Fillmore: The Last Days (LP and movie, 1972)

Fillmore: The Last Days lp, released June 1972

Part of the Grateful Dead legend came from their presence at many of the seminal events of the 1960s and early 70s: the Human Be-In, Monterey Pop, Woodstock, Altamont and Watkins Glen, just to name a few. There were many more festivals and special events around the country during that era, which while lacking a national profile, were often legendary or infamous events to fans in those regions. The Dead played at plenty of those, as well: the Sound Storm in Poynette, WI, a free concert in Piedmont Park in Atlanta after the Atlanta Pop Festival and so on. Along with the Jefferson Airplane, the Dead's presence was an imprimatur that an event was hip and happening, and anyone who lived to tell the tale--who could remember it--would have something to recall their youth by.

The Sixties were a very self-conscious generation, with the participants constantly testifying to the importance of events even as they were happening. Indeed, what are perceived today as the major rock events of the 1960s are largely seen that way because of documents left behind. When bands had released considerably fewer albums, and cassette decks, much less YouTube and the Internet, were just a sort of dream, movies and albums like Monterey Pop, Woodstock and Gimme Shelter went a long way towards defining the world's perception of seminal 60s music events. More people have surely seen Jimi Hendrix's performance in the Monterey Pop movie than ever saw Hendrix, and bands like Ten Years After and Joe Cocker had their careers made by the Woodstock movie and album. You can try it yourself: find a crowd of people--probably not at work--and shout "Gimme an F!" Everybody knows what comes next, even if they've never heard of Country Joe and The Fish.

The Grateful Dead were attendant at many of the largest and most important 60s musical events, and yet they left no contemporary musical or visual evidence of their presence. The 1967 Monterey Pop Festival was filmed for a projected ABC-TV special, which was never aired, but instead turned into a sort of 'Art House' movie. Most of the artists in the Monterey Pop movie (Jimi Hendrix Experience,  Jefferrson Airplane and Janis Joplin among them) were even bigger by the time the movie was released in 1969, so the movie has had a wide following over the years. The Grateful Dead, however, refused to be filmed or recorded, so they don't appear on any of the subsequent extended releases of the movie and concert album (released in the 1990s).

Similarly, the Dead refused to be filmed for the Woodstock movie. Now, we know they played terribly, but they insured that they would never benefit the way Joe Cocker or Country Joe did even if they had played well. Garcia does appear uncredited on the Woodstock album, saying "Exhibit A" (in the movie, he is holding up a joint), but that was an inside joke. Of course, the Dead didn't get to play at all at Altamont. According to my cousin, Bill Graham's plans to make a movie of the Watkins Glen festival, at that time the largest outdoor rock concert ever, were thwarted when the Dead refused to agree to being filmed. However, knowing that the Grateful Dead's staunch resistance to allowing themselves to be filmed, despite the implicit damper it would put on their career, it makes it all the more significant that the Dead allowed themselves to be filmed and recorded for their concert at the final week of Fillmore West, preserved in the 1972 Fillmore movie and the June, 1972 Columbia album Fillmore: The Last Days.

The Closing Of The Fillmore West
The Grateful Dead had first played for Bill Graham at the old Fillmore Auditorium, on 1805 Geary Blvd on December 10, 1965. However, the Dead had always had a contested professional relationship with Graham, and the band had opened a larger competing venue, the Carousel Ballroom. The Carousel was about a mile away, at 1545 Market Street (at Van Ness). However, the Dead's naive mismanagement of the venue allowed Graham to take it over and rename it the Fillmore West. Nonetheless, despite  having been bested, the Dead still played both the Fillmore East and Fillmore West many times for Bill Graham. However, by 1971 both venues were too small for the booming rock market, and the Fillmore West building had been sold to the Howard Johnson's hotel chain, so Graham decided to close both places. The Fillmore East had its final concert on June 27, 1971, and the Fillmore West closed the next week.

There were six nights of concerts during the final week of Fillmore West, from June 29 through July 4, 1971, most of them broadcast on KSFX-fm. Bill Graham was always a great self-promoter, so a big hullabaloo was made about the concerts. Graham was an aspiring mogul, as well, so he arranged to have a movie made and an album recorded. The Woodstock movie and album had been huge successes on a mammoth scale, and the promoters of Woodstock never had to work again. Graham was looking for a similar gold strike. However complex and contested the Grateful Dead's relationship with Bill Graham may have been, for his sake the band made their only exception to being filmed by outsiders. As a result, there are two Grateful Dead songs on the Fillmore: The Last Days triple album ("Casey Jones" and "Johnny B. Goode" from the July 2, 1971 Fillmore West show). The album also featured the first officially released live recording of the New Riders Of The Purple Sage, with Jerry Garcia on pedal steel guitar, performing "Henry." The Dead's performance of "Johnny B. Goode" was in the Fillmore movie, along with some scenes of Garcia tuning his pedal steel during a basketball game. Apparently, he was tuning his guitar for the Rowan Brothers set, but that wasn't plain at the time.

The Fillmore DVD cover

Fillmore and Fillmore: The Last Days
Bill Graham obviously conceived of the Fillmore movie as an homage to himself and the San Francisco rock scene of the 60s, with the Fillmore: The Last Days album as the soundtrack. Much as I personally enjoy the movies and the album, that view was not widely shared by the public at large. San Francisco had been perhaps the most important rock "scene" in the 60s, but it was feeling kind of tired by 1971. Janis Joplin was gone, having died the previous October. The Jefferson Airplane were off the road, with new mom Grace Slick taking a hiatus. Quicksilver Messenger Service was sounding very strained, with John Cipollina having left, and the group dominated by the nasally vocals of Dino Valenti. Sly And The Family  Stone were hugely popular, but they had long since graduated from the Fillmore West. Creedence Clearwater Revival was happy to headline the final night, but for whatever reasons, probably related to their record company, they were not willing to be on film or on the album. Santana was the one relatively recent arrival who shone at the closing of the Fillmore West, although their performance was the last of the classic Abraxas lineup.

Fairly or not, the Fillmore album sounded kind of anemic in 1972. The Dead's two tracks, ably mixed by Steven Barncard, were simply an addendum to their then current album (Grateful Dead, aka 'Skull & Roses'). One of the songs, "Johnny B. Goode," had even been on that album. The other song, "Casey Jones," while classic and enjoyable, was hardly seminal. Much as I love Hot Tuna, the rest of America must have thought an extended blues jam on "Keep Your Lamps Trimmed And Burning" was a far cry from Grace and Marty soaring on "Volunteers." Quicksilver, once the pride of the Fillmore, by any objective standard sounded just terrible by 1971. Only Santana really stands out, with "Incident At Neshabur" and a unique version of Miles Davis's "In A Silent Way."

The rest of the album featured San Francisco bands, mostly with just an album or two under their belt. A few years earlier, up and coming San Francisco bands would have been the shape of things to come, but now they didn't really have an impact. Now, speaking personally, I am a huge fan of San Francisco music, so I love hearing Elvin Bishop or The Sons of Champlin, but that feeling wasn't shared nationally. Ironically enough, the two most forward looking performances on the record, by Malo and Tower Of Power, were simply too early for the rest of the country. Both of those groups would be hugely popular and influential worldwide, but their impact would not be felt for some time. Boz Scaggs and Elvin Bishop would go onto considerable success as well, but not in the specific incarnations on the Fillmore album. A few other groups, like It's A Beautiful Day, Cold Blood, Stoneground and Lamb, just sound like second tier groups today, and the record buying public didn't disagree.

The final night of Fillmore West, on July 4, 1971, featured Creedence, Santana and Tower Of Power, the two of the most popular bands from San Francisco (Creedence and Santana) and two of the most influential (Santana and Tower), and the evening ended with a couple of hours of epic if formless jamming, some of it broadcast on KSFX-fm. However, the Fillmore album merely included some rather uninspired blues jamming from an earlier show in the week (with Elvin Bishop and Taj Mahal). I don't doubt that contracts prevented the final night's jam from being released, but it was a mistake to fill up the record with some dull blues. It suggested that the legacy of the Fillmore was just some overrated shuffles in major keys, with nothing that merited a second listen, playing into the prejudices of early 70s fans who thought the Fillmore was just for stoners. Fillmore: The Last Days was not much of a success, and the Fillmore movie bombed. It was a few years too late, so nobody even noticed that it was the Grateful Dead's only contribution to the industry of commemorative festival movies and soundtrack albums.

I'm aware that the Grateful Dead contributed an amazing recording of "Dark Star," from April 8, 1972 at Wembley, to the Glastonbury Fayre album. Remarkable as that was, the Glastonbury Fayre album was a different sort of project, very much a hippie non-profit thing. Even though an unexpected hit single came off that record (Hawkwind's "Silver Machine"), the enterprise wasn't designed as a showcase for mass market appeal, and the release was a relatively limited edition (not surprising for a triple-lp with a do-it-yourself pyramid insert).

The Grateful Dead At Fillmore West, July 2, 1971
Ironically, while the Dead's performances at Monterey Pop and Woodstock were unmemorable and dreadful, respectively, and they didn't play at all at Altamont, they actually played pretty well at the closing of the Fillmore West. While much of the material from their Fillmore set was featured on the Skull & Roses album, they could have hinted at their power by allowing a very different version of one of those songs to be released. On July 2, they also performed a 17+ minute version of "Good Lovin'"--that would have been something to remember Fillmore West by. And yet, they released a basic version of their most popular song, and a fairly dumb cover of a rock standard, which in turn had just been released on their own record. What could they have been thinking?

Over the years, the principal concern about live releases of the Grateful Dead has always been sound. With professional recording gear and Steve Barncard mixing, I don't think the Dead would have been that concerned what was chosen. Warner Brothers Records, their label, would also have been fairly flexible in this instance. For one thing, all record labels had seen that the Woodstock album had made a lot of careers, and would have been open minded about allowing one of their acts to release a live track. The Woodstock album had been on an Atlantic affiliate (Cotillion), but numerous acts on other labels had benefited enormously by allowing their music to be licensed (examples included Joe Cocker on A&M, The Who on Decca and Santana on Columbia, to name just a few). In any case, Warners was trying to get the Grateful Dead to re-sign with them, and would not have wanted to alienate them by refusing to let them license a track to Bill Graham's album project, even though it was being released on Columbia.

My own belief is that out of long-standing personal friendship with Bill Graham, and despite their complex business history, the Grateful Dead made an exception to their own preferences and allowed themselves to be filmed and recorded for his Fillmore project. I also believe that they would have been willing to let Graham use whatever he wanted from their performance. Sure, they would have objected if there was a technical problem with a track (or Garcia was out-of-tune, or something), but in general, I think having given permission the Dead would likely have agreed to any reasonable suggestion by Graham and his Columbia producers, Jeffrey Cohen and Bruce Good.

However, I think Graham and his producers thought small and picked the wrong tracks. While I hardly think the week of June 29-July 4, 1971 was the best week of San Francisco music, there was plenty of fine music played. I'm not guessing--almost all of it circulates on tape in one form or another. With the exception of Santana and arguably a few other tracks, I think the producers made very poor choices. They consistently chose the simplest and most accessible songs by each artist, and for the angular nature of Fillmore music that was not a good criteria.

In the case of the Dead, a Chuck Berry song and a popular FM song with a catchy hook may seem like good choices, but both tracks tire quickly, even to hard core Deadheads. Conversely, if the Fillmore lp had included 17 minutes of "Good Lovin,'" in an era when almost no tapes existed, the effect would have been very different indeed. Certainly, a professionally shot Pigpen rap would be truly memorable today. As a point of comparison, Ten Years After's career was made by the inclusion of their rave-up on "I'm Going Home" being included in its entirety in the Woodstock movie and album, and in retrospect it was not an obvious choice. Yet I can remember seeing Woodstock in a midnight movie (at the Varsity Theater in Palo Alto in about 1972) and being absolutely mesmerized by "I'm Going Home", even though I had heard it already on the album. If Graham's producers had included "Good Lovin,'", or "Not Fade Away">"Going Down The Road">"Not Fade Away," it might have been truly stunning, but they thought small.

Everyone, including me at the time, took for granted that the Grateful Dead would be included in the Fillmore album and movie, and never paid attention to it. In fact, the movie and album became mere footnotes, and as more and more Grateful Dead material became available formally and informally, the two tracks that were actually released became less important. I have to think that the Dead must have only conceded to allow the tracks due to their long standing friendship with Graham, and when the album and movie bombed, they felt free to return to their policy of refusing all such proposals. While we don't lack for recorded Grateful Dead, professionally filmed Dead music has been very hard to come by from the early days, and the one moment when it could have happened seems to have been frittered away on "Johnny B. Goode."

December 9-11, 1966, Fillmore Auditorium: Grateful Dead/Tim Rose (Morning Dew?)

The SF Chronicle from December 9, 1966, listing the opening of a three-date stand at the Fillmore featuring the Grateful Dead, Big Mama Thornton and Tim Rose

One paradox of bands that tour heavily is that they don't get out much to see other acts. The members of a group like the Grateful Dead, who toured relentlessly throughout almost their entire existence, would have had few opportunities or even an inclination to go out and check out other performers. When a group was playing music in a new style, as the Dead were in the 60s, seeing bands live can often be the only way to really check out what's happening, since records and radio were often well behind the times. Fortunately for the Dead, however, as a group whose members were very open-minded, the rock market at the time included the Grateful Dead on bills with many acts. We know for a fact that at least some of those opening acts caught the ears of Jerry Garcia and others, as we have specific testimony about how impressed band members were with acts as diverse as Miles Davis, Pentangle and The Great Speckled Bird (with Buddy Cage).

With that in mind, I am beginning an intermittent series looking at bands who opened for or shared the bill with the Grateful Dead in the 1960s. In the early days, not only were the Dead on bills with multiple acts, but the venues were smaller and the programming different, so the various members of the Dead were very likely to hear opening sets at least some of the time. I'm not going to try and make arguments for "secret influences," but rather I am suggesting that the Dead members, and particularly Jerry Garcia, were implicitly affected by what they heard. By looking at different bands that we can reasonably assume they actually saw and heard perform live, we can see how the Dead's own music may have been affected. In some cases, the 'influence' may have been about equipment, or song choices or stage presentation, rather than musical ideas. In others, the influence may have been negative, giving the Dead an indication of what wouldn't work. In any case, it's a reasonable proposition that acts who opened for the Dead in the 1960s, particularly for a multi-night stand, had to have been seen by most if not all of the band members, and they would have been among the few contemporary groups that the Dead would have gotten a close look at, since otherwise they were never home.

Tim Rose
Tim Rose opened for the Grateful Dead at the Fillmore Auditorium on December 9-11, 1966. This weekend was the first time the Dead headlined the Fillmore without another of their contemporaries, like Quicksilver Messenger Service, sharing the bill. However, as usual at the Fillmore there were three acts: The Grateful Dead, Big Mama Thornton and Tim Rose. Rose had a modest hit on AM radio at the time with a reworking of the Bonnie Dobson song "Morning Dew." The Grateful Dead had just been signed by Warner Brothers Records, and their own version of "Morning Dew" would appear on their forthcoming album. However, it is ambiguous when the Dead started to perform the song. It appears that it was after Tim Rose opened for the Dead at the Fillmore, so I am going to consider his performance in that light.

Tim Rose had been a folksinger in the early 60s. He was part of the East Coast crowd that included the future members of The Mamas And The Papas, among others. Rose's most famous folk group was called The Big Three, featuring himself, Cass Elliott and guitarist Jim Hendricks (no, not Jimi). The Big Three were a popular Greenwich Village folk act, and appeared on TV many times, releasing albums in 1963 and '64. When The Big 3 broke up, Rose went solo. By 1966, folk-rock was popular, and the gruff-voiced Rose was well suited for rock styled versions of folk songs, so his star had started to rise.

"Hey Joe"
Rose's first big hit was a slowed-down version of the song "Hey Joe," released in 1966. "Hey Joe" had been written by Los Angeles folk singer Billy Roberts in 1962, and many Los Angeles folk rock bands were performing it as part of their sets, including Love, The Leaves, The Standells and The Byrds. The Leaves had the first hit with it December 1965. Rose's innovation was that he changed the tempo of the song, slowing it down dramatically from the angry, up-tempo rocker that was typical of the Los Angeles groups. Rose's arrangement of "Hey Joe" was the inspiration for Jimi Hendrix's arrangement of the song, which ultimately became the best known version. Rose's version of "Hey Joe" got some airplay in various AM markets around the country, almost certainly including the Bay Area.

However, Rose's version of "Hey Joe" claimed himself as the songwriter, not Billy Roberts. Rose said that he had heard the song in Florida, and that it was treated as a traditional song. With that in mind, he had just re-written it and taken a songwriting credit, a common enough practice at the time. However, while "Hey Joe" has a particularly complicated song publishing history, the fact is that by 1966 it had already been a hit for The Leaves and released on a Byrds album, so even if Rose had initially heard the song at some coffee house, it appeared somewhat self-serving to assign publishing to himself. However, this was typical of the record business at the time. The Byrds had recorded an old blues number on an early album, for which songwriting credits were assigned to band members. That was how Jerry Garcia's version of "It's No Use" on the Live At Keystone album came to be 'written' by Roger McGuinn and Gene Clark.

"Morning Dew"
"Morning Dew" had been written by Canadian folksinger Bonnie Dobson in 1962, based on the nuclear disaster film On The Beach. Fred Neil recorded a popular version of "Morning Dew" in 1964, and it became a popular song in the way that folk songs do, passed around from player to player and sung at coffee houses and hootenannies and the like. It is important to remember that in 1965, even the most politically detached people, including beatnik bluegrass musicians, took the threat of nuclear annihilation seriously. Thus "Morning Dew" was a well known song in folk circles, even if Bonnie Dobson's actual recording itself wasn't so widely heard.

In late 1966, Rose released his own version of "Morning Dew." It was a churning, soulful version, "heavy" folk-rock in the parlance of the time. Rose made a few changes in the song, common enough when converting a folk song to rock, but his single of "Morning Dew" gave him a co-writing credit with Bonnie Dobson. Dobson knew nothing about this, would not have approved, and in any case his changes weren't that significant (Blair Jackson did some great work on the history of the song "Morning Dew" in his Golden Road magazine, but unfortunately the article is no longer accessible to me. However, if anyone can find it, it is well worth reading). Due to an anomaly in U.S. Copyright law, since Dobson had published the song in Canada, Rose received half the songwriting royalties from all versions of the song, including the Grateful Dead's, much to Dobson's dismay.

Rose's co-writing credit was a mark of the "old" record business, where the same songs got "published" over and over (like "It's No Use") for a few quick bucks, with no concern for the original songwriter's intellectual property. Whether Rose thought his changes deserved co-credit, whether he too was suckered by a shifty manager or it was just some sort of hustle remains unknown. However, over the years Rose has had a bit of a taint about him, as a guy who profited from other people's work. As it happens, Rose ended up being considerably more popular in England than America, and he ultimately moved there. He had a reasonably successful career, and passed away in 2002. I'm not aware of his ever having commented on opening for the Grateful Dead.

The Grateful Dead and "Morning Dew"
 "Morning Dew" was recorded for the Grateful Dead's debut album. According to the most reliable accounts, the Dead commenced recording the album the week of January 30, 1967. Since they recorded the album in about 4 days, they could not have been experimenting much in the studio. The earliest sign of "Morning Dew" seems to be at the Human Be-In on January 14, 1967. Certainly the song had to already have been in the Dead's live repertoire prior to recording. The question is whether the Dead were performing it prior to seeing Tim Rose open for them in December at the Fillmore.

We have very few complete Grateful Dead setlists from 1966 and early 1967. Thus, while we have some information about some songs, it's misleading to say we "know" when certain songs entered the Grateful Dead's live repertoire. However, the Grateful Dead's arrangement of "Morning Dew" seems to owe nothing to Rose's arrangement. Rose's arrangement churns more, with an expressly soul-styled vocal. The Jeff Beck Group's recording of "Morning Dew," from 1968, with Rod Stewart on vocals, borrows heavily from Rose's arrangement (or you can click the Amazon preview for a 30-second snippet of Rose's version). This seems to legislate away from Rose being too much of a direct influence.

"Morning Dew" was a well known song in folk circles, and I have to think Garcia had known the song for a while. Whatever his plans for the song might have been, I think the genesis for the Dead's treatment of the song was Garcia's arrangement of the Jefferson Airplane song "Today" on Surrealistic Pillow. If you listen to it, Garcia plays a high guitar part (contrasting Jorma's lead) that is very reminiscent of the arrangement of "Morning Dew." Since Garcia worked with the Airplane in November of 1966, and "Morning Dew" had appeared a few months later the timeline seems to fit.

However, if you accept my hypothesis that the late November '66 Matrix shows represent a sort of demo tape of the Dead's material, you'll note that "Morning Dew" isn't present. This too fits the timeline--Garcia gets the idea in November, teaches it to the band in December, and it turns up in live sets by January. However, that puts the live performances by Rose right in the middle of it. Rose would have played six sets at the Fillmore, and "Morning Dew" would have been in at least three of them. Given that it was his hit at the time, he may have played it in all six. It's hard to think Garcia and the Dead wouldn't have noticed.

AM radio was ubiquitous in 1966, in a way that was not true even a few years later. With no FM radio, any time you drove a car, the radio was on, and there were only two rock stations in San Francisco (KFRC-610 and KYA-1260), so anything played on those stations was heard by every rock fan in the Bay Area, of whatever age. Thus, there's no way that Garcia and the Dead wouldn't have heard Tim Rose's version of "Morning Dew" on the radio. Since Garcia surely knew the song already, as the band's resident folkie, he would have noticed it being played on the air, and would have had some inkling of who Tim Rose was by the time he opened for the Dead at the Fillmore.

At this juncture, it's all but impossible to know for sure, but here's my theory:

• Garcia, a veteran of folk clubs, had known and liked the song "Morning Dew" for years
• Garcia's guitar part and arrangement on the Jefferson Airplane's "Today" was fresh in his mind
• The Tim Rose single of "Morning Dew" was being played on KFRC and KYA
• Tim Rose's live version of the song must have gone over pretty well at The Fillmore

The Grateful Dead's actual arrangement of "Morning Dew" owes nothing to Rose's. However, there doesn't seem to be any sign of the song prior to Rose playing the Fillmore. I think Rose's single and live appearance reminded Garcia of the song, and perhaps spurred him to pursue a musical idea that had already been percolating. I also think that in 1966, when the Dead were still unknown, a re-arrangement of a hip song that was popular on the radio made the band a lot more accessible to audiences who had never seen them.

Over the years, just about all the recorded versions of "Morning Dew" were credited to Bonnie Dobson and Tim Rose. In Blair Jackson's article on the song, he had some quotes from Dobson, who understandably was quite bothered by it. With an unpleasant whiff associated with Rose's version of "Morning Dew," nobody seemed to have pursued the angle of whether the Dead had heard him. Still, it's hard to get past the timing of Rose's appearance with the Grateful Dead and the first signs of "Morning Dew" in their set, so for now I am thinking that Rose's music inspired Jerry Garcia and The Grateful Dead to start playing the song, even though their version was entirely different.

February 24, 1974: "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" encore, Winterland

The cover to the Bob Dylan and The Band lp Planet Waves, released January 1974

I was reminded recently that on the third night of a three-night stand at Winterland in February, 1974, the Grateful Dead encored with Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue." Since the song seemingly dropped out of the band's repertoire in 1969, it had only appeared a few times in 1970 and twice in one week in 1972. The sole 1974 performance was the Dead's last version of the song until it returned to a somewhat regular part of the rotation in 1981. While it's often impossible to say why the Grateful Dead played specific numbers at specific times, I think the unexpected version of "Baby Blue" was a result of the Grateful Dead having seen Bob Dylan and The Band at the Oakland Coliseum Arena on February 11, 1974.

Bob Dylan, The Band, Planet Waves and the 1974 Tour
From 1970 onwards, Bob Dylan had kept a very low profile. After Dylan's release of his disastrous Self-Portrait album in June, 1970, he made up for it with the excellent New Morning, released soon after in October. Nonetheless, Dylan made almost no public appearances and did not tour. Up until early '74, Dylan remained a cipher. According to various stories, he was enjoying family life, fighting with his manager or any other of a number of conspiratorial theories. Now and again he would do something, like act in the 1973 movie Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid, for which he released a soundtrack, but Dylan was off of rock's grid.  The likes of Rolling Stone suggested that Bob Dylan had "lost it," whatever exactly that might have meant.

At the end of 1973, however, word leaked out that Dylan had reunited with his old compatriots in The Band, and they would not only be releasing a new album, but touring. The Dylan/Band tour would be Dylan's first US tour since 1966. It is impossible to explain today how big a figure Bob Dylan was in the rock firmament at the time. Dylan and The Band played the largest indoor arenas in the United States, usually playing both afternoon and evening shows, and tickets were only available by mail order, a first. Bill Graham, the tour's promoter, announced that they were overwhelmed with ticket requests.

The album Planet Waves was released in January, 1974, just as the tour was beginning. It's a terrific album, although everybody usually forgets in light of the records that followed it, Blood On The Tracks (1975) and Desire (1976). Planet Waves was released on Asylum Records, rather than Columbia, suggesting (as later turned out to be the case) that much of Dylan's silence in the preceding years had to do with issues related to his manager, Albert Grossman, and thus Dylan's relations with his label, Columbia. Jerry Garcia, at least, probably agreed with my assessment of Planet Waves, since over the years he would perform three songs from it. Both "Going Going Gone" and "Tough Mama" were regular parts of the Legion Of Mary repertoire in 1975 and remained in the rotation, and 'Forever Young" turned up regularly many years later.

Bob Dylan and The Band's 1974 tour ran from January 3 (Chicago Stadium--pre-MJ) through February 14 (at The Forum in LA--early Kareem the end of the Jerry West era). Dylan and The Band played two shows at the Oakland Coliseum (Rick Barry era) on February 11, right near the end of the tour. Dylan's performances in each city were treated like major entertainment news events, very rare for rock shows at the time. At some point, probably in Joel Selvin's San Francisco Chronicle column, it was reported which and how many rock stars were backstage at the Dylan concerts. It was no surprise to find out that the Grateful Dead were among them.

"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"
"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" was first sighted in a Dead show in July of 1966. The band was surely familiar with the song from it's March, 1965 release on Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home album. However, I have to think that the Dead's arrangement owed a lot more to the single of the song released by Them in April, 1966. We certainly know that the band liked Them--who wouldn't?--because "Caution" was a jam based on "Mystic Eyes." Another factor to consider was that the Dead were quite unknown in 1966, and playing a song on the radio was one way to connect with audiences who had never heard the band's music. Since Them and Bob Dylan were both cool, the Dead could play a popular song while still making music they enjoyed. "Baby Blue" was a great song by any reckoning, however, and it was great for Garcia's soulful guitar parts, so the song stayed in the rotation long after other 1966 radio hits had dropped away.

After being dropped by the end of 1970, "Baby Blue" had still made two appearances in September, 1972 (Sep 23 and Sep 26). Since both appearances were in the second set, on some level the band must have had some plans for the song, but it disappeared again. I have no idea what caused band members to suggest or choose an obscure number that hadn't been played in some time, but certainly the singers had to have veto power. Thus Garcia had to be in favor of singing "Baby Blue" on February 24, 1974, for the encore on the final night of a three night stand at Winterland. The decision may have been casual, but Garcia must have had Dylan on the brain because he had just seen him live 13 days earlier, probably for the very first time. Even if Jerry just walked on stage for the final encore and said, "hey, let's do 'Baby Blue,'" it's hard not to think that having just seen Bob Dylan live put the idea in his head.

Garcia and the Dead performed so much, they didn't get out and about much to see other artists. On top of that, many of the artists that they covered were long gone. It wasn't like Garcia could go see Obray Ramsey and think "hey, we've gotta do 'Cold Rain And Snow' again," so the opportunities for such inspiration were few. Dylan's unique status with respect to rock and folk music and the Grateful Dead meant that the band seems to have made a rare field trip to see him play, so they must all have had a little Dylan on the brain.

The only possible point of comparison would have been the Dead's visit to see the Rolling Stones at Oakland Coliseum Arena on November 9, 1969, a momentous occasion for different reasons. I suppose we could stretch things and suggest that the Dead started performing "Not Fade Away" in a Rolling Stones-style arrangement in December 1969, that might have perhaps been inspired by the Stones, but that's a bridge too far, even for me. I think the February 24, 1974 encore of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" stemmed directly, if perhaps unconsciously, from the band seeing Bob Dylan live on February 11, and for now it seems to stand as a truly unique sequence of events.

September 25, 1980: Fox-Warfield Theater, San Francisco, CA "Ripple" (That's Otis)

The front cover of the Grateful Dead's April, 1981 release Reckoning

(Update: Touching as all the events I describe here may be, I am actually describing something that happened in my mind and not in real life. Thanks to various commenters, it appears that Bob Weir's dog Otis walked on stage the second night of the Warfield run [September 26], not the first [September 25], which I describe here. So my description of the first night at the Warfield seems to be accurate, and my description of Otis coming on stage is very vivid, but they happened on two separate nights. Some decades ago I "discovered" that the Otis event was on September 25, and simply merged the events in my mind. Although I have a firm and cherished memory of this, it isn't true, however much I believe it to be so. This conflation is a good example of how we can have reservations when some Commenter insists that they did or did not see the Dead play "Dark Star" on a given night, or that they played a certain venue, or that Jimi Hendrix appeared on stage.


I am leaving the post intact as a marker for my clear yet wrong memory)

On the Grateful Dead release Reckoning, recorded at the Fox-Warfield Theater in San Francisco and Radio City Music Hall in New York in September and October 1980, the final track is "Ripple." The released version of the song was recorded the very first night of the run, on September 25, 1980. In the middle of the song, there is an audible cheer from the crowd, and then shortly afterwards a huge round of applause. Jerry Garcia, uniquely talking to the audience while playing, says "That's Otis." Otis, Bob Weir's dog, had walked on stage to the amusement of the crowd. Although Otis was not the most famous on-stage guest ever at a Grateful Dead performance, he was still an interesting one. Since I was fortunate enough to be at the show that night, I thought I would describe this event of world historical importance in greater detail.

The Fox-Warfield Theater
In the Summer of 1980, the Grateful Dead had announced that they would be playing an incredible 14 nights at the Fox-Warfield Theater in San Francisco. The Fox-Warfield was at 982 Market Street (at 6th Street), in a once-glamorous but by-then-sleazy part of downtown. The theater had been newly restored, and in 1979 Bill Graham Presents had begun using it for select shows. In particular, in November of 1979 Bob Dylan had played twelve nights there. In fact, since Dylan insisted on playing only his material from Slow Train Coming and Saved, the shows were poorly received. I saw one of them, and it was definitely not good, in a willful Dylan way, but like everyone else I was impressed with the venue.

Back in 1980, the Fox-Warfield was a fully seated venue, with a capacity of about 2200. After some renovations around 1983, the name was changed to "The Warfield" and the downstairs had an open dance floor and tiered tables in the back, but back during the original run all patrons had reserved seats. The Grateful Dead had played seated venues in the Bay Area a few times in the 1970s, but not often. They had played 4 nights at the Berkeley Community Theater in 1972, and six nights at the Orpheum Theatre (at 1192  Market Street at 8th) in 1976, but the Fox-Warfield was smaller than either venue. Expectations ran high, and tickets were only available by mail order, also a first for the Bay Area.

My friend and I put our order in, and ended up with tickets for several nights. We were fortunate to get balcony seats for the very first night. Although the neighborhood was dubious, with Mike's faithful black lab snoozing in the back of his VW van (RIP Shadow, wherever you are, buddy), there was not going to be a problem. The first show of a Grateful Dead run or tour were always exciting, but this first night was truly special. The entire crowd was excited, but since we all had seats there wasn't the air of physical tension that came from trying to save or carve out space on a crowded floor.

The back cover to Reckoning, showing the Dead's 1980 acoustic set-up

The Acoustic Set
No one really knew whether the Grateful Dead were going to do anything other than play their usual two sets,but we all hoped for something different. Joel Selvin, in his San Francisco Chronicle column, had alluded to the possibility of acoustic sets, but there was no way to know for sure. Obviously, a few people close to the band knew that the Grateful Dead were rehearsing acoustically, but without an internet there was no way to know any of that. Thus when we walked down to our seats in the theater balcony and saw the acoustic instruments set up in front of the electric equipment, we knew we were going to see something different, and this added to the buzz of expectation in the house. The Dead's acoustic equipment was set up in a sort of semi-circle in front of the Dead's main gear. Garcia and Weir were in the center, with Phil Lesh mostly standing behind them, and Brent off to stage left playing piano, while the drummers played slimmed down kits in front of their regular trap sets.

Like all good Deadheads, Mike and I devoted ourselves to guessing the first song. For once, instead or merely deciding between "Promised Land" or "Alabama Getaway," we knew we were looking at the first acoustic set in 10 years (not counting the Chicago set in '78). Anything was possible. It was a rare moment to be guaranteed that it would be something we had never seen, in the sense that neither Mike nor I had ever seen an acoustic set. Mike took the high road, and decided that they would open with "Uncle John's Band," and I decided that they would start with something easy, and went with "Dark Hollow." We were both wrong.

The magical moment when the entire crowd realized after the first few notes that the Dead were doing an acoustic version of "Bird Song" stands as one of my most memorable experiences as a Deadhead. So often, the Dead made magic on random nights out in the hinterlands, while making the dumbest song choices for high profile events. Yet here they were, with sky-high expectations for an historic run that included their first real acoustic set in a decade, and they played a song that not only had never been played acoustically, few in the crowd had probably ever been graced with a live version of it. To top it off, "Bird Song" is a great Dead song in almost everyone's book, and it was truly magical when the band met the challenge to choose a cool song and exceeded it.

Otis
After "Bird Song," nothing could go wrong. Remember that from the crowd's perspective, every song was a surprise. The actual 35-minute set was

Bird Song ;	05:54
I've Been All Around This World ;	03:33
Dark Hollow ;	04:10
Rosalie McFall ;	02:47
Monkey And The Engineer ;	02:04
It Must Have Been The Roses ;	05:31
Jack-A-Roe ;	03:49
Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie >	03:24
Ripple ;	04:21

When Garcia and Weir started up "Ripple," everybody knew that it was the end of the set. While "Ripple" is actually a trivial song, it gave everyone a warm fuzzy feeling, and it was a night to be warm and fuzzy. There was still one surprise left, however, when Bob Weir's dog Otis wandered onto the stage [as I pointed out above, this actually happened the next night, September 26, which I also attended, and I have simply merged the two nights in my memory].

Otis was a fairly large Siberian husky mix, very handsome and regal, and like most of his breed he appeared friendly but indifferent to the needs and concerns of mere humans, even one who claimed to "own" him. For whatever reason, Otis got tired of standing on stage right and watching and calmly strolled onto the stage, towards Weir. The first roar you hear on "Ripple" is Otis coming onto the stage. Weir heard the roar and looked up from his guitar to see Otis standing in the center of the stage, staring at him. Glaring at his dog, albeit while suppressing a smile, Weir angrily pointed offstage.

Otis stared back at Weir, and then turned to the audience. With the royal disdain of a Siberian Husky, and with Weir gesturing for him to get offstage, Otis gave a gigantic doggie yawn--"who cares what that guy thinks," he seemed to be saying. Since everyone in the tiny Warfield could see the yawn, the entire crowd went crazy, and all the members of the Grateful Dead busted a gut laughing. The second, louder cheer you hear on "Ripple" is for the yawn. At that juncture, a laughing Garcia announced "that's Otis!," confirming the dog's immortality.

Ultimately Otis got Weir's message and drifted offstage. Somebody on the crew led him off when he got near the edge, but Otis was alone on stage for 30 seconds to a minute, a long time for a dog. In less than 40 minutes, we had an acoustic set, "Bird Song" and Otis, and this was just the first set. Mike and I agreed that we could leave right then and it would have been a fantastic night. Of course we stayed (and we're glad we did), but I'm not aware of any other Grateful Dead show where a dog came on stage, and certainly Otis was the only one to get namechecked by Jerry.

September 20, 1980: The Stone, San Francisco, CA: Bobby And The Midnites (SF debut)

My notes for the Bobby & The Midnites show at The Stone, in San Francisco, on September 20, 1980. Note that I had written "Bob Weir and The Midnites," probably how they were announced

Bob Weir had not played bars or smaller venues in the Bay Area prior to the Grateful Dead's hiatus in 1974. Once the hiatus began, however, Weir played around regularly with Kingfish, even keeping it up for a little while after the Dead began touring again in 1976. The group Kingfish went it's own way afterwards, but Weir seemed to have taken a lesson from Jerry Garcia and made a conscious effort to develop his own solo career parallel to but seprarate from the Grateful Dead. Unlike Garcia, however, who seemed to choose a jazzier and more laid back approach to his solo work, Weir made a self-conscious effort to make more focused and hard rocking music on his own than with the Grateful Dead. Put another way, from 1977 to 1984 Bob Weir played rock music and aimed to be a Rock Star. The principal vehicle for Weir's ambitions was the group Bobby And The Midnites. I was fortunate enough to see Bobby And The Midnites, on September 20, 1980, at The Stone in San Francisco, on their debut weekend. This post is a reflection on how that event appeared at the time, and the ways in which it did and did not prefigure future events in Bob Weir's career.

Heaven Help The Fool
When Arista Records signed the Grateful Dead in 1976, they also made provisions for solo records by band members. Jerry Garcia had produced Cats Under The Stars by the Jerry Garcia Band, released in early 1978. Cats was a muted, layered record, featuring all-original material in the laid back style characterized by Garcia Band performances. Weir's Heaven Help The Fool album was released in January 1978. Working with Keith Olsen in Los Angeles, producer of both Terrapin Station and Fleetwood Mac, the album featured 8 very conventional rock songs, designed for radio play. A handsome photo of Weir graced the cover, with no psychedelic designs hinting that Weir was a member of the Grateful Dead. Along with six originals, there were two cover versions ("Easy To Slip" and "I'll Be Doggone"), a record company tactic designed to give casual shoppers an idea of the music without having to hear it.The album was designed to make Weir a star like Steve Miller or Boz Scaggs.

In order to support Heaven Help The Fool, Weir went on tour with a band that included lead guitarist Bobby Cochran and organist Brent Mydland. There was a national tour in March of 1978, and a brief tour in the Fall, where Garcia first heard Brent play, thus triggering the departure of the Godchauxs. Heaven Help The Fool probably sold a few copies, and it would have made Arista money, although probably not Weir, but it never took off. In my opinion, at least, the original material by Weir and lyricist John Barlow was okay, but not strong enough to grab the ears of radio programmers or casual listeners. In 1979, with Brent Mydland now a member of the Grateful Dead, Weir had no extra-curricular performances that were open to the general public.

The cover of Bob Weir's 1978 Arista album Heaven Help The Fool

September 1980
By the Fall of 1980, the Grateful Dead had raised their profile somewhat. They had a new album on Arista, Go To Heaven, and they had recently announced that they would be playing 14 nights at San Francisco's Fox-Warfield Theater on Market Street. Bill Graham Presents had just started using the venue, and Bob Dylan had played a dozen shows there the previous year. Since Dylan had played his "Jesus songs," the performances were poorly received (I went to one--it wasn't good), but everyone loved the venue. The Grateful Dead's Warfield run was going to be from September 25-October 14, 1980, followed by shows at Radio City Music Hall in New York. Thus it was a complete surprise when Bob Weir was booked for three shows in the Bay Area from September 18-20, at the Catalyst in Santa Cruz, the Keystone Palo Alto and The Stone in San Francisco.

In 1980, the only coverage of the Grateful Dead in the press were notices in Joel Selvin's weekly Lively Arts column in the San Francisco Chronicle "Pink Section" (Datebook). Even then, there would only be a sentence or two about the Dead's upcoming concerts or new albums, since Selvin had to cover the doings of every other Bay Area band within a paragraph or two. Selvin almost never mentioned anything about Jerry Garcia's additional activities, and he certainly said nothing about Weir's.  Thus the band and the event occurred in a complete vacuum. Weir seemed to have a new band that he was taking the trouble to rehearse right before a big Dead tour, but there was no explanation as to why, nor any concept of what to expect. This was intriguing--we had to go.

Bobby And The Midnites, Mark I: Tim Bogert and Carmine Appice
The three shows were advertised as Bobby And The Midnites, although it's possible based on my own notes (above) that they may have been billed or announced as "Bob Weir and The Midnites," as I was very careful about noting that sort of thing. In any case, the advertised lineup was

• Bobby Cochran-lead guitar, vocals
• Bob Weir-guitar, vocals
• Brent Mydland-keyboards, vocals
• Tim Bogert-bass
• Carmine Appice-drums
• Matt Kelly-harmonica, guitar, congas

Cochran and Mydland had been in the 1978 edition of the Bob Weir Band, and Kelly had been in Kingfish, so their presence in the new band was not surprising. The real surprises were bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice. Not only were they not from the Bay Area and lacked even the faintest association with the Grateful Dead, Bogert and Appice were influential musicians whose style was the polar opposite to the Dead in many ways [update: a fellow scholar pointed out to me that I wrote "Billy Cobham-drums" on my notes above. I would have written them down right after the show. I am more inclined to believe 1980-Me than 30-years-later-Me, so I think I simply inserted Appice into my memory. Memory is weird].

Bogert and Appice were from Long Island, and their mid-60s group The Pigeons had changed their name to Vanilla Fudge. Vanilla Fudge's big hit in 1967 had been a re-interpretation of the Supremes' "You Keep Me Hangin' On" into a slow, 7-minute rock opus with huge organ chords and loud drums and guitar. Do you recall some 60s rock music referred to as "Heavy"? Vanilla Fudge was known as the first heavy rock band. The Fudge had a ground breaking sound, taking R&B-styled music and playing it thunderously loud and slow. Bogert and Appice were one of the first rock rhythm sections to be famous as such. Vanilla Fudge sounds dated today--they sounded dated by 1969--but they were hugely influential:

• in Denver, CO, future members of Three Dog Night heard "You Keep Me Hanging On" and realized you could make good hit music by rocking up simpler songs
• in 1968 England, Ritchie Blackmore and some others decided to form Deep Purple with the express intent of being the "English Vanilla Fudge"
• Also in 1968 England, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones were putting together a new band, and while they had a variety of ideas, they wanted that booming sound on the bottom that Vanilla Fudge had pioneered
• And somewhere in America in 1969, Jeff Beck heard Vanilla Fudge and loved Bogert and Appice, and decided to break up his band, planning to form a new group with Rod Stewart, Bogert and Appice (replacing Nicky Hopkins, Ronnie Wood and Tony Newman)

So Bogert and Appice weren't just from Long Island rather than San Francisco, but musically they were in complete contrast to the San Francisco Sound. Bogert and Appice hadn't been quite as successful in the 1970s, but they were still prominent. Due to record company obligations that could not be refused, Vanilla Fudge could not break up until March 1970. By that time, Jeff Beck had been in a major auto accident that sidelined him for two years, and Rod Stewart had gone solo, so Bogert and Appice had formed the group Cactus, a hard rocking ensemble who never really managed to become a headline act. Bogert and Appice's penchants for extended solos were bought to the fore in Cactus, who only had two gears--fifth and overdrive.

Bogert and Appice did finally tour some with Jeff Beck, in a high-powered trio called Beck, Bogert and Appice in 1972-73, but the albums and tours never reached the heights that the band members had hoped for. Bogert and Appice then played on various projects separately and together throughout the 1970s, on tour and in the studio. Ironically, Appice had ended up as the drummer for Rod Stewart's touring band, and Stewart and Appice had co-written "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy," a huge hit, but not Stewart's deepest moment as a vocal interpreter.

Thus it was quite surprising to see Tim Bogert and Carmine Appice playing at some bars in the San Francisco Bay Area with members of the Grateful Dead.I am now aware of a possible Bobby and The Midnites show on June 30, 1980, at the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach, but I knew nothing about this show at the time, so I have no idea who was in the group in June, or if they were even billed as Bobby and The Midnites. I do know that Weir and Cochran had met Alphonso Johnson and Billy Cobham in 1979 (the subject of another post), and broached the idea of "Bobby And The Midnites," but I do not know (nor did I then) whether Bogert and Appice were part of the plan or just interim members.

September 20, 1980: The Stone, San Francisco, CA
The Stone was the third leg of Freddie Herrera's Keystone empire, larger than either Keystone Berkeley or Keystone Palo Alto, with a capacity of about 700. It had only opened earlier in the year, and this was the first time I or any of my friends had been there. There was a dance floor up front, and tables on raised platforms in the back, similar to Keystone Palo Alto.  In contrast to Berkeley, which just sold beer, The Stone was a hard liquor bar. It was on Broadway in North Beach, amidst all the topless clubs. Keystone Berkeley was a funky dive, but it had a hippie/college-town feel. The Stone was a sleazy dive, with a big hair and big shoes feel, more uptempo than Berkeley but harder edged as well.

We got to The Stone early enough to get a nice table on the second tier. There was a decent crowd, but I don't recall it being sold out. The sightlines were excellent. Because we were early, we got to sit through an unmemorable opening set by the Kevin Barry Band, who, to the extent I recall, played would-be "arena rock" in a Journey/REO style. Bobby And The Midnites had debuted in Santa Cruz, 90 miles South of San Francisco, on a Thursday night. If there were any bugs, they were fixed out of town. For veterans like Bogert, Appice and the rest of the band, by night three at The Stone they were going to be road ready. Of course, without an internet or anything else we had no idea what to expect.

Weir and the band made their way on stage at a reasonable hour--unlike certain other members of the Grateful Dead--and launched into "Poison Ivy," by The Coasters. This had been a regular cover by the Bob Weir Band, so it wasn't a surprising start. Knowing what we know today, it is interesting to recall that the Dead had backed The Coasters for a week at The In Room in Belmont in September 1965, and here was Weir playing a Coasters song 15 years later. Probably no one in the crowd knew this at the time, but Weir probably had a personal affection for the song unrelated to the fact that it was fun to sing and play. Bogert and Appice were solid and funky on the bottom end, as expected, but did not overwhelm the sound as if they were in Vanilla Fudge or something.

However, as the show wore on, it became clear that the setlist was a mixture of original numbers from Heaven Help The Fool and covers that Weir had done with the Bob Weir Band or Kingfish.

Set I
Poison Ivy
See See Rider
Big Iron
Bombs Away
Easy To Slip
Supplication>
  drums>
 All I Need Is Time
Promised Land

Set II
Juke
Minglewood Blues
I Found Love
Heaven Help The Fool
This Time Forever>
 Shade Of Gray
I'll Be Doggone
Wrong Way Feeling

One More Saturday Night

While "See See Rider," "Supplication,""Minglewood" and "One More Saturday Night" had all been performed by the Dead, Weir had performed them all with Kingfish or his own band, so there were no surprises. All the songs were well played, and they weren't note for note, but there was no jamming as such. The Midnites had a much more commercial hard rock sound, intentionally separating themselves from the more diffuse, improvisational sound of the Dead. Initially I was glad that Bogert and Appice did not play like they had with Jeff Beck, but by the end I was hoping they would step out and make things more interesting, whatever the results. I suspect there was some impropvised jamming after the drum solo (before "All I Need Is Time") but I don't recall it and I didn't make a note of it.

In general, I enjoyed the show. I recognized that Weir, similar to Garcia, had made a self-conscious decision to play music that was distinctly different than the Grateful Dead. He certainly had the looks and chops to play conventional "AOR Rock," and not to make it stupid. But it still wasn't that memorable. I didn't see Bobby And The Midnites and go "wow, I've got to see them again." Since I hadn't seen the Bob Weir Band in 1978, it was fun to hear some of the Heaven Help The Fool songs live, but I still didn't think the songs were as catchy as, say, Steve Miller or Fleetwood Mac, which was the audience they appeared to be driving for.

The feel on the stage was that Weir and Bobby Cochran were driving the band, and everyone else was acting as a sideman. Cochran took a lead vocal on his own slow blues, "I Found Love," which he had performed with the Bob Weir Band, and took most of the solos. Brent only sang a few harmonies and took the occasional brief organ solo, and sang no songs of his own. Some years later, I found out that Cochran had recorded "I Found Love" an an album on Mercury in 1977 by a group called Sierra, who were the re-named Flying Burrito Brothers, who then re-re-named themselves the Flying Burrito Brothers again the next year.

Aftermath
This lineup of Bobby and The Midnites went on to do a brief 5-date East Coast tour (from November 1-7), right after the conclusion of the Radio City Grateful Dead shows. They played small auditioriums like the Capitol Theater in Passaic. I have no idea whether the shows were well attended, but Dead spinoff acts were always popular in the Northeast. I have heard a circulating audience tape of a Midnites show from Boston's Orpheum Theater on November 4, 1980, and the sound jibes with my distant memories, regular Weir arrangements with some fast tempos and rockin' oomph from Bogert and Appice, Cactus-style. The Midnites did another tour in January of 1981, six dates in California from January 25-31 (the three Keystones, Pasadena, UCLA and finally Davis). The band then disappeared from sight, with no mention of their plans.

Bobby and The Midnites reappeared with a new studio album on Arista in November, 1981. Bogert and Appice had been replaced by the even more impressive pair of Alphonso Johson on bass and Billy Cobham on drums. Although both of those guys could play any music imaginable, it was very interesting to see them playing straight ahead rock instead of fusion or modern jazz. Mydland and Kelly were on the album, but neither of them were on the tour that commenced in January 12 of 1982, as session keyboard man Dave Garland (ex-Big Foot) joined the group. Bobby and The Midnites took a genuine stab at conventional rock stardom over the next 18 months, but it was not to be.  While there have been a fair number of interviews with Weir about the Midnites over the years, he has never really said anything specific to my knowledge about how he met Bogert and Appice, whether they were supposed to be permanent members of the group, or anything else about them. Bogert did play with Weir one more time, at a benefit show at the Perkins Palace in Pasadena on March 10, 1983, but very little is known about that show either.

As to Tim Bogert and Carmine Appice, they have continued to be bona fide rock legends, but I have never seen a comment from either of them about playing with Bob Weir. In itself, this is not surprising, since they have played with literally dozens of true rock legends, and hung out with most of the rest of them (savvy readers will recall Frank Zappa's tale of a chance meeting between Don Preston and the Vanilla Fudge at the Chicago O'Hare airport...). Thus whenever either of them are interviewed, Hendrix, Zeppelin, Beck, the Fudge, Zappa, Rod Stewart and numerous others take precedence and the subject of a few dates with Bob Weir some decades ago never comes up.

December 31, 1977 Winterland: New Riders of The Purple Sage with Spencer Dryden

Marin County Line-The New Riders Of The Purple Sage (MCA Records 1977)

The Grateful Dead show at Winterland on December 31, 1977 was a great show, and it is usually remembered for the Grateful Dead starting their second set at 12:30 instead of midnight, because Bill Graham was over with Santana at the Cow Palace and he wanted to participate in the Grateful Dead's New Year's Eve celebration as well. While it has been famously reported that little flyers were handed out at the door that said (I paraphrase) "Good things come to those who wait. New Year's Eve will start at 12:30 tonight," those flyers were not handed out to everyone. Certainly I didn't get one, nor did anyone around me (about 60 feet back on the floor, Phil side-stage right), so we had no idea why the start of the set was delayed. But that's not the purpose of this post.

The New Riders Of The Purple Sage opened the show, and performed a fine set. The Riders had undergone a Renaissance of sorts, with new bassist Stephen Love and drummer Patrick Shanahan. Love had replaced Skip Battin, and Shanahan had replaced Spencer Dryden, who had become the band's manager. The New Riders had a pretty good new album, Marin County Line, their best album in some years. You don't have to take my word for it--in 2009 the New Riders released a Betty Board tape of the set as part of their archive series. I admit, I haven't gotten around to getting the cd, although I will eventually. But this too is not the purpose of the post.

There was certainly quite a party on the Winterland floor that night, so I assume the party backstage was pretty good, too, and probably better. However, because I'm me, I actually wrote down the fact that newly promoted New Riders manager Spencer Dryden sat in on drums that night. So for the only night that I'm aware of, the New Riders had two drummers. Since Dryden knew all the songs, he played more confidently than some friend who would have just been grooving along, so the Riders had a much more active Dead-style rhythm section than usual. The lively drumming made the Riders rock a little harder than usual, just what the doctor ordered for opening a New Year's Eve Dead concert at Winterland.

Noting the fact that I attended one of if not the only show where the New Riders played with two drummers is exactly the sort of trivia that this blog was intended for, and I would have posted it anyway. Nonetheless, in looking at all the promotional material for the album on the website, and various other places, nobody seems to have mentioned that Dryden sat in with the Riders that night. I have a feeling that everyone just forgot. Now, possibly its alluded to somewhere on the album, but I don't know that. In any case, even if it was announced from the stage (I no longer recall--I knew what Dryden looked like, so I didn't need to be told), it may not have been clear that Dryden sat in for the entire show. Dryden died in 2005, so he's not around to check in with--although of course for all we know, since it was New Year's Eve, he didn't remember either--but at least for the record I wanted to mark down that the Riders were six strong that night and the better for it.