Merl Saunders: Late 60s Highlights (Stairway To Jerry)

Soul Grooving, by the Merl Saunders Trio and Big Band, released on Galaxy Records in 1968

Merl Saunders (1934-2008) is now well-known for his famous association with Jerry Garcia, playing with Garcia and other members of the Dead in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Once Saunders became part of the extended Garciaverse, Deadheads kept track of his musical doings. But Merl Saunders had an extensive career prior to Garcia. He would occasionally allude to it, but most interviewers wanted to turn the story back to Jerry, so all we got were bits and pieces. I am trying to put together Merl Saunders' pre-Jerry arc here, so we can see the components of Saunders music before the inflection point.

Merl Saunders, born Merl Washington, was San Francisco born and raised. I don't know exactly where he lived, but I'm pretty sure it was in the Haight-Ashbury or the Western Addition (which included the Fillmore district). Saunders went to San Francisco Polytechnic High ("Poly"), which was at 710 Frederick Street, just across from Kezar Stadium. All we really know is that Saunders had a band in high school, because he was the first one to offer singer Johnny Mathis a gig (Mathis went to Washington High, but I think they knew each other from sports). [update: Fellow scholar and regular Commenter Bill sends over an interview he did with Merl on KZFR-fm in Chico in 1999: Merl's high school band in the late 40s was called the Educated Men Of Music. It included singers Jean Turner (later with Stan Kenton) and Mathis, plus flute player Freddie Gene Smith (later with Smokey Robinson].[update II: fellow scholar JGMF reports that Mathis lived a few blocks from the Saunders family in the Haight-Ashbury].

Saunders was in the US Air Force from 1953 to 1957. Since getting drafted was all but inevitable, a four-year hitch often let the recruit choose his specialization, instead of just being a grunt. Since the US had a true citizen army in the 50s, I wouldn't be surprised if Merl spent much of his Army time playing music (certainly Mickey Hart did that in the US Air Force)[update: the KZFR interview confirms that Merl mainly played music in the Service]. After the Air Force, Saunders seems to have become a musical professional. I know that Saunders was a postman in San Francisco at some point, perhaps the early 60s, but many aspiring musicians (ok, well, not Jerry Garcia) take regular day jobs when they have to.

Since Saunders was an organ player, he most likely played more extended gigs at various places, rather than one-nighters. It's hard to lug a Hammond organ around, and it makes more sense to leave it in one place for a week or more. Organ trios were a distinctly African-American musical style from the late 50s onwards, based on the style of the great Jimmy Smith [update: the KZFR interview confirms that Merl toured organ lounges coast-to-coast on the "Chitlin Circuit." He hung out and played a little with Jimmy Smith as well].

There was a circuit of those kinds of clubs around the Bay Area back then, like Jack's (at 1601 Fillmore, across from the Fillmore Auditorium) or Minnie's-Can-Do Club (at 1915 Fillmore) in the Fillmore. Jack's, originally Jack's Tavern, and later Jack's On Sutter (it was at 1931 Sutter), had been one of the first and most important jazz clubs in the Fillmore district back in the 1940s. One of the house bands at Jack's was led by Saunders King, whose presence was so powerful that young Merl Washington changed his stage name to Merl Saunders. It had to be a kick for Merl to play Jack's himself, even if the club had moved to the new location at Fillmore Street (which is now The Boom Boom Room).

There was a circuit of other organ clubs around the Bay Area, too, like the Keyhole in South San Francisco (later the Monte Carlo), the Continental Club in Oakland, and various other now forgotten places. At some point, Saunders got to touring around outside of Northern California, but the exact art can only be discerned in glimpses.

An article in the October 18, 1967 Oakland Tribune notes a performance by Merl Saunders at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco

In the October 18, 1967 Oakland Tribune, jazz critic Russ Wilson gave a good review of the Merl Saunders Trio's appearance at San Francisco's Jazz Workshop. The trio included Jimmy Daniels on guitar and drummer Eddie Moore. Moore was Merl Saunders' first cousin. From the description, it sounds like the trio was a quality band, but pretty much in the typical groove of organ trios of the time, jazzing up popular songs.

Wilson mentions some of the bookings for the Saunders Trio, including The Trident in Sausalito, Harvey's Wagon Wheel in Lake Tahoe, Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas and a gig in Chicago. So Saunders was definitely getting around by this time.

Russ Wilson reviewed the Merl Saunders Trio appearance at The Trident in the May 24, 1968 Oakland Tribune. Saunders was filling in for Vince Guaraldi

May 21-June 9, 1968 The Trident, Sausalito, CA: Merl Saunders Trio
Sausalito was once a fishing village on the opposite side of the bay from San Francisco. Ultimately it became a Ferry terminus to the North Pacific Coast Railroad. However, when the Golden Gate Bridge opened in 1937, Sausalito's waterfront declined rapidly. Sausalito had always had a colorful history, with bootleggers, rum runners and bordellos, and that aspect of the community was ascendant for some years. By the 1960s, however, the seedy history of Sausalito had made it a desirable bohemian enclave.

The Trident was owned by one Frank Werber, who had made a fair amount of money as the producer of The Kingston Trio. Under his Trident Productions banner, he produced a variety of other acts as well. In the mid-60s, he dipped his toes in the folk-rock waters, signing and producing Bay Area acts like Blackburn & Snow and The Sons Of Champlin.  In 1966, Werber and the Kingston Trio opened up The Trident Restaurant on the water (at 558 Bridgewater), which also regularly featured jazz. It instantly became the in place for upscale downsiders and downscalers with an upside.

In 1967 Frank Werber gave up the record business, a rare man who took his money out of the biz before he lost it. He kept The Trident, however. As the San Francisco bohemian underground became rock and roll royalty, The Trident was a main hangout for record company people, Bill Graham, rock stars, film stars and other cool people. The Trident was famous for having spectacularly beautiful waitresses, all reputedly braless. The Trident also booked jazz five or six nights a week, an interesting paradox in a club that celebrated the rock and roll life. Nonetheless, the quality of jazz performers at The Trident was uniformly high, whether local performers or recruited from out of town.

According to Russ Wilson's review in the Oakland Tribune, the Merl Saunders Trio was engaged when, per Wilson, "oddly enough... pianist Vince Guaraldi sprained a finger Saturday night getting off an airplane, and notified the club he couldn't keep his booking for the following Tuesday, according to club manager Lou Ganapoler" (Vince Guaraldi scholars take note). The peculiar tone of Wilson's explanation suggests that there was more to Guaraldi's sprained finger than he is saying, but no matter: Merl and his trio were on board. Apparently Saunders had filled in for a few days the previous year (1967) when another headliner had been unable to make it, so they weren't a complete unknown to The Trident.

Wilson names a few songs that the Saunders trio played, such as "Up, Up And Away," "You Better Love Me," "Little Bird" and "Sometimes I'm Happy." Wilson praises Saunders as "an organist who knows his stops as well as his keyboards, and who builds on this foundation with musicality, taste and a strong ability to swing..."[Saunders] perceptive use of these basics often makes his output superior to that of widely known jazz organists." The critic does add that "there are times when Saunders and his cohorts fall into a dismal swamp, as they did with the current pop tune "Up, Up And Away." These two points fairly sum up Saunders ability as a keyboard player: he is versatile, sticks to the basic and knows how to swing, while sometimes falling into unneeded noodling.

It is interesting also to read Wilson's comments about guitarist Jimmy Daniels. He says "on appropriate numbers he utilizes a blues vibrato that gets into the nitty-gritty and on ballads he plays with a full melodic sound that enhances the tune." A few years later, Saunders would play with another guitarist who would utilize even more blues vibrato and play with a full melodic sound, as well.  It is interesting to see that Merl Saunders's sound was well established prior to playing with Jerry Garcia and John Kahn in 1970.

From Russ Wilson's July 28, 1968 column in the Oakland Tribune

This brief listing in Russ Wilson's Jazz column in the Oakland Tribune of July 28, 1968, gives an insight into Saunders true breadth, and serves as a reminder to one of the forgotten markets of sixties music. The notice says

Organist Merl Saunders' trio is on a Far Eastern tour that has included Bangkok, Manila and Tokyo, where the group now is playing club and TV engagements.

While I would love to know more about this tour, it's a reminder that up to 500,000 American soldiers were in Vietnam, which meant that at any given time a lot of soldiers were in Manila, Bangkok and Tokyo. The perennial presence of American soldiers had in turn given Asian nations a taste of American music,  too, so there were many opportunities to tour Asia. Many groups toured Vietnam, too, under some quite weird conditions (for example, rock bands were always told not to play The Animals song "We've Gotta Get Out Of This Place").

Merl Saunders was interviewed many times, but of course almost all those interviews were Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, so I don't recall ever hearing about a Far Eastern tour. Whether Merl's trio played venues that attracted servicemen, locals or both, it had to be an odd experience to play American music in Asia at the height of the Cold War. Saunders himself was a veteran, so that too may have added a different perspective. It certainly puts playing the Keystone Berkeley for a bunch of hippies in a different light.

An ad for Meile Saunders Trio (sic) at the EXIT in Palo Alto, from the January 24, 1969 Stanford Daily

January 24-25, 1969 the Exit, Palo Alto, CA: Smoke/Merle Saunders Trio

By 1969, Palo Alto actually had a groovy little rock scene downtown. But it wasn't much of a jazz town. In the January 24, 1969 Stanford Daily there is an ad for an apparently new club called the EXIT. There had been a juke joint over the county line in East Palo Alto called The Exit Inn, but I don't know if they played organ music. In any case, Exit is a typical sort of hipster club name, and may have had no connection to the East Palo Alto place. 3489 El Camino Real was way south of downtown, not far from a lengthy strip of motels. So there would have been plenty of potential patrons, but it wasn't any part of the downtown bohemian scene that had been pioneered by young folkies like Jerry Garcia.

Although I don't know when Merl's Soul Grooving album had been released, it was sometime in 1968. In 1968, just having an album, even if no one had really heard it, was an important credential for a working jazz musician. Galaxy Records was a subsidiary of Fantasy Records, apparently created for musicians who were in the union. In the 60s, Fantasy Studios were in Oakland, on 30th Street and Peralta, near the Emeryville border. Creedence Clearwater recorded their early, famous albums there, and Merl became friends with the band. Thus when Tom Fogerty left Creedence in late 1970, he was already friendly with Merl, so it was a natural fit to join Jerry Garcia, Merl and John Kahn in their casual pickup band.

The cover of Soul Grooving is also the only photo I have seen of Merl prior to meeting Jerry. Merl has said he went from being a snappy looking dude in a suit to a casual guy with a beard and tennis shoes, just one of the many ways that Garcia influenced Saunders.

The Playbill for "Big Time Buck White," starring Muhammad Ali, with Merl Saunders as musical director. The show lasted a week.

November 15-December 6, 1969 George Abbott Theater, 152 W. 54th St, New York, NY

"Big Time Buck White"

First Preview: November 15, 1969 (16 preview performances)

Performances: December 2-6, 1969 (5 performances)

"Big Time Buck White" was a musical about a black labor organizer. Based on a play by Joseph Dolan Tuotti, it had been adapted as a musical by Oscar Brown, Jr. Although I don't know the exact origins of the show, Brown had starred in a San Francisco production for quite some time, at The Commitee Theater on 836 Montgomery, starting about February, 1969. At some point, Merl Saunders had become the musical director of the San Francisco production[update: JGMF sent over some remarkably detailed information, and Saunders seems to have been the musical director of the SF production from its beginning in February '69].

When the production moved to "Off-Broadway" in New York, however, it had a new star: none other than Muhammad Ali. Ali was banned from boxing at the time, so he tried his hands at, of all things, musical theater. Per the New York Times review, Ali had a real stage presence, and wasn't a bad singer.

The musicians roster from the 1969 Playbill for "Big Time Buck White." Merl Saunders played organ and piano and led the 10-piece band. Billy Cobham was the drummer.

I don't know whether Merl Saunders had played New York before, but what a way to debut. Saunders led a 10-piece band. The most memorable name was none other than Billy Cobham on drums.

Nonetheless, the show closed quickly, after just a week. Sometime shortly after that, Merl Saunders opened for Miles Davis for a week or two at a Manhattan jazz club--I think the Village Vanguard. Most likely, it was the same band from the show. Since "Buck White" closed quickly, and the band was in New York anyway, it made sense for them to play a club. When they were rehearsing one afternoon, Miles came by and listened, and apparently briefly sat in, a benediction for any musician

There isn't a Miles Davis concert history online, surprisingly, but I know Miles was touring in Europe in November and recording in Manhattan in December, so the timeline fits.

The debut album by Danny Cox, released in 1971 on ABC/Dunhill Records, produced by Nick Gravenites. Musicians on the album include Merl Saunders, John Kahn, Bill Vitt, Chepito Areas and the Tower Of Power horns.

By 1970, Merl Saunders was back in San Francisco. He was writing and recording "jingles for cigarette commercials" (his description) and playing some organ gigs around town. Thanks to the Fillmore rock explosion, however, San Francisco had a thriving recording studio team. Record companies were not only signing the local bands, they were sending in players from out of town to catch some of the vibe. One of the new producers was Nick Gravenites, songwriter, former lead singer of the Electric Flag and general all-around character. ABC/Dunhill Records hired Gravenites to produce the debut album for Kansas City-based folksinger Danny Cox, and booked Wally Heider Studios.

In those days, producers often recorded a "demo" version of the album first, with just basic tracks, so the record company could see what they were getting. Gravenites had hired John Kahn to play bass, whom he knew well from working with Mike Bloomfield. Merl Saunders was hired to play organ. I think Kahn knew Merl from seeing him at places like Jack's. In any case, Gravenites probably knew Merl as well. Bill Vitt, another Gravenites regular, was on drums, and future Stonegrounder Tim Barnes was on lead guitar.

Kahn had a casual weeknight gig at The Matrix, playing bass with Vitt, organist Howard Wales and Jerry Garcia. Garcia was around Wally Heider Studios a lot in those days, working on albums with Paul Kantner and others. So that was how Garcia and Merl Saunders met, in the hallway at Wally Heider, while Merl and John were working on the Danny Cox album. When Howard Wales decided he didn't always want to show up to Matrix gigs, Kahn suggested calling Merl, and Jerry assented. And so it began.

Grateful Dead Performance List January-June 1968

I have been working on this list for my own purposes, so I thought I would post it. Since there is no longer a definitive list of Grateful Dead shows that is easily accessible online, I have decided to post my own lists for brief periods of time. I will include links to where I have information on some dates that are not widely known, but I will be minimizing discussion of individual performances. In Tour Itinerary posts I have talked about even shorter periods of time, with the intent of creating a narrative that describes the Grateful Dead's activity during that window. This post is more of a simple list, however, to use as an anchor for research. My plan is to keep these lists up to date on an ongoing basis. Please suggest any additions, corrections or reservations in the Comments. For other posts listing Grateful Dead performances, see the link here. This post will list Grateful Dead performance dates from January through June of 1968

January 17, 1968 Carousel Ballroom, San Francisco, CA: Grateful Dead/Quicksilver Messenger Service/Blue Cheer (Wed)
The major San Francisco bands felt that Bill Graham and Chet Helms were doing good business from their performances and the bands should make themselves the beneficiaries. Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service and The Grateful Dead formed a sort of collective that would rent the Carousel Ballroom and share the profits. Big Brother and The Holding Company were not part of the collective, but they were supportive. Janis Joplin, though on board, tellingly, said "I give you hippies six months." She called it almost to the day.

The Dead and their compatriots negotiated a foolishly ruinous agreement with Irish Ballroom operator Bill Fuller to operate the Carousel Ballroom, at 1545 Market Street (at Van Ness). The Carousel had been in operation in San Francisco for many years. Naively, the Dead and Quicksilver put on a Wednesday night show and then went on tour for the next few weeks. Any possible momentum from a grand opening was frittered away.

January 20, 1968 Eureka Municipal Auditorium, Eureka, CA: Grateful Dead/Quicksilver Messenger Service (Sat)
The Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service set out to conquer the Pacific Northwest. Eureka, CA, is far enough North that it is nearer to the Oregon border than San Francisco. Oddly enough, however, the band seems to have flown to Eureka, and presumably flown home. Its not clear to me whether the equipment flew home or was trucked up to Seattle. In any case, this was the Grateful Dead's first and only appearance in this part of California.

January 26-27, 1968 Eagles Auditorium, Seattle, WA: Grateful Dead/Quicksilver Messenger Service (Fri-Sun)
The Northwest tour began in earnest on the next weekend. The Grateful Dead had played Eagles Auditorium in July and September 1967. The Eagles Auditorium was at 1416 7th Avenue, at Union Street. It had been built in 1924 for The Fraternal Order Of The Eagles. By 1967, it had become Seattle's principal psychedelic ballroom (note: tapes labeled "Eagles January 22-23 '68" are clearly spuriously dated).

January 29, 1968 PSC College Center Ballroom, Portland State College, Portland, OR: Grateful Dead/Quicksilver Messenger Service/PH Phactor Jug Band (Mon)
With a week between relatively big weekend bookings in Seattle and Portland, the Quick and the Dead played some smaller college venues in Oregon. However small some of those college gigs may have been, the bands would have had the same expenses in any case. The Crystal Ballroom in Portland was the major venue, but it was too casually run to have (or to enforce) non-compete clauses at nearby places. The PH Phactor Jug Band, though not a major musical group, was a crucial fulcrum in the social network of Portland psychedelia.

At most American universities, a student organization was required to "sponsor" an event in order for a promoter to use the facilities. SDS (Students For A Democratic Society) was a radical Anti-War group, but most of the long-haired hippies were probably in it

January 30, 1968 EMU Ballroom, U. of Oregon, Eugene, OR: Grateful Dead/Quicksilver Messenger Service/PH Phactor Jug Band/Palace Meat Market (Tues)

Eugene was about 112 miles South of Portland, a quick two hours by freeway. Now, of course, we all think nothing of driving two hours to see rock bands we like, but that wasn't a likely scenario back then. Thus Eugene was a separate concert market than Portland. This show was the band's Eugene debut, a city where the band would go on to play many legendary shows. Palace Meat Market was a Portland folk-rock band.

February 2-3, 1968 Crystal Ballroom, Portland, OR: Grateful Dead/Quicksilver Messenger Service/PH Phactor Jug Band (Fri-Sat)
The Crystal Ballroom, at 1332 W. Burnside (at NW 14th), played a peculiar role in Portland rock history, as it was the highest profile venue in the city, but it was run on a shoestring basis. When the Crystal was functioning well, however, it provided some of the great memories of 60s Portland rock. When the Grateful Dead and Quicksilver tour hit the Crystal on a Friday and Saturday night, all the stars were aligned. After a few smaller shows at Portland State and U of O, hip Portland was primed for the shows at the Crystal.

According to Toody Conner, who was one of the volunteers who helped run the Crystal (per Tim Hills' book), there were lines around the block, and there was so much money in gate receipts that they had to borrow an equipment case to stuff it into, which she sat on during most of the show. The Crystal had had financial struggles throughout its entire existence as a psychedelic venue, but for this weekend, with the audience ready and the Dead firing on all cylinders--not to mention the formidable Quicksilver Messenger Service--everything happened the way it was supposed to, if only for a weekend.

We know how well the Grateful Dead played, too, because they taped it. Partial tapes of Dead sets from both nights circulate —the only live tapes I know of from The Crystal—and one track was released on a Grateful Dead vault cd in 2009 (“Dark Star” from 2/2/68, as a bonus track on Road Trips Vol. 2 No. 2: Carousel 2/14/68).

February 4, 1968 [gym], South Oregon College, Ashland, OR: Grateful Dead/Quicksilver Messenger Service (Sun)
The "Quick and The Dead" Northwest tour concluded with a Sunday night show in Ashland, OR at the Gymnasium of South Oregon College, 290 miles South of Portland. South Oregon College (today Southern Oregon University) had been founded in 1926. This was the Dead's only appearance in Southern Oregon, as their increasingly popularity in Oregon insured that they played the larger population centers around Portland the two largest State Universities for the rest of their career.

I assume the Dead and Quicksilver played McNeal Pavilion at 1250 Siskiyou Boulevard, since it was opened in 1957. The Pavilion was renovated in 1990, doubling its capacity to 1,400. Thus the Dead and Quicksilver played a tiny gym with 700 seats--and no doubt some people on the floor. Did they get to dance? No information or tape has ever surfaced about this interesting event, to my knowledge.

February 14, 1968 Carousel Ballroom, San Francisco, CA: Grateful Dead/Country Joe And The Fish (Wed)
The Grateful Dead returned to San Francisco to play one of their most famous shows. The band's second appearance at the Carousel also featured Country Joe And The Fish, and sets from both bands were broadcast live on KMPX-fm. This was the first live remote FM broadcast of a Grateful Dead concert, and later released in 2009 as Road Trips Vol. 2 #2. Parts of this show were also used for side two of Anthem Of The Sun, as were pieces of the Northwest tour that had just finished.

February 15, 1968 outside of San Quentin Prison, San Quentin, CA (Thurs daytime)
During this period, many rock musicians participated in ongoing protests against the Death Penalty on the grounds outside of San Quentin State Prison. San Quentin is on an isolated promontory of Marin County, just South of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. Some prison staff families live next to the prison itself, so there is a small park-like area. Protesters would bring a flatbed truck, and members of some rock bands would jam. Photos exist from this daytime event, and they show Jerry Garcia and bluesman Nick Gravenites on guitars, with Bob Weir playing bass.

February 16, 1968 Turlock Fairgrounds, Turlock, CA: Grateful Dead/Crystal Syphon (Fri)

The Grateful Dead played the Central Valley, starting out Friday night in tiny Turlock. Crystal Syphon was a local band, all of them friendly with Bob Weir's half-brother (not that any of them knew it at the time). The show (and the flyer) were recalled by Crystal Syphon and their friends (h/t JGMF for pointing this out).

February 17, 1968 Selland Arena, Fresno, CA: Grateful Dead/Country Joe and The Fish/Valley Fever (Sat)
The Grateful Dead played their first concert at Selland Arena, which had just opened. Valley Fever was a local band.

February 22-24, 1968 Kings Beach Bowl, North Lake Tahoe, CA: Grateful Dead/Morning Glory (Thur-Sat)
Lake Tahoe was a few hours East and North of San Francisco, and had been the City's Sierra playground since the turn of the century. From Memorial Day to Labor Day, the area was full of vacationing families, and in the 60s there was an active rock scene that has mostly been forgotten. The hippest venue, the Kings Beach Bowl in North Lake Tahoe, attempted a Winter encore of the summer scene. Although these shows were recorded, and later mostly released, the economics in the winter must have been different, since there were far fewer Tahoe rock events than in the Summer.

March 1-2, 1968 Clifford's Catering, Walnut Creek, CA: Grateful Dead/The Looking Glass (Fri-Sat)

Underground psychedelic rock had plenty of teenage fans in the suburbs, but the suburbs weren't quite ready for venues. One early effort was Clifford's Catering, in Walnut Creek, then a pretty sleepy community. For years this event was misidentified, but JGMF finally tracked down the whole story, including eyewitnesses and the flyer. 

March 3, 1968 Haight Street Fair, San Francisco, CA: Grateful Dead (Sun daytime)
The Haight-Asbury district had become more crowded and more dangerous since the Summer of Love, so the Grateful Dead moved out of 710 Ashbury. While the Haight was declining, however, 1968 saw the first Haight Street Fair, a free all-day event with bands that has been held regularly ever since. The Grateful Dead were refused a permit to perform, even though they lived there. No matter: they rented two flatbed trucks that drove up from different directions, blocked the street, and the band walked from their house onto the makeshift stage and let it rip for the 'hood. At concert's end, the band members vacated 710 Ashbury and did not return.

March 8-9, 1968 Melodyland Theater, Disneyland, Anaheim, CA: Jefferson Airplane/Grateful Dead (Fri and Sat early and late shows)
During this period, Disneyland held regular weekend rock concerts with popular bands for teenagers. Somehow the Dead got on the bill with the Jefferson Airplane for two nights of double shows. The show was billed as "Jefferson Airplane and Friends," and the friends were the Grateful Dead. Neither band was invited back.

Meanwhile, back at the Carousel, the last booking from before the Dead's takeover was completed. Amazingly, it was Buck Owens, who played the Carousel on March 9, 1968. Who in San Francisco--besides Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir--would have predicted that Buck would be one of the biggest influences on the Dead going forward? And--it goes without saying--all he had to do was act naturally.

March 11, 1968 Sacramento Civic Auditorium, Sacramento, CA: Cream/Grateful Dead (Mon)

The members of the Grateful Dead, like any other rock fans, were really excited by Cream. The Dead managed to get on the bill with them for a Monday night booking in Sacramento, just after the  stand at Winterland that was the basis for the live lp on Wheels Of Fire (and Jerry and Mickey, at least, saw Cream that week). It was a credit to the Dead that they did not shy away from sharing the bill with great bands, even when economic realities required them to open the show. The Dead were willing to share the stage with greatness, and had no qualms about any showbiz maxims about always trying to headline.

There are no tapes, but can you imagine? 1968 Dead opening for 1968 Cream? Holy moley.

March 15-16, 1968 Carousel Ballroom, San Francisco, CA: Jefferson Airplane/Grateful Dead (Fri-Sat)

March 17, 1968 Carousel Ballroom, San Francisco, CA: Grateful Dead/Blue Cheer
The Dead and the Airplane returned to The Carousel. Now, the groups were officially the leaseholders (as Headstone Productions). On Sunday night, the Airplane were replaced by Blue Cheer.  The Grateful Dead's set on March 17 was released in 2005 as Volume 6 of the Download Series. 

March 18, 1968 KMPX strike rally, outside 50 Green Street, San Francisco, CA (unclear)
The history of the Grateful Dead's possible performance at the KMPX strike is legendary, and so confusing that it is hard to say for certain exactly what transpired. I have written about it at length, based on information I had available at the time, and probably only succeeded in confusing the matter. So if you are interested in the truly fascinating subject of the KMPX strike, you should read the two best books on the subject, Hip Capitalism by Susan Kreiger (Sage Publications 1979) and Michael J. Kramer's Republic Of Rock (Oxford 2013). Everyone else will have to settle for my very basic summary.

KMPX-fm had started in San Francisco in early 1967, and it was the first free-form FM rock radio station, playing hip album cuts instead of Top 40 singles. It was an underground session, and was essential in making San Francisco the capital of the rock universe. By early 1968, however, the staff, led by programmer Tom Donahue, were angry that their rising station was still only paying subsistence wages. The KMPX staff went on strike at 3:00am on Monday, March 18, supported by all the San Francisco rock bands. Creedence Clearwater Revival, then not well-known, kicked off the strike at 3:05 am on the back of a flatbed truck outside the KMPX office at 50 Green Street (Krieger p.80, and also confirmed by John Fogerty). The Grateful Dead, who had appeared on the air a few hours earlier to encourage support for the striking djs, were scheduled to go on after Creedence. The police shut it down, and it has never been clear whether the Dead got in a few numbers before the shutdown. And don't ask eyewitnesses--Owsley was there, so the eyewitnesses have no idea who played or what happened. I tried to explain the sequence of events at one point, based on information I had at the time, but I'm pretty sure I got it wrong.

March 19, 1968 Lime Kiln, Big Sur, CA: Jim Stern and friends (with Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir) (Tues)
There was a Vernal Equinox event on March 22, 1968, attended by perhaps 3,000 hippies, which was far too many for Big Sur. The weekend had turned into a sort of wake for Neal Cassidy, who had died the month before. There were, however, low-key events leading up to the Equinox. Producer Jim Stern, then a local drummer, said in a Jake Feinberg interview that his band sort of freaked out and bailed on playing, and said that Garcia and Weir showed up in Big Sur to bail him out. This would have been a sort of jam, presumably with other players, and a sparsely attended thing. The exact date is unclear, but it would have been daytime (March 20 definitely a possibility, and March 21 not out of the question).

March 20, 1968 Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco, CA: KMPX strike benefit (Wed)

(Grateful Dead/Blue Cheer/Kaleidoscope/Jeremy Steig and The Satyrs/Charlie Musselwhite and Southside Sound System/Santana Blues Band/Frumious Bandersnatch/Clover)
Since KMPX was the hippest radio station, bands and fans came out to support it. A benefit concert was rapidly put together at the Avalon Ballroom. Since it was a Wednesday, the Avalon was available. According to Ralph Gleason, $2400 was raised. The concert featured The Grateful Dead along with the various other acts listed above.

The KMPX Benefit reminds us of how formative the San Francisco scene was for West Coast rock music as a whole. As far as "future rock stars" go, Kaleidoscope had David Lindley, Harvey Mandel fronted Charley Musselwhite's Southside (of Chicago) Sound System, the Santana Blues Band had both Carlos and Gregg Rolie, Frumious Bandersnatch had some guys who ended up in the Steve Miller Band, plus Journey's manager (Herbie "Sy Klopps" Herbert), and even Clover featured John McFee (who played on "Pride Of Cucamonga," Elvis Costello's My Aim Is True and is still a member of the Doobie Brothers). 

March 22, 1968 State Fair Coliseum, Detroit, MI: Eric Burdon And The Animals/Grateful Dead/Eire Apparent/The Apostles/Jagged Edge (Fri)
The Grateful Dead promptly flew off to Michigan for a weekend of shows. Russ Gibb was promoting shows at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit, having been inspired by a trip to San Francisco a few years earlier. This particular show was billed as "The Grande scene at the State Fair Coliseum." The poster says "Michigan Fairgrounds at Woodward and 8-Mile", for those of you young hipsters who recall the Eminem track.

Eric Burdon and The Animals were already friends from the previous year, an English band who had relocated to Los Angeles. Eire Apparent was an Irish band (formerly The People) who shared management with Burdon and Jimi Hendrix (they had an obscure-but-not-bad album produced by Hendrix). Apostles and Jagged Edge were Detroit bands who were regular at the Grande Ballroom.

Russ Gibb expected a huge crowd for The Dead and The Animals at the State Fair Coliseum, but in fact the crowds were disappointing. The second night's show (Saturday Mar 23) was moved back to the much smaller Grande Ballroom. There was also a blizzard coming, and Animals guitarist Vic Smith recalls that, like sensible Californians, the Dead flew back to San Francisco, leaving the Animals to headline the Grande without them. A Sunday. March 24 show with The Dead was scheduled for the Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids, MI, but of course the Dead were already back in California (the Animals and Eire Apparent, per Briggs, flew on to a Sunday night show at CNE Coliseum in Toronto).

March 23 or 24, 1968 50 Green Street, San Francisco: Traffic with Jerry Garcia
Meanwhile, back in San Francisco, Traffic was headlining two weekends at Fillmore and Winterland. Although Traffic had no hit single, they were played so much on KMPX-fm that they were a big attraction in the city. This was a profound change in the music industry. On the morning of either March 23 (Saturday) or March 24 (Sunday), Traffic played a free outdoor concert outside of the KMPX offices at 50 Green Street. Jerry Garcia showed up to jam. There's no tape, but there's no doubt, as I found some photos taken by an art student at the time.

I confess right now that I confused the timeline by both finding the photos and then dating them incorrectly to the previous weekend of the strike (March 18). I believe some of the photos were later used in a Traffic boxed set.

During this period, Dan Healy, Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh were probably spending a lot of time working on Anthem Of The Sun at Columbus Recorders, but that is outside of the scope of this post.

March 29-30-31, 1968 Carousel Ballroom, San Francisco, CA: Grateful Dead/Chuck Berry/Curley Cooke's Hurdy Gurdy Band (Fri-Sun)

The Dead headlined over the immortal Chuck Berry (1926-2017) for three nights. Because of rock 'n' roll orthodoxy at the time, headliners would not have backed an opening act, so Berry's backing band was almost certainly Curley Cooke's Hurdy Gurdy Band, mostly Wisconsin expats. Too bad. I mean--I'm sure Cooke's band did a great job, but it would have been more fun if Garcia and Weir had tried to work their way through "School Days" and "My Ding-A-Ling," And Chuck's penchant for not rehearsing, and just calling out the tunes and expecting the band to know them? It would have served Jerry right. 

April 3, 1968 Winterland, San Francisco, CA Superball KMPX Benefit (Wed)

Moby Grape/Electric Flag/Grateful Dead/Youngbloods/Mother Earth/Malachi
There was yet another KMPX benefit, this time on a Wednesday night at Winterland. The Dead probably played a relatively brief set, an hour or less. Ralph Gleason mentioned the billing in the Chronicle, but we don't really have details of the show.

April 12-13-14, 1968 Thee Image, Miami, FL: Grateful Dead/Blues Image (Fri-Sun)

April 14, 1968 Greynolds Park, Miami, FL: Grateful Dead/Blues Image (Sun afternoon free)

April 19-20-21, 1968 Thee Image, Miami, FL: Grateful Dead/Blues Image (Fri-Sun)

The Grateful Dead debuted in Florida with two weekends at Miami's Thee Image. They also attempted to remix Anthem Of The Sun at Miami's famed Criteria Studios. It's unclear to me if the Dead played the shows because they working at Criteria, or that the band was working at Criteria because they were booked in Miami. In any case, nothing much seems to have come from working at Criteria.

The South was slow to grab on to psychedelia, for any number of reasons, but Miami was and is both part of the South and yet somewhat independent of it. Thee Image was the first real psychedelic rock venue in the South that featured the same touring bands who played the Fillmores, and I have tried to tell the story elsewhere. Proprietor Marshall Brevetz became good friends with the Dead, and they played for him a number of other times, in Florida and later in Los Angeles.

For the very first weekend in Florida, however, the Dead did not apparently draw very well at Thee Image. They had their own solution, however. On Sunday, April 14, they played for free in Greynolds Park in Miami, an unprecedented event in Florida rock history. The Dead knew a thing or two about free concerts, and not only were the next weekend's Dead shows well attended, but Thee Image took to regularly presenting acts for free in the park.

April 26-27-28, 1968 Electric Factory, Philadelphia, PA: Grateful Dead (Fri-Sun)
After Miami, the Dead went on to debut in Philadelphia. There had been a number of stabs at psychedelic venues in Philadelphia, starting in early 1967, but the venue that really took root was The Electric Factory, at 2201 Arch Street. The Electric Factory debuted in February 1968, and the Grateful Dead played just a few months later. This was the beginning of a long and complex history of Grateful Dead performances for the Electric Factory in and near Philadelphia, which I have described at length.

April 30, 1968 The Cheetah, Santa Monica, CA: Grateful Dead (Tues-early and late shows)
Amazingly, the Dead seem to have flown back to California. The Cheetah was on the Navy Pier in Santa Monica. and it was modeled on the New York venue of the same name. It was open every night, but they didn't always have live bands. [update] The Dead played two shows at The Cheetah on Apr 30 '67, with The Yellow Balloon and the New Generation, and I'm wondering if this isn't just a phantom.

May 3, 1968 Low Library Plaza, Columbia University, New York, NY: Grateful Dead (Fri)

The Grateful Dead played an infamous free concert at Columbia University, at the height of very high profile campus protests against the Vietnam War and a segregated gymnasium. The story goes that the band was smuggled onto campus in a bread truck. Events like this gave the Dead a strong dose of underground credibility. The band had released one not-very-popular album, but their name was widely known. Yet here they were, sneaking into a campus protest to play for the long-haired college students. What other band was doing that?

While I'm certain that the members of the Dead were opposed to the Vietnam War and in favor of civil rights, I actually think the free concerts were mainly an opportunity to make the Dead popular. They had only one paying show in the New York metro area that weekend, at a college in suburban Long Island (the next night at SUNY Stony Brook, below). Unlike every other band, however, the Dead chose to bracket their only paying gig with two high profile free shows. In return, the band got huge press coverage and word-of-mouth that stood them in good stead when they returned later, even though most young Manhattanites had still not heard the Dead. I see Rock Scully's hand here. It's easy to laugh at Rock from a distance, but he had his finger on the pulse of rock fans before his contemporaries had a clue about what was going on.

May 4, 1968 Pritchard Gym, SUNY Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY: Grateful Dead/Incredible String Band (Sat)
The Dead had played a sort of "stealth" show at SUNY Stony Brook, in Long Island, during their New York sojourn the previous year. The band must not have caused too many problems, because they returned for a more official show. The opening act was The Incredible String Band, a Scottish folk-rock ensemble who was also touring around. The ISB's manager, the legendary producer Joe Boyd, made sure that they were booked at places where they might be appreciated, rather than just billed with Vanilla Fudge or something out in the hinterlands.

May 5, 1968 Central Park, New York, NY Jefferson Airplane/Grateful Dead/Butterfield Blues Band (Sun)
The Jefferson Airplane had headlined the weekend at Bill Graham's newly opened Fillmore East. Having played the four paying shows (Friday and Saturday early and late shows), the Airplane could play a free concert in Central Park. The Airplane, like the Dead, were savvy about the value of (what would now be called) "free media" in an entertainment capital like New York City. The Dead were in town, so of course they played Central Park as well. Also on the bill was the Butterfield Blues Band, who were booked at Fillmore East with the Airplane.

These Butterfield Blues Band shows were probably among the last for lead guitarist Elvin Bishop, who would turn up in San Francisco just a few weeks later. As another Bay Area footnote, Spencer Dryden was not available to play drums for the Fillmore East shows, having been replaced by Canadian drummer Jeff Cutler (from Toronto's John Lee And The Checkmates). I presume Cutler sat in for the Central Park shows, but it could have been anybody. Are there pictures of the Airplane in Central Park on this date? [update: Ruppi43 reports that there is a photo of the Airplane from this date with Dryden on drums].

May 7-8-9, 1968 Electric Circus, New York, NY: Grateful Dead (Tues-Thur early and late)
Of course, the Airplane booking raises a different question. Since Bill Graham had just opened the Fillmore East, and the Grateful Dead were touring the East Coast, why weren't the Dead booked at Fillmore East as well? Why did the band play The Electric Circus instead? The Electric Circus was also in Greenwich Village (at 23 St Marks Place), near the Fillmore East, and the venues were more or less in competition for name acts.

The answer, of course, was that the Grateful Dead effectively ran the Carousel Ballroom, so they were a competitor of Bill Graham's as well, and it seems that they didn't want to play for Graham in another city. Remember, rock tours had to be booked 60 to 90 days in advance, so back in March the Dead may have felt a need to stand down Graham somehow, although none of it really makes any sense. The Jefferson Airplane were affiliated with the Carousel, and while they didn't play the Fillmore during this period, they had no problem playing the Fillmore East. Yet  the Dead played three nights at a strange sort of discoteque for the Bridge-And-Tunnel crowd (read the whole story here).

In fact, Graham needed the Dead in New York as much as they needed him. Great bands played the Fillmore East, but there weren't that many of them. The Airplane and Butterfield had played Fillmore East on May 3-4, and for Friday, May 10, Graham had an historic booking of the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Sly And The Family Stone (can you imagine?). Yet on Saturday, May 11, with the Dead down in Virginia Beach, the Fillmore East just had a "free concert" with some unknown bands who had just released albums on RCA Records . Amusingly, one of those groups, Autosalvage, featured guitarist Rick Turner, who would also move to San Francisco, where he would work with Alembic to make Phil Lesh's bass (and, later, David Gans' guitar).

May 12, 1968 The Dome, Virginia Beach, VA: Grateful Dead/The Wild Kingdom (Sun-early and late)
Rather than play Fillmore East, the Grateful Dead instead began their assault on the Southeast with a concert at The Dome in Virginia Beach. Virginia Beach, in fact, had a legendary live music scene going back decades. The Virginia Beach area is pretty much the only (ocean) beach for all of the state, so it was a major summer destination for teenagers, young people and servicemen from nearby military bases. The Dome was one of the most established venues. When the British Invasion hit, and then psychedelia, Virginia Beach made the transition pretty easily. The Rolling Stones (1966) and Jimi Hendrix ('68) had also played The Dome.

The opening act, Wild Kingdom, was a popular local act that had evolved from another band called The Mustangs. There was apparently a jam session with Garcia and local musicians, and supposedly Garcia asked one of the local guitarists to leave the stage, as he simply wasn't good enough. While just a passing, and possibly apocryphal, event, I do not think it is an accident that around this time, Garcia goes from casual to organized jam sessions, to insure that the quality of musicians he was playing with was high enough.

May 17, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Grateful Dead/Steve Miller Band/Taj Mahal (Fri)
The Shrine Exposition Auditorium was Los Angeles' premier concert venue in 1967 and '68 and worthy of a post of its own. The Dead had played there in 1967, but they had been second on the bill to Buffalo Springfield. This time they were headliners. Keep in mind, the Exposition Hall Auditorium was a big open room, like Winterland, not the more famous theater where the Academy Awards were often held. The Exposition Hall, although part of the same complex that included the Auditorium, actually had an entrance around the block at 700 West 32nd Street (at Figueroa).

There were concerts most weekends at The Shrine in this era, and while I'm sure the Dead had their fans, to some extent the locals were going just because it was the hip rock show for the weekend. The Steve Miller Band, with Boz Scaggs on board, had just released their debut album on Capitol, and were a great live band. Taj Mahal was on Columbia, and I think his debut album on Columbia had just been released, and was well known around Southern California in any case. Taj also had a great band, anchored by Jesse Ed Davis on guitar.

May 18, 1968 Santa Clara County Fairgrounds. San Jose, CA: Grateful Dead/others Northern California Folk-Rock Festival (Sat afternoon)
Jefferson Airplane/Big Brother and The Holding Company/Grateful Dead/Steve Miller Band/Youngbloods/People!/Sons of Champlin/Crome Syrcus/Transatlantic Railroad/Indian Head Band/Mourning Reign
In the wake of the hugely successful Monterey Pop Festival, there were similar events all over, particularly on the West Coast. The model seemed to be to take some County Fairgrounds for the weekend, and jam in a couple of dozen acts. Looking at the bills today, they seem really great, and there was probably some really good music played. Still, it turned out that Monterey was a one-time event and the model didn't really work.

The first problem was that Monterey had a sensational bill because all the acts agreed to work only for travel expenses. Come the next year, all the groups were working bands, and they needed to get paid. The second problem was that just about every act at Monterey had played no longer than 30 minutes. For crowds used to the Fillmore, a longer set was in order. An outdoor festival was a sort of compromise, with the bands playing 30-50 minute sets. If you sat through a whole day, you heard sets that were too long by bands that didn't impress you, and a set that was too short by your favorite band.

The final problem was that the crowds were simply too big. They had been too big at Monterey, actually, but the weekend had been so magical that it all kind of worked. Although there were no significant problems at the San Jose Fairgrounds, the city was unhappy with the crowd situation and didn't want to allow such an event the next year. The whole story is hugely complicated, and I have attempted to discuss the arc of outdoor concerts in San Jose from 1967 to '69, but it's too hard to even summarize here. Suffice to say, Rock Festivals at Fairgrounds were obsolete as soon as they were invented.

May 18, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Grateful Dead/Steve Miller Band/Taj Mahal (Sat)

Consider the Grateful Dead's weekend. They headlined a show in Los Angeles on Friday night, then flew back up to the Bay Area (probably via San Jose Airport) the next morning, to play a show in San Jose. Then they would have returned to the airport to fly back down to Los Angeles for their Saturday night show. There happened to be a price war between various airlines on the California route at the time, so Pacific Southwest Airlines, Air California and Hughes Air West were constantly undercutting each other. Tickets were never higher than $20 one way, and sometimes as low as $10. That wasn't a lot of money even in the 60s, so bands flew up and down California very casually. They couldn't fly out of state at those prices, because intrastate travel was regulated, and in-state travel wasn't. Note that the Steve Miller Band played the Santa Clara Fairgrounds in between Shrine shows, just like the Dead.

When the Dead returned to The Shrine, they returned with their friends, the Jefferson Airplane. The Airplane, a much more popular band than the Dead, were "special guests." The Airplane's appearance was probably announced on local radio. While I'm sure both the Dead and the Airplane had fun doing this, the fact that the Airplane were added for the second night was a clear sign that the Dead and Steve Miller didn't draw nearly enough to fill the Shrine for two nights.

May 21, 1968 Carousel Ballroom, San Francisco, CA: Tuesday Night Jam

Jerry Garcia, Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady, Elvin Bishop, Steve Miller, Mickey Hart, others
The Grateful Dead had an uncanny knack for being in the center of events, so uncanny that you can hardly call it a "knack." A few years earlier, Garcia had been a regular at late night jam sessions with hippie musicians at places like The Ark in Sausalito. By 1967, however, with all the bands on tour and a lot of wannabes in town, it was harder for a player of Garcia's caliber to find a jam worth playing at. So the Dead instituted some organized high quality jam sessions of their own, at their own house, the Carousel Ballroom.

By the end of May, the Grateful Dead were pretty much running the Carousel Ballroom, but it wasn't going that well. One idea they had was to have a regular "jam session," for musicians like Jerry Garcia, while providing a sort of hippie hangout. At this time, there weren't really any bars for hippies to hang out in, certainly not ones with music, and the Matrix was closed, so there was nowhere for rock musicians to hang out, either. So why not use The Carousel? Tuesday was generally not a work night for rock musicians, and there wouldn't be much competition. Sure, the Carousel didn't serve drinks, but patrons would find other means to relax. So a Tuesday night was booked, a poster circulated, and fortunately a tape deck was running.

Rhoney Gissen describes this event in some detail in her book Owsley And Me, as she had a big part in organizing it. $1.00 got you in, and a good time seems to have been had. Lots of musicians showed up, including Garcia, Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady, the newly-arrived Elvin Bishop and most of the Steve Miller Band. It's not clear how many patrons showed up, but it was an intriguing concept that at least got off to a fine musical start.

May 24-25, 1968 National Guard Armory, St. Louis, MO: Grateful Dead/Public Service (Fri-Sat)
You have to wonder about the Dead's booking here. They flew to St. Louis for two shows, and flew home. It was either a really lucrative gig, or ill-advised. It's worth noting that Owsley wasn't yet their soundman at the time, so it was probably easier to fit the band's touring gear on an airplane.

May 28, 1968 Carousel Ballroom, San Francisco, CA: Tuesday Night Jam
There seems to have been another Tuesday Night Jam at the Carousel, but we don't know anything about it.

An ad in the Stanford Daily from May 28, 1968 (h/t Grateful Seconds) for the weekend's Carousel Ballroom show with the Grateful Dead, Charlie Musselwhite and Petris (nee Petrus)

May 31, June 1-2, 1968 Carousel Ballroom, San Francisco, CA: Grateful Dead/Charlie Musselwhite/Petrus (Fri-Sun)

Jun 2, 1968 The Panhandle, San Francisco, CA: Grateful Dead/Charlie Musselwhite/Petrus (Sun afternoon free)
The Grateful Dead played yet another weekend at the Carousel Ballroom. Besides the familiar sounds of blues harpist Charlie Musselwhite, the intriguing Petrus opened the show. Petrus was based in El Granada, near Half Moon Bay, of all places, on the opposite side of the hill from San Mateo. The lead guitarist was Peter Kaukonen, Jorma's brother. Peter had been Jorma's first choice as electric bassist for the Jefferson Airplane back in October '65, but Peter had had to stay in Stanford to avoid the draft, so the bass chair had gone to Jack Casady instead.

More intriguingly, the lead singer and principal songwriter of Petrus was Ruthann Friedman. Friedman was an interesting Los Angeles songwriter, best known for writing "Windy," which hit #1 for The Association in July 1967 (when you hear it, you'll realize that everyone knows it's "Windy"). Friedman had hung out in the Haight Ashbury in Fall '66, so when her own songs became popular in Southern California she needed to form a band. Jorma recommended his brother, and Peter got the gig. This led to the formation of Petrus. If they had recorded, the combination of a famous songwriter and a talented Kaukonen could have been interesting indeed.

I have only found traces of a few Petrus shows in the Bay Area, and the Carousel one seems to be the most notable. Petrus broke up later in 1968, as did Peter and Ruthann. Friedman went on to release one interesting solo album in 1970, Constant Companion, which included some co-writing credits, guitar parts and cover art from Peter Kaukonen. Friedman only recorded and performed intermittently after that, but she is still around. Peter went on to play with Hot Tuna, Jefferson Starship and even the final version of the Jefferson Airplane, and has continued to have a long and interesting musical career. If there are any lost Carousel tapes in the Owsley Archives, I hope Petrus is one of them.

At the end of the run, the Dead tried an old trick, playing for free in the Panhandle to drum up interest. Petrus played, and I think Charlie Musselwhite did as well. I don't think the Carousel shows drew particularly well, but I'm not aware of any eyewitness accounts. ( Incidentally, on the circulating poster, the date is incorrect--it shows May 30 as Friday, when in fact May 31 was Friday).  

June 4,11, 18 1968 Carousel Ballroom, San Francisco, CA: Tuesday Night Jams

It's not even clear how many Tuesday Night Jams there were at the Carousel. There seems to have been more than one, and there couldn't have been more than five, but other than that it's hard to say. Producer Jim Stern, then an engineer and drummer, recalled (in a Jake Feinberg interview) being invited to one of them as the "house drummer" and meeting Dan Healy there. Healy was in his band Bycyle (aka Hoffman's Bycycle). It's uncertain which of the Tuesdays it was, but Stern alludes to the idea that it was a regular thing at the time.

June 7-8-9, 1968 Carousel Ballroom, San Francisco, CA: Jefferson Airplane/Grateful Dead/(Fleetwood Mac) (Fri-San)
The Airplane had little or no involvement in the operations of the Carousel, but they were still loyal to the idea that the bands would play there and split the take. The Airplane headlined over the Dead for the weekend, effectively giving up a more certain payday at Fillmore West. The Airplane were quite a bit larger than the Dead at the time, and thus a much bigger draw, but I don't know how well the weekend actually drew. Since the Carousel was only open for 10 more days, it couldn't have done that well.

The English band Fleetwood Mac was due to make their American concert debut at the Carousel this weekend. However, per Christopher Hjort's excellent chronology Strange Brew, the Mac's American tour was delayed due to visa issues. Fleetwood Mac's actual American debut was three weeks later (June 28) at the Shrine in Los Angeles.

On Sunday, June 9, the Dead and the Airplane tried to play Speedway Meadows in  Golden Gate Park. According to the AP Wire story, 3,000 people waited three hours, but the police refused to let the bands play, since they had no permit. The Cub Scouts, who did have a permit, ended up getting to use Speedway Meadows.

June 14-15, 1968 Fillmore East, New York, NY: Grateful Dead/Jeff Beck Group/Seventh Sons (Fri-Sat early and late)
Whatever the tensions between Bill Graham and the Grateful Dead over the Carousel, they seem to have been resolved by the time the Dead debuted at Fillmore East on June 14. Of course, just as the May shows at the Electric Circus had probably been negotiated in February or March, when the Carousel was still promising, the June Fillmore East shows had probably been negotiated in April. At that point, we can determine that the Dead must have needed the paying gig at Fillmore East, and Graham must have needed the high profile headliners at his new Eastern rock showcase. The Grateful Dead weren't even that popular in June of '68, but they were legendary already. What kind of promoter would Graham have been if he came from San Francisco and couldn't bring out one of the city's most infamous bands?

The four shows at Fillmore East are rightly legendary, and I have discussed them at some length elsewhere. The shows were also the American debut of the original Jeff Beck Group, a mighty band indeed, with Rod Stewart on vocals and Ron Wood on bass (and Mickey Waller on drums). The Friday night early show was the high profile show at Fillmore East, with all the music press, and legend has it that the Beck Group blew away the Dead, who had barely gotten warmed up. I believe it, not least because for the late show, the Dead came out firing on all cylinders. Can you imagine a Dead show where Jeff Beck opened, and then the Dead came on about 1:30 am and opened with "The Eleven?" And followed with "St. Stephen>"Alligator">"Lovelight">"Caution?" Don't think Garcia wasn't competitive.

On the second night, for the only time that I am aware of, the Dead dedicated "Dark Star," and appropriately enough it was to Wes Montgomery, who had just died. Wes Montgomery has no equal, and it's just that no one else ever got a "Dark Star" dedication.

There was an ad in the Village Voice for a Grateful Dead appearance at some hippie festival in Staten Island, of all places, at somewhere called Daytop Village. There is no chance that Graham was going to allow the Dead to play some festival on his weekend, and in any case since the Dead's appearance was on a Monday, it has the whiff of something where the band (or Rock Scully) had said "we'll think about it and see what we can do" and that was taken as a commitment. In any case, there's no indication the band ever played Staten Island.

June 19, 1968 Carousel Ballroom, San Francisco, CA: Grateful Dead/Richie Havens

Black Man's Free Store Benefit (Wed)

By mid-June, the Carousel was falling apart financially. Bill Graham had probably already been to Ireland by this time to negotiate a new lease with owner Bill Fuller, so the Dead's time at the helm was counting down anyway, even if the band didn't know it. I have to assume that the original terms with Fuller were so naively ruinous (by the band's subsequent admission) that the lease would be in breach anyway. Graham had surely figured that out, and negotiated a shrewder deal. In any case, rapprochement had already been reached with the Dead, since they had just played the Fillmore East, but the tension would linger for a few more years, and occasionally rear its head.

The very last show at the old Carousel was a Wednesday benefit for the Black Man's Free Store, and it was a total debacle. Fleetwood Mac appears on some posters, but they were not yet in the States due to visa issues. There are descriptions of this show, and it seem to have been totally out of control (some versions of the story say that the marquee said "Free Beer." Could that have been a factor?). The venue was a mess, the Dead had no money, and the Carousel was done. Bill Graham took over the lease, and re-opened the old ballroom as the Fillmore West on July 5, 1968, with the Butterfield Blues Band and Ten Years After.

A tape circulates with the date of June 19, 1968, but an esteemed Grateful Dead scholar has made a definitive case that the correct date for the tape should be February 19, 1969 . What really transpired remains somewhat of a grim mystery, but the last night of the Carousel was a messy end to a noble experiment.

On Friday, June 21, 1968, the Grateful Dead were booked to play the San Jose Civic Auditorium with the Mothers Of Invention. What a show that would have been, but it was not to be. Apparently, the show was on track right up to the last minute, but as people walked up to the box office a sign was put up indicating the show was canceled. The leading scholar of Frank Zappa concerts, Chuck Ulrich, has confirmed this, so there's not any doubt about it. The promoter was James C. Pagni, whose main base was San Diego, and who would book the Dead many times in the future, but for this night the Mothers and Dead worlds did not collide.

June 22, 1968 Travelodge Theater, Phoenix, AZ: Grateful Dead/Ten Years After/Thackeray Rocke (Sat)

The first half of the Grateful Dead 1968 concert year ended with the band's first trip to Arizona. On Saturday, June 22, the Grateful Dead headlined at the Travelodge Theater in Phoenix. This, too, was another James Pagni promotion. The Travelodge Theater (also known at the time as The Star Theater) had been built in 1964. It was a Theater-In-The-Round, with the stage slowly rotating, a very strange and alienating approach to a venue. The Travelodge Theater was at 440 N. 32nd Street (near Fillmore), and it is still there (now known as The Celebrity Theater).

Second on the bill were Ten Years After, on their very first American tour. TYA was a great live band, and they would go on to ride a great performance at Woodstock on to no less than 28 US tours, but back in '68, they were barely known. The Phoenix show isn't even included in the excellent Alvin Lee Gigography, but it fits perfectly into their tour schedule. The band's US tour had commenced with a June 14-16 booking at The Cheetah on Venice Beach, and the Phoenix show may have been just Ten Years After second or third booking in the States. An article in the Phoenix Republic (captured by LIA in Deadsources) tells us that the opening act were local heroes Thackeray Rocke, so all in all it must have been a pretty amazing evening out in the desert.

Reset
The Grateful Dead had been working on their new album throughout the first half of 1968, and Anthem Of The Sun was released in mid-July 1968. Paradoxically, the hard-touring Grateful Dead addressed the release of their new album by hardly playing at all. The band only played one weekend in July, and some California shows in August. Much was afoot in the Grateful Dead world, including the return of an old and notorious friend to the traveling ensemble, but all that will have to wait for the next installment.

Hoffman's Bicycle>Bycycle 1968-69 (The Secret Life Of Dan Healy)

A Berkeley Barb ad for the New Orleans House, a club at 1505 San Pablo. Howard Wales and A.B. Skhy headlined the weekend shows on October 18 and 19, 1968, and Hoffman's Bicycle opened for them. 

A co-conspirator and I have a long-running project tracking the history of rock music in Berkeley, CA in the late 1960s. As part of our research, we have created performance lists for a number of key venues in the city. Many of the performers at these long-ago places are quite obscure. Over the years, a key part of our research has been identifying the performers in these bands, some of which only played a few times. Patience is rewarded, however, with occasional surprises, like the time that the band Deacon And The Suprelles emptied the house at their Mandrake's debut, until only one patron was left at the bar. The a departing friend told the band that an armed robber was in the house, and the police were clearing out the club in order to arrest him.

Nonetheless, certain intriguing mysteries remain. One nagging curiosity had always been the band Hoffman's Bicycle, who had opened for A.B. Skhy for one weekend at the New Orleans House on October 18 and 19, 1968. This cleverly named group, with a whiff of psychedelia and intrigue, could be found in no other bookings that I was aware of. However, a recent interview with the long-time chief engineer of Fantasy Studios, Jim Stern, revealed some tantalizing details about Hoffman's Bicycle. For one thing, they subsequently changed their named to "Bycycle," with a "y," a group whose name has been spotted on a variety of Bay Area adds and handbills in the 1968-69 period. More importantly, Stern revealed another long-lost fact: the bass player for Hoffman's Bicycle was none other than future Grateful Dead soundman Dan Healy. Suddenly the history of Hoffman's Bicycle and its successor Bicycle look very intriguing indeed.

Van Morrison's 1973 album, Hard Nose The Highway, engineered by Jim Stern at Fantasy Studios in Berkely

Jim Stern and Dan Healy
Scholar and journalist Jake Feinberg recently interviewed engineer Jim Stern on his show. Usually, Feinberg interviews exceptional musicians, not always best sellers but of the sort revered by their peers and serious fans. Stern was just one of those back-of-the-album names, someone you faintly recall without precisely remembering his specific contribution. Over the course of the amazing 3-hour interview, however, Stern turns out to have played a critical role in the history of Bay Area music. Stern was a professional drummer with an engineering degree, so he ended up working at Fantasy Studios in Oakland in the 60s. When Fantasy opened its new studios at 10th and Parker in Berkeley, Stern was asked to become chief engineer, and his career switched over permanently to the other side of the glass. Stern, now retired, produced many jazz and rock albums over the decades, including work for Van Morrison, McCoy Tyner and too many others to count.

Stern's own history is pretty interesting, and Feinberg gets Stern talking about his long gone past. Feinberg asked Stern how he had gotten to know Dan Healy, and the story was revealing indeed. Stern grew up in the Haight-Ashbury in the 1950s, and he went to San Francisco State in the mid-60s to get his engineering degree. On weekends, Stern played drums in "Top 40" cover bands around San Francisco. He knew the Grateful Dead from around the Haight, and even jammed with them on occasion at 710 Ashbury, apparently under the most casual of circumstances, so he was socially connected to the band and they knew of his drumming skills.

When the Grateful Dead opened The Carousel Ballroom, one of their ideas was to have regular "Tuesday Night Jams." While we have a few partial tapes, our knowledge of these events is a little sketchy. There seems to have only been three such events, on May 21 and 22 and June 4, 1968 (the Carousel closed shortly after). For one of them, Bob Weir called up Stern and asked him to be the "house drummer" for the jam. Although the syntax is a bit obscure, it appears that Healy was at this Tuesday jam, with his group Hoffman's Bicycle. In any case, although Stern may have already known Healy as a fellow engineer, he was the one who revealed in the interview that Healy was the bassist for Hoffman's Bicycle, and that they later changed their name to Bycycle.

The diagram of the Grateful Dead's 1974 sound system, "The Wall Of Sound." Dan Healy was a principal architect of this remarkable system, which was light years ahead of its contemporaries.

The Dan Healy Story, As Told By Dan Healy
Dan Healy is rightly famous as one of the principal audio engineers of the Grateful Dead, recording and producing many of their albums, and a crucial architect of their amazing live sound. As such, Healy has been interviewed numerous times, so the narrative of his 60s career is generally well-known. However, while I think everything we generally know about Healy is true, it appears that he left Hoffman's Bicycle out entirely. At various times in the 80s, Healy played live with a group called The Healy-Treece Band, so he had another life as a musician, going back to the 1960s. He simply seems to have left his 60s band out of any narrative, and no one has ever asked him about it.

Very briefly, the Healy story was that he was an engineer for Commercial Recorders in San Francisco in the mid-60s. After recording commercial jingles and the like during the daytime, he would sometimes sneak in his musician friends after hours to record demos (possibly including the Grateful Dead). Healy also was part of the tiny underground of FM radio enthusiasts, providing technical support to the various hipsters broadcasting interesting stuff on the FM band during odd hours of the night.

Marin real estate agent Gino Cippolina had gotten Healy a cheap rental on a Sausalito houseboat in late 1965. On the next boat over were some long hairs who included Cippolina's son, and they soon formed a band called Quicksilver Messenger Service. When the Quick's equipment broke during rehearsal, they discovered that the friendly engineer next door could fix everything. Several months later, at a Fillmore concert, soon after soundman Owsley Stanley had stopped working with the Dead because he had to focus on other business interests, Phil Lesh's bass broke. Healy came up from the crowd (probably invited by John Cippolina) and fixed it, impressing the band. Afterwards, Healy told Garcia that he didn't like the sound, and Garcia challenged him: "do you think you can do better?" As it happened, Healy did think he could do better, so he became the Dead's audio engineer, and proved that he was right.

After recording and producing Anthem Of The Sun with the Grateful Dead, Healy left the group to become a producer and engineer for Mercury Records. I'm not certain what his status was with Mercury--whether he was on salary or some sort of free agent--but the record business was coming to San Francisco in a big way. Starting in mid-1968, Healy engineered and/or produced a variety of records for Mercury and others, including albums by Doug Sahm, Harvey Mandel and other acts. He eventually went on to work with Quicksilver in 1969 and '70, working on three of their Capitol albums (Shady Grove, Just For Love and What About Me). Owsley had returned to his seat at the Dead's soundboard in mid-1968, but after a variety of legal problems Owsley had ended up in jail in July 1970. Once again, with Owsley gone, the Grateful Dead's live sound deteriorated, Healy criticized it, and he was invited back to fix it.

All of the above is relatively well-known in Deadhead circles, and Healy has commented on various bits and pieces of it over the years. Certainly the timeline and the backs of numerous albums document Healy's career as an engineer and producer in San Francisco in the late 60s. Yet Healy has never, to my knowledge, mentioned that he was in a band back then, much less their name.

The Leaves single "Hey Joe," on Mira Records, Pat Boone's label. The leaves on the cover were reputedly stylized marijuana leaves. Draw your own conclusions. 

Albert Hofmann's Bicycle
In the 60s, drugs and drug culture were a mystery to the mainstream, and all sorts of in-jokes were promulgated on the music industry. A rockin' Hollywood band called The Leaves, who had had a 1966 hit with "Hey Joe," had a stylized marijuana leaf on the cover of their first record, on Pat Boone's label, no less. A Colorado band called The Rainy Daze had a big hit in 1967 with a song whose chorus went "Old dogs can learn new tricks/When the streets are lined with bricks/Of Acapulco Gold." No one figured it out until after the single had sold 150,000 copies, when it was abruptly banned. 

Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann--with one "f" and two "n", unlike Abbie--had discovered LSD-25 as early as 1938. However, on April 19, 1943---the day before 4/20!--Hofmann experimented with the drug, and as he felt the effects of it, he rode home on his bicycle (wartime restrictions prevented the use of his car, and a good thing, too--what would Hofmann have done at a blue light?). Thus his bicycle ride was the first intentional acid trip. There was no Wikipedia in the 60s, but Albert Hofmann and his bicycle ride were known in an underground way, so the implications of a band called Hoffman's Bicycle--even mispelled--would have been instantly recognizable in places like Berkeley or San Francisco. Any band with a name like that would be pretty consciously wearing a psychedelic nametag, even if it wasn't overt in a newspaper listing.

Dan Healy was the "Executive Engineer" for the Grateful Dead's album Anthem Of The Sun, released in July 1968

Dan Healy As Grateful Dead Soundman, 1967-68
It is a truism of Grateful Dead history that Healy took over as the Dead's soundman after Owsley left. Yet what did he really do? I don't think Healy went on the road with them. Now, Healy probably attended the local concerts, and he may have gone along for the occasional out-of-town event, but he doesn't seem to have been part of the 1967 tours. Healy didn't go to New York in either the Summer of 1967 or at the end that year, for example, as far as I know. I think Healy acted as a sort of consultant, hotwiring gear and solving technical problems. 

Yet was Healy on the payroll? It's not really clear. Certainly the Dead had little money, and even if Healy was getting a few bucks from the band, he probably still had to freelance as an engineer on the side. Healy's great contribution to the early Grateful Dead was acting as engineer on the Anthem Of The Sun sessions. On the album, Healy is listed as "Executive Engineer." Healy's legend was cemented when he helped manage the multiple tape recordings that were merged together for side two. 

Healy had effectively taken over as Chief Engineer of the Grateful Dead when Owsley had departed in about August 1966. Bob Matthews seemed to be the band's house sound man, until he was fired in December 1967. By early 1968, Owsley's other business interests had put him in serious legal trouble, and he returned to the Grateful Dead fold. In particular, Owsley seems to have played a big role in setting up the sound system of the Carousel, while Healy was working on Anthem over at Columbus Recorders. By the Summer of '68, Owsley was back on board as the Grateful Dead's soundman on the road. Owsley had also effectively become the chief engineer for the Dead, whatever exactly that meant. Healy seems to have separated from the Dead right after Anthem was completed.

Both Owsley and Dan Healy are legendary figures in the Grateful Dead firmament, yet it is never remarked upon that they never really worked together. Neither ever bad-mouthed the other for the record, to my knowledge, but there seems to have only been room for one King on the throne. Healy started working with the Dead when Owsley was otherwise engaged. When Owsley returned, Healy finished the Anthem project and departed (McNally merely says [p.276] "Healy had left the band to work with Quicksilver in Hawaii," which misstates Healy's work with the Quick by a year). When Healy reappeared at the end of 1970, Owsley was in jail. Healy returned in 1971, and Owsley did not get out of jail until mid-72. Upon Owsley's release, it is generally told that "Owsley could not find a role" on the Dead's crew, but it is hard not to draw the conclusion that Healy had the scepter, and Owsley was no one's assistant. 

In mid-1968, however, the circumstances were different. The returning Owsley was the pre-eminent electronic genius, and Healy must have seen himself pushed aside. It's known that he became a full time engineer and producer for the newly burgeoning record industry in San Francisco, as his name can be seen on the backs of many albums. It's also logical that if Healy ever had thoughts of making it as a musician, 1968 was the perfect time: record companies were signing everyone with long hair, and he wasn't doing anything else. In any case, although studio engineering could be intense, it was still intermittent even when business was good. Rehearsing and gigging were always possible at all but the busiest times. So Healy must formed or joined Hoffman's Bicycle just as he separated from the Grateful Dead in the early Summer of 1968.

This Tuesday Night Jam art seems to have been used a couple of different times in various formats at the Carousel Ballroom in 1968. 

Hoffman's Bicycle>Bycycle Performance History
With all of this in mind, I am going to present what little is known about the band Hoffman's Bicycle and its successor Bycycle. Of course, all I know for an absolute fact is that Dan Healy was the bass player for Hoffman's Bicycle, and the band later changed its name to Bycycle. I do not know how long Healy was in the group. I also have to assume that various late 60s Bay Area listings for the band "Bicycle" were really Bycycle, which seems likely. Anyone who knows anything about any other members of Bycycle, or of Healy's non-engineering activities in 1968-69, is encouraged to include them in the Comments or email me directly.

update: I think I found the first Hoffman's Bicycle show. Note the spelling.

November 24, 1967 55 Colton Street, San Francisco, CA: Santana Blues Band/All Men joy/Douglas High Chair/Dr. Hoffman's Bicycle/Vulgar Hagan Peace and Freedom Party Benefit Dance
The Peace and Freedom Party was an attempt to create a party that was against the Vietnam War, pro-civil rights and pro-labor. It was very popular amongst hippies and activists in 1967 California. At one point, some activists took over a loft in San Francisco, at 55 Colton Street, just behind the Carousel Ballroom. They put on a few "events," with bands, speeches and other performers. It was all without a permit of course.

It is on this obscure flyer for a PFP event where we first see the peculiarly spelled Dr. Hoffman's Bicycle. My theory, unconfirmable at this time, is that Richard Treece was still leading The Cheaters in the East Bay. Dan Healy was probably a part-time member, depending on his engineering duties. But rock music was changing from the Rolling Stones-ish "garage rock" to Fillmore-style jamming. My guess is that Treece and Healy decided to let it all hang out, and--given they wouldn't have been getting paid anyway--picked the wackiest, most psychedelic name they could think of.

June 4, 1968 Carousel Ballroom, San Francisco, CA "Tuesday Night Jam"
Various San Francisco rock bands controlled The Carousel Ballroom from January through June 1968, but the Grateful Dead and their associates were in charge of the day-to-day operation. Near the end of their tenure, the Dead inaugurated Tuesday night jam sessions, with Jerry Garcia and others playing with various San Francisco musicians. Based on Stern's description of being invited by Bob Weir, and some other sketchy information, I am assuming that June 4 was the night that Stern was the "house drummer" and Dan Healy was present as the bass player for Hoffman's Bycycle. This would have been exactly when Owsley was reasserting himself as the Dead's soundman, and Healy may have seen greener pastures in the growing San Francisco record industry. 

October 18-19, 1968 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: AB Skhy/Hoffman's Bicycle
The only confirmed sighting of Hoffman's Bicycle was at Berkeley's New Orleans House on the weekend of October 18 and 19, 1968. During this time, the New Orleans House was a prime stop for Bay Area rock bands playing original music, along with The Matrix in San Francisco and The Poppycock in Palo Alto. AB Skhy was relatively newly arrived in the Bay Area, and they featured three guys from Wisconsin, along with expartriate-Cincinnati organ player Howard Wales. Wales would  of course go on to play with Garcia and the Dead, and its interesting to see a possible Wales/Healy connection prior to that. 

November 1 or 2, 1968 New Committee Theater, San Francisco, CA: De Silvia/Ronda Ubiquity/Marble Farm/Hoffman's Bycycle/Alicia/Harvey Mandel
JGMF found this listing in Ralph Gleason's column November 1, 1968. I have assumed Hoffman only played one night.

February 14, 1969 Londonside Tavern, Glen Ellen, CA: Bycycle
The next sighting of the band was several months later. If there was a window where Healy might have left the group, the October through February gap would seem to be the most likely. However, we have no evidence one way or the other. I would note that the performing career of Bycycle appears light enough that Healy could easily have continued his career as a recording engineer while still playing some gigs on the side. As to the name change, I have to think it was a concession to possible commercialism. Every band in San Francisco was getting signed back then--Mercury Records had signed a dozen acts alone in 1968--but being overtly named after the first acid trip was a poor strategy for success. By '69, media outlets were speculating whether the Beatles "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" was a code for LSD, so a band whose name really was in that code would have been ill-advised to keep it. Hence the switch to an archaic spelling of Bicycle seems prudent, while retaining the link for insiders.

Glen Ellen is a small town in Sonoma County, 50 miles North of San Francisco. At the time, Glen Ellen was only known because writer Jack London had an estate there from 1905 until his death in 1916. The tavern at the Londonside Inn in downtown Glen Ellen was a little hippie enclave, and all sorts of cool bands played there in 1969, including the nascent Hot Tuna (then just "Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady") and the Cleanliness And Godliness Skiffle Band. The fact that Bycycle was booked there puts them right in the underground mainstream, if such a term makes sense.

On April 19, 1969, the Sir Douglas Quintet, Bycycle, Gentle Dance and Devil's Kitchen played the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa. 

April 19, 1969 Sonoma County Fairgrounds, Santa Rosa, CA: Sir Douglas Quintet/Bycycle/Gentle Dance/Devil's Kitchen
Sonoma County was small and rural in the 60s. The Sir Douglas Quintet had some popularity in San Francisco, but they weren't Fillmore West headliners. Out in the countryside, however, they could headline. There were numerous buildings on the Fairgrounds site, but I don't know which one they would have used for the concert. Devil's Kitchen were newly arrived in San Francisco from Carbondale, IL. They would soon become the house band at the new Family Dog On The Great Highway.

May 21-22, 1969 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Bicycle
Although we have to assume that the "misspelling" of Bicycle still represents the same group, it seems logical. Bicycle (sic) returned to the New Orleans House to headline a Wednesday and Thursday night. Generally speaking, weeknights at the NOH were for local bands to have their own chance to build an audience.

The performance listings from the June 3, 1969, San Francisco Chronicle. Bicycle was advertised as playing at the Fillmore auditions that night. 

June 3, 1969 Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA :Transatlantic Railroads/Billy Roberts/Bicycle
Histories of the Fillmore West generally elide the Tuesday night series where three or four local bands played. These shows went on for most of the history of the Fillmore West, save for the Summers when the hall was booked full time. To my knowledge, I am the only one who has attempted to document the Tuesday night Fillmore West "audition" shows.

On Tuesday, June 3, the Fillmore West bill (per that day's SF Chronicle, above) was Transatlantic Railroad, probably a Marin band, Billy Roberts, who had actually written the song "Hey Joe" somewhat earlier, and Bicycle. Every Tuesday night Fillmore West show was recorded, although the tapes may not have survived. Bill Graham used the shows to check out new groups to open at Fillmore West, and the recording could act as a demo if he wanted to sign them. Alternately, BGP would sell the tape to the groups. So it's not impossible that there is an extant tape of Bycycle performing live at Fillmore West.

June 8, 1969 Unitarian Center, San Francisco, CA: Sons Of Champlin/Ace Of Cups/Freedom Highway/Bycycle/others
To the extent that the band name Bycycle is recognized at all, it is recognized from some 1969 rock posters. Any posters in Paul Grushkin's book Art Of Rock are widely known, even if the events themselves were obscure. This benefit concert for the Unitarian Fellowship was held on a Sunday afternoon with a variety of second tier Bay Area bands, along with various light shows and other artists. Sons Of Champlin, Ace Of Cups and Freedom Highway were all booked by the WestPole Agency, run by Quicksilver manager Ron Polte, so the Quicksilver connection remained intact.

The Grateful Dead were playing at Fillmore West this weekend (from Friday June 6 through June 8). There was also a free concert in Golden Gate Park, so it was a big weekend for hip bands in San Francisco. This event was (per the poster) from 2pm to midnight. I'm not sure where the Unitarian Church was at the time, and true to the tradition, the poster is hard to read. In any case, San Francisco rock fans had a variety of choices throughout the day.

July 16-17, 1969 George's Log Cabin, San Francisco, CA: Bycycle
George's Log Cabin was on the farthest Western edge of San Francisco, right on the San Mateo County line, at 2629 Bayshore Boulevard, high above the now-departed Candlestick Park. It had gone through various guises since it had been a prohibition hangout back in the day. By 1969 George's Log Cabin was hosting rock shows, but the bands that played there were not so high on the rock food chain.

A flyer for the July 18-20, 1969 booking at the Family Dog, including the Sir Douglas Quintet and Bicycle. 

July 18-20, 1969 Family Dog On The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Sir Douglas Quintet/Bicycle/Kwan Ditos/Shades Of Joy
Chet Helms had closed the Avalon Ballroom in December 1968, although other promoters had since used it. In June of 1969, he moved his Family Dog operation to Ocean Beach, using a modest ballroom at a decaying Amusement Park. The posters called it The Family Dog On The Great Highway, but most of the locals called it Playland, as they always had. While the FDGH was definitely a rung below the Fillmore West, there was still plenty of optimism in July of 1969, and various hip acts played the room.

Once again the Sir Douglas Quintet was headlining a show where Bycycle opened, suggesting some other kind of connection between the bands. Its worth noting that Healy and Sahm had recorded together for Mercury, and Healy had mixed Sahm's hit "Mendocino," as well as working on his other albums. (For the record, the Kwan Ditos were a Latin rock band that featured pianist Todd Barkan, who was the proprietor of the Keystone Korner from mid-72 onwards, when it was a jazz club. The Shades Of Joy were a sort of jam band that featured saxophonist Martin Fierro, among others.)

August 22, 1969 Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA: Quicksilver Messenger Service/Womb/4th Way/Ace Of Cups/The Committee Benefit for The Wild West Organizers
Our most tantalizing clue about Dan Healy's career as a musician comes from his time working on the Shady Grove album for Quicksilver Messenger Service, which he engineered. At the end of 1968, guitarist Gary Duncan had left Quicksilver to form a band with singer Dino Valenti. Ironically enough, Duncan left just as Quicksilver was starting to get played regularly on the new FM radios throughout the country. The band's second album, the classic Happy Trails, was released in February 1969 and was an instant classic. Quicksilver was hardly a band, but Capitol really wanted an album.

Throughout the first half of 1969, Quicksilver had only existed in name only. The three remaining members (lead guitarist Cipollina, bassist/vocalist David Freiberg and drummer Greg Elmore) played a little with producer Nick Gravenites, but really they were doing nothing. Eventually, the band hooked up with pianist Nicky Hopkins, who had enjoyed his visits to the Bay Area with the Jeff Beck Group so much that he had decided to move to Mill Valley. The quartet began recording Quicksilver's third album with Dan Healy at the board. They recorded at Wally Heider's Studio in July and August of 1969, and switched over to Pacific High Recorders for August and September. The Shady Grove album would finally come out in December. It has some interesting moments, but it generally has the disorganized feel of a band that was struggling to find something to record.

I have only been able to confirm four Quicksilver Messenger Service shows from the Summer of '69, all during the recording of Shady Grove. The first two were July 18 and 19, in the tiny town of Seaside, near Monterey. The band played an old movie theater that had been turned into a burlesque house. Since Seaside was near Fort Ord, there had presumably been a steady supply of soldiers interested in womanly charms, but it appeared that Quicksilver's management was trying out different venues in order to start their own ballroom. In any case, Seaside was well outside of San Francisco, so it made sense for a popular band trying to work on new material in a live setting to play at an out-of-the-way venue.

However, Quicksilver Messenger Service also headlined a shows at the Fillmore West and the Family Dog On The Great Highway on Friday and Saturday, August 22 and 23. The biggest event of the San Francisco summer was supposed to be a giant rock festival in Golden Gate Park called The Wild West Festival. The event was scheduled for the weekend of August 22-24, and the entire event fell apart in amidst ill will and bitter arguments over money. The organizers had taken a bath, and as the bands had kept the weekend free, benefit concerts were held at the two venues to try and defray some of the costs.

Fortunately, we have a remarkably detailed account of the Friday night Quicksilver show at Fillmore West. Faren Miller was a Berkeley teenager whose parents also liked rock music, so they regularly took her to rock shows, particularly to see Quicksilver, her favorite band. Miller, to the delight of future rock prosopographers, would write a detailed description of each show she attended in her diary. About twenty-five years later, once the internet was invented, Miller excerpted all the rock concert parts. Thus she has provided exceptional details about the specific bands and venues for the shows she attended (and Faren, wherever you are, thank you so, so much).

In Miller's detailed description of Quicksilver's August '69 Fillmore band, she describes a loose band just getting used to having Hopkins as a member. Most intriguingly, however, she says that for several numbers they were joined by their friend Dan Healy, who played bass and guitar. Miller had no idea who Healy was at the time (nor did anyone else), so he must have been introduced from the stage. Although David Freiberg was a fine bass player, he had not always played bass on every number with Quicksilver, letting Gary Duncan take it over on occasion. So for this show, at least, Healy seems to have acted as a utility infielder, presumably playing bass and rhythm guitar on various numbers. Healy was mixing the Shady Grove album at Pacific High by this time, and he probably knew their new material as well or better than the band.

However, one thing that this unexpected sighting of Healy with Quicksilver tells me was that Healy was a pretty active musician at the time. The Quicksilver boys were loose hippies, sure, but they could all really play, and Hopkins was a certified session legend even by 1969. So Healy wouldn't have been on the stage, even in a modest role, unless he could play with the big boys. That leads me to think that Healy must still have been playing regularly. From that, I am inferring that most likely he had continued to play with Bycycle.

Incidentally, I got a detailed email about one of the Seaside shows from someone who attended, and he definitely does not recall Healy playing with Quicksilver at that show. He doesn't rule it out, but his memories were pretty clear, and he doesn't recall it. Noting that Quicksilver appears to have introduced Healy to the crowd at Fillmore West, that suggests he did not play at Seaside. I would note that Bycycle had a gig that weekend at the Family Dog, so sketchy as the evidence might be, the dates line up.

August 23, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Tree Of Life/Phananganang/Marble Farm/Joe Tate's Desperate Skuffle Band/Lazarus/Flying Circus/Sebastian Moon/Bicycle (Saturday) noon
All of the bands booked for the Wild West, or almost all of them, played fundraising events at the Fillmore and Family Dog. This noon Saturday event seems to feature bands who would have played the free concert part of the Wild West, outside of Kezar. Most of them are pretty obscure. Bicycle is up last, but its hard to say whether that meant they were headlining.

August 23, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Quicksilver Messenger Service/Mt Rushmore/Sons of Champlin/Jimmy Witherspoon/Devil's Kitchen/Hindu Folk Band/Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen (Saturday) 8pm
For the Saturday night show, Quicksilver headlined the Family Dog. Given that Bycycle was on the bill earlier, it would have been convenient for Healy to sit in. According to members of the Commander Cody band "two people showed up," at least when the Airmen were playing.

"Moby Grape" (actually The Rhythm Dukes) and Bycycle were booked at the Monterey County Fairgrounds on September 5, 1969. 

September 5, 1969 Monterey County Fairgrounds, Monterey, CA: "Moby Grape"/Fields/Bycycle
The Monterey County Fairgrounds were actually regularly used for rock shows, but of course they were far smaller than the legendary 1967 Festival at the main Horse Show arena. Although this concert was billed as "Moby Grape," it was really a band called The Rhythm Dukes, who lived in Felton and featured two former members of the Grape (Jerry Miller and Don Stevenson). Their difficulty in preventing promoters from using the name Moby Grape was just one of a long line of frustrations for the band. Based on the poster, and some things I know about the nascent Monterey rock scene, this seems to have been yet another very hippie promotion, which seems characteristic of the gigs that Bycycle played.

December 5, 1969 Cal Expo Auditorium, Sacramento, CA: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young/Taj Mahal/Bycycle
The final whiff of Bycycle was their biggest gig, by far. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were the hottest band in the country in 1969. The morning after this show, CSNY would be helicoptered over to Altamont Raceway (about 80 miles North) to open the soon-to-be-infamous festival featuring the Rolling Stones. Immediately after their performance, CSNY was helicoptered to the airport, where they went to Los Angeles and played UCLA that night. Only the next morning did they read the papers to find out what a mess they had missed by being choppered in and out of the festival.

How did Bycycle, not even a Sacramento band, end up opening the biggest show in Sacramento? Taj Mahal was on Columbia, well connected in Los Angeles and fine performer, so his presence was not surprising. But since every aspiring rock band for hundreds of miles around would have wanted the opening slot, how did Bycycle get the call? Who did they know, and when did they know it?

How long Dan Healy was in Bycycle remains a mystery--we of course don't know for sure whether he was in the band at all after the name change in 1969. However, their performance schedule seems light enough that he could have been. Healy went on to fame as the Grateful Dead's soundman and engineer, and in the 1980s he led his own group, the Healy-Treece Band. Yet he seems never to have mentioned that he had a sixties group. Somewhere out there are the other members of Hoffman's Bicycle, and here's to hoping they can tell us the other pieces of the puzzle.