Tom Constanten has said that it was Garcia who invited him to join the Dead after the Anthem sessions - it was Garcia who was approached by Keith, first jammed with him, and told the rest of the Dead that this was the guy - and it was Garcia who told Weir to contact Brent from Weir's solo band & send him some Dead tapes to see if he was interested.
    Granted, Garcia may have been less involved in 1990 - but he was the one who talked to Lesh about pursuing Bruce Hornsby (who'd already played with the Dead a few times). In fact, Garcia had specifically called Bruce as early as December '89 (when Brent had another OD)! Hornsby's said that it was Garcia, Lesh, and GD road manager Cameron Sears who came and talked to him about playing with them.
    That does not sound like Garcia was standing idly by, waiting for others to choose!
    In short, generally speaking, Garcia WAS directly involved in finding Dead keyboardists - he was the "hiring manager," so to speak.
    So, while we don't know how the Dead made their audition decisions in August '90, it's reckless to assume that Garcia wasn't the main decision maker within the band. (Pete Sears' audition, as you hint, may have been Garcia's suggestion.)

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    1. Thanks to the site for talking about the keyboard situation after Brent passed away, and for your thoughtful response. I was on a camping trip when I heard about poor Brent and didn’t feel it would be cool to instantly contact the Dead about being considered for the keyboard slot. I returned home after about a week and spoke with Jerry who instructed the office to give me a large cardboard box full of live Dead tapes, albums and music books. Later Bob and Jerry came by my house in Mill Valley and sat by my grand piano while I played a bit. I had played with both of them before on various projects and the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Starship had played together, including on The Vietnam Veterans Benefit at the Moscone Center in SF. I sat in on bass for the last two songs of the Dead’s set that night, while Phil went up to the front of the stage.
      Back to Jerry and Bob at my house, they said they were happy with what I was playing, and we should get to the singing part. Although I had been a professional musician starting in 1964 in England, and 1969 in the USA, first playing piano with Jerry and Bob on a KSAN broadcast in 1970. I had just finished playing piano on “Every Picture Tells a Story” for Rod Stewart and touring the USA in 1971 on bass with Long John Baldry Blues Band, when I had a phone conversation with Jerry from a call box on the road. He asked me to play piano on his first solo album, but I was unable to due to my commitment's with John Baldry. However, in my whole career, singing had never been something I related to, and I wasn’t very good at it. I tried, but I didn’t feel strong enough to do the parts justice. They called me out to play with the band at Front Street and when it got to Playing in the Band I couldn’t handle the high strong vocal part well enough, I knew it wasn’t really working. As I left the room I saw Vince sitting waiting for his turn. We exchanged pleasantries and I went outside and hung out with Bob Hunter sitting on the pavement with our backs to the sliding door. I felt Vince was the right choice at the time because he was a strong singer and a good piano player. I later visited Jerry and Parish in his tent on stage and noticed Vince playing B3 off to the side while Bruce played a giant grand piano on the front of the stage. A few days later I talked to Jerry by phone and he told me I had been the number two choice, with several newspapers printing the same thing. I later took an intensive course of vocal lessons, so I sometimes sing a bit with the David Nelson Band now. I think Bill Krautzman talks a bit about my Front Street audition with the Dead in his book.
      Water under the bridge.

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    2. Sorry, I didn’t mean to post my Dead tryout bit as Anonymous…cool site. All the best,
      Pete Sears

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    3. Pete, thanks for taking the time to fill us in with an eyewitness account. You've continued to make great music with Hot Tuna and the DNB in any case. All the on-the-scene reports much appreciated.

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    4. No one has ever asked me, Vince's wife, about his audition.....it was my friend Sheila Jones who called the morning after Brent died...she asked.me had I heard.about Nrent"s passing and at that very moment it hit me
      ...Vince was perfect for that band!.I called my friend and ex-Tubes secretary Mimi Mills who was working for Barbara Whitestone doing some bookkeeping for Bob Weir....I told her if she got Vince an audition that I would take her shopping in N,Y.C....there is mote to it and plenty of people.who like to tell their story.of getting him the sudtion. But it was Sheils and Mimi and I who helped that happen, but it was Vince who had a successful sudition...mYbe someday I will.share all of it. Hope this helps some to understand..
      .

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  2. continued...

    As it turned out, after the Dead's offer Hornsby decided to help them out for a couple tours, just 'sitting in' while keeping his own career going, so the Dead still had to find an additional permanent keyboardist. They knew before the auditions, though, that Bruce would be joining many of the fall '90 shows.
    As far as the selection process for the auditions, I can't add much - but we do know who brought up Vince.
    According to Jackson: "Mimi Mills, former secretary for the Tubes who was working for Bob Weir in 1990, suggested to Laurie Welnick [Vince's wife] that Vince should try for the slot."
    According to a Welnick interview: "This friend of my wife Laurie...called Laurie up and said, 'Oh my god, Brent Mydland died and the band has got a tour up in September and Vince needs to be in this band.' Laurie found out that the Tubes' old secretary, Mimi Mills was now working for Bob Weir, so she contacted Mimi and she said that they were auditioning people. I said, that's nonsense, they've got lots of friends that play. Why don't they just yank one of those people and get them in the band? And she said, no, they are looking for somebody who could sing the high harmonies and that Bruce Hornsby was coming in, but just part-time. They needed someone to play synthesizer and sing all the harmonies and eventually take over all the piano when Bruce left."
    That sounds like the most tenuous of personal connections, and yet it was enough! Apparently anyone was free to make suggestions to the band... In this case the chain went from Vince -> his wife Laurie -> former Tubes secretary Mimi Mills -> Bob Weir, ready to listen to anybody.

    The Dead were in a hurry in August '90. Brent had died on July 26, and their upcoming tour started on September 7. It seems they announced the day after Brent's death that the fall tour would go on! As Phil wrote, "Our overhead was piling up on us... We had no time to absorb our loss, and so we were forced to hire a new keyboard player quickly, and get back on the road as previously planned. Auditions were schedules; candidates were screened... The auditions were a rushed affair, as the tour was looming..."
    Jackson writes, "Each [candidate] was sent tapes of a half-dozen recent shows and then asked to come down to Club Front to see how they fit in musically with the Dead. This process took longer than anticipated, so the band had to cancel some scheduled shows at Shoreline Ampitheatre."
    Vince confirms that the candidates were sent Dead tapes first to listen to before their audition: "They sent me some tapes and I started practicing on my piano at home. I went to the audition and played and [then] waited around..."
    McNally has a sour view of the auditions: "The Dead had no energy for the process, and after listening to 3 or 4 players...they settled on the first player who seemed able to cover the keyboard parts and high harmonies... The swiftness of his selection did neither Vince nor the Dead any good at all."
    Jackson says that the band made their decision near the end of August. Vince had to wait a while after his audition to find out anything: "Several people had auditioned and a long time had passed and I started to wonder if they had just given it up and maybe didn't bother to tell me. Then I get a call and it's Bob Weir on the phone and he says, 'Is your insurance paid up?'"
    Apparently Vince had about ten days left to learn the songs before the first show...

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    1. Ahhhh, nope. At the time Vince and Laurie were friends of mine and due to financial problems they were actually about to lose their house (“The Wah-Hoo” ranch in Sebastopol Ca. in foreclosure and it was I That told Vince and Laurie that the Dead’s keyboardist Had died, told them that the Dead was having auditions for a replacement, gave him the contact info, bugged him to call the number to audition and actually go to to the damn audition. He didn’t like the Deads music, he didn’t want to audition for it, I literally told him it’s a chance to save your house, your stupid if you don’t try at least. Soon, Laurie pushed him as well... we had to push him hard. When he left to go to the audition, we went to the store so we could make margaritas, got buzzed And waited for Vince to call...He did and said he got it, we all screamed, then told him to come home we had margaritas! Haha He went in blind, he didn’t know any of their shit. He didn’t want to, again he was forced and that’s the truth. House was saved, money was earned and learned that the fucking Dead had creepy rules like they decide who memebers can be friends with etc. So, shortly after he was signed I was told that they told him he wasn’t allowed to be my friend anymore and Vince said give it time and I’ll take care of it.....never happened. The Greatful Dead were fucking evil in my book and in my opinion, they caused his death.

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  3. LIA, thanks for the great quotes and observations. Of course, Jerry Garcia was a critical decision maker for the final choice of the keyboard player. Institutionally, however, what I called the "hiring committee," which might also be called a "search committee," would have been as much concerned with scheduling as music. I just don't see Jerry in 1990 sitting around discussing whether T. Lavitz should be on Wednesday and Pete Sears on Friday, or vice versa.

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    1. He got the gig, because Jerry genuinely liked him, period dot.

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  4. It's very interesting to hear that the connection to Vince was Bob Weir's secretary.

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  5. "I just don't see Jerry in 1990 sitting around discussing whether T. Lavitz should be on Wednesday and Pete Sears on Friday..."

    Perhaps not. Of course, Jerry had to come to auditions too! If they had a total of, say, four auditions, it's not like schedule discussions would have been prolonged.

    And he was not a busy guy that month... the JGB played a mere 4 shows in August '90, from Aug 5-9.
    Surprisingly, after Jerry played the Greek Theatre on Aug 5, he went over to the Concord Pavilion to sit in at Bruce Hornsby's show! It's possible this is the show where he came to talk to Hornsby about the Dead.

    And we have Jerry's word that he still went to business meetings at this time. From 1991: "We don't actually have managers and stuff like that. We really manage ourselves. The band is the board of directors, and we have regular meetings with our lawyers and our accountants, and we've got it down to where it only takes about 3 or 4 hours, about every 3 weeks. The last couple times, I've been [complaining to the band, etc]."

    We'd probably be startled to hear the things Jerry discussed at these meetings. McNally gave an outline of a business meeting from 1984 where Jerry offered his opinions on bootleg t-shirt policies, movie song rights, Red Rocks restructuring, tour scheduling, the choice of opening band, etc.
    So there was a "business Jerry" too...

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  6. I've often wondered how well acquainted the Dead and Vince were before these auditions. Always guessed that they must have crossed paths over the years.
    I just recently read that the Tubes were the house band for the Jane Dornacker Tribute Concert at the Warfield. Anyone know if Vince was in the house that night and if so did he share the stage with any members of the Dead?

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  7. They did not cross paths; I'm not sure if the band had ever seen Vince before. I never realized til now that Jerry, Bob & Mickey had played a few songs at the Jane Dornacker benefit on 11/22/86, where Todd Rundgren & the Tubes also played.
    Vince said once, "I never met Brent, never even saw the band with him in it." He apparently had little idea what the Dead were up to in 1990.
    Though he'd seen the Dead back in 1970, and knew their '60s albums, he was unfamilar with all their songs since then. "I was into all of their '60s stuff... In the '70s, when the Tubes started playing...all I heard of the Dead was what got on the radio."
    "There was a lot more diversity than I expected, because after the '60s I was off with the Tubes and I lost track of what was going on with a lot of bands. So I was amazed at the wealth of wonderful material."
    To get up to speed & learn the parts, he mainly listened to recent shows with Brent that the band gave him. He mentioned, "I know very little about what Keith played."

    This is one Welnick interview:
    http://digitalinterviews.com/digitalinterviews/views/welnick.shtml
    He talks a bit about the audition, which gives some insight into the Dead's method:
    "They threw a few songs at me, and I requested a few songs. I did about eight songs...Row Jimmy Row & stuff that had multiple harmonies, to see how I could blend. Then they threw in a little bit of Estimated Prophet, to see how I could play in seven time. They said later on they played back the tape, and I was the only one that didn't lose it during the seven jam, that I actually kept the beat."

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  8. "there was a "business Jerry" too"

    That tickles me, and strikes me as right and interesting and worth thinking more about.

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  9. I would have loved to see Bill Payne play with the Dead. He is certainty one of the most talented rock keyboardists of our time.

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  10. I was just wondering about how the audition process worked, and a search led me to this page. Thanks for a great post!

    Have you thought about interviewing Bob or Phil on the topic? Maybe by now enough water is under the bridge that they might be ready to fill in some of the details.

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  11. There's a Joel Selvin article quoted here: http://www.kazart.com/bus_stop/scrapbk1.htm

    It's the next-to-last article on the page. Here's the key bit:

    Welnick was one of only a handful of people to try out for the position left open when Brent Mydland, the band's keyboardist for the past 11 years, died from a drug overdose last month. Among the half dozen keyboardists considered for the post were Pete Sears, formerly of the Jefferson Starship, Tim Gorman, who has toured with the Who, and T. Lavitz of the Dixie Dregs.

    "They wanted that high (vocal) harmony, and I don't have that kind of that going for me," said Sears.

    Candidates were given tapes of six dead concerts containing more than 80 songs and then invited to informal sessions with the assembled Dead.

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  12. This article says the rehearsals all took place on one day:

    http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Vince-Welnick-lived-the-dream-playing-music-with-2493868.php

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  13. Again, thanks for a great article that covers almost all the information that my web searches found. It's really striking to me how Bob said that they rushed into it with the first guy who could play keys well and sing the high harmonies!

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  14. Too bad they didn't get Garth Hudson

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  15. nicky Hopkins might have been a good choice but the GD needed another singer

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  16. Ian McLagan (May 12 '45-Dec 3 '14). As the Rolling Stones tweeted, he will rock whatever house chooses to be in.

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  17. Bill Kreutzmann in his new book talks a little about the auditions. He doesn't recall how Vince was invited - "We had only considered a handful of folks, most of whom came to us by some form of serendipity." The only ones he mentions are Pete Sears & T. Lavitz (and he seems to regret that they passed on Sears).
    "Out of all of them, Vince Welnick was easily my least favorite... I just thought he was lackluster... His playing style was understated. Surprisingly, that's what Jerry seemed to like the most about him... At the time of Vince's audition, the band was attracted to his abilities to hit the high harmonies, and he was certainly an adequate keyboard player, so he got the job. It was the path of least resistance. Vince got voted in by default...
    By the time he came to audition for us in August 1990, he was flat broke and desperate for work. Perhaps that played into the decision to hire him, too. He said that if he didn't get the gig, he was going to have to go down to Mexico and smuggle bricks across the border...
    The truth is, Bruce Hornsby was our first choice. Before we held auditions, we asked him to joined the band. Bruce didn't need an audition. We wanted him. He turned us down." (Deal, p.303-305)

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  18. In retrospect it seems strange that they didn't consider bringing in a backup singer and picking the keyboard player not based on his/her ability to sing backing vocals

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    1. One of my abstract points was that once a Hiring Committee has a brief--in this case, "keyboard player who can sing harmony"--they can't deviate. No one, particularly no one named Jerry, stopped the train and said "let's get the right keyboard player and then hire a backup singer(s)."

      It could have happened, but it didn't

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    2. From an institutional point of view (for those readers interested in the process of collective decision making), the Dead would have had to "Fail the search" and start over.

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    3. Very skillful play can result in redefinition of the position, but it can be tough, because there can be *reasons* that things are spelled out the way they are.

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    4. By Fall '90, the Grateful Dead had been an institution, in every sense of the word, for over 25 years. They not only had a hierarchy and established practices, they had specific upcoming obligations (a tour) that had to be met. Not meeting those obligations would have caused a huge institutional upheaval.

      If the institutional solution was "a keyboard player who sings harmonies," since Bruce Hornsby wouldn't sign on, the answer was Vince Welnick. If the institutional solution had been "a full-member keyboard player and a hired singer," the solution might have been Pete Sears and a backup singer (Diana Mangano etc).

      The approach defined at the beginning of the process usually forces a narrower set of possible results, even if the decision looks different in hindsight.

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  19. As you know, you are speaking my language. My only pushback is that institutions aren't totally constraining - they are partly endogenous, as a general matter. Not saying that would come into play in the situation we are discussing, and indeed, in hindsight, it didn't!

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  20. Some interesting info in an interview with Vince welnick by Toni brown in February 1991.
    "Were you approached by the dead? ( relix)
    They didn't approach me, I approached them .....my wife called Mimi mills......put me in touch with bobby and he said, " Bruce Hornsby is in the band now, and we want a synth player who can sing high harmony" which I can do. So they said they were auditioning. There was one guy I thought was going to get it, Tim Gorman. He just toured in Japan as the Tim Gorman band,so he had his own thing going,but perhaps my focalization helped because I was pretty strong in high harmonies."
    I personally think it was merl Saunders gig if he had wanted it but he didn't want the lifestyle,I'll dig up some supporting interviews with merl when I get a chance.


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  21. Another interview from March 91 in Keyboard mag, some interesting additions, excerpts.....I was selling my house and my real estate agent told me about Brent's death.....so I checked out what Brent's gear was, and then I met Bob bralove and Jerry (Garcia) that's when I realized that these were real people , and that this could be a family kind of thing. I was totally sold at that point. It was nothing about money,I just wanted to do it, so I tried out. I practised at least an hour a day (laughs). Bra love would give me tapes with maybe ten recent live cuts and tell me to check them out. I also had the cd's (the band gave him a CD player as he didn't have one) but they preferred that I listen to the taped jams to get the gist of the way they play nowadays. "
    I saw Ian malagueña playing with bills bragg at a folk festival doing woody Guthrie songs in mid to late 1990's.

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  22. Merl Saunders said this in an interview about Brent's death....."as soon as Brent died ,I started getting so many phone calls from all over the world that I just took the phone off the hook for a while. These messages would be on my service.'please join the band' everybody was pointing the finger straight to me. And,you know,the offer was there from the band too, although nobody picked up the phone and actually offered me the gig. They don't do it like that. " i thought about joining them" he admits, " I've listened to the dead over the last 20'years,and respect and love what they do. But I like my lifestyle.im very happy with what I do now. I never would have written the rainforest album,for example, if I had been with the grateful dead." Can deadheads look forward to him crossing paths now and again in the future? "Oh yeah, he smiles "they know I don't want to stay with them. But they also know that if they need me,ill be there."

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  23. Another interesting paths crossed welnick/ dead is that Robert Hunter in a mar ch 1988 interview from blairs going down the road book says that he has been listening to Nina Hagen and likes her (99 luft balloons one of her more famous songs)
    She of course covered the tubes song white punks on dope which I'm sure Hunter must have heard.
    TV-Glotzer" is a song by Nina Hagen Band, first released in 1978 by CBS Records and later, on August 29, 1979 released in United Kingdom. The song is a cover of "White Punks On Dope" by The Tubes, with different German lyrics from the perspective of an East German unable to leave her country, who escapes by watching West German television, where "everything is so colorful". Hagen wrote the song before being expatriated from East Germany in 1976, following her stepfather Wolf Biermann. Later, when she formed the Nina Hagen Band in the West Berlin, they recorded the song and it became the lead single from their debut album Nina Hagen Band (1978).

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    1. "99 luft ballons" is a song by NENA, not Nina Hagen.

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  24. Years late here...but, Sears played on some early Rod Stewart records. He may have been part of the connection to McLagan.

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    1. These threads never end---McLagan says in his book that Chesley Millikin called him. Mac never followed up so we'll never know.

      I'm sure Sears knew McLagan, but the oddity would be that I'll bet they rarely played together (both played keyboards). I realize Sears was a fine bass player, too, but I can't think of a session where he crossed over.

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  25. Hot update: on Relisten the fm broadcast of aug 21,93 at autzen stadium - it was a beautiful day!- there is an interview with Vince welnick who is asked about the audition - says he was the only guy to keep time in estimated prophet. Etc.

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  26. hi author and commentors - great thread although i do not see one missing piece - his name is dave pellicciaro - https://www.luckydevilsound.com/about - please have the author contact him directly for the story - he mentioned the audition with the grateful dead on his site - i met dave once, in seattle around 1991, when he was playing in a band called "tough mama" with scott law - great keyboardist - he told me his audition story when randomly we met buying sunglasses at the old REI location - if i remember correctly, one of bobby's friends on his flag football team knew dave and recommended him to bobby - dave told me about going to the audition at the san rafael facility, hell's angels, meeting the band, how loud they were (especially jerry) and i think they played estimated prophet - apparently dave's playing was great, but he didn't have the vocals they were looking for - (i heard the same about melvin seals) - great story, great guy, wish brent was still alive - hope this helps!

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