New Riders Of The Purple Sage Tour History, October-December 1973 (NRPS VI)
The music of Jerry Garcia casts a large shadow, if a shadow that is bright rather than dark. It is so large, however, and so bright, that it outshines many things around it. In the 21st century, the New Riders of The Purple Sage are best known as the vehicle through which Jerry Garcia created an opportunity to play pedal steel guitar as a sideman in 1970 and '71. When the demands of playing full-time with both the Grateful Dead and the New Riders became too gargantuan a task, Garcia had stepped aside from the Riders. For most Deadheads, that's where the story ends.
Yet the story of the New Riders of The Purple Sage was only beginning. For obvious reasons, the Riders are always compared to the Dead, and like almost every other 20th century rock band, the Dead outshone NRPS by many orders of magnitude. Compared to all the other bands struggling to make it in the early 1970s, however, the New Riders of The Purple Sage were hugely successful. After their debut album with Garcia in late 1971, they released four more albums with Buddy Cage on pedal steel in 1972 and '73. The albums sold well--Panama Red eventually was certified Gold--and the New Riders were a popular concert attraction.
On top of the Riders' undeniable success, they were also still part of the Grateful Dead's business operation. Grateful Dead tours were booked by their in-house Agency, Out-Of-Town Tours, led by Sam Cutler. Cutler and Out-Of-Town also booked the New Riders. So a review of the New Riders touring history in 1972 and '73 shows both what lessons Cutler had learned from the Dead's rise to success in 1970 and '71, and also provided an avenue for Cutler to expand his relationships with promoters who worked with the Grateful Dead. Thus the New Riders touring schedule was both a do-over and a rehearsal, for what had come before and what would come later for the Grateful Dead.
This post will continue the series on the tour history of the New Riders of The Purple Sage in 1972 and '73, with a particular emphasis on how their saga was similar to and different from that of the Grateful Dead. These posts would not have been possible without the stellar research of fellow scholar David Kramer-Smyth, whose contributions have been both deep and broad. The posts covered:
The New Riders' performance history from January to April 1972This post will focus on the New Riders performance history from October to December 1973. although we will extend on to January 1974 in order to complete the tale. Anyone with additions, corrections, insights or just interesting speculation, please include them in the Comments. Flashbacks welcome.
The New Riders' performance history from May to August 1972
The New Riders' performance history from September to December 1972
The New Riders' performance history from January to April 1973
The New Riders' performance history from May to September 1973
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| The Bridgewater (NJ) Courier-News, October 8, 1973 advised the students of Manville High (in Bridgewater) that in order to book the New Riders, they needed to contact Out Of Town Tours, Inc. at 1330 Lincoln Avenue, San Rafael, CA |
Status Report: New Riders of The Purple Sage, October 1, 1973
The New Riders of the Purple Sage had toured heavily throughout 1973. The band had a genuine following in the Northeast, and seemed to be drawing well in the Midwest as well. While still in the inevitable shadow of the Grateful Dead, that was not a bad place to be. Country rock was on the rise, in parallel with the newly-arrived "Outlaw Country" longhairs.
When
headlining, the New Riders would play a pair of hour-long sets, with a
mixture of originals and covers, often including new, unrecorded songs as
well. The band had just completed a new album with Nashville producer
Norbert Putnam, and they must have known it was going to be good. Many
of the songs from the forthcoming Panama Red album, including the title
track, were already regular parts of their live repertoire. The
New Riders were an excellent live band, with a promising fourth album
coming out soon, and in tune with the popular music trends of the day.
Things looked bright indeed for the band.
Up until the Fall of 1973, the New Riders still had been part of the Grateful Dead family, and not just socially. Grateful Dead manager Jon McIntire had shared the same duties for the New Riders, along with NRPS road manager Dale Franklin. McIntire was the principal go-between for the record companies, while Franklin dealt with the day-to-day. The Riders were booked by Sam Cutler and Out-Of-Town Tours, who also booked the Dead. By booking multiple bands, Cutler had more to negotiate and thus more leverage with promoters and agents throughout the country. The Riders didn't have to worry about being left out of the mix--Cutler's principal assistant was Sally Mann Dryden, the drummer's wife (whom Cutler referred to as "Mustang Sally," perhaps a reference to her 428ci Ford Mustang). Travel arrangements were made by the Grateful Dead's in-house agency, Fly-By-Night Travel.
The New Riders of The Purple Sage, October-December 1973
John Dawson-vocals, rhythm guitar
Buddy Cage-pedal steel guitar (ex-Great Speckled Bird and Anne Murray)
David Nelson-lead guitar, vocals (ex-New Delhi River Band)
Dave Torbert-bass, vocals (ex-New Delhi River Band, Horses)
Spencer Dryden-drums (ex-Jefferson Airplane)
Sometime in the Fall of 1973, probably around October, the New Riders stepped aside from the Grateful Dead's orbit. For management, they hired Joe Kerr, an old college pal of George (Commander Cody) Frayne. Kerr also managed Commander Cody, Asleep At The Wheel and Clover, so he had kind of a lock on Bay Area country rock bands. The New Riders also separated themselves from Sam Cutler's Out Of Town Tours booking agency, switching their agent to Ron Rainey. Rainey had worked with Sam Cutler and the Dead for a few years already, so they were familiar with them. Still, the management and agency changes meant that the New Riders were still friends with the Dead, but no longer junior partners. New Riders appearances with the Dead became fewer and fewer.
Benefit concerts with major local artists were common in San Francisco at the time. This show was a little different in that the billing did not make clear whom the beneficiary might have been. The ads just said "Legal Aid Benefit." It turned out that it was a Benefit for someone (or several someones) in the Hells Angels. Bill Graham made it clear (via John Wasserman's Chronicle column) that he had been lied to by the bands, and he was very resentful. Details are obscure, but generally speaking Hells Angels do not need "Legal Aid" because they would have been arguing a free speech clause of the constitution, but rather for other alleged transgressions. In the end, Graham simply shared the money raised amongst the bands to do with as they saw fit.
The oddity here was a very rare billing of "Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady" instead of Hot Tuna. It was probably because Jack and Jorma played as an acoustic duo, rather than plugged in with a drummer. Hot Tuna and Garcia/Saunders (and presumably Mike Bloomfield) played full sets. The New Riders, per the setlist, played about an hour. They featured a lot of songs from Panama Red, and were joined by Matt Kelly on harmonica for the last two songs.
October 6, 1973 Field House, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL: New Riders of The Purple Sage/Roger McGuinn (Saturday)
The New Riders kicked off their Fall tour with a probably-lucrative college booking at Northern Illinois University. NIU is in DeKalb, IL, about 65 miles North of Chicago. The school had been established as a Teachers College (Normal School) in 1895. Starting in 1965, the school was reorganized into the larger Illinois University System. NIU currently has over 16,000 undergraduates. It probably had fewer than that in 1973, but it would still have been a substantial, growing school. DeKalb wasn't Chicago, with a million entertainment options--so the student body would have been ready to rock the gym on a Saturday night.
The Byrds had been Columbia's most substantial rock act in the 60s. Leader Roger McGuinn had broken up the existing version of the band (with Clarence White) in early '73 to reform the original quintet (with David Crosby, Chris Hillman, Gene Clark and Michael Clarke), but that album had flopped. Instead, McGuinn had launched a solo career. Columbia had released McGuinn's self-titled solo debut in June 1973. McGuinn became an early version of a 70s (and 80s) phenomenon, a genuine rock star revered by Rolling Stone who actually sold very few records. McGuinn had a fine touring band (John Guerin on drums, David Vaught on bass and Mike Woolford on organ), but the album didn't really connect with FM radio or the public. The New Riders had come to country-rock later than the Byrds, but now they had passed McGuinn in the pecking order.
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| An ad for the October 12, 1973 New Riders show at the Palestra at the University of Rochester, in the September 27 edition of the SUNY Brockport Stylus (thank you David Kramer-Smyth for the incredible sleuthing) |
October 12, 1973 Palestra, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY: New Riders of The Purple Sage (Friday)
When the Grateful Dead had started attaching a financial purpose to their touring, starting in early 1970, Sam Cutler strove to keep them on the road by filling in empty nights with bookings that didn't require major travel. Cities in Central and Upstate New York, like Buffalo, Syracuse and Rochester were perfect. They weren't too far from lucrative bookings in places like Manhattan and Philadelphia and there were plenty of colleges in the region. FM Radio had spread all over the country, so even in secondary markets young rock fans were hearing all the cool rock bands on the air. By strategic bookings, Cutler helped the Dead turn Central New York from weeknight filler to a major market for the band. In 1973, the outlines of a similar strategy was in play for the New Riders.
While the exact release date for The Adventures of Panama Red is uncertain, by early October it would have been played on FM and likely available in at least some stores. The New Riders had managed to build a substantial following along the Eastern Seaboard, in both cities and colleges. Playing the rest of New York State made good sense. The Fall tour started in earnest with a Friday night at The Palestra, the gym at the University of Rochester.
"Palestra" (properly transliterated as "Palaestra") means "Wrestling
Ground" in Ancient Greek, which is why it has been used as an Arena name
by various schools.
Rochester is on the southern shore of Lake Ontario, East of Buffalo. It was a boom city going back to the 19th century--the Erie Canal came to Rochester in 1823-- and well into the 20th. The city was the birthplace of giant companies like Kodak, Xerox and Western Union. The city's population peaked in 1930 at 328,000. By 1970, it still had 296,000. Keep in mind, however, that the US population boomed after WW2, so while Rochester was a thriving city in 1970, its footprint was shrinking (in the 2010 census Rochester's population was just 210,000). In 1970, though, there were still plenty of young people there, and they wanted rock and roll, too.
The New Riders had opened for the Grateful Dead at the Palestra on October 26, 1971, and their set had been broadcast on FM radio. By Spring of '73, the Dead were headlining the much larger War Memorial in Rochester on March 30, and the New Riders opened that show as well. Now the Riders had a new album, and they were headlining the Palestra themselves, trying to climb the same ladder as the Dead.
The New Riders were booked for two shows at the Capitol Theater in Passaic on Saturday night. The New Riders had headlined at the Capitol back on March 23, and now they were returning with both an early and a late show. Clearly promoter John Scher expected to sell a lot of tickets.
The Capitol, at 326 Monroe Street, had been built in 1921 and had a capacity of 3,200. By late 1970, it was showing "adult" films. Scher, from West Orange, NJ, and his then-partner Al Hayward booked their first rock show at the Capitol on December 16, 1971 (J. Geils Band/Humble Pie). Scher would go on to dominate the New Jersey rock concert market for several decades. Scher had bet on the New Riders early, booking them as Capitol headliners as far back as April 22, 1972. In fact, Scher had booked the New Riders before he had ever booked the Grateful Dead. Given the importance of John Scher to Grateful Dead history, that's no small detail.
Openers Dan Hicks and The Hot Licks were another San Francisco band. They didn't really sound like anyone else, playing a unique brand of acoustic swing music, characterized by Hicks' melodic, snarky songs, such as the immortal "How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away." By this time, the band had released their fourth album, Last Train To Hicksville. It would be the band's last of three albums on Blue Thumb, and they would break up by 1974.
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| Central New Jersey Home News (New Brunswick) October 12, 1973 |
October 14, 1973 [gym], Middlesex CC, Edison, NJ: New Riders of The Purple Sage/Fabulous Rhinestones (Sunday)
A feature of touring the Northeast was that there were numerous college bookings available. Almost all colleges and universities, including junior colleges, had entertainment budgets. Thus colleges could book shows and pay fair rates, without having to cover the entire cost of the event from ticket sales. For a rising band like the New Riders, they could fill out their week with college gigs. They wouldn't make as much as they would have made playing the Capitol in Passaic, but they made more than they would have if they had just stayed in their hotel. At the same time, college bookings helped grow the audience for the band.
Edison, NJ is roughly between Princeton and Newark, within commuting distance of Manhattan. Middlesex College had only been opened in 1964. Although the school serves 11,800 students today, it probably served considerably fewer in those days. The current configuration of Community Colleges tends to orient towards a lot of part-time and returning students, often taking classes in a variety of professional skills that are not always directly related to degree programs. In their initial formulation, however, junior colleges were still more focused on the full time student body that was making academic plans to continue onward with their education.
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A twist to the college bookings was that any promoter like John Scher would not have contractually allowed the New Riders to advertise a show within 50 miles of the Capitol Theater prior to the concert. This was a standard clause for all promoters. A college show, however, would not have been advertised outside of the campus, and thus Scher would not have considered the Sunday Edison show as competition with the Saturday night Capitol show. Note that the clipping above is just a newspaper listing, not an ad. Scher also booked concerts for a lot of colleges, and my guess is that Scher actually had some hand in booking the Edison show, so he would have been fine with the New Riders playing the night after The Capitol, just 37 miles to the South.
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| The December 2, 1970 Middlesex CC student paper (Quo Vadis) had a picture of the New Riders of The Purple Sage performing in the gym on November 22, 1970 |
Cutler knew this playbook. Three years earlier, on November 22, 1970, the Grateful Dead had played a Sunday night concert in the Edison Gym, squeezing it in after a show in Boston. Edison's proximity to Newark Airport made it easy transit for the band. The New Riders had opened the Edison show (see the picture above), so Cutler knew the venue. I rescued the Edison show from obscurity, and thanks to many Commenters, we now have numerous details. Like most college shows at the time, the audience was mainly students, but there were a few locals as well. One curious attendee in 1970 was Bruce Springsteen, then a struggling but ambitious musician in the band Steel Mill. Bruce admitted that he "didn't get it" in his autobiography.
October 17, 1973 The Playhouse, Hofstra U., Hempstead, NY: New Riders of The Purple Sage (Wednesday) 7:30 & 10:30
On Wednesday night, the New Riders were booked at another college. Hofstra is a private college in Long Island that was founded in 1935. It currently has about 10,000 students, although I don't know if it had that many in 1973. Hofstra Playhouse was an 1105 seat theater. The New Riders had played the room before.
October 19, 1973 Township Auditorium, Columbia, SC: New Riders of The Purple Sage (Friday)
Not only was Sam Cutler following the Grateful Dead playbook for the New Riders in Upstate New York, he was trying to build both the Dead and the Riders in the Southeast. The Dead had followings in Atlanta and Miami, but had not played in between Georgia and Washington, DC. North Carolina and Virginia, however, were growing areas and well-located for touring. In the Fall of '73, shows were booked shows for the Dead in Virginia (Williamsburg September 11-12) and North Carolina (Duke University on December 8, and Charlotte on December 10). The road was long, and the strategy long outlasted Cutler's departure, but by the start of the 1980s, the "New South" of North Carolina and Virginia were profitable anchors to Northeastern tours every year.
It's not clear, however, whether Cutler or Ron Rainey had booked the actual October dates, but in any case the strategy remained in force. Whoever planned the bookings, clearly the Riders were working on a similar strategy for the New Riders in the Southeast, indeed one that had been underway before the Grateful Dead's bookings had reached fruition. Back on November 17, 1972, the New Riders had headlined at Carmichael Arena at UNC-Chapel Hill (a decade before Michael Jordan), and in the Summer of '73 the Riders had played a few dates in Alabama (Auburn U. on July 24), Tennessee (Nashville on July 26) and Charlotte (a junior college on July 28). Now they were booked for a Friday night in Columbia, SC, which was both the state capitol and the home of the University of South Carolina.
Columbia, like many State Capitols, had been chosen for the political expediency of its location, as it was at the center of the state. USC (as the locals call it) was a football power rather than a hotbed of revolution, but students there read Rolling Stone, too. The Township Auditorium, at 1703 Taylor Street, with a capacity of 3072, had been built in 1930. Back in the day, major touring rock bands did not play South Carolina much. Also, remember that there were no "jam bands" in those days--if you were a nascent hippie in South Carolina, Alabama or Georgia, seeing the New Riders was as close as you were going to get to any Deadhead scene. If you wanted to hang out with like-minded folks, and just possibly engage in some commerce, a New Riders show was your best bet.
I wonder how well this concert drew? The Grateful Dead would only play South Carolina one time, an epic event on Halloween 1985. The New Riders recording arc was nothing like the Dead's, and they would never establish the kind of permanence in the Southeast that the Dead would create.
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| The New Riders/Cody show at Cameron Indoor Stadium at Duke was advertised the previous week (Friday Oct 12) in UNC's Daily Tar Heel |
October 20, 1973 Cameron Indoor Stadium, Duke U., Durham, NC: New Riders of The Purple Sage/Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen (Saturday)
The Grateful Dead and the New Riders had played the Wallace Wade Stadium at Duke University on April 24, 1971 (along with the Beach Boys), at a thinly-attended event. Since no one went, it didn't have much impact on the Dead's popularity in the Southeast. The Grateful Dead's return to Duke, however, at the Cameron Indoor Stadium basketball arena, on December 8, 1973, was the trigger of a long, successful history for the Dead in North Carolina. The Dead would return to Cameron three times more, and to North Carolina many times more.
In fact, however, it was probably Cutler who had booked the New Riders to headline at Cameron two months prior. Cameron had been opened way back in 1940, and had a capacity of 8,800. While substantial for the 1940s, the capacity (since increased to 9,300) isn't large for major college basketball these days. Even so, and even with the support of the Commander Cody band, I doubt the New Riders could fill the place. Probably the upper decks were closed off. Note that the Riders tickets are $4 for students and $5 for General Admission. Things must have gone well--the Grateful Dead would play there in December, with tickets at $5-$6.
Note also that the ad above is from the UNC Daily Tar Heel newspaper. Chapel Hill is just 8 miles from Durham. The famous "rivalry" between the basketball teams was largely invented by ESPN in the 1980s. Students from both schools often attended events at the other, and save for a few hard-core alums any sports rivalries were not prominent.
October 21, 1973 The Mosque, Richmond, VA: New Riders of The Purple Sage/Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen (Sunday)
The Mosque, at 6 North Laurel Street in Richmond, was built in 1927 as a Shriner's Temple. Unlike the Avalon, another former Shriner's Temple, The Mosque had seats. However, the 3,565-capacity Mosque is fondly remembered as a rock venue. It is now known as The Altria Theater. I believe this show was associated with Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), a large state school in Richmond. Richmond had a thriving local scene as far as I know, but major touring bands didn't play there that much. If the show was affiliated with VCU, the show probably drew pretty well for a Sunday night.
Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen had moved to Berkeley from Ann Arbor, MI in the Summer of 1969. Their swinging hippie honky-tonk fit in well with the New Riders, and the Airmen had played with the Dead and the Riders many times. The manager of the Airmen was Joe Kerr, who was also the manager of Asleep at The Wheel and Clover. As noted above, at some point in the Fall of 1973, Kerr became co-manager of the New Riders of the Purple Sage, sharing the duties with Dale Franklin. Franklin had been, and remained, road manager and dealt with the day-to-day issues of touring. She had shared management with Jon McIntyre, but McIntyre was really the manager of the Grateful Dead. So Kerr's presence gave the New Riders a manager focused on them.
The exact timing of Kerr's ascension to co-manager of the New Riders isn't certain. In any case, the New Riders and the Airmen had been sharing bookings for many years, so the changeover to Kerr was probably more like an evolution than a jolt.
The New Riders had been advertised at a show on (Monday) October 22 at the State Fair Show Arena in Harrisburg, PA, along with Joe Walsh, but the show was canceled.
The New Riders and Commander Cody were booked for a double show on (Thursday) October 25 at the Tower Theater in the Philadelphia suburb of Upper Darby. However, the Tower was closed for code violations and the shows were canceled. The Tower, at 69th and Ludlow Streets, would re-open, however, and remains one of the region's premier theaters.
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| Don Law Presents, at various venues (Boston Globe Oct 7) |
October 26, 1973 Aquarius Orpheum Theater, Boston, MA: New Riders of The Purple Sage/Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen (Friday)
Don Law Jr, son of a famous Nashville producer, had been a Boston University college student when he started presenting local events. By mid-1968 he ran the Boston Tea Party, Boston's principal underground rock venue. The Tea Party was particularly legendary for booking touring English bands like Jethro Tull and Ten Years After. Law had also co-owned Boston's first full-time FM rock station, WBCN. WBCN began broadcasting on March 15, 1968, with dj's often spinning records from a studio on an upper floor of the venue itself (the all-night DJ, known as "The Woofuh Goofuh," was J Geils Band lead singer Peter Wolf).
The tiny Tea Party had moved in late 1969 to a larger joint, but that too had closed by the end of 1970. Law went on to book other venues, but initially he was just one of many promoters in the competitive Boston marketplace. By 1973, Don Law Jr's principal, though not only, venue was the 2700-seat Orpheum Theater, at 1 Hamilton Place. The New Riders had played for Law at the Orpheum earlier in the year (April 2 '73). That time, they had been paired with Hot Tuna, but here they were headlining over Cody and the Airmen.
For the second set, the Riders were joined by the fine guitarist Amos Garrett. Garrett had played with Buddy Cage and Ian & Sylvia Tyson in the Great Speckled Bird, and more recently with Paul Butterfield's Better Days.
Cole Field House, the 12,000-capacity basketball arena at the University of Maryland, had opened in 1955 (located at 4095 Union Lane, it is now the Jones-Hill House). It had been the home of the Maryland Terrapins basketball team. Although the New Riders had played the DC area in the prior year, they weren't anywhere near big enough to fill Cole, even with Commander Cody supporting them. I assume some upper sections of the arena were closed off. Still, the bands probably brought in a decent crowd.
October 29, 1973 Great Southeast Music Hall, Atlanta, GA: New Riders of The Purple Sage (Monday) 8pm & 10pm
Atlanta was a growing city, and a growing rock market. The Grateful Dead had played in Atlanta, and the New Riders had opened for them there. In fact, Buddy Cage's debut on pedal steel for the band had been in Atlanta on November 11, 1971. Now, the Riders filled in an open night between DC and Texas with a Monday night in Atlanta.
The Great Southeast Music Hall, then in the Broadview Plaza Shopping Center (at 2581 Piedmont Rd NE), was the premier Atlanta club for touring acts. The club held about 500 people. Bands generally played double shows from Tuesday to Sunday, but Monday nights were open. Cutler slipped the New Riders in on a Monday night. According to a review in the local independent weekly paper (Great Speckled Bird), the band packed the house for both shows. Sitting in on banjo was John McEuen from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, who were booked for the following week.
November 1, 1973 Music Hall, Houston, TX: New Riders of The Purple Sage/Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen (Thursday)
Sam Cutler had been trying to build an audience for the Grateful Dead in Texas during this period, and Kerr tried to do the same for the New Riders. The Riders' long-haired pro-dope country rock sound was perfect for Texas hippies, and the band did very well there (as did Commander Cody). The Houston Music Hall was built in 1937, adjacent to the Sam Houston Coliseum. The Music Hall was the home of the Houston Symphony. It had wonderful acoustics, and a capacity of only 2,200.
November 2, 1973 Laurie Auditorium, Trinity University, San Antonio, TX: New Riders of The Purple Sage (Friday)
Trinity University is a prestigious private school in San Antonio. Laurie Auditorium, with a capacity of 2,709, could fit the entire undergraduate student population. I don't know if Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen also played on this Friday night bill.
November 3, 1973 Texas Hall, U of Texas-Arlington, Arlington, TX: New Riders of The Purple Sage/Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen (Saturday)
Arlington, TX is between Dallas and Fort Worth (some say that Arlington is the dash between the two cities). As the Dallas-Ft Worth area had expanded, so has Arlington. While the University was founded back in 1895, in 1965 it was merged into the University of Texas system as UT-Arlington. In 1973, the school had about 15,000 students (now it has 25,000). Texas Hall had been opened in 1965, and had a capacity of 2,625.
November 4, 1973 Armadillo World Headquarters, Austin, TX: New Riders of The Purple Sage (Sunday)
The Armadillo World Headquarters, a former Armory at 525 1/2 Barton Springs Road in Austin, had first opened as a rock venue on August 7, 1970. It was popular as a place in Austin that was sympathetic to hippies, where smoking pot was safe. Pot was a serious felony in Texas at the time, so this was no small thing.
By 1973, "Outlaw Country Music" was booming, and Austin and The 'Dillo (as it was known) were right at the center of it. Few people realize that the live music explosion in Austin around that time was driven by the Texas Legislature's decision to allow liquor to be sold by the drink, subject to municipal laws. That's right--prior to '71, there were no bars in Austin. So that's why you never hear of a classic Texas music bar from Austin from the '60s. There weren't any. The laws about beer and wine were slightly less restrictive, and some restaurants could serve them, but there weren't music venues with drinks prior to '72. When Austin was able to open the doors to bars in '72, there was an explosion of music bars, all legendary now. At the time, Austin was a college town, with benign weather--by Texas standards--so Austinites went out every night. The likes of Doug Sahm, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and many more played great country music, but they grew their hair and didn't limit their indulgences to liquor.
As for the Armadillo World Headquarters, they opened a Beer Garden where Lone Star Beer was the order of the day. The 'Dillo only had a capacity of about 1500, but they sold so much beer that it didn't really matter. Needless, to say, the New Riders of The Purple Sage killed it there. My assumption here is that Commander Cody did not share the bill with the New Riders here because the Airmen were already headliners. Commander Cody and his crew were the most Austin band ever that didn't actually live there.
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| The gatefold cover of Panama Red had an illustrated comic of the lyrics to the title track |
The Adventures Of Panama Red
By 1973, the Riders' debut album (usually called NRPS) had established itself as a kind of archetype. With 10 great John Dawson songs and Jerry Garcia's melodic pedal steel, it had become a staple of every Deadhead's record collection. The following two Riders' albums (Powerglide and Gypsy Cowboy) had been enjoyable, too, but not universally acclaimed, even in Deadhead circles. They had sold modestly well, probably in the range of 100,000 copies or so. The Adventures Of Panama Red, however, released in October 1973, was the definitive musical statement of the post-Garcia New Riders. The title track, with it's snarky jokes about "brand name" weed was perfect for FM radio. Kids could sing it at home and their parents had no idea what it was about, every teenager's 1973 dream.
Panama Red was pretty distinct from previous New Riders albums. Producer Norbert Putnam was a veteran Nashville producer, but his focus more on R&B than country, which was perfect for the New Riders' sound. Putnam was from Florence, AL (where he surely had worked with Donna Thatcher), and throughout the 70s he would work with Elvis Presley, Jimmy Buffett, Dan Fogleberg and many others. The album was recorded at Sausalito's Record Plant, but it doesn't have that hippie feel to it. The album has a smooth Muscle Shoals sound to it, coming out like a sort of Bakersfield-country album with a soul edge. Buddy Cage's slashing pedal steel is tasteful yet prominent, but there are discreet contributions from horns (the Memphis Horns), singers (Donna included) and some session players. The album is rocking and very radio-friendly.
The biggest distinction of Panama Red was the choice of songs. NRPS and to some extent the next two albums had featured John Dawson and his original material. Panama Red only has two original Dawson songs, and Marmaduke shares lead vocals somewhat equally throughout the album with Torbert and Nelson. Panama Red is the group's definitive statement as a band, with three fine singers and great harmonies.
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| Peter Rowan "alias Panama Red" was booked at the Freight and Salvage on March 5, 1970 |
The classic title track, forever bringing down the house for the New Riders well into the 21st Century, stands as a microcosm of the band's legacy and status. Peter Rowan had written some excellent songs but had no recording contract in 1973. When Rowan hooked up with Jerry Garcia and David Grisman to form Old And In The Way, "Panama Red" was one of the staples of their repertoire, as was "Lonesome LA Cowboy." However, that band only played around the Bay Area--save a couple of shows on the East Coast--and did not release any recordings until 1975. So unless you were a lucky Bay Area fan who heard Old And In The Way live in person or on local FM radio, you'd never heard of those songs.
"Panama Red" is probably the New Riders' best known song. It was
written by Peter Rowan, and Rowan had been performing the song for some
time. Rowan had certainly been performing "Panama Red" with Jerry Garcia
and Old And In The Way since March of '73, but in fact Rowan had
written the song in Spring 1969, after the California break up of his
band Earth Opera. Rowan himself explained the genesis of the song in a
personal email (via David Gans)
Panama Red was written in 1969 in Cambridge Mass, the summer after Earth Opera’s March breakup after our last gig in Long Beach at the Golden Bear. Seatrain felt the song was too “funky-country” for the band’ pop-classical recording direction. We did perform it in the early days. The subject was "taboo” in those days. You did jail time for pot. So that might have scared commercial interests.
But Garcia was a green light all the way! “ Oh sure” was his motto, both ironically and straight but always with a twinkle in his eye! True to form when the Riders got a hit with Panama Red, the Seatrain management kept all the money! Oh sure!
Jerry suggested I bring the song to Marmaduke and Nelson!
Rowan had played gigs at the Freight and Salvage in February and March 1970 as "Panama Red," so the song has a longer history than we realize.
Garcia must have known that Putnam and the New Riders were looking for songs, which was a very Nashville approach to a new album. According to legend, Rowan pitched his songs like he was in a building in Nashville, strumming away on his acoustic guitar and singing his proverbial heart out. Rowan's pitch worked--the New Riders recorded great versions of "Panama Red" and "Lonesome LA Cowboy." When exactly Rowan sang his songs to the New Riders isn't clear, but I would guess March or April. Most likely, Rowan went to the New Riders rehearsal space at 20 Front St. The Dead also stored equipment there. Ultimately, the Dead would take over the entire Front Street space. My guess is that the real audience for Rowan wasn't the Riders, but producer Norbert Putnam.Of course, the subplot, which Garcia probably knew, was the New Riders didn't really have much material. They'd used up Dawson's stock of songs from before the first album, and he would only have two songs on Panama Red ("You Should Have Seen Me Running" and "One Too Many Stories"). Torbert wrote three, Nelson wrote one and there were a bunch of covers.
The Adventures Of Panama Red included two songs by Peter Rowan, one by Robert Hunter ("Kick In The Head," sung by Torbert), one by Waylon Jennings and one Red Allen classic. Nelson sang the title track. Garcia's legacy was embedded in “Panama Red,” even if it wasn't widely known. The song was seen as a New Riders song by the rest of the country, but in fact Garcia's band had done it first. Still, the Riders' version was perfect for FM, even if the high lonesome Old And In The Way resonated more with Deadheads in later years when it was released in 1975.
Given that Torbert would leave the group by the end of 1973, The Adventures of Panama Red
stands as the high-water mark for the New Riders of The Purple Sage,
bound intimately with Jerry Garcia's legacy while standing tall without
him. It was the only New Riders album certified as a gold record (in 1979).
November 16, 1973 Chapin Hall, Williams College, Williamstown, MA New Riders of The Purple Sage/John Herald and The Honkies (Friday)
The New Riders came back for the second go-round in the Northeast in the Fall of '73, starting with a week of college dates. Williams College is a prestigious Northeastern undergraduate institution, established in 1793. 1200-seat Chapin Hall had been built in 1910. John Herald had been in the Greenbriar Boys, formed in 1958, the first "Northern" group to succeed playing bluegrass. The Greenbriar Boys had been big influences on Jerry Garcia and David Nelson, sending the message that you didn't have to be born in Kentucky to play the music. Herald's new band was a bluegrass trio.
There is an interesting article describing the New Riders two shows from a backstage perspective, in the November 20 issue of the student newspaper (the Williams Records). It is somewhat impressionistic, but it's an interesting glimpse of a touring rock band playing outside of the bright lights of New York or San Francisco.
Tiny Colgate University is in tiny Hamilton, NY. Hamilton is nearly in the exact center of New York State. It's not near anything. Many years ago, I visited Hamilton College, which (paradoxically) is in Clinton, NY. Pretty as it was, I though Clinton was way out in the country. Yet the Hamilton students assured me that Colgate, 20 miles to the South, made Clinton seem like Greenwich Village.
Colgate is a well-regarded, well-funded University. It was founded in 1819, and has about 3000 students. Places like Colgate have entertainment budgets to bring in touring acts. This Saturday night, they brought in the New Riders. Reid Athletic Center, built in 1959, seats 1,750 for basketball, and probably a bit more for a concert. 4 years later (November 4, 1977), the Grateful Dead would fill out their tour by playing a Friday night at Colgate. I assure you, even if no undergraduates were left from '73, small schools have institutional memories, so things must have gone pretty well with the New Riders for the college to OK inviting the Grateful Dead later on.
Columbia seems to have made the decision to record a live album by the
band, a common way to follow up a hit record at the time. The Colgate show was recorded, as were the next few.
The show at University of Hartford was also recorded by Columbia. I don't know which venue they played at the school.
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| The October 21, 1973 Philadelphia Inquirer advertised the numerous fine bands coming to Princeton that fall, including the New Riders on Tuesday November 20 |
The McCarter Theater at Princeton only held about 1100, but the school was able to provide support for booking bands without depending entirely on ticket sales. The Fall '73 calendar (advertised above) lists some great bands. The New Riders could make good money on a Tuesday night, which beat not making any money at all. This show was also recorded.November 23-24, 1973 Academy Of Music, New York, NY: New Riders of The Purple Sage/Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen (Friday-Saturday)
The Academy of Music, at 126 E.14th Street, had opened as a movie theater in 1922 (taking its name from the Opera House that had been across the street in the 19th century). The 3000-seat venue had been used intermittently for rock concerts in the 1960s, but had mostly been a movie theater. Promoter Howard Stein (1945-2007) had been putting on shows at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, just outside the City, in 1970 and '71. When the Fillmore East closed in June, 1971, Stein took over the The Academy of Music. Stein had been promoting rock shows in the New York area throughout the 1960s (the Academy of Music would change its name to The Palladium in 1976).
The New Riders had played the Academy in May of 1972, and had returned for two nights at Thanksgiving. Now they were back almost exactly a year later. There were early and late shows both nights. The New Riders were now an established draw in New York City. Columbia recorded these shows as well, and the New Riders cooked with gas. Producer Jerry Garcia used recordings from these four shows for the New Riders' 1974 live album Home, Home On The Road.
Commander Cody (piano), Frank Wakefield (mandolin), Andy Stein (sax) and Pete "Dr Banjo" Wernick sat in on various numbers. In fact, I think Commander Cody regularly joined the New Riders throughout 1973 for various numbers, but we only have intermittent notice of it.
November 26, 1973 Onandaga War Memorial Auditorium, Syracuse, NY: New Riders of The Purple Sage/Eric Andersen (Monday) Eddie Claridge Presents
The Onondaga War Memorial Auditorium in Syracuse held about 8,000 in concert configuration, and had been opened in 1949. The Riders had opened for the Dead there back in '71 (and had been broadcast on the local FM station). The Dead had returned to the War Memorial in September '73, and now the New Riders were following them. On a Monday night, they weren't likely to draw a huge crowd, but it was surely worthwhile to play the gig.
Eric Andersen was another Columbia artist, and also Bob Weir's next-door neighbor (which is how he came to write some lyrics for Weir's "Weather Report Part I"). Andersen's most recent album, 1972's Blue River, had been produced by Norbert Putnam for Columbia, so there were plenty of connections. Andersen was often booked with the New Riders, and sometimes joined them for encores.
November 28, 1973 Auditorium Theater, Chicago, IL: New Riders of The Purple Sage (Wednesday)
The Auditorium Theatre (at 50 Ida B Wells St) had been built in 1889, with a capacity of 3,875. The Dead and the Riders had played two nights there in 1971 (October 21-22), and then the Riders had returned in support of Mott the Hoople (Dec 16 '72). On August 4, 1973, the Riders returned to the theater as headliners. This was how the rock business was designed to work, and in the Upper Midwest, at least things were going according to plan. The New Riders returned to headline again November.
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| The New Riders appearance on November 30, 1973 got them a page in the 1973-74 Bethany College yearbook, The Bethanian (link is here--amazing research by David Kramer-Smyth) |
November 30, 1973 [venue], Bethany College, Bethany, WV: New Riders of The Purple Sage (Friday)
Bethany, WV is a tiny town of 1,036 an hour Southwest of Pittsburgh. Bethany College, established in 1840, has just 650 students. Presumably the college subsidized the show, since ticket sales couldn't have covered the cost. This peculiar booking only makes sense if the New Riders were playing a good gig nearby on Saturday night. Pittsburgh would be a good guess, but we can't find anything.
December 4, 1973 Riverside Theater, Milwaukee, WI: New Riders of The Purple Sage (Tuesday)
The New Riders doubled back to the Midwest after their trip to West Virginia. The Riverside Theater, at 116 W Wisconsin Ave, had opened in 1928. It had a capacity of 2450 (it's still thriving).
December 5, 1973 Dane County Coliseum, Madison, WI: Beach Boys/New Riders of The Purple Sage (Wednesday)
Not yet established in Wisconsin, the New Riders were opening for the Beach Boys. Per some reviews, the bands drew about 4000. Now, the Dane County Coliseum has a capacity of around 10,000 but two reviews in the local papers did not call the shows "empty." I suspect that for a weeknight show, a much smaller configuration of the arena was used.
Billboard listed a few more dates, but David Kramer-Smyth could find no traces, and it seems like this leg of the tour was canceled (if anyone knows anything, please Comment)
December 7 1973 Eastern Montana University, Billings, MT (Friday)
December 8 1973 University of Montana, Missoula, MT (Saturday)
December 9 1973 Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA (Sunday)
Rock tours are booked a few months in advance, for obvious reasons, and there's some solid evidence that the New Riders Fall tour was booked by Sam Cutler and Out-Of-Town Tours. But by the Fall, promotional material for Out-Of-Town did not list the New Riders on the roster. Clearly there had been a falling out, a falling out that would presage Cutler's falling out with the Grateful Dead. The issue appears to have been money, as it usually is. When bands like the Dead and the Riders were climbing the ladder, 10% for booking seemed reasonable, but once the paydays got bigger, competitors offering smaller commissions moved in.
By late 1973, Ron Rainey of Magma was the "official" booking agent for the New Riders. Rainey had been heavily involved with booking the Riders and the Dead for years, working with Cutler and Out-Of-Town, but now he was the primary agent. Rainey was an established pro, so the business was covered. But by the end of '73, with Jon McIntire and Sam Cutler replaced by Joe Kerr and Ron Rainey, the New Riders Of The Purple Sage relationship with the Grateful Dead became a social one rather than a professional one.
Dave Torbert Departs
When the New Riders of The Purple Sage formed in 1969, they were a platform for John Dawson's songs and Jerry Garcia's pedal steel guitar playing. The NRPS album had captured that era perfectly. While it had taken a little time for the band to re-establish their identity, by the end of 1973 the band had found their footing. The Riders had three lead singers with different styles, and great harmonies. Buddy Cage was a remarkable soloist, able to play both sizzling rock leads and sweet country rides with ease. With three singers and four albums, the band was able to play two hour shows with a wide variety of original and cover material. Rock and country music were clearly merging, and the Riders were at the forefront. The Grateful Dead association was still a cool thing, and helped ensure a loyal audience that would see the band over and over. The future looked very bright indeed.
Bassist Dave Torbert had joined the New Riders in March, 1970. He had played with David Nelson in the New Delhi River Band for two years (1966-68), and then joined his pal Matt Kelly in various bands for a year (Horses and Shango). He had gone to Hawaii for several months in late 69/early '70, and was on his way to join Kelly's band in London (Gospel Oak) when he got the call from Nelson. With Kelly's assent, Torbert had joined the band just when they started touring with the Grateful Dead. Initially, he had just played bass and sang some harmony. By 1973, he was writing some of the band's best songs and singing many of their crowd-pleasing covers. Torbert's handsome hippie-surfer stage presence gave some distinct charisma to the New Riders, in contrast to the more cosmic Dawson and countrified Nelson.
Matt Kelly had returned to the Bay Area by the Fall of 1972. He had played harmonica on Gypsy Cowboy and Panama Red, and had sat in with the New Riders many times. By the Fall of '73, Kelly was working on a blues harmonica instruction album. He used members of his own band, Lonesome Janet, and had various guests like Mike Bloomfield and Mark Naftalin. Kelly was planning to move away from the jazzy sound of Lonesome Janet and make them into a bluesier ensemble. Torbert had played on the sessions for the instruction album, and unexpectedly asked to join Kelly's new band.
Kelly, in a (February 2022) phone call with me, told me that he actively tried to talk Torbert out of throwing in his lot with Kelly. Kelly's band was playing tiny joints in the Santa Cruz Moutains, and had no backing and no management. The New Riders were riding high on a hit album, they had three more under their belt, management, professional booking and an invaluable association with the Grateful Dead. Flattered as he was, Kelly strenuously argued to Torbert that he should stay where he was. Torbert was adamant, however--he was tired of the country music sound of the Riders and wanted to play something with a more R&B feel. Kelly was not only an old friend, but drummer Chris Herold had played with Torbert from 1966-69 (in the NDRB, Horses and Shango), so he was returning to old comrades. Thus Kelly finally accepted that his unknown little band was going to have a local rock star on bass and vocals.
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| Skip Battin's 1972 album Skip, on Signpost Records |
Skip Battin-Bass and Vocals
It's my recollection that Torbert's departure from the New Riders was not announced until January, 1974, but I am not certain of that. In any case, retroactively, the Riders seem to have been aware that Torbert's gigs with the band at Winterland on the weekend of December 14 and 15 would be his last stand. We know that because his replacement, Skip Battin, checked out the Riders that weekend with an eye toward joining the group. Battin already had a lengthy Hollywood music career, going back to 1961. Most recently he had been in The Byrds from late 1969 through early 1973, playing on three of their albums (Untitled, Byrdamaniax and Farther Along). In 1972, he had also released his first solo album, Skip, on Signpost Records (distributed by Atlantic). He had been on hiatus for much of 1973, after the Byrds had fallen apart. He had recorded a follow-up album, Topanga Skyline, but it had been shelved (it was finally released in 2010).
Battin was suggested for the New Riders by booking agent Ron Rainey. Rainey had been booking the Grateful Dead since at least 1971, so he would have been working closely with Sam Cutler and the Riders. The booking business was much like Real Estate, in that agents collaborated to serve their clients in different regions. Battin and the Riders did not know each other, but Rainey hooked them up. In a 1976 interview (by Barry Ballard), Battin said
Ron Rainey at Magna had booked the Byrds and he also booked the Riders. When David Torbert left he said he had just the right person and came to me and asked if I would be interested. Well it sounded good and I went up and saw them at Winterland and it was country rock and it was exciting. I was itching to get back on the road again because I had finished the house and been off long enough. Even my wife had noticed I was getting itchy to get back playing on stage in front of an audience once more. I continued to chant and things kept falling in the right way. The Riders had just released a live album, so there were a few months to go before we went into the studios. I just picked it right up in January and we did 'Brujo' in the Spring.
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| The New Riders at Winterland on (December 14-15 '73) was just one great booking of many for Bill Graham Presents in November and December) |
December 14-15, 1973 Winterland, San Francisco, CA: New Riders of The Purple Sage/Jesse Colin Young/Linda Ronstadt (Friday-Saturday)
Throughout the New Riders touring history in 1972 and '73, we can see how Cutler both capitalized on existing relationships for the New Riders and created new ones that benefited the Grateful Dead. The New Riders played for John Scher prior to the Dead did, for example, and Scher's role in Grateful Dead history was essential to their future success.
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February 1-2, 1974 Keystone Berkeley, Berkeley, CA: New Riders of The Purple Sage/Pablo Cruise (Friday-Saturday)
Aftermath
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