Danny Cox Live At The Family Dog November 1969 (Lost Owsley-FDGH III)

 

1960s Folksinger Danny Cox was hardly a major figure, but he did have a career in music, which is every musician's goal. Cox was born in Cincinnati, and had released a few albums in the early 1960s. Around 1967, he moved to Kansas City. Cox released a few albums in the late 60s and early 70s. In the narrow universe of Grateful Dead history, Cox's place is that during 1970 demo sessions at Wally Heider Studios in San Francisco, John Kahn and Merl Saunders played on the recordings. During the sessions, Kahn introduced Jerry Garcia--recording in another room at Heider's--to Merl Saunders, and an important partnership was born. 

Cox's fifth album, Live At The Family Dog was released in 1970. Recording details are scant. If, in fact, the album really was recorded at the Family Dog, then the odds are very high that the source tape for the album was recorded by Owsley Stanley himself. Cox only played Chet Helms' Family Dog on The Great Highway on two consecutive weekends. On one of those weekends, Danny Cox opened for the Grateful Dead for two nights, and Owsley made his usual excellent tapes of the Dead. So the odds seem pretty reasonable that Cox was recorded by Owsley on one or both of those nights, and those tapes might have been turned into the 1970 Live At The Family Dog lp. So we may have a secret lost Owsley tape. Or maybe not. Let's review. 

[update: we have a definitive answer that Danny Cox Live At The Family Dog was not recorded by Owsley, delicious as that theory was. See below]

The Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA
The Family Dog was a foundation stone in the rise of San Francisco rock, and it was in operation in various forms from Fall 1965 through the Summer of 1970. For sound historical reasons, most of the focus on the Family Dog has been on the original 4-person collective who organized the first San Francisco Dance Concerts in late 1965, and on their successor Chet Helms. Helms took over the Family Dog in early 1966, and after a brief partnership with Bill Graham at the Fillmore, promoted memorable concerts at the Avalon Ballroom from Spring 1966 through December 1968. The posters, music and foggy memories of the Avalon are what made the Family Dog a legendary 60s rock icon.

In the Summer of 1969, however, with San Francisco as one of the fulcrums of the rock music explosion, Chet Helms opened another venue. The Family Dog on The Great Highway, at 660 Great Highway, on the Western edge of San Francisco, was only open for 14 months and was not a success. The Family Dog on The Great Highway was smaller than the Bill Graham's old Fillmore Auditorium. It could hold up to 1500, but the official capacity was probably closer to 1000. Unlike the comparatively centrally located Fillmore West, the FDGH was far from downtown, far from the Peninsula suburbs, and not particularly easy to get to from the freeway. For East Bay or Marin residents, the Great Highway was a formidable trip. The little ballroom was very appealing, but if you didn't live way out in the Avenues, you had to drive. As a result, FDGH didn't get a huge number of casual drop-ins, and that didn't help its fortunes. Most of the locals referred to the venue as "Playland."

October 31, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Danny Cox/Alan Watts/Golden Toad/Hells Angels Own Band (Friday)
November 1-2, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Grateful Dead/Danny Cox/Golden Toad (Saturday-Sunday)
The Grateful Dead played Halloween 1969 at the tiny Student Union Ballroom at San Jose State, but they played the Saturday and Sunday of that weekend at the Family Dog. Danny Cox opened the shows at The Dog, along with the unique Golden Toad, led by Owsley pal Bob Thomas. Owsley recorded the Grateful Dead at the Family Dog on November 1 and 2.  It's fairly plausible that Owsley recorded Danny Cox, as he regularly recorded opening acts.

Update: much as I love my theory, the Owsley Stanley foundation reports that

we recently confirmed that Owsley did not record Danny Cox at the Family Dog because Cox's manager, Howard Wolf, would not let him tape any acts that Wolf managed. We learned this from the dedicated house tech at the Family Dog at the time, Lee Brenkman, currently a faculty member at the California Jazz Conservatory. Lee believes the live Danny Cox recording that was released actually came from the Hell's Angels Halloween party, and adds that it was the last calm thing that occurred that night.

[for more about Howard Wolf, see below]

November 7-9, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Velvet Underground/Danny Cox/John Adams (Sat-Sun only)/Maximum Speed Limit (Friday-Sunday)
The legendary Velvet Underground played the next weekend at the Family Dog, prior to a three-week booking at the Matrix. Law student and guitarist Robert Quine, a friend of the band, taped just about all the shows with his cassette recorder. Some of the Family Dog tapes were released on a 2001 Polydor Records box set called as The Velvet Underground Bootleg Series, Volume 1: The Quine Tapes (sadly, there never was a volume 2). While Quine recorded all the Velvet sets, there's no evidence (nor likelihood) that he would have recorded any opening acts. Also, the tapes would have been kind of crude, and not suitable for release in the 60s. I suppose it's not unthinkable that someone else recorded Cox on this weekend, but it's highly unlikely. 

Danny Cox's 3rd album was Birth Announcement, a double-LP released on Together Records in 1969 and produced by Gary Usher

Danny Cox (b. 1943) was from Cincinnati, but he had relocated to Kansas City in 1967. Cox, a large African-American man, defied rather conventional 60s expectations by singing folk music instead of blues. Danny Cox's debut album was At The Seven Cities, released in 1963. His next album, Sunny, on Pioneer Records, was not released until 1968. When Cox played at the Family Dog, his current album was his 3rd, Birth Announcement, a double-lp on Together Records produced by Gary Usher. On the album, Cox sang folk classics along with Beatles and Dylan songs, lightly backed.

Danny Cox's 1971 self-titled album on ABC/Dunhill, recorded in San Francisco with Nick Gravenites. The backing band was John Kahn, Bill Vitt, Merl Saunders, guitarist Tim Barnes and the Tower Of Power horn section

In 1970, Cox shared management with Brewer And Shipley, and like them he would record an album for ABC/Dunhill in San Francisco with producer Nick Gravenites. Recorded at Wally Heider Studios, it was released in 1971. In between 1969 Birth Announcement and his 1971 ABC/Dunhill albums, Sunflower Records released  Live At The Family Dog. We know almost nothing about the Family Dog record save for the listings in Discogs.com (linked).

Preflyte, Byrds recordings from 1965, was released on Together Records in 1969

Together Records>Sunflower Records
Back in 1969 and 1970, there was a lot of money to be made selling records. A lot. Most of it didn't go the artists or the songwriters, sure. But a lot of money was made. Why do you think there were so many albums released by bands you never heard of, who maybe played the Fillmore once, and disappeared? Because on the whole, those records made money. Outside of big cities and a few big college towns, there weren't even dedicated record-only stores. Most albums were sold at department stores, drug stores, musical instrument stores and other general merchandise places. The store would have a few hundred albums for sale, not all of them hits. If you had already bought the last Beatles album and wanted something new, you flipped through the racks until something caught your eye. Of course you hadn't heard it--radio was terrible. But if it had a cool cover and the song titles were interesting, why not? So those racks were filled up with quickie albums.

Together Records had released Danny Cox's 1969 double album, Birth Announcement. Together was a new label, started by producers Gary Usher, Curt Boettcher and Keith Olsen (yes, the future Grateful Dead producer). Usher 1938-90) had produced some surf hits (like "Go Little Honda") and some Byrds albums, like 1968's great Sweetheart Of The Rodeo. Together's best known release was Pre-Flyte, an album of Byrds recordings that pre-dated the band's signing with Columbia. Remember, in 1969, there were only a few Byrds albums, and no cassette tapes circulated, so if you wanted some more Byrds, you took what you could find in the Macy's rack. 

Vintage Dead, recorded at the Avalon Ballroom in 1966, and released on Sunflower in 1971

Usher had a good idea, though. He approached former Avalon Ballroom soundman Bob Cohen about all the tapes he had recorded there in 1966, long before the bands were signed. The idea was to make a triple album of the Dead, Quicksilver, Big Brother, Steve Miller, Moby Grape and others from the very beginning. The concept was that the album would support the Family Dog itself. I wrote about this whole complicated story earlier. The summary of the story is that Together folded its tent, and Gary Usher sold out his contracts to Sunflower Records, a subsidiary of MGM. At that point, the only band that had agreed to the triple-lp was the Dead. Ben Fong-Torres wrote about it in Rolling Stone in 1971:

With the Dead set, all Together had to do was get releases from enough of the other groups, like Big Brother, Moby Grape, Steve Miller, Quicksilver, Great Society, and Daily Flash. The idea was a three-LP package.

 But, Cohen said, "they had trouble getting those releases." Then, "all of a sudden I find out that in one day Together ceased to exist! To settle everything, Gary Usher should have told me to get my tapes; I assumed the deal was off. My tapes are sitting there. But when I try to get them, I can't. MGM bought them." 

A year later, out of the blue, there's an album on the market, Vintage Dead, on another new label, Sunflower (with MGM Records taking manufacturing and distributing credits) - not an anthology but, rather, a Dead album featuring five cuts

Sunflower had released Vintage Dead in October 1970, with the legal rights but not the explicit permission of the Grateful Dead. As a fan at the time, this was the only window into the lost world of the early Dead, but the Dead themselves weren't very happy. But that was the record biz back in the day--the handling of the rights favored the label, not the artists, and once the band had agreed to sign, Gary Usher could sell Together Records contracts to Sunflower, and the band was stuck.

Gary Usher had produced Danny Cox's album on Together in 1969. Come 1970, Sunflower Records releases a Danny Cox album, produced by Gary Usher. It sure looks like a precursor for Vintage Dead. Yet why would Sunflower be releasing an album by Danny Cox--he had a following, yes, but nothing like the Grateful Dead. What could Sunflower have been thinking?

Since Sunflower probably wasn't going out of their way to pay Danny Cox, or anyone else, they didn't need to sell that many records to make a buck. Cox looked like a cool black dude, and the Family Dog, via the Avalon, had some hip credentials around the country.  

The runout matrix (on the inner groove) suggests the album was pressed in September 1970, for release shortly thereafter. By that time, Sunflower would have known that Nick Gravenites was recording Danny Cox in San Francisco for ABC/Dunhill. So Together might have been hoping that ABC would push Cox, and that Live At The Family Dog would be the beneficiary. This was a common record company strategy in the day.

Sunflower had paid for Together's assets, and Danny Cox's recording was never going to make them any money sitting on the shelf--why not release it and hope for the best? Crooked or straight, that's what the record business was all about.

[Update]: It turns out that in 1969, Cox was managed by Howard Wolf. Wolf had been the booking agent for the Avalon Ballroom in the late 60s. Wolf was also the one who had brokered the deal between Gary Usher, Together Records and Bob Cohen (more complete details are here). So, presumably when Together Records' assets were sold to MGM/Sunflower, the Danny Cox recording went along with the material that would become Vintage Dead.

Shout!, by the Chambers Brothers, recorded ca. 1966 but released by Vault Records in 1969. The cover was shot at Frost Amphitheatre at Stanford in Summer '68. Carlos Santana (in blue) can be seen at the side of the stage (Santana Blues Band opened the show)

Did Owsley Record Danny Cox at The Family Dog?
The 1960s record business was full of strange deceptions, perpetrated by everyone involved. It was common practice in the 60s to release an outdated live album of a newly-popular artist, and slap a contemporary cover on it. The Chambers Brothers had been part of the folk circuit from the early 60s onwards. They recorded for the tiny label Vault Records. In late 1967, however, their souls got psychelicized, and the Chambers Brothers recorded the huge hit "Time Has Come Today" for Columbia. So in 1969 Vault released an earlier live recording, and called it Shout! The Chambers Brothers Live. Although it had been recorded around 1966 or so, Vault used a picture of the Chambers Brothers in concert at Frost Amphitheatre in Stanford University from Summer 1968. The album doesn't say where it was recorded, but it lets you draw the conclusion that it was a contemporary live album. Danny Cox Live At The Family Dog may be asking you to draw the same conclusion, that it was current when it was not.

If the recording is not from the Family Dog, the title may reflect another contractual issue. Artist contracts in those days controlled all their output, including live recordings. So it may have been in the commercial interests of Gary Usher and Together to represent these recordings as coming from a year when Together controlled Cox's output. Since Cox only played the Family Dog in 1969, that may have been a fig leaf to ensure that Together, and hence Sunflower, could claim that the recordings were controlled by them. If they had been recorded in 1968 or 1970, for example, the rights may have been different. But unless Cox (or ABC) could definitively prove otherwise, the release couldn't be blocked.

In 1970, the band Canned Heat, desperate for cash for various reasons, released an album called Live At Topanga Corral. The album was ostensibly recorded in 1966, back when the then-unknown band had played the tiny roadhouse in Topanga Canyon. In fact, it had been recorded in 1968 at the Kaleidoscope in Hollywood, but Canned Heat wanted to hide that from their record company and cash the check. Was Liberty Records fooled? Probably not. But how would you prove to a jury that a 19-minute Canned Heat boogie was definitely recorded in 1968 rather than '66? So the Cox recording may have been purposely bereft of any relevant recording details.

Still, there's at least a 50-50 chance that Owsley did indeed record Danny Cox when he opened for the Grateful Dead. According to Hawk at the Owsley Stanley Foundation, there's no record of the Cox recording in the Owsley vaults, and Hawk is certain that Owsley would not have sold the tape at that time. Nonetheless, the tape could be in the Grateful Dead vaults, as an "add-on" to a Grateful Dead reel. Also, per Hawk, Owsley might have shared the tape with the artist if he liked the performance. Given that Together Records, via Howard Wolf, was considering working with the Family Dog and the Grateful Dead, there would have been some social connections between the Dead organization, Owsley and Cox management.

Together collapsed around 1970, and sold out their assets to Sunflower Records. Given how Sunflower acted without concern for the artist in the case of Vintage Dead, there's every reason to think they would have acted similarly with Danny Cox. If Sunflower realized they had a good sounding live tape for an artist signed to another label, they would have released it. If the tape was from Owsley and he hadn't intended it for release, Sunflower wouldn't have cared. The writing on the matrix run-out (inner groove), from the pressing plant, says "SUN 5002 MGS 2420 15 Sept. '70 Ɛ.O." This suggests a September manufacture date for a release in Fall 1970, exactly the same schedule as Vintage Dead. If that was the case, since Owsley had been in San Pedro Correctional Facility since July, he was hardly going to notice the album in his local record store. Such cynical calculation was also typical of the record industry back in the day.

Danny Cox Live At The Family Dog--Sunflower Records 50002, 1970
My curiosity was too great, so I ordered the album, and it arrived on my doorstep. I have no special knowledge, I don't have golden ears. On the other hand, I've heard plenty of Owsley recordings, both of the Grateful Dead and other groups as well. I've also heard plenty of "board tapes" of 60s acts, the usual ones that circulate. Much as I enjoy all that material, there are plenty of circulating board tapes that are awfully tinny and wouldn't make great releases.

Danny Cox Live At The Family Dog isn't like other old 60s tapes. The recording has tremendous presence, as if you are at the venue. There's a big crowd, too (for a folk artist), and the sound doesn't sound dubbed in (another 60s trick). Sure, live albums recorded in the 80s and afterwards sound really good, but not many 60s tapes sound this good.  The end of side 1 seems to be the end of a set, so probably the album is an edit of two nights, which makes sense.

Did Owsley record the tapes that were the basis of Live At The Family Dog? I have no facts or knowledge that I haven't stated here--and there aren't many--and we may never know the answer. But if you ask me to guess if the album is based on tapes recorded by Owsley, it sure seems likely to me. I don't think it was a coincidence that Sunflower Records released two Gary Usher projects in October 1970, so I have to think that Vintage Dead and Danny Cox Live At The Family Dog are intimately connected. Since we will probably never get other facts, you can decide for yourself. I'm voting for Owsley as the recording engineer.

Update: as I've pointed out above, my vote was plausible but incorrect. Since Cox manager Howard Wolf wouldn't let Owsley record his opening acts, the most likely result was that the Cox set was recorded on Halloween 1969, by some other party. With Owsley managing the soundboard for the rest of the weekend, it seems less likely that the Bear would let someone take over his board to record.

Danny Cox/Grateful Dead Summary

• Danny Cox opened two shows for the Grateful Dead on November 1 and 2, 1969 at the Family Dog on The Great Highway in San Francisco.
• It's possible that Owsley Stanley recorded Cox at the Family Dog, and his tape may have been the source for the album Danny Cox Live At The Family Dog, released on Sunflower Records in 1970
• Whether or not Owsley actually recorded Cox, Cox and the Grateful Dead had the unique experience of having a deal with Gary Usher and Together Records, only to have the material released on MGM/Sunflower. In the Dead's case (Vintage Dead) it was legal but not welcome--we know nothing about how Cox felt about the Sunflower release
• Around August 1970, Cox was recording at Wally Heider Studios in San Francisco with producer Nick Gravenites, and his supporting musicians included John Kahn and Merl Saunders. Kahn took a moment to introduce Saunders to Jerry Garcia, recording in Heider's at another room. A month or two later, Saunders would join the pair at the Matrix.

Track 4, side 2 of Danny Cox Live At The Family Dog is "Me and My Uncle" (Trad.-Arr. by Danny Cox)

And finally, on the Live At The Family Dog album, Danny Cox performed his own arrangement of "Me And My Uncle," adding yet another strand to the elaborate history of the song (celebrated in both my blog and Jesse Jarnow's Deadcast episode).

The back cover to Danny Cox Live At The Family Dog

Danny Cox Live At The Family Dog

Tracklist
A1        Hang Down Blues  Written-By – Cox*  4:06
A2        Keep Your Hands Off It  Arranged By – Danny Cox  Written-By – Trad.*  3:03
        Medley    (12:01)
A3a        Universal Soldier Written-By – St. Marie*   
A3b        God Bless America Written-By – Berlin*
A3c        Aquarius / Let The Sun Shine In Written-By – Ragni*, MacDermot*, Rado*   

B1        Rake And Rambling Sailor Lad  Written-By – Cox*  3:26
B2        Just Like A Woman  Written-By – Dylan* 7:13
B3        Jelly, Jelly Arranged By – Danny Cox Written-By – Trad.* 5:32
B4        Me And My Uncle Arranged By – Danny Cox Written-By – Trad.* 3:25

    Record Company – Sunflower Enterprises
    Copyright © – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc.
    Manufactured By – MGM Record Corporation
    Recorded At – The Family Dog, San Francisco
    Pressed By – MGM Custom Pressing Division
    Distributed By – TRC (2)
    Published By – Bealin Music Publ. Co.
    Published By – Woodmere Music
    Published By – Irving Berlin Music
    Published By – United Artists Music
    Published By – Dwarf Music

Credits

    Producer – Gary Usher
    Producer [Associate], Edited By, Mixed By [Remix] – Richard Delvy

 

 

 

Album Economics: Bear's Choice-The History Of The Grateful Dead, Vol. 1 (Why?)

The album cover of the final Grateful Dead Warner Brothers lp, The History Of The Grateful Dead, Vol. 1 (Bear's Choice), released in July 1973

While the Grateful Dead were legends almost from their inception, in their first several years, the albums they released on Warner Brothers played a huge part in spreading that legend. Of course, it was attending live Dead concerts that put people On The Bus, but for most fans in the early 70s, hearing some of their albums sparked the interest or willingness to attend a Grateful Dead concert in the first place. Most of the albums from the band's time on Warner Brothers are revered today, even if they weren't upon release, except one: the band's last release on Warners, in July 1973, with the provocative title of History Of The Grateful Dead, Vol. 1, but usually referred to by its parenthetical add-on (Bear's Choice).

I can recall the anticipation when Bear's Choice was released, and the mystification and dismay when I actually listened to it. Time has not really improved the album's reception. Only the most thorough of Deadheads even recalls it, and the record is almost never mentioned in blogs, tweets or posts, much less with any fondness. As most Deadheads became more knowledgeable about the breadth of the band's music, we became aware that Bear's Choice consisted of tracks recorded from some of the finest Grateful Dead concerts of 1970, and I for one became convinced that the least attractive songs were chosen. The release of a bad, dated live album from a great set of tapes was a strange decision for a band to make, but it was actuallly consistent with the long-gone practices of the 1970s record industry. This post will review the History Of The Grateful Dead Vol. 1 (Bear's Choice) album in its proper context, and make some case for how such a peculiar release came to exist.

The rear cover of Bear's Choice (actually from the cd re-release)

The Bear's Choice Album

Most Deadheads today forget about Bear's Choice, if they ever even knew about it in the first place. Back in '73, however, there were only 10 Grateful Dead albums in existence (including the two dubious ones on MGM/Sunflower, Vintage Dead and Historic Dead). For all but the hippest of the hip in San Francisco or Brooklyn, there were no Dead tapes in circulation. In New York City, at least, there were Grateful Dead bootleg lps circulating, but they too were a rare commodity unknown in the outside world. The Grateful Dead were no different than Ten Years After or The Byrds: if the music wasn't available on LP at your local record dealer, that music didn't exist. 

So when the Grateful Dead left Warner Brothers for their own self-financed label after the release of the Europe '72 triple-live album, it was not surprising to find out that they owed the label one more album. It was pretty exciting for a suburban 15-year old like me to read that they would release an album from three-year-old tapes. For me, 1970 was before I started listening to the Dead, so as far as I was concerned the forthcoming album would pretty much be a time machine, transporting me to the fabled, long-gone days of the Fillmores. But come July, and this strange album came out (details from Deaddisc, of course):

History Of The Grateful Dead, Vol. 1 (Bear's Choice)

Grateful Dead

Initial release : July 1973
Warner Bros. BS-2721
The Dead's last album for Warner Brothers. A single LP of acoustic and electric material from the shows on February 13 and 14, 1970 at the Fillmore East
Tracks

• Katie Mae (Hopkins)
• Dark Hollow (Browning)
• I've Been All Around This World (Traditional, arr. Grateful Dead)
• Wake Up Little Susie (Bryant/Bryant)
• Black Peter (Garcia/Hunter)
• Smokestack Lightnin' (Burnett)
• Hard To Handle (Redding/Isabell/Jones)

Musicians

• Jerry Garcia - acoustic guitar, lead guitar, vocals
• Bob Weir - acoustic guitar, electric guitar, vocals
• Ron "Pig Pen" McKernan- acoustic guitar, organ, percussion, harmonica, vocals
• Phil Lesh - bass
• Mickey Hart - drums
• Bill Kreutzmann - drums

Credits

• Recorded Live by Bear: February 13-14, 1970 at the Fillmore East, New York, NY
• Produced by: Owsley Stanley

Notes
The songs on Bear's Choice are taken from the following shows;

• Katie Mae, Wake Up Little Susie, Black Peter and Smokestack Lightnin' - February 13, 1970
• Dark Hollow, I've Been All Around This World and Hard To Handle - February 14, 1970

At the time Bear's Choice came out, I was probably a relatively typical Deadhead. I was a teenager in the suburbs, I had all but two of the Warners albums (I didn't have Anthem Of The Sun or Aoxomoxoa yet), and I had heard the Vintage Dead lp, but I didn't yet have any of the tapes or bootlegs. I had been fortunate enough to see the Grateful Dead twice already (Winterland Dec 12 '72 and Maples Feb 9 '73), but it all had been pretty overwhelming. Sure, there were crusty 24-year olds in San Rafael, the East Village or Montague Street who had seen the Dead a bunch of times over the years and had at least heard some tapes or bootlegs, but nationally, most Deadheads were more like me than those veterans. 

Of the seven songs on Bear's Choice, three were acoustic, three were by Pigpen, six were covers, and they only electric Jerry song was the mournful "Black Peter" (I think Pigpen played organ on it). While I recognized that the record was a sort of tribute to the recently diseased Pigpen, it was a strange tribute: the "anchor song" was a seemingly interminable blues song ("Smokestack Lightning") that I knew as a Yardbirds cover. The Otis Redding cover ("Hard To Handle") was intriguing, but it had a strange, clunky arrangement. The Everly Brothers song ("Wake Up Little Susie") was cute, but trivial, and it was difficult to process. As for "Katie Mae" and "Dark Hollow" I knew nothing about the Dead's 1970 acoustic sets, nor did most fans--were these typical, or random?

And who was "Bear", and why did he get to choose?

Aoxomoxoa, released in June 1969, and recorded on the Grateful Dead's original contract with Warners

Grateful Dead Record Contracts 1966-1973

The strange, counterproductive tale of Bear's Choice can only be understood in the context of the Grateful Dead's record contracts with Warners, which in turn only makes sense because of industry practices at the time. Despite the Dead's best efforts to break that mold, efforts that largely succeeded, the band fell prey to the least forward looking approach typical of bands at the time, and they did not help their own cause. 

The Grateful Dead's first record contract was signed with Warner Brothers executive Joe Smith around December 1966, although they had agreed in principle a few months earlier and had just spent time negotiating the details. The general outline of the deal was that the Grateful Dead agreed to deliver three albums to Warners, although Warners probably had an option for another album or two, per typical contracts of the time. However, the Dead had made somewhat better decisions than some of their contemporaries. 

For one thing, the Dead's Warner Brothers contract gave them complete artistic control of their albums. For another, while typical album contracts of the era required that a band deliver a certain number of songs (tracks) to qualify as an album (usually 10 in the US), the Dead had a jazz-inspired deal. Thanks to Rock Scully, who had conferred with some jazz musicians, the Dead were only required to deliver a certain number of recorded minutes, like a jazz artist, rather than a specific number of tracks. There were still economic reasons for them to make up song titles on Anthem Of The Sun, but that had to with mechanical publishing royalties (a dense subject I have addressed elsewhere) rather than a record company obligation. The Dead also retained the music publishing rights to their own songs (through IceNine publishing), largely because Joe Smith and Warners did not realize that popular rock songs would have such a long shelf life and did not care (per Smith's own admission). 

By mid-1969, the Dead had produced Aoxomoxoa, their third album, and were in a position to renegotiate their contract with Warners. The band themselves did not know that, however, and manager Lenny Hart negotiated an extension with Warner Brothers without the band members' knowledge. Both Columbia and MGM had interest in the Dead, but Lenny had his reasons for negotiating directly, mainly to get his hands on the advance money more easily. Thus the Dead ended 1969 with an extension from  Warner Brothers. 

I believe that Live/Dead was released (in November '69) as an option on the original contract, and that the Dead subsequently had a five-album deal with an option for two more, but it doesn't really matter. By the end of the year, the Dead had a substantial commitment to deliver more material to Warner Brothers. One of the confusing aspect of old record contracts was that double or triple albums could be construed as single or double albums as part of the contract, subject to negotiation between the artist and the record company. The negotiation was inevitably over how much the record company would charge for the album and what rate the band would get paid at. A band could deliver two albums worth of material to a record company, but the company could release each album separately or simply charge double for the album, wrecking sales. 

Both Skull and Roses and Europe 72 were sold for far less than double or triple retail price, so I think in the case of something like those records, Warners counted the other LPs as part of one album so that left the Dead owing one more record to Warners to fulfill their contract. After the Dead had told Warners they weren't renewing, Warners wasn't going to do the group any favors (see the Appendix below for some coherent speculation about the Dead's obligations to Warners, which likely included the Garcia and Ace albums).

The remnants of the band Blues Project released an album's worth of blues jams on Verve in 1968, so that most of the members would be free to record as Sea Train on Capitol in 1969. Verve released it anyway, with the ironic title of Planned Obsolescence. I like both Blues Project and Seatrain, yet this was still a waste of tape.

The Early 70s Rock And Roll Record Business
The Grateful Dead have a reputation for having been true mavericks of the music business, blazing a trail for others to follow decades later. In many ways this reputation is justified. However, in many other ways, the Dead fell prey to much of the false logic of the record business of the time, and much to their own detriment. The strange song choices of Bear's Choice betray the Grateful Dead's acceptance of certain 1970s assumptions about the record business and the rock audience, assumptions that were proven fundamentally incorrect less than 20 years later. While the Dead had their own peculiar twist on these assumptions, the assumptions were still wrong.

Consider the Dead's position in early 1973. After being a sort of infamous cult band in the '60s, that had never sold many records, the group had climbed into the middle tier of touring rock bands. They had released four successful albums in a row (Workingman's, American Beauty, Skull And Roses, Europe '72), all of which had garnered good FM airplay, and their concert receipts had continued to increase. Rather than just being popular in a few strongholds like Northern California and New York Metro, the band could play profitable shows in Wembley or Wichita. If a band was ever going to go it alone, the Grateful Dead had picked a great time--on a roll with their releases, and playing great live shows in a booming rock concert industry.

Yet in order to go it alone, the Dead still owed an album release to Warner Brothers. Obviously they weren't going into the studio, and obviously they weren't going to give Warners any new, original material if they could help it. The effort and hopeful rewards of writing and recording new material would accrue to Grateful Dead Records. So it wasn't surprising to read in Rolling Stone (or possibly Joel Selvin's column in the SF Chronicle) that the Dead would fulfill their obligation with an LP of older live material. At the time, I was still 14 years old, and very few Dead fans would have been twice my age. Tapes and bootlegs were largely unknown in the suburbs, so a live album from the past was enticing indeed, since I had no other means of getting that music.

Successful groups changing record labels wasn't unheard of in the early 1970s. The Rolling Stones had moved from Decca Records (London Records in the US) to Atlantic in early 1970. Decca had punished them by releasing a terrible album of outtakes called Stone Age in 1971, which no one remembers. This was a typical record company maneuver. The reasoning was that rock fans were kids, fickle and with limited resources. If they bought the "next" album by a group and it was crummy, the kids would figure "this band's no longer hip" and move on, because they didn't have money to waste. Another variation of this was for a record company to release some sort of "Best Of" album when a group left the label (MGM released MotherMania when Zappa went to Warners in '68), with the idea that it would cut into sales of any newly released album by the artist.

On the other side, rock bands often had an equally hostile attitude towards their record company. When a group left a label, there was often a lot of hostility and frustration, usually over money. On one hand, record contracts were structured to overwhelmingly favor the label. New artists usually had no leverage, and particularly in the 60s, no one knew how much money was really going to be made. So artists with a quick hit often felt taken advantage of, with some justification. Of course, the same artists had no idea how much of their own money they were wasting on new gear and first class airline tickets, fronted by the label out of future royalties.

Thus when a band needed to turn in a final album to escape a record contract, they often had no desire to let their former employer have a good record. In one particularly emblematic case, there had been a groundbreaking group from 1965-67 called The Blues Project, who had been very hip and popular in the early days of the Fillmore, and had released two memorable albums on MGM-Verve. Although they were a Greenwich Village band, some members ended up reforming the group in Marin County in 1968. Rapidly they evolved into the interesting group Seatrain, and were signed by A&M. However, in order to escape their obligation to Verve and sign as Seatrain, they had to produce one more Blues Project album. They released an album of formless jams called Planned Obsolescence, a meaningless exercise. Verve released it anyway.

The Grateful Dead had released five successful albums in a row on Warners, going back to Live/Dead, and seven if you count Garcia and Ace. Yet they had been persuaded by Ron Rakow, with some justification, that Warners was taking too big a share of their receipts from those albums. Now, Warners had distribution and radio promotion with a lot of overhead, but according to Rakow at least, the Dead were getting only 31 cents from every album sale (albums sold for around 3 or 4 dollars at the time). Most Grateful Dead fans were like me--suburban or college kids, unconnected to any underground network, getting all their music from new lps. Yet the Dead had no plans to give Warners an album that would keep up the string of exciting albums they had released in the preceding four years. 

The image from the 1967 Pigpen t-shirt, promoted by Warners

Owsley And Pigpen
I do not think the Grateful Dead actively planned to put out a strange album for their final Warners release. However, they did the next closest thing: they assigned the project to Owsley. The Dead had made the decision by the end of 1972 to go independent, and Warners must have made it clear that another album was required to escape the contract. I'm sure there would have been no other concessions on Warners part, either, like a good advance, so the band would have wanted to do it cheaply.

Owsley "Bear" Stanley had been in Federal Prison from July 1970 until about July 1972 on charges of illicit LSD distribution. The Dead's touring operation was on a solid financial footing by the time Owsley returned, and their sound system was handled by Alembic Engineering, a company that Owsley had helped found. However, for all his legendary status, Owsley didn't have a financial stake in Alembic itself, and he didn't really have an official job with the crew either. Owsley wanted to be in charge, of course, but it wasn't the sixties and he didn't have a role. Conversely, that would have meant Owsley could be spared to work on the record. Thus the album was indeed "Bear's Choice," and I think there was only general approval from the band, with no direct input, so it really was Owsley's album.

Pipgen had died in March 1973. He had not performed with the band since June of 1972, but until the end of the year there may have been some residual hope that Pig could have gotten healthy and at least continued on as an occasional guest star. It was not to be, and Pigpen died while the Dead were on tour in the East. So it seemed appropriate that Bear's Choice became a tribute to their fallen comrade. Owsley had been their since the beginning, so he was an appropriate steward, even if it was strange to have the Acid King construct a tribute to the only family member who didn't like his product.

Owsley liked the blues and he liked folk music. Thus he took the tapes from the Fillmore East shows from February 13 and 14, 1970, and tried to give listeners a taste of what they missed with from those days, with a big focus on Pigpen. However, to a normal suburban listener like me, the album was completely devoid of context. There were four acoustic songs, one by Pigpen, a mournful "Black Peter" for the only original, an 18-minute "Smokestack Lightning," and a rocking but clunky version of Otis Redding's "Hard To Handle." Regular Dead material from those great concerts was entirely absent.

The acoustic material was fascinating, but mysterious, since there was only the faintest knowledge of Garcia's old-timey folk roots. And Weir singing an Everly Brothers song--had that been typical? The answer was "no," but how would I have known that? The slow, grinding "Smokestack" made sense in terms of a three hour show, but it made up most of side two and was kind of a drag to a teenager. Two years later I would get the Hollywood Palladium bootleg (August 6, 1971), and I could hear how "Hard To Handle" should really sound, but back in 1970 the Dead hadn't really figured out the arrangement yet.

Thus it appears that Owsley, given a free hand, and always his own man in any case, made his own tribute to Pigpen. With the knowledge of the Dead's music that we have today, it sort of makes sense: it featured some of the left-out corners of the Grateful Dead's music up until that time. Now we know that old-timey acoustic music, slow blues and psychedelic R&B covers were part of the Dead's broad pallette, but to my 15-year-old self it just seemed strange. I was enormously disappointed when Bear's Choice came out. So was everyone else, I think, because almost no one ever mentioned it again.

Dick's Picks Vol. 4, recorded Feb 13-14, 1970, released 1996

"The History Of The Grateful Dead, Vol 1"
The most tantalizing aspect of Bear's Choice was the actual title: "The History Of The Grateful Dead, Vol 1." It suggested that the album would be the first of many. In a way, it was, although the next installment was eighteen years later, with 1991's One From The Vault. Yet Bear's Choice shows us that the Dead had the idea to use their vault as a way to disseminate their music and provide some income far into the future, as long ago as the early 1970s. Granted, at the time, the Dead were competing with the presence of two almost-bootleg albums, Vintage Dead and Historic Dead, in MGM-Sunflower, both recorded in 1966, but Vintage in particular was a far catchier album than Bear's Choice.

I got excellent quality cassette recordings of the February 13-14, 1970 shows at the end of 1980. The music stunned me, of course, as I couldn't believe there was that much uninterrupted goodness out there to listen to. But it only made Bear's Choice more peculiar. With all that great music to choose from, why did Owsley pick the strange tracks that he did? If the Dead had ended their Warner Brothers run in '73 with an lp that featured Fillmore East performances of, say, "Dancing In The Streets" and "Alligator" (both from Feb 14 '70), it would have been another great seller. "Dancing" would have been all over FM radio, and the Dead's audience would be even bigger. But the Dead fell into the trap of sticking it to the record company, and turned in a purposely strange album that was bound to confuse all but a then-tiny number of old heads. 

The Golden Road Boxed Set, released 2003

Final Coda
Bear's Choice was rightly forgotten, soon after it was released, and it has remained an orphan ever since. The one real effect of the album was limiting the scope of Dick's Pick's Vol 4. Volume 4, released in 1996, featured the relatively widely circulated Feb 13-14 '70 show at its finest. Yet the Bear's Choice tracks needed to be excluded, for contractual reasons. Now, granted, DP4 was already a three-cd set and anyone could make their own custom mix tape of the complete show, but the acoustic songs might have made a good addition and they had to be left off.

When Bear's Choice was released as part of the 12-cd Golden Road boxed set, a few additional tracks were included.

Bonus tracks on 2003 expanded CD release, all live recordings from Feb 1970;

• Good Lovin' - February 13, 1970 at Fillmore East, New York, NY
• Big Boss Man - February 5, 1970 at Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA
• Smokestack Lightnin' - February 8, 1970 at Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA
• Sitting On Top Of The World - February 8, 1970 at Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA

While additional live material from the Dead is always welcome, these seem to be a particularly random assortment of selections. "Sitting On Top Of The World" from 1970 was a rarity, but was another "Smokestack" called for? No matter. Bear's Choice was a contractual obligation, and it was designed to be a quirky artifact that would spite the band's former record company. The final, strange bonus cuts were an appropriately head-scratching appendix to a strange release.

Appendix: Grateful Dead/Warner Brothers Record Contracts
The Grateful Dead signed a three-album deal with Joe Smith of Warner Brothers in December 1966. If it was a typical contract of that era, Warners would have had an option for an additional album or two under the same terms.
The Grateful Dead (March 1967)
Anthem Of The Sun (July 1968)
Aoxomoxoa (June 1969)
Live/Dead (November 1969) While the Dead were touring in mid-69, Lenny Hart negotiated an extension with Warners. I don't know which contract Live/Dead was assigned to, but that was probably part of the negotiation. My assumption is that Live/Dead was considered a record company option on the original deal.

The Workingman's Dead (June 1970) I'm assuming that Workingman's was the first album of a five-album deal with an option for two more.
American Beauty (December 1970)
Grateful Dead [Skull & Roses] (September 1971) This double album was presumably considered one album, a conventional arrangement that would have been negotiated between Warners and the Dead.
Garcia (January 1972) It was conventional practice in the 70s for the "main" players in any popular band to be offered a solo album, though a "Key Man" clause. From Warners' point of view, they didn't care whether Jerry Garcia or the Grateful Dead were the ones with a hit. Now, Garcia could not have recorded a solo album with anyone other than Warners, but he might have negotiated a separate deal. If he did, then it would follow that Live/Dead was part of the second deal, not the original one.
Ace (March 1972) I know that Ace was recorded as part of the Warners deal, and was considered a Grateful Dead album for contractual purposes. Warners probably figured that they had a good chance of making a genuine rock star out of Weir.
Europe '72 (November 1972) The Dead told Warners at the end of '72 that they had no intention of renewing their contract, and told Clive Davis and Columbia they weren't signing with them either, but rather going independent. Double live albums were pretty common, but Europe '72 was a triple album, and the band's last release had been a live album as well. One way or another, the Dead had delivered six albums on the Warners contract, so they still owed a final album.
The History Of The Grateful Dead, Vol.1 Bear's Choice (July 1973) Although the Dead had left Warners by mid-73, they could not have released an album on their own label without having fulfilled their Warners contract.

The Dead put out two albums independently (Wake Of The Flood and Mars Hotel), as well as some solo material on Round. They then signed a distribution deal with United Artists, where they owed four Dead albums and Garcia and Weir solo albums. These obligations were only partially fulfilled, with two Dead albums, one a double (Blues For Allah and Steal Your Face), Reflections and Kingfish (which would have counted as the Weir album).

I do not know the structure of the Dead's 1976 contract with Arista. However, by that time the group was established and both the Dead and Arista knew what they were getting into. The royalties and other factors with releasing the inevitable double live albums were probably written into the contract from the beginning. The deal that was not fulfilled until In The Dark was completed in 1987, which was the sixth Grateful Dead album on Arista. Possibly the two Garcia solo albums and Heaven Help The Fool were part of the obligation as well, or maybe they were contracted separately. After that time, the Dead had an agreement with Arista, but it was basically an album-to-album deal, and Garcia himself was free to record for anybody.

Update 
Appendix 2: The Dead on Bear's Choice
Fellow scholar LightIntoAshes comes up with some contemporary quotes from the band, from Cameron Crowe articles

Cameron Crowe talked to Garcia & others for a couple of illuminating articles in 1973-74: "Rather than choose the usual 'greatest hits' packaging, for their final [Warners] album commitment, The Dead dispatched production manager Owsley 'The Bear' Stanley to rummage through his collection of live tapes to find a unique performance LP with which to bow out... 'It’s a side of the group that never went on record,' says Jerry in retrospect... 'It shows a Dead you’ll never see or hear again,' Rock [Scully] picks up the story. 'The album is sixty percent Pigpen and the other forty percent is acoustic material. Needless to say, Pigpen is no longer with us and The Dead don’t do acoustic material onstage anymore. The record is very, very interesting if you know the history behind it.'" {from Circus Magazine, October 1973 issue) 

But a later article revealed that the Dead themselves were "ambivalent at best" about the album: "Weir is upset about the inclusion of a flat 'Wake Up Little Susie' duet with Jerry. Garcia could care less about the whole thing. When handed his first copy of the album, he mumbled something about it having a less-than-stellar cover and didn’t even bother taking it home. 'We had to give that record to Warner Brothers,' says Jerry... 'We weren’t contracted for it originally, but we had [to] give it to them in order to make Europe ’72 a triple-LP. We could have been cut loose if we gave them two single records, rather than one triple album. We ended up giving them four discs instead of just two just to be able to go to Europe...'As far as I’m concerned, it’s something we owe them. I’m not interested in making Warner Brothers any richer. In a way, I’m glad it’s a low-profile, non-success record. It just means there won’t be any more energy going to WB via us. The music is what it is, us in early 1970... The stuff we were doing at the time never got onto any of our records before now. I might not like it, but I played it. If they were no good, it’s too late to take those notes back.{from Creem Magazine, January 1974 issue}

Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Landmark Guide: Oakland

The Oakland Auditorium in 1917, two years after it was built

The Grateful Dead are correctly known as the archetypal San Francisco band. Their roots were in Palo Alto, even if nearby Menlo Park had just as much of a claim to them. As the Dead turned into a national act, a good claim could be made for Manhattan having made them giant, with some help from Jersey City and Brooklyn. As they toured the country year after year, certain venues became legendary: Boston Garden, Red Rocks or whatever your favorite stop might have been.

However, in the annals of Grateful Dead history, Oakland gets no love. This is unfair, since some of the most critical venues in the Grateful Dead's regular schedule were in Oakland. On top of that, the city's proximity to Marin and San Francisco meant that all sorts of oddball one-off events took place there as well. This post will try and raise the city's profile in Dead history by looking at the locations and histories of some places in Oakland that played a part in the band's story.

The Oakland Auditorium from the North and East, with Lake Merritt in the foreground, exact date of the picture unknown

Oakland Auditorium Arena, 10 Tenth Street (at Oak), Oakland, CA 94607
later known as: Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center
First Grateful Dead show: June 28, 1967
Last Grateful Dead show: February 7, 1989 (58 shows)
Also: Jerry Garcia Band (first Oct 31 '86, last Nov 11 '94-5 shows)

The history of the Grateful Dead in Oakland has to begin with the Oakland Auditorium, later known as the Henry J. Kaiser Auditorium. The auditorium was built in 1915, and it was host to many performers over the years, including Elvis Presley and James Brown. The Dead even played there as far back as 1967 and 1971. However, starting in 1979, after Winterland had closed, the old Auditorium became the Grateful Dead's home court. In the early 80s, when the Dead seemed like dinosaurs and they were not yet iconic, seeing shows at 10th and Oak was like a gathering of the tribe, all the more important when we had no other way to meet. The New Year's runs were also a prime opportunity to get a taste of the Dead on the West Coast, so the impact of the Auditorium went far beyond the Bay Area.

The Dead simply sized out of the Kaiser in 1989, after "Touch Of Gray" made shows there unmanageable. The little vending scene on the lawn outside the arena, officially sanctioned by BGP, had simply gotten too large, and the demand for tickets was too great. By the time of the last Dead show at Kaiser, the Dead were already playing bigger places. Yet the Kaiser stands as the symbol of the Brent era, when the Dead were a self-sustaining artifact, defying logic and good sense.

After the Dead's departure, there wasn't really a good role for the building. A new, more efficient convention center was built downtown, and the Kaiser was in that place where it was always too big or too small, but never just right. After losing money for years, the building was finally closed by the Oakland. It is still standing, but no one can decide what to do with it. In June 2015, the Golden State Warriors victory parade ended at the Kaiser, and the little lawn outside the Auditorium was filled with far more people (and vendors) than were ever in Shakedown Street. The building awaits a miracle ticket for its redemption.

In 2015, the Golden State Warriors won the NBA title for the first time since Blues For Allah, and a huge crowd gathered outside the old Auditorium  (at left) for one last hurrah. By all reports, vending was rampant.

Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena, 7000 Coliseum Way, Oakland, CA 94621
replaced by: Oracle Arena (re-opened 1997)
First Grateful Dead show: February 17, 1979
Last Grateful Dead show: February 26, 1995 (66 shows)
Also: Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir, Dec 4 '88 (Bridge Concert), Jerry Garcia Band Oct 31 '92

Ask a veteran Deadhead, perhaps yourself: what building did the Grateful Dead play the most? Go ahead, look it up on Deadlists. The Fillmore East (43 shows)? The original Fillmore Auditorium (51)? Madison Square Garden (52)? The Philadelphia Spectrum (53)? Winterland (60)? 1545 Market Street, the location of both the Carousel Ballroom (16) and Fillmore West (46--total=62)?

What building did the Grateful Dead play most often? The answer turns out to be the mostly unloved Oakland Coliseum Arena, which the Grateful Dead played 66 times between 1979 and 1995. The Coliseum complex, with the indoor arena and the outdoor stadium, was built in 1966 to house the Oakland Raiders and tempt the (at the time) San Francisco Warriors and Kansas City Athletics. It did just that. No one really loved the Coliseum, but it had and has a spectacularly central location, right off Highway 880. It had its own BART stop, it was near the Airport, you could get there easily from every county, but it was just sort of--there.

As a result, the 15,000+-capacity Coliseum Arena was the prime spot for top rock acts in the Bay Area from the late 60s through the 90s. Initially, the Arena was too big for rock acts, but when bands like Cream, Blind Faith and the Rolling Stones had their most famous tours, the Coliseum was not only the biggest venue, but also the best located. Thus the roster of bands that have played the Coliseum Arena is like a Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction list. Even when Shoreline Amphitheatre came along in 1986 and superseded the Coliseum as the flagship Bay Area venue, the Coliseum still handled all the Fall and Winter shows, so everybody still played the venue regularly.

Most long-tenured Deadheads, myself included, have seen some Dead shows at the Arena. Some of them were pretty good, too. But they don't have the sense of place that the Oakland Auditorium had. Maybe it was the size, or the nondescript architecture of the building. Maybe it was just because I went to the Coliseum so many times, and have so many great memories, that the Dead are just one of many (Back in the early 80s, I saw 6'4 Adrian Dantley of the Utah Jazz drop 46 on the Warriors one night, mostly from the paint, and it was a thing to behold. Come to think of it, I saw Swen Nater do the same--don't get me started on Joe Barry Carroll's defense. Which just shows you that I don't even think of the Dead first at the Coliseum). There were actually a number of social connections between the Grateful Dead and the popular but usually underperforming Golden State Warriors. The most famous of these was the Dead's contributions to the 1992 Lithuanian Olympic Team (captured in the movie The Other Dream Team).

After the 1996-97 NBA season, the Coliseum Arena was fully remodeled into a much larger configuration, and now can seat just over 20,000 for basketball. It is currently known as the Oracle Arena, and remains the home of the unexpectedly mighty Golden State Warriors.

Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Stadium, 7000 Coliseum Way, Oakland, CA 94621
now: O.co Coliseum
First Grateful Dead show: June 8, 1974
Last Grateful Dead show: May 27, 1989 (5 shows)
Also: Bob Weir and Kingfish (June 29, 1975, opening for Doobie Bros/Eagles), and Nelson Mandela (June 30 '90, Mickey Hart part of drum procession)

The Oakland Coliseum Stadium shares a parking lot with the indoor basketball arena. It was part of the thrust for "multi-use" stadiums that were popular in the 1970s. As such, it housed both the Raiders (since 1966) and the A's (since 1968). Amazingly, it still does. What was once a gleaming new cement palace that was superior to cold Candlestick across the bay is now a rundown block that pales before PacBell Park or Levi's Stadium. The strange departure and return of the Raiders caused new centerfield bleachers (known colloquially as "Mt Davis") to be constructed, ruining the pleasant view of the Oakland hills. Nonetheless, the stadium perseveres, even if its tenants perpetually threaten to move.

The Coliseum Stadium was the primary spot for most of the huge outdoor rock shows in the Bay Area in the 20th century, save for the Beatles appearance at Candlestick (August 29 1966), which preceded the stadium. The few subsequent Candlestick rock concerts were only held there, grudgingly, because the A's or Raiders had prior bookings at the Coliseum,

The Dead played five shows at the Stadium, all pretty legendary. They headlined over The Beach Boys on June 8, 1974, they were double-billed with The Who on October 9-10, 1976, they played with Bob Dylan on July 24, 1987 and they headlined over John Fogerty (who was backed by Jerry and Bob, among others) on May 27, 1989. It's kind of like the A's: the Coliseum itself isn't that memorable, but what happened there remains etched in your mind long after you have departed.

Oakland Exposition Center, 9th and Fallon Streets, Oakland, CA 94607
I am pursuing some very tenuous leads to a Grateful Dead performance in early 1967 at the Oakland Exposition Center. The Exposition Center was at 9th and Fallon, and was an all-purpose civic auditorium, used for trade shows, roller derbies, midget car races and all sorts of other things. It was torn down for the California Museum, which opened in 1969. Since I can't confirm the show yet, I am only provisionally including this reference for completism, and of course hoping someone knows something.

This photo from the Dunsmuir House shows a costume event (set in the '20s), but that's not why its misleading. Although the estate looks beautiful here, the photo does not do it justice and the estate grounds are even more engaging.

Dunsmuir House And Gardens, 2960 Peralta Oaks Court, Oakland, CA 94605
August 18, 1985: Jerry Garcia and John Kahn/Ron Price

Dunsmuir House was built in 1878 by Alexander Dunsmuir. Later it was purchasedby Isaias Hellmann (1842-1920), one of the principal financial architects of Los Angeles, and from 1906 onwards, also the chairman of Wells Fargo Bank. Hellman's great-grandson was Warren Hellman, who among many other things was the founder of the wonderful Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in San Francisco. Isaias Hellman owned Dunsmuir House until his death in 1920, and afterwards the grounds were ultimately passed to the city of Oakland. Nestled in the Oakland foothills, calling Dunsmuir "beautiful" does the estate a disservice.

The City of Oakland has never been able to figure out what to do with the estate, other than rent it out for the occasional wedding. BGP briefly tried putting on concerts there. Jerry Garcia and John Kahn played a show on August 18, 1985, and they didn't play that well, but honestly, it didn't matter. The setting was so spectacular and the weather so perfect that Jerry and John were just sort of present. I'm sure the tape is lousy--so what, you should have been there. If you get invited to a wedding at the estate, go to it even if you don't like the bride and groom.

The Omni, 4799 Shattuck Avenue, Oakland, CA
Ligure Hall was built in the 1930s at 48th St and Shattuck Avenue as an Italian-American social club. However, the Grove-Shafter Freeway changed the neighborhood, and many of the club members moved away. The hall was used for a few rock shows in the 1960s, but it never caught on. In 1985, the Hall was acquired by John Nady, who had made a fortune with wireless guitar pickups. He opened a rock nightclub called The Omni. The Omni featured many metal bands, as well as groups on their way down.

Nonetheless, on December 19, 1986 Go Ahead played The Omni. Go Ahead was a spin-off band that included Brent Mydland and Bill Kreutzmann (along with Alex Ligterwood, Jerry Cortez and David Margen). They had toured around a fair amount in 1986 when it wasn't clear at all that Garcia would return to action. By December, the Dead had already performed, but Go Ahead played their Omni date anyway. According to Joel Selvin, Garcia even showed up to hang out, although he did not play. A commenter on another post said

Jerry did show up at the Go Ahead concert with a lady friend from the Hog Farm and took a table right on the dancefloor -- it was amazing to come back to the ballroom from the bar before the show and find him sitting there. He was plainly in good spirits and was pleasant to people who went up and said hi but people gave him plenty of space -- a very hip crowd. And a great show. 

On Halloween, 1987, The Tubes played The Omni. The once-mighty Tubes were very much on the downslide, but Vince Welnick was still the keyboard player at the time. John Nady ended up purchasing The Stone around 1988, but The Stone closed in 1990 or so, and The Omni shut down in 1992. The building is now a private residence, only used for occasional public events.

Scottish Rites Temple, 1547 Lakeside Drive, Oakland, CA, 94612
July 3, 1991: AIDS Conference; Bob Weir

The Freemasons had established an organization in Oakland in 1883. They had had a number of buildings for their headquarters, but the current one was started in 1925 and finished in 1927. It is on the Northern side of Lake Merritt, near Grand Avenue, at 1547 Lakeside. Masonic Temples were a common feature of American cities in the early 20th century, and indeed many legendary psychedelic ballrooms were re-purposed Scottish Rites Temples, including the Avalon. The Oakland temple (the Masons are not a religion, but they call their meeting halls "temples") is still local headquarters for the Masons, but the building is available for rent as well.

On July 3, 1991, there was an Oakland AIDs conference, back when that was still a meaningful political act, as opposed to simply a medical colloquium. Bob Weir appeared at the conference, I believe performing a few songs solo as part of some opening or closing ceremony.

Owsley's House, 6024 Ascot Drive, Oakland, CA, 94611
The story and location of this house used to be a bit of a secret, but I guess now that it is part of the real estate pitch, it's fair to talk about it. Oakland first became a great city in 1869, when for geographical reasons it became the terminus of the first Transcontinental Railway. Trains all arrived in Oakland because they could not really arrive in San Francisco, so people and goods in great number went to Oakland before they crossed the bay, and the city thrived accordingly. The beautiful Oakland hills, relatively far from downtown, were for the wealthy estates of the Bay Area's rich.

The second major boost to Oakland came after the 1906 earthquake, when many San Francisco residents were evacuated to Oakland to avoid the raging fires. Many of them stayed, and so Oakland boomed again after 1906, along with San Francisco. Once the automobile was generally available, the Oakland hills became accessible to more than the super-wealthy. Of course, those who lived in the Oakland hills were still pretty well off, in that they had large properties with spectacular views that were only accessible by then-exotic automobiles, but the civilization of the Oakland hills was underway.

The arrival of the Bay Bridge changed the economic underpinning of Oakland, although that was muted somewhat by the explosion of shipbuilding during World War 2 (which itself was excellent for Bay Area music, by the way). The mid 1950s also saw the relative demise of rail transportation, in favor of trucks (and later jet planes), so that by the 1960s Oakland was somewhat fading in importance. As a result, houses in the Oakland hills were often available at surprisingly reasonable prices, if you didn't mind the windy roads and the distance from the freeway (I-580 had not yet been built).

In her recent book Owsley And Me: My LSD Family, Rhoney Gissen describes the house at 6024 Ascot Drive in some detail. Originally it was rented by Ali Akbar Khan school of music. Rhoney writes

Indian music gave me clarity, so I drove to the Ali Akbar Khan School Of Music, situated in a beautiful Spanish-style multilevel house with arts-and-crafts detailing in the secluded hills of Oakland, southeast of Berkeley. While I was listening to a morning raga played by Khansahib with Vince Delgado on tabla, it occurred to me that this place would be perfect for Bear. With all the rooms and levels, he could live here with any member of the Grateful Dead family. Ramrod had already agreed to live with Bear when he moved [p166]

Since the School was moving at month's end, Owsley was intrigued enough to visit:

We walked around the house and there was a swimming pool and a separate entrance in the back. Stately trees reached beyond the third floor. We went back inside which was atop a long stairway from the front door.
"Look, Bear, I can stand at the top of the stair and see who's coming."
"Yes, but you can't see the front door from any of the windows." [p.167]

Bear eventually agrees, and Rhoney gets Bear to let Ali Akhbar Khan and his students to open for the Grateful Dead in Berkeley (at the Berkeley Community Theater on September 20, 1968) in return for letting Owsley take over the lease.

At the end of the Summer of 1968, when the Indian musicians moved out of the house in the Oakland hills, Bear moved in. Betty and Bob Matthews took the downstairs apartment, and Ramrod moved into the bedroom next to Bear's. Weir camped out in the living room. [p168]

It is part of the oddness of Owsley that when the Dead left the Haight to move to Marin, he moved to the secluded Oakland hills. In order to get to either the Dead's Novato warehouse or any of the San Francisco venues, Owsley had to take a long drive in his convertible sportscar (I believe a Porsche 356), but that was part of his mystery. According to an unreliable anonymous memoir I read, Owsley had business interests at a rug shop on Alcatraz Avenue in Berkeley, and perhaps he wanted to be nearby.

Owsley lived in the Ascot Drive house until his incarceration in July of 1970. The Ali Akbar Khan School of Music moved to San Rafael, and seems to be still going strong. The house at 6024 Ascot Drive, once the Acid King's secret hideaway, is now just another nice house with a lovely view and a colorful past.

The Arbor Villa Palm Trees on 9th Avenue between E. 24th and E. 28th Street are sort of near Lake Merritt, but are only included here because I wanted to use a picture of them. They have nothing to do with the Grateful Dead. They were planted in 1890, and originally lined the Eastern edge of Francis "Borax" Smith's estate.

Grateful Dead Historical Research Quadrangle
Aside from actual places where the Grateful Dead and its members have performed, like any phenomenon, there are odd little loci where certain aspects of Grateful Dead culture have thrived. One of those is Brooklyn, New York, where the Dead rarely played but was nonetheless critical to the rise of taping culture, but that is a topic for another book that someone else will be writing. However, from the 1980s onwards there has been some serious research into the nature and history of The Grateful Dead, and much of that research forms an approximate square around Lake Merritt.

Lake Merritt is a large tidal lagoon in the center of the city of Oakland. It was originally surrounded by wetlands, but by the late 19th century the inflow and outflow of water was carefully managed. Nonetheless, one of the many unique things about Oakland is that it has a huge (the circumference is 3.4 miles) wildlife refuge right next to downtown. The Oakland Auditorium anchors the Southwestern edge of the lake, and that alone would make it memorable in Dead history. However, the other three sides of the quadtangle have a place as well.

In the 1980s, the magazine Golden Road, produced by Blair Jackson and Regan McMahon, set the standard for Grateful Dead scholarship. It was the first publication that did serious, accurate journalism on the Dead while still having an enthusiasts' perspective, and it remains a touchstone for anyone interested in the band at the time and today. The Golden Road was produced on the Eastern edge of Lake Merritt, pretty near Leaning Tower Of Pizza.

Later in the 1980s, and into the 90s, before the Internet became a thing, David Gans' Deadhead Hour became syndicated nationwide. Thus any aspiring Dead fan could get cool tapes, and not need to meet a guy whose brother knew a guy who knew a dude who bought some reel-to-reels at a flea market (which is sort of how I got Providence Sep 15 '73, but that's a digression). Anyone with an FM radio and a patch cord could get a pretty cool Dead tape every week, and so the Grateful Dead slowly infiltrated the land, one suburban bedroom at a time. Deadhead Hour World Headquarters was (and remains) at the Northeastern corner of Lake Merritt.

Lost Live Dead remained just an idea for the 20th century, although the occasional whiff could be found in Golden Road or Deadbase VII. Nonetheless, a significant part of the research for the blog was done near the Northern part of Lake Merritt, on both sides of Highway 580. Now the Kaiser is closed, Golden Road is a memory, the Oakland Coliseum has long since been replaced, and Lost Live Dead is produced in virtual space, far to the East of Grand Avenue.

Oakland perseveres, however, its fortune made by being the terminus of the first Transcontinental railroad, and then narrowed by the Bay Bridge. Yet the city's importance in American history and Grateful Dead history remains undiminished by time. The Golden State Warriors bought a title back to Oakland in 2015, 40 years after their last one, and 26 years after any other Oakland team, so everything remains possible.

The Henry J. Kaiser Convention center ca. 2013, fenced off and unused, hoping for a Miracle Ticket [from Oakland Scene]