March 22, 1978 Veterans Hall, Sebastopol, CA: Jerry Garcia Band (Ozzie Ahlers-piano?)

The Sebastopol Arts Center, in Sebastopol (Sonoma County), CA, where the Jerry Garcia played on March 22, 1978

The Jerry Garcia Band were a popular live attraction in Northern California in the second half of the 1970s. Mostly they played the Keystone Berkeley and the other Keystone clubs, but they played their share of concerts at theaters and small halls around the Bay Area as well. The popularity of the Garcia Band was not surprising, as the Grateful Dead continued to be a more and more popular concert attraction each year, even as rock fashions moved away from the Grateful Dead, so it's no surprise that concerts by the Dead's lead guitarist thrived as well. Yet a peculiar feature of the Jerry Garcia Band was the dark vacuum in which they performed: their shows were never reviewed,  interviewers only asked band members about the JGB in passing, and even Deadheads shared surprisingly little information about the performances. Local Deadheads hardly considered a Garcia Band concert a big deal. People who regularly saw the Garcia Band at, say, the Keystone Berkeley, could not be bothered to drive an hour to see them at Keystone Palo Alto, and vice versa.

As a result, contemporaneous information about the Jerry Garcia Band was surprisingly hard to come by. If the band changed drummers, no announcement was made--you just showed up one night at the Keystone Berkeley and there was someone else in the chair. Nor would there be an explanation if the old drummer came back, or if singers came and went. Phil Lesh subbed for John Kahn a few times, and while Lesh's presence was advertised, no explanation was ever proffered for why Kahn was unavailable. Bay Area Deadheads took Garcia Band shows for granted, and if they went at all, it was generally on the spur of the moment, and they hardly paid attention to setlists, band members or any other details.

Garcia scholarship from the 1980s onward has been focused on trying to capture all that was missed in the prior decade. TheJerrySite is a remarkable recovery of history recaptured before it drifted away. Yet even for all the work at constructing an accurate historical record, unexpected blank spots show up on the landscape, even decades later. One such blank spot came in some recent interviews with former JGB keyboardist Ozzie Ahlers. Ahlers played in the Jerry Garcia Band from Fall 1979 through Summer 1980, and then moved on to his own band. Yet in a recent interview with dj and journalist Jake Feinberg, Ahlers said that in 1978 he filled in for Keith Godchaux on at least two occasions, when Keith was unavailable to play. According to Ahlers, one time was at "some benefit in Sebastopol with Maria Mulduar," and there was at least one other time in "Santa Cruz or Southern California." This is remarkable information worthy of closer analysis, and this post will try and pin down the dates.

Ozzie Ahlers was in the band Glory River, who opened for Mountain and the Allman Brothers at SUNY Stony Brook on July 10, 1970 (the ad is from the June 18 '70 Village Voice)

The Jake Feinberg Interview with Ozzie Ahlers
Jake Feinberg, a disc jockey and scholar,  has undertaken a remarkable series of interviews with jazz and rock musicians from the 1960s and 70s. Although Feinberg's principal focus is on jazz, he has also interviewed a number of musicians who have played with Jerry Garcia, including Melvin Seals, Richard Greene, Bob Weir, David Grisman, Howard Wales and Peter Rowan. Feinberg recently had a lengthy interview with Ahlers, a wide-ranging conversation about Ahlers career and approach to music, but there was plenty of conversation about Jerry Garcia.

Ahlers, who was born and raised in New Jersey, had gone to Cornell University, where he had played keyboards in bands that were popular on the college dance circuit around 1967-70 (his Cornell band was called Oz and Ends). Ahlers ended up in Woodstock, NY, playing professionally with a group called Glory River. Glory River opened a few major rock shows, and even had a chance to record at Electric Ladyland Studios around 1971. The band did not pan out, however, and in 1972 Ahlers moved to the Bay Area to work with Van Morrison, whom he knew from Woodstock.

Ahlers did not actually end up playing that much with the mercurial Morrison, who liked to mix and match musicians and did not keep anything resembling a regular touring schedule. However, Ahlers played and recorded with Jesse Colin Young, alternating keyboard duties with Scott Lawrence, and he played in a lot of local combos around Marin and the East Bay. In early 1978, Ahlers was invited to join Robert Hunter's band Comfort. Ahlers had never met Hunter or Comfort, but he received a call out of the blue from Rock Scully. However, Ahlers had known John Kahn from Woodstock, where Kahn had worked with Paul Butterfield and Geoff Muldaur in the Spring of 1972. Presumably Kahn was the one who tipped Hunter, but even Ahlers himself does not know for sure.

Hunter and Comfort had been playing around the Bay Area since the middle of 1977--Comfort had existed before that--but keyboard player Richard McNees had left in December. Ahlers heard that Hunter had insisted on Ahlers by saying "I don't want your friend, I want a pro," but it does not appear that the remark had anything to do with McNees. McNees himself says that Ahlers is a great guy, and in any case McNees had already left for his own reasons. My suspicion is that Hunter, who was financing the band, wanted to make the sure the new player who came in was top-notch, and preferred a Kahn-recommended veteran to another local pal. In February and March of 1978, Robert Hunter and Comfort opened a string of shows for the Jerry Garcia Band in California and the East Coast, starting on February 18 at Marin Veterans Memorial Auditorium and ending at March 18 at the Warners Theater in Washington, DC (the JGB played one more show without Comfort the next night).

Keyboard player Ozzie Ahlers with a great American, indeed, The Greatest

Jerry Garcia And Keyboard Players, 1978
As I have discussed elsewhere, 1978 was a critical year for Jerry Garcia's musical future, even though it may not have seemed that way at the time. Keith Godchaux held down the piano chair in both the Grateful Dead and the Jerry Garcia Band, and while both groups had some high moments during the year, their musical progression seemed stalled. Yet in retrospect, I have shown how all the important keyboard players whom Jerry Garcia played with from 1979 through 1990 were heard by him when they opened for the Dead or the Garcia Band. Melvin Seals played with the Elvin Bishop Group (opening for the Dead in Santa Barbara on June 4, 1978), Brent Mydland played with the Bob Weir Band (opening for the Jerry Garcia Band in the Pacific Northwest for the weekend of October 26-28, 1978) and Ozzie Ahlers played with Robert Hunter and Comfort for the Spring '78 Eastern tour.

I theorized correctly that Garcia heard Ahlers play with Hunter and judged him suitable for future use. I did not realize, however, that Kahn already knew Ahlers, and indeed may have recommended him for the gig. I also did not realize, nor seemingly did anyone else, that Ozzie had quietly filled in for Keith Godchaux for at least two shows in 1978. Thus when Garcia and Kahn decided to re-start the Garcia Band in late 1979, Ahlers had already passed the trial by fire of onstage performance.

Jerry Garcia was infamous as a musician who avoided rehearsal whenever possible. Thus, if Keith Godchaux was sick, the least of Garcia's concerns would have been that a last-minute substitute would have had no chance to rehearse. In fact, I suspect Garcia would have preferred the inherent risk and incipient possibilities of playing with a new band member who had no preparation whatsoever. With respect to the March 22 date, Ahlers would have just come off a road trip where he would have heard the Garcia Band perform ten different times, so he wouldn't have been in the dark about their music. Yet Ahlers lack of preparation would have insured that he mostly had to improvise his parts, which is exactly what Jerry would have wanted him to do anyway.

A long unseen poster for the Jerry Garcia Band/Robert Hunter and Comfort concert at the Sebastopol Veterans Hall on March 22, 1978. The concert was a benefit for the Sonoma Stump, a local paper. Thanks to JGMF for the scan

Veterans Hall, Sebastapol, CA March 22, 1978
The Jerry Garcia Band/Comfort tour of the East Coast went from March 9 through March 19, although Comfort did not play every date with the JGB. Three days after Garcia's last Eastern date in Pittsburgh, the Garcia Band played a show at the Veterans Hall in the tiny Sonoma town of Sebastopol (pop. 7,500). Sebastopol isn't particularly far from San Francisco or Berkeley (just an hour from each), or even San Rafael (about 45 minutes), but it isn't on the way to anywhere, so most Bay Area residents consider it "out-of-the-way." The peculiarly casual nature of Jerry Garcia Band performances in the 1970s was such that few East Bay or San Francisco Garcia fans considered driving to Sebastopol for the concert. Yet the Veterans Hall was tiny (see the photo up top), and the show must have had a great vibe.

In the Feinberg interview, Ahlers specifically recalls substituting for Keith Godchaux at a show in Sebastopol, with Maria Muldaur. Since the Garcia Band is only known to have played Sebastopol this one time, everything points towards the March 22, 1978 show. Ahlers recalls it as a benefit, which is possible, but we don't even have a poster or ad from the show, so we don't even know that much [update: now we do, thanks to JGMF. The concert was a benefit for the Sonoma Stump, a local paper]. I do not how much publicity the show received. Given what appears to be the tiny size of the room, I suspect it was practically a guerilla show, with very little notice.

I recently listened to the surviving tape of the March 22 show, hoping to be able to distinguish some difference in the piano playing. However, while it's true that I don't have the sharpest ears in the world, I can't myself say from listening that I can tell whether or not Ozzie is playing rather than Keith. Of course, Ozzie would be playing Keith's rig, which at the time was a Yamaha electric grand piano, so that would make the tape sound "just like Keith" in many ways. Also, Ahlers would have been borrowing Keith's licks, to the extent he could remember them, so that was yet another way it would be impossible to tell them apart. Certainly, if any readers give the tape a good listen, please put your insights and speculations on the keyboard player in the Comments section.

Could there be some mistake in all of this? Could Ozzie Ahlers somehow be mis-remembering the entire sequence of events? Of course, anything is possible, but I think all signs point towards Ahlers' memory of the show being completely accurate. For one thing, it had to be a dramatic event for Ahlers to have been asked to sit in for Keith Godchaux on almost no notice. For another, Sebastopol is an oddball place for a concert, since it was a tiny farming town. To me, the sign that Ozzie's memory is clear is the very specificity of such an obscure location for the show[update: we also now know for sure that Ozzie was there, since he was a member of Comfort at the time].

The question that has to be raised is how Ozzie's presence passed unnoticed all these years. However, a few points stand out. For one thing, Garcia shows in the Bay Area in the 70s were very different than Garcia shows there the next decade, much less Garcia shows on the East Coast at pretty much any time. Much as western Deadheads loved Jerry, he was just sort of There, playing the Keystone Berkeley every month and the occasional local concert. There didn't seem to be an urgency to catch every show, and people rarely went out of town. Thus, when I lived in Berkeley, I could usually find someone who went to the most recent Keystone Berkeley show, and try and quiz them about what the JGB played, but I could never find anyone who even went to Keystone Palo Alto, much less the wilds of Sonoma County. So if anyone from my circle of acquaintances went, I never met them, and I think the Berkeley solipsism of Jerry fans was common to every Bay Area county back in the 70s.

For another thing, how many of the Sebastopol fans may have even noticed that Keith Godchaux wasn't on piano? Donna was out front, along with Maria Muldaur, so how good a look did they get at the man behind the piano? Yes, of course, Ozzie doesn't look like Keith, but most Deadheads back then would have been hard-pressed to say what Keith Godchaux looked like. Finally, most of the people who went to the show--and there probably wasn't a huge number, as it was a small place--may only have been vaguely aware of the configuration of the Jerry Garcia Band, so it may not have occurred to them to note that the keyboard player wasn't the Grateful Dead's piano player, even if they had known who Keith was.  So the fact that Ozzie Ahlers' presence at Sebastopol has gone unnoticed all these decades is hardly farfetched at all.

[update: it seems that the March 22 '78 Sebastopol show will be released as GarciaLive Volume 4, so we should find out if Ozzie played with Jerry that night. If not, where did he play with them? Rohnert Park Community Center on October 5 '78 seems like the next best choice.]
[update2: ok, we now know from the liner notes of GarciaLive Volume 4 that Ozzie played on the last four numbers: Mystery Train, Love In The Afternoon, I'll Be With Thee and Midnight Moonlight]

The "Other Show"-Southern California or Santa Cruz?
Of course, in the Feinberg interview, Ahlers mentions that he subbed for Keith Godchaux in the JGB at least one other time. He vaguely recalls that it was "Santa Cruz or Southern California." Of course, from March 1978 through the last Keith and Donna JGB shows in November, the band never played either Southern California or Santa Cruz. The Jerry Garcia Band would go on to play many shows at the Catalyst in downtown Santa Cruz, but Jerry Garcia's first show at that venue did not take place until early 1979. I don't think an undiscovered show at the Catalyst in 1978 is likely, either. The Catalyst had existed in downtown Santa Cruz since the beginning of the 1970s, but at first it was just a coffee shop. Its actual location was a room in a former hotel (the St. George) at 833 Front Street, and the club did not move to the converted bowling alley on 1011 Pacific Avenue (where it remains today) until the end of 1978. When the Catalyst was still on Front Street, I do not believe they could have afforded or accommodated the Garcia Band, so I feel comfortable ruling out Santa Cruz for Ozzie Ahlers' "other" show with them.

However, since the JGB did not play Southern California at all in 1978, where did Ozzie sub? A close look at the Fall '78 Garcia Band show list point directly at the Keystone Palo Alto. Palo Alto is about two hours from Marin, so if Ozzie was driven down, it might have seemed like a long trip, and he may not have known exactly where he was. There are a number of October and November JGB shows at Keystone Palo Alto for which we have no evidence beyond the advertisement of a show--no setlist, no tape, and of course, no review, since the band was never reviewed. So Ozzie could have sat in for Keith Godchaux and we would still be none the wiser.

Aftermath
As we know from both the Feinberg interview and David Gans' liner notes from the recent Jerry Garcia Band archival cd featuring the Ahlers lineup (March 1 '80), Ahlers was invited to join the Jerry Garcia Band when it was restarted in the Fall of 1979. It appears that John Kahn's jazz rock band Reconstruction was originally supposed to exist in parallel with the Garcia Band, but that was not in fact what happened. Ahlers joined the new look Garcia Band, and played his first gig with them on October 7, 1979 at Keystone Palo Alto--which would be ironic if in fact Ahlers had subbed for Keith there the previous year.

Ahlers played some fine music with the Garcia Band, but he only did two tours with them, first in February and then in July 1980. Apparently, Ahlers never rehearsed with the Garcia Band. When he was hired, Garcia just gave Ahlers a list of 15 or so songs that he liked to do, and Ozzie learned the chords of the ones he did not know (he commented "some of them were Dead songs, and they were, like, folk songs with half a bar missing"). Other than that, he just waited for Jerry to count off the songs and let it happen, but it turns out that he had already done that before, so Garcia and Kahn had complete confidence in his ability to roll with it.  Although many Deadheads now find the Oberheim synthesizer sound that Ahlers used kind of dated, it turns out that Garcia and Kahn asked Ozzie to solo on that instrument, apparently because they were seeking a change of pace, and that too was a new experience for Ahlers.

It seems that Kahn and Garcia invited Ozzie to tour with them again in 1981, but the financial circumstances were not as good. Also, Ozzie had his own band, at the time called The Average Beach Band, later to change its name to The Edge. Ahlers knew that the Jerry Garcia Band would always be a part-time engagement, so for good or ill he threw in his lot with The Edge. Melvin Seals was invited to play organ for the Garcia Band, and the Garcia Band traveled on. The Edge, who played "reggae-rock," which seemed to be a coming style at the time, put out a couple of nice albums that went nowhere. They even opened for the Jerry Garcia Band once (Concord Pavilion, September 7, 1981).

Although The Edge did not make it big, Ozzie Ahlers ended up making a successful series of albums in a jazz-rock "New Age" style with Jefferson Starship guitarist Craig Chacuiqo. Yet Ozzie looks back fondly on his time on the Garcia Band. It is remarkable that after all these decades, we are still finding out more about the Garcia Band in the 1970s, when for all their relative commercial success they could invite a different keyboard player to sit in with no rehearsal and no fanfare, as it they were just some local cover band playing in some dive.

Shango, Horses and Matt Kelly-1968 (Matt Kelly I)

Matt Kelly, Tim Abbott and Dave Torbert of Shango, at an unknown venue in 1968. Photo courtesy of Tim Abbott.

Matt Kelly played harmonica on two Grateful Dead studio albums, and he joined the band on various blues numbers many times in the early 1980s. Kelly has also played with Bob Weir as a member of Kingfish, Bobby And The Midnites and Ratdog over a period of two decades. By any accounting, Kelly was part of the extended musical family of the Grateful Dead. The standard issue story has been that Kelly and Weir were friends from junior high school in Atherton, CA, and that is true enough. However, Kelly and Weir only played sports together, not music, and they effectively did not know each other after the eighth grade. They would only meet intermittently throughout the next decade. Having gone to junior high together did give Kelly and Weir a topic of conversation, but it was a footnote to their shared musical history. This post will begin a series on the musical history of Matt Kelly, who had numerous connections to the Grateful Dead.

An ad for Fremont's "teen" psychedelic venue, The Yellow Brick Road. Was "St. Matthews Experiment" Matt Kelly's band?

Matt Kelly
Matt Kelly had grown up in Atherton with Bob Weir. Atherton had been a wealthy community since its founding in the 19th century, and it certainly had remained so during Weir and Kelly's childhood. However, back in the 50s and 60s, Atherton residents were well off, but not crazy rich as they would become in the Silicon Valley era. So while Kelly and Weir had privileged childhoods, their day-to-day experiences were not necessarily so different than other kids their age in that time and place. Kelly first got interested in music as an adolescent when he spent several months in Mexico with his father, even though he mostly just played congas with some locals. The interest blossomed, and soon replaced sports.

By the mid-60s, Kelly had his own band, the St. Matthews Blues Band. Kelly played harmonica and guitar. I do not know who else was in the group, nor what they sounded like. I assume they played the sort of free-floating blues that most bands were playing at the Fillmore. I have also been unable to find out anything about where they played. The one trace I have been able to find is the ad above from an obscure suburban venue called The Yellow Brick Road in Fremont. I can't even say for certain that the "St. Matthews Experiment" listed is Kelly's band, but it seems probable. The Yellow Brick Road was a fascinating but short-lived psychedelic teen club experiment, finally undone by the rise of the Fillmore and constant harassment of the Fremont police. It seems a likely place for Kelly's fledgling band to have played.

According to an interview with Kelly, he picked up Robert Hunter hitchhiking in Palo Alto around 1966 or so, and took him to 710 Ashbury, and re-connected with Weir there. Since the interview was in the late 90s, I think Kelly has something wrong with the chronology, but I don't doubt that he took a hitchhiker to 710 and met his old pal from junior high school, even if they did not follow through musically for some years. Interestingly, like many 60s musicians, Kelly had numerous connections to various potential avenues of professional success, but they either did not work out or he chose not to pursue them. By the time Kingfish appeared in the mid-70s, seemingly from "nowhere" to Bay Area Grateful Dead fans like me, Kelly had in fact been a working musician for nearly a decade.

The New Delhi River Band
Kelly's first and foremost connection to the Dead, though it may not have seemed that way at the time, was The New Delhi River Band.  The New Delhi River Band, to the extent that they are remembered at all, are recalled as a band that featured David Nelson and Dave Torbert before they were members of the New Riders Of The Purple Sage. They were both obscure and yet visible, in the way that only late 60s bands can be, with their name familiar from old posters, yet with no released or even circulating recordings. Yet the New Delhi River Band story was an interesting one, as they were Palo Alto's second psychedelic blues band. Despite being friendly with the first of the breed, and despite some good breaks in 1966, the New Delhi River Band never managed to find paying shows outside of Santa Cruz and Santa Clara County, never managing to cross over to the higher profile shows in Berkeley or San Francisco. In that respect, my detailed history of the group serves as a template for every 60s psychedelic blues band who were local heroes who couldn't break out beyond the county line.

However, the New Delhi River Band ground to a halt around February 1968. Nonetheless, the members of the New Delhi River Band continued to play a role in the South Bay music scene after the band broke up. Most famously, of course, Nelson and Torbert were anchor members of the New Riders. However, the New Delhi River Band was also the genesis of Kingfish, and a variety of other Bay Area 60s luminaries, a major record producer and even one 80s television star crossed their path as well. Matt Kelly had only joined the NDRB at the very end of their existence, in early 1968, but that connection was essential to his musical future.

In an earlier post, I looked at the interregnum in David Nelson's career, between the demise of NDRB in February 1968 and the formation of the New Riders in May 1969. In this post, I will begin to trace the paths of the other members of the New Delhi River Band. In fact, the story is so complicated that it will take more than one post, so I will only look at the careers of New Delhi River Band members in 1968 (thanks in advance to guitarist Tim Abbott, still rockin' it with the Chocolate Watch Band, who kindly provided so much for this post).

The New Delhi River Band, February 1968
I have dealt with the twists and turns of the New Delhi River Band at great length, so I will only briefly recap it here. In the Summer of 1966, a few bohemian Palo Alto musicians decided to form a blues band, kind of in the mode of the Butterfield Blues Band. They found a place to play, an obscure and legendary venue called The Barn in Scotts Valley, near Santa Cruz. After the usual personnel shuffles, they established a stable lineup and began to play around. The group was pretty popular in the South Bay, but although they played the Fillmore once, and played for free in Provo Park in Berkeley many times, they could never get over the hump. The primary lineup of the New Delhi River Band, from late 1966 until early 1968, was

Sweet John Tomasi-harmonica, vocals
Peter Sultzbach-lead guitar
David Nelson-guitar
Dave Torbert-bass, vocals
Chris Herold-drums

According to Matthew Kelly, his band The St. Matthews Blues Band opened for them at some point in 1967, and he became friends with the NDRB and jammed with them regularly. At the very end, according to Kelly, he became a member of NDRB. Whether he specifically replaced Tomasi or Nelson isn't clear, and it's possible he just became an additional member. It also appears that the NDRB didn't really break up, it just drifed apart. Certainly there could hardly have been animosity amongst the band members, since they kept joining groups with each other. In any case, the last performance date I have been able to find for the New Delhi River Band was January 28, 1968, and they seemed to have simply faded away after that.

David Nelson took a six-month hiatus from being professional musician, not to re-appear until Fall 1968, when he took a hand in the Grateful Dead's Aoxomoxoa sessions. Guitarist Peter Sultzbach, meanwhile, joined the backing band for Linda Tillery. Tillery had left the Oakland group The Loading Zone to sign as a solo artist with Columbia Records, using the stage name Sweet Linda Devine. Torbert and Herold, along with Kelly, turned back to their recent past, and somewhere around February 1968, the remains of the New Delhi River Band reconstituted themselves as Shango.

A promotional photo of Shango from 1968, probably taken in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Photo courtesy of Tim Abbott.

Shango
The lineup of Shango was

Tim Abbott-lead guitar
Ryan Brandenburg-guitar, cello
Matt Kelly-harmonica, guitar
Dave Torbert-bass, vocals
Chris Herold-drums

According to Abbott, Dave Torbert was Shango's primary lead vocalist, although all three guitarists had vocal numbers as well. John Tomasi also sang and played with Shango on occasion, although I think on a more informal guest basis. Prior to the New Delhi River Band, both Herold and Torbert had been in a Redwood City blues band called The Good News, who were an exciting Peninsula band in 1965-66. However, the group had disintegrated in October 1966, and both of them had then joined the NDRB full time. Good News lead guitarist Tim Abbott went on to the Haight Ashbury Blues Band, and then to the Chocolate Watch Band.

The Chocolate Watch Band were the South Bay's finest band, both live and on record, and they never got the recognition they deserved in San Francisco. When Abbott had joined in June 1967, they were still riding high and making good money. However, Abbott left the group due to concerns about how that money was being handled, a perpetual issue throughout the history of the CWB. Thus Abbott was available when NDRB disintegrated, and he rejoined his old friends Torbert and Herold. I'm not sure how Ryan Brandenburg got connected to the group, nor how much cello he played, but with two or three guitars, plus a harmonica, and some cello, Shango was primed to go beyond the basic blues that had characterized rock music a few years earlier.

I have not been able to trace many dates by Shango. I would be very interested if anyone has any recollections even of the venues Shango might have played. There were many long-gone venues in the Santa Cruz Mountains and Santa Clara County that I have been trying to excavate, and Shango must have played their share.

A poster for the Vernal Equinox Festival at Big Sur, March 22-24, 1968. A few thousand people showed up, and no such events were ever held at Big Sur again. Bands listed include The Bubble, Edsel Boogie, Electric Tingle Guild, The Flower, Puppy Farm, Weird Herald, Freedom Highway and Phoenix. Shango did play, however, and probably numerous other bands.

According to both Matt Kelly and Tim Abbott, the biggest event that Shango played was the Vernal Equinox Festival at Big Sur on March 22-24, 1968. Big Sur is a remarkable place, only accessible by one twisty coastal road, and completely isolated from the rest of California. It has been a counterculture haven from the day it was connected by road to the rest of the state. There were numerous hippie type events there in the mid-60s, but after something like 3000 people came to the Vernal Equinox, no such events were ever held there again. 3000 people--hippies or not--is just too much for Big Sur.

The event ended up turning into a kind of wake for Neal Cassidy, who had died in Mexico in February. The event was sponsored (so to speak) by the MidPeninsula Free University in Menlo Park, which had numerous Kesey connections, so the word had obviously gotten around. Although Shango is not listed on the poster--I assume many other bands were also unlisted, as there was supposed to be three days of music--many of the groups who did play are of great interest to those scholars interested in South Bay psychedelia. A brief synopsis of some of the bands will give an idea of Shango's peers at the time

The Bubble were a band of high school students who rehearsed at The Barn.  Lead guitarist Ken Kraft would go on to join the legendary Santa Cruz band Snail.
Edsel Boogie, I'm fairly certain, evolved into Boogie. [update: I was fairly certain, but wrong. Edsel Boogie did not become Boogie.] Boogie was a trio featuring Barry Bastian on guitar (ex-Lee Michaels) along with John Barrett on bass and Fuzzy John Oxendine on drums (both of whom would end up in The Rhythm Dukes).
Electric Tingle Guild featured guitarist Mark Loomis, who had left the Chocolate Watch Band in a dispute over management's handling of money (to be replaced by Abbott, who left for the same reason).
The Flower were a Santa Cruz psychedelic band. I know that Gordon Stevens, who played electric viola in Moby Grape in 1971 (too long a story, even for this blog) was in Flower.
Puppy Farm, a light show as well as a band, lived in a commune in the Mountains not far from Kesey's old place. The aggregation is better known from posters under their "true" name, Black Shit Puppy Farm.
Weird Herald, true legends from San Jose, were extremely popular in the San Jose area, and limited recorded evidence suggests they were quite a band. Lead guitarist Billy Dean Andrus died unexpectedly in 1970, and the abrupt sadness generated two famous songs from his good friends: Jorma Kaukonen's "Ode To Billy Dean" and the Doobie Brothers Pat Simmons "Oh Black Water."
Freedom Highway were a Marin band, booked by Ron Polte and West-Pole, who were pretty good but never broke out of Marin
Phoenix, a band with a long and complicated history, was one of those bands that should have gone much further than they did. Much of our knowledge of the craziness of the Big Sur event (not for a family blog) comes from former members of Phoenix.

Shango were billed along with many other psychedelic luminaries--and Jack Jones and Jill St. John--for a Eugene McCarthy rally at Santa Clara County Fairgrounds on May 25, 1968

May 25, 1968 Family Park, Santa Clara County Fairgrounds McCarthy Is Happening 

Jack Jones and Jill St. John/H.P. Lovecraft/Nitty Gritty Dirt Band/Clear Light/Flaming Groovies/Crystal Syphon/The Womb/Jimmy Nite and The Nite Caps/Phantasmagoria/The Howl/Anonymous Artists of America/Day Blindness/Shango/many others

Of all the events in this brief chronology, this event is the most peculiar. I only know the event from the poster--I have never heard of a review, memory or second hand account. It may not have even happened. However, the poster itself is very revealing. I have considered the event within the history of outdoor San Jose rock concerts in the 60s, and I have analyzed the various acts at length elsewhere, so I won't recap it all. Briefly, it appears that this was an effort to have a sort of "Hippie Fair."

Eugene McCarthy was running for President on an Anti-Vietnam War platform, and the California primary was June 4. The wording of the ad suggests that it is a pro-McCarthy event, but there is no evidence that its really a fundraiser. The peculiar double headline acts of HP Lovecraft, who headlined the Fillmore a few weeks earlier, and Jack Jones and his new wife Jill St. John, Las Vegas lounge headliners, is a truly headscratching combination. My assumption is that the organizers were trying to appeal to actual hippies and people about 10 years older, and that the effort was a failure.

The "McCarthy Is Happening" took place a week after the huge "Northern California Folk-Rock Festival" held just the weekend before (May 17-18, 1968), at the very same Fairgrounds, though not the identical location. The fairgrounds were also less than a mile from the park where the 1967 San Jose Be-In had been held on May 14, 1967, so two members of Shango (Torbert and Herold) had seen outdoor shows in San Jose go from relaxed free festivals to hyped up hippie fairs featuring Hollywood stars in the space of just slightly more than a year.

Another promotional photo of Shango, circa 1968, probably taken in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Photo courtesy Tim Abbott.

According to Tim Abbott, Shango faded away due to lack of gigs--I myself have only found two, as you can see--and Ryan Brandenburg left the group. Shango briefly changed their name to The Wind, but I have been unable to track down any dates. The Wind must have been together in the Summer of 1968 [update: Matt Kelly says the group actually used the name Wind Wind]

The Wind
Tim Abbott-lead guitar
Matt Kelly-harmonica, guitar
Dave Torbert-bass, vocals
Chris Herold-drums

The cover to the 1968 album Horses on White Whale Records. Matt Kelly, Dave Torbert, Chris Herold and Scott (Quigley) Quik were mated with lead singer Don Johnson, seen lounging in front.

The strangest story in the time between the New Delhi River Band and Kingfish was the Horses album on White Whale Records. Neither Shango nor The Wind had really gotten any traction, nor, it seemed, played many shows. Nonetheless, the band had somehow come to the attention of two songwriters, Tim Gilbert and John Carter. The pair had been the lead singer and lyricist of a Colorado group called The Rainy Daze. Back in '65, The Rainy Daze had hooked up with a local dj and aspiring producer, Dave Diamond, and he had moved the band to Los Angeles.

In 1967, The Rainy Daze had had a surprise AM pop hit with the song "Acapulco Gold." It was  a catchy tune, and once public scolds discovered what the lyric of the chorus actually implied-- "Old dogs can learn new tricks/When the streets are lined with bricks/Of Acapulco Gold,"-- the record was banned in many cities. Producer Dave Diamond could hardly have been happier, since nothing improves record sales like the banning of a scandalous record. Diamond claims that to this day "Acapulco Gold" was the best selling single in the history of San Francisco, and he could very well be right. Carter and Gilbert went on to write the song "Incense And Peppermints," and Diamond found a Santa Barbara area group called The Strawberry Alarm Clock, and they had another huge hit.

The Rainy Daze soon disintegrated, however. Dave Diamond moved up to San Francisco, working at AM giant KFRC. Carter and Gilbert ultimately moved to San Francisco as well. The duo were more interested in songwriting and producing than being in a band, so they had written an album's worth of songs and were looking for performers, which was a typical way to make records in the mid 60s. Carter and Gilbert had a lead singer from Colorado named John Fifefield, who had been the star of a famous Colorado band The Astronauts (too long a tangent even for this blog). As a lead guitarist they had found one Scott Quigley, to be better known a decade later as Scotty Quik (when he played with Sammy Hagar).

Carter and Davis needed a rhythm section, however, and somehow came upon Torbert, Herold and Kelly. All parties are vague on how this actually occurred, but I presume the producers must have seen either Shango or The Wind in some tiny joint. Unfortunately for Tim Abbott, however, since they already had a lead guitarist in Quigley, he was left behind. Torbert, Herold and Kelly moved to Los Angeles for a few months in mid-1968 to work on what became the Horses album.

For many years, the Horses album was impossible to find, probably due at least in part to legal issues involving White Whale Records. Time passes, however, and in 2003 Gear Fab Records re-released the album on cd, including a detailed interview with producer Dave Diamond, who spelled out at least some aspects of the strange tale. The strangest part is this: halfway through the album, the producers decided lead singer Fifefield was wrong for the project. They held auditions for a new lead singer, and the singer was a handsome, newly-arrived lad from the middle of the country named Don Johnson.

Was Horses' lead singer Don Johnson the same Don Johnson who would go on to star in Miami Vice and other TV shows in the 1980s and beyond? No one seems really certain [update: Matt Kelly thinks the lead singer Don Johnson lacked the charisma to become the famous movie star, and thinks they were different people]. The timing is certainly correct, as that is when Don Johnson arrived in Los Angeles. Johnson was also an aspiring musician as well as actor.  He co-wrote a song with Dickey Betts that appeared on a 1977 album ("Bougainvillea"from Great Southern) long before he was famous from television. Johnson also put out two solo albums in the 80s. And once, at least, in 1995, I saw the Allman Brothers at Concord Pavilion and Johnson came out and sang "Stormy Monday" without embarrassing himself. So the idea of Don Johnson as a potential rock star in 1968 is very plausible indeed. Yet was it him? All of the principals aren't sure, so you will have to look at the picture (above) and decide for yourself. Don Johnson himself remains quiet about his pre-Miami Vice life, so he's no help one way or the other.

Horses
Don Johnson-vocals
Scott Quigley-lead guitar
Matt Kelly-harmonica, guitar
Dave Torbert-bass, vocals
Chris Herold-drums

A flyer for a September 5, 1968 concert in Tracy, CA with San Jose's People!, supported by Horses

The only trace I have been able to find of a live Horses performance was this completely obscure flyer from the Tracy Ballroom on September 5, 1968 (thanks to Colin for this). Tracy is in Central California, roughly between San Francisco and Sacramento. People (actually People!) were a popular San Jose band who had a decent hit ("I Love You" reached #14 in Billboard in 1968, and #1 in Japan), so Horses would have been just filling out the bill. I assume this concert was after the band had finished recording the album, but then again this is so out-of-the-way it could be a different "Horses" entirely. However, People and Shango had worked the same circuit, so its more likely that this was a rare--perhaps the only--live booking for Don Johnson and Horses.

I don't believe the Horses album was even released until 1969, but Kelly never mentioned it until he was asked about it in Relix many years later, so I don't think he and Torbert were sorry to see it disappear. It's a heavily produced album, rather far from the bluesier sound that Kelly, Torbert and Herold were trying to lay down. Nonetheless it does have some decent songs, which would turn up in Kingfish repertoire years later. These include "Run Rabbit Run" which Kingfish re-titled as "Jump For Joy," "Asia Minor" and"Overnight Bag." "Asia Minor" was co-written by Tim Hovey (and Scott Quigley), a former child actor and friend of the band. Hovey would surface a few years later, as not only a co-writer of a number of songs with Dave Torbert ("Important Exportin' Man", Wild Northland" and "Goodbye Yer Honor", but also as the sound man for Kingfish.

Also, the track "Horseradish," credited to Carter and Gilbert, is pretty much the Little Walter classic harmonica instrumental "Juke," which was performed many times by Kingfish. Kelly's harmonica plays a notable, if muted role in the sound, except on "Horseradish," where it stands front and center. There are some organ and piano parts that aren't by the band members--typical for the era--but on the whole it seems like the band really did record the basic tracks.

Nothing happened with the Horses album. If lead singer Don Johnson was the actor, we know what became of him. Dave Diamond continued a successful career as a dj up until this day. Tim Gilbert ended up managing a TV station in Lexington, KY. John Carter went on to become a very successful A&R man and producer for Capitol Records. Carter was instrumental in promoting Bob Seger and Steve Miller, two huge Capitol acts, and he also signed and produced Sammy Hagar (which helps explain the Scott Quigley/Scotty Quik connection). Carter's most memorable production was probably Tina Turner's Private Dancer album. So despite the oddity of the Horses project, Kelly and Torbert had contacts that would bode well for any ambitious and aspiring 60s musician.

The Shango lads availed themselves of exactly none of the opportunities that there Hollywood sojourn might have afforded them. To be fair, I have never read a word of regret from any of them, and indeed for the most part I think they were happy to put it behind them. Nonetheless, it's important to remember that back in the 60s, when the music industry was still expanding, talented musicians in places like California often had to pick and choose what to pursue, and Kelly, Torbert and Herold very consciously chose the NorCal hippie blues sound over the SoCal songwriter sound, and thus set their path before them.

However, when the Horses project ground to a halt, Kelly, Torbert and Herold let their own enterprise grind to a halt as well. Herold formed a group with old buddy Tim Abbott called Haywire. They played a few gigs in late 1968, but it didn't go anywhere. At the end of the year, or perhaps in the beginning of 1969, Abbott reported that he and Herold got together for a jam with David Nelson with an eye to forming a group, but none of the pieces fit together. Everyone got along fine, but Nelson and Abbott's guitar styles didn't mesh particularly well, so nothing came of it.

Aftermath
The members of Shango had begun the year with high hopes, but ended with no band and little to show for it. However, although the Horses album lacks a bit of crunch to my ears, it isn't terrible by any means. Matt Kelly's bands played songs from the album for decades, as "Asia Minor" and "Jump For Joy" were Kingfish staples. They were even re-recorded for the 1976 Kingfish album on Round Records.  At the end of 1968, however, that was a long way in the future, and the band members were at loose ends.

Chris Herold, like most young American men, had a national service obligation. He was a conscientious objector, so he agreed to alternative service driving a hospital truck. This only left him free to play on weekends. As a result, from 1969-71, Herold was the drummer for a legendary Santa Cruz "jam band" called Mountain Current, who are fondly though vaguely--ahem--remembered by music fans in the Santa Cruz mountains at the time. Herold's obligations prevented the group from being more than a weekend fun band, and the membership was quite fluid, but they still played an important role in the Kingfish story.

Dave Torbert had been struggling as a musician along with his friend Herold since at least 1965, so he seems to have decided it was time for a break. Torbert was also an avid surfer, and he took off for Maui, where he lived the hippie surfer life until around March 1970, when he would receive a fateful phone call.

But as 1968 ended, Matt Kelly was at loose ends. Somehow he had avoided the draft, but with Herold and Torbert effectively out of action, he did not have a band. However, his next two years would turn out to be quite interesting, even if he had no inkling that he would record with a well-known bluesman and then get to record in London. Those stories are too long to tell here, and will have to wait for Part II.

Keystone Berkeley March 1973 (Marin County Musicians LinkedIn)

The 1971 Fantasy album Fourty Niner by Clover. Clover was a true rarity, a Marin rock band that was actually from Marin.

The history of the Grateful Dead is usually divided into two relatively discrete periods. In the first period, set in the late 60s, the Grateful Dead are at the heart of the San Francisco rock scene, embedded with Ken Kesey, Bill Graham, the Jefferson Airplane and numerous other legendary figures, making historic appearances at the Fillmore, Fillmore West, Avalon, Woodstock and Altamont. Later, in the final period, the Grateful Dead are coelacanths who have lived past their time, survivors of the meteor strikes of previous epochs, yet still exerting their gravitational pull on a few retro friends and acquaintances.

Yet there was another, middle period, rarely remarked upon today. In the first half of the 1970s, the Grateful Dead's members had moved to Marin County, which at the time was the home to a large percentage of the rock musicians in the Bay Area. The Dead were no longer cutting edge, but they weren't uncool yet. As a result, the Grateful Dead were mostly--though not exclusively--an admired band on the local scene. They had made it doing their own thing, and many bands sought to emulate that at least, even if their own music was different. Thus the Grateful Dead had numerous personal and professional connections to working bands in Marin County, at a time when they were not yet representative of some hippie past that had traveled on.

Marin County had been a prosperous county at least since 1937, when the Golden Gate Bridge had opened. However, except for a few easily accessible places like San Rafael and Sausalito, which served as commuter towns for San Francisco, Marin County was mostly modest and rural. It was a largely agricultural county, with dairy farming playing a big role. When rock bands started to move to Marin in the late 60's, there was plenty of cheap housing out in the country, big farmhouses on relatively empty lots. When a few bands started to make a little money, they moved inland to nicer communities, but Marin still housed a lot of musicians at modest prices.

Marin County itself was thinly populated. There was only one real rock venue, The Lion's Share in San Anselmo. It was a pretty tiny place, and was basically a musicians hangout. For Marin bands to really get somewhere, they had to build up a following elsewhere, and that usually meant the East Bay. Oakland and Berkeley were just across the Richmond/San Rafael Bridge, and had access to a bigger pool of potential fans, while still being in range of newspaper reviewers and talent scouts. As a result, places like the Longbranch and the Keystone Berkeley were dominated by Marin County musicians and bands, since the clubs were both near to Marin yet critical to future success. The Longbranch was for bands that had just started to "get it together," and the better ones graduated to the Keystone Berkeley.

The recent, excellent, release of the Keystone Companions box set, with the complete Jerry Garcia/Merl Saunders performances from the Keystone Berkeley on July 10-11, 1973, also included some Keystone calendars from that time. Thus I am taking the earliest calendar, from March 1973 (on disc 1), and analyzing all the acts at the Keystone Berkeley that month with respect to any connections to the Grateful Dead. Most of the acts, particularly the more well known ones, have numerous intricate connections to the Dead and its various members. It's a detailed reminder of how the Grateful Dead were seen as a successful band in early 70s Marin, not just as a leftover hippie band that had little connection to contemporary music.

The Keystone Calendar for March 1973

Keystone Berkeley Calendar March 1973
The March 1973 Keystone Berkeley calendar, like all Keystone calendars from that era, would have been posted on every telephone pole and University bulletin board within a radius of a few square miles of the club, because that was how club shows were publicized in those days. The Keystone also had a mailing list, but I think that was largely for people who lived out of town. In the upper left, we can see the address of the club, 2119 University (at Shattuck). University and Shattuck were two of the best known streets in Berkeley, so in the days before Google Maps, this made the Keystone Berkeley easy to find. The lettering of the various acts is nicely done and vaguely reminiscent of the Fillmore posters of yore, but done in such a way that each headline act's name can be read as one is walking by a telephone pole on your way to class or work.

In the lower right corner, we see some general information:

• Doors Open @ 8:00 Music @ 9:00
• Guys 21
• Girls 18

The economic purpose of the Keystone Berkeley, as I have discussed, was to get patrons to drink beer. Lots and lots of beer. The club was nominally a restaurant, but apparently the only food they served was popcorn. The really archaic detail on the Keystone flyer was the admonition "Guys 21, Girls 18." Since the Keystone was technically a "restaurant," they could make whatever rules they wanted, and the rule they made--very common in California at the time--was that adult 18-year old women could come in, but men had to be twenty one.

You don't have to be a sociological genius to figure this one out. If you were a college senior, you were likely as not going to be dating a sophomore--your fellow senior women were out for greener pastures than some guy who was taking them to see Elvin Bishop at some joint with sawdust on the floor, where the special of the night was "popcorn"--so the Keystone Berkeley had that little niche. In theory, the 18-20 year old women were not allowed to drink, but something tells me they ended up with some beer anyway.

So, let's set the scene:

• Easy parking in sleepy downtown Berkeley, a sketchy neighborhood but somewhat empty
• Cheap beer, and maybe a seat at a table if you got there at 8:00 ish--otherwise on your feet
• Popcorn, with a side of popcorn
• Girls of just legal age who couldn't actually go to real bars

This was the East Bay/Marin hippie rock and roll universe in the early 70s, where the Grateful Dead were respected senior members of the fraternity, but not yet dinosuars. Most of the bands who played the Keystone Berkeley were connected to the Grateful Dead in some way, socially or professionally. This post will take the March 1973 Keystone Berkeley calendar and analyze each act with respect to its relationship to the Grateful Dead.

Rock My Soul, by the Elvin Bishop Group, originally released on Epic Records in 1972

Thursday, March 1: Elvin Bishop Group/Perry And The Pumpers
Elvin Bishop was an old friend of the Grateful Dead, dating way back to the 1960s. He had met the Dead back in 1966, when he was in the Butterfield Blues Band. When Bishop moved to Marin in 1968 to start a solo career, he jammed with members of the Dead at both the Matrix and the Fillmore West. By 1972, Bishop had released three albums and was a popular local attraction, but Columbia records had lost interest in him and he was effectively between contracts. Keystone Berkeley was always a well paying gig for musicians who had a following but little or no record company status. In Bishop's case, within a few years, he went on to much bigger success, but it was the Keystone Berkeley that helped keep him going. Betty Cantor has suggested in an interview that a tape she made of Bishop at the Keystone was essential in getting him signed by Capricorn Records in the mid-70s--I wish the tape would surface.

Bishop remained friendly with the Dead throughout the decades. When he opened for the Grateful Dead in Santa Barbara on June 4, 1978, Jerry Garcia sat in and took a solo on "Fishin' Blues." More importantly, in 1978 Garcia had a chance to hear Bishop's then-keyboard player, Melvin Seals, who ended up playing in the Jerry Garcia Band for 15 years. Bishop drummer Donny Baldwin played with the JGB for the band's final two years as well.

Perry And The Pumpers featured Perry Welsh on lead vocals and harmonica, along with guitarist Johnny Vernazza,  who would end up in the 1974 edition of the Elvin Bishop Group. I expect that there was a lot of jamming on stage between the Bishop Group and the Pumpers.

Cold Blood's 1973 Thriller album on Reprise, with Gaylord Birch on drums. Back in the day, this cover was supposed to be sexy and alluring, rather than just violent.

Friday-Saturday, March 2-3: Cold Blood/Hoodoo Rhythm Devils
Cold Blood was more of an East Bay band than a Marin band, and the Hoodoo Rhythm Devils were more of a San Francisco band. There were some Grateful Dead connections, however. At some point in 1973, although not necessarily during this show, Gaylord Birch was the drummer for Cold Blood. Birch would play with Garcia a little bit during the Merl Saunders era, and he was a member of the 1979 ensemble Reconstruction.

As for the Hoodoo Rhythm Devils, they were a high energy rock band with great vocals who never made it beyond the local club scene. However, their bassist Richard Greene (not the bluegrass violinist--this one performed with the Hoodoos using the name Dexter C. Plates) ended up as a member of the vocal group The Bobs, who opened for the Grateful Dead on New Year's Eve 1984.

Clover's first album, released in 1970 on Fantasy.

Sunday, March 4: Clover/Alice Stuart and Snake
Clover was a rarity, a long-standing Marin band that was truly from Marin. Their first show had been on July 4, 1967, when three members of a Tamalpais High School band, The Tiny Hearing Aid Company (guitarist John McFee, singer/guitarist Alex Call and drummer Mitch Howie) had joined with bassist John Ciambotti (formerly of the SF group The Outfit). A fine, if somewhat obscure band, they had been kicking around the San Francisco scene ever since. Clover had released two excellent, if poorly recorded albums on Fantasy in 1969 and 1970. However, the albums flopped, since Fantasy had done nothing to promote them, but amazingly Clover stuck together.

By the mid-1970s, Clover was a six-piece band, playing 5 or 6 nights a week, all over the Bay Area. Clover had a sort of following at The Longbranch, and by 1973 they were trying to get established at the much-higher profile Keystone Berkeley. In a 1976 interview in the British fanzine Dark Star, members of the band described their long struggle to stay together in the seventies. Mickey Hart and Phil Lesh were big fans who saw Clover's shows at the Lion's Share, and Hart had let the band record demos at his barn (none of which have circulated, to my knowledge). The band members got by thanks to session work. Guitarist John McFee was the first-call pedal steel guitar player in San Francisco rock circles. He had played on albums by Steve Miller, Boz Scaggs and many others. In 1974, when Garcia couldn't play the parts on "Pride Of Cucamonga," CBS engineer Roy Siegel called on McFee (with Weir and Lesh's approval, and implicitly Jerry's) to play the part.

Clover was re-discovered in 1975 by Nick Lowe, who brought them to England. As a result, most of the band had played on the first Elvis Costello album My Aim Is True. Clover had two fine albums on Mercury in 1976 and 1977, but they couldn't get over the top. Still, most of the band members went on to bigger success. The 'newest' members (from 1971 onwards), Huey Lewis and Sean Hopper, went on to form Huey Lewis And The News. John McFee joined the Doobie Brothers (and is still a member), Alex Call went on to become a successful songwriter and John Ciambotti managed Carlene Carter for several years. Yet back in '73, they were just the band in Marin that had been together longer than anyone except the Dead, trying to make it happen on Sunday nights at the Keystone.

Alice Stuart was a guitarist and singer who had been around the folk and blues scene in the Bay Area since the early 60s. At various times she had been a member of The Mothers Of Invention (in 1965), and an occasional guest bassist with Commander Cody (in Fall '69), but by the early 70s she was an electric blues artist on Fantasy with a band called Alice Stuart And Snake. Snake's drummer was one Bob Jones, who had been an old bandmate of John Kahn back in the 60s, in groups such as Memory Pain. In fact, it had been Kahn who had encouraged Jones to switch from guitar to drums, which is how, as Jones put it, he was "Kahned into drumming." Alice Stuart and Snake, probably through the Kahn/Jones connection, were surely part of Garcia's circle. As proof, Alice Stuart seems to have sat in to sing a song with Garcia/Saunders the next year at The Lion's Share (Tuesday, June 4, 1974).

Monday, March 5: Grayson Street/Dixie Peach
Grayson Street was a funky East Bay rock and soul band, but with no Dead connections that I am aware of. I don't know anything about Dixie Peach.

Tuesday-Wednesday, March 6-7: Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders
When Garcia and Saunders played the Keystone Berkeley on a Tuesday and Wednesday night, they were packing the joint on nights when it would normally have just a smattering of casual beer drinkers. Thus Garcia's importance to the Keystones went beyond the fact that he filled the place--he filled it on nights when it would have barely been profitable, so the loyalty of the Keystone partners to Garcia was understandable.

On March 7, and almost certainly on March 6, the Garcia-Saunders group was joined by guitarist George Tickner, who seems to have played most or all the band's shows that Spring. Tickner had been in the Contra Costa band Frumious Bandersnatch, but he had left in 1968 to go to college. After what seemed like a sort of 'audition' for Garcia-Saunders, he would end up with the band Journey by the end of 1973.

Stoneground 3, on Warners, released in 1972.

Thursday-Saturday, March 8-10: Stoneground/Clover
Stoneground had formed in 1969, and they had many intimate connections to the Grateful Dead, although those connections had receded considerably by 1973. Stoneground had been put together by KSAN impresario Tom Donahue in 1969 for an intended movie about a 'traveling Woodstock' called Medicine Ball Caravan. The Grateful Dead were booked for the movie, but backed out at the last minute. However, Alembic sound had to honor their part of the contract, so the Dead stayed home and recorded American Beauty with Stephen Barncard, while Bob Matthews and Betty Cantor went on the road with Stoneground and the Caravan. Through Stoneground and their eventual trip to England, pianist Pete Sears got hooked up with Tom Donahue and eventually moved to the Bay Area. By 1973, Sears was already Marin-based and part of the Dead's scene of local musicians, although he was no longer connected to Stoneground.

Stoneground had released a number of albums that were popular locally, but they had never really broken through. By mid-1973, the band would break up, although they would continue to reform periodically over the years.

Note that Clover, the headliner on a Sunday night, was still an opener on the weekend. That was how bands typically built an audience at the Keystone.

Sunday, March 11: Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders
Garcia and Saunders were back on Sunday night, another night when the Keystone would have normally been pretty low key.

The Rowan Brothers debut album on Columbia, released in 1972. David Grisman produced the album An out-of-context quote from Jerry Garcia was used to hype the album, and it doomed the band. When Clive Davis lost his job as the head of Columbia, the Rowan Brothers were dropped.

Monday-Tuesday, March 12-13: Old And In The Way/Rowan Brothers
Given Garcia's special relationship with the Keystones, they were willing to book his new bluegrass band, a type of music that was contrary to the whole booking history of Keystone Berkeley. I have not done a thorough check, but I believe the only bluegrass bands booked there were either with Jerry Garcia or opening for him. In any case, from the Keystone's point of view, these shows were on a Monday and Tuesday night, so they didn't need a big crowd to make it worthwhile, and Jerry effectively guaranteed a certain amount of folks, even if they had no idea in this instance of what they were getting.

These shows would have likely been the fifth and sixth nights that Old And In The Way had performed (unless you think they played before March 2--stay tuned). It appears they were still a quartet, with no fiddler present. The only real publicity for the group had been their debut on KSAN ten days earlier. Most people who went to the show probably had little idea what to expect. I do note that the listing for the show carefully says "Jerry Garcia-BANJO," but I don't know how many people noticed. I also note that Peter Rowan was listed as a member of Seatrain, since that is how he would have been best known at the time.

The Rowan Brothers, Chris and Lorin Rowan, were Peter's younger brothers. They were managed by David Grisman and Richard Loren. By 1973, Loren was Garcia's personal manager and booking agent, so he would have booked them to open for his other client. The Rowans had just released their overhyped debut album on Columbia, which featured an out-of-context quote from Garcia where he said that they could become the next Beatles. A few months earlier (December 12, 1972) the electric configuration of the Rowan Brothers, with David Grisman on keyboards, had opened for the Dead at Winterland. I have to assume that they played the Keystone as an acoustic duo, perhaps with a guest appearance by Grisman. Based on a review, we know that the two younger Rowans also joined Old And In The Way this night to sing harmonies on "Panama Red," at least the second night (and probably the first).

This 1973 album was an effort by Columbia to reap something from their investment in Mike Bloomfield. The trio of John Hammond, Dr. John and Bloomfield wasn't a bad idea, but the players themselves weren't into it, and the album is eminently forgettable.

Thursday-Saturday, March 15-17: Mike Bloomfield and The Mob/Frank Biner Band
Mike Bloomfield had been the guitarist for Chicago's legendary Butterfield Blues Band, but he had moved to Marin to start the Electric Flag in 1967. He had been the first important musician to play San Francisco's Keystone Korner in 1969, continuing the tradition established at the Matrix of San Francisco heavyweights playing local clubs without a hullabaloo.

When the Matrix closed, the Keystones--first in San Francisco and then in Berkeley--and the Lion's Share in San Anselmo were the prime platforms. When Bloomfield had started playing the Keystones, John Kahn had been his first call bass player, and Bill Vitt was his substitute drummer (Bob Jones got the first call). That connection between Kahn and Vitt had led Vitt to call Kahn when Garcia had started jamming with Howard Wales and Bill Vitt at the Matrix in 1970.

However, for all the synergies and parallels between Jerry Garcia and Mike Bloomfield, they were not known to be friends. The caustic Bloomfield generally looked down on the Grateful Dead crowd. Nonetheless, the Dead's booking agent, Sam Cutler, booked Bloomfield's out-of-town shows, so Bloomfield wasn't without ties.

Frank Biner was a popular local soul singer. He put out a few albums over the years, and wrote a number of songs recorded by Tower Of Power. However, there were no Grateful Dead connections that I am aware of.

The 19722 Fantasy album Believin', by Alice Stuart And Snake. The band was a trio, with Stuart on guitar and vocals, Bob Jones on drums and vocals, and Karl Sevareid on bass.

Sunday, March 18: Clover/Alice Stuart and Snake
Clover and Alice Stuart were back on a Sunday night two weeks later. This was how bands tried to build audiences at the Keystone, or any club in the Bay Area.

After Elvin Bishop hit it big with "Fooled Around And Fell In Love" in 1976, Epic released Crabashaw Rising: Best Of Elvin Bishop, with material from his three 1970-72 Epic albums.

Monday, March 19: Crabshaw's Outlaws featuring Elvin Bishop
As near as I can tell, Elvin Bishop had two bands in early 1973. It appears that he still played shows with the latest iteration of the Elvin Bishop Group, with Jo Baker on vocals and Stephen Miller on organ. That band had released three albums on CBS, most recently the very good Rock My Soul, but they had just been (or were about to be) dropped by the label.

Meanwhile, Bishop played additional weeknight shows at the Keystone with a group called Crabshaw's Outlaws ("Pigboy Crabshaw" was a Bishop nickname). In that respect, Bishop was like Jerry Garcia, a compulsive performer with a Keystone-only band to fill up his off nights. I think some of the members of Crabshaw's Outlaws made up the core of the next lineup of the Elvin Bishop Group, which signed with Capricorn Records in 1974.

Graham Central Station's 1973 debut album on Warners

Thursday, March 22: Graham Central Station/Greg Errico, Larry Graham and Neal Schon/Pearl
Bassist Larry Graham had been a founding member of Sly And The Family Stone. In songs like "Dance To The Music," Graham's string-popping funk style revolutionized the bass guitar. However, after a string of massive hit singles, hit albums and exciting concerts, Sly And The Family Stone was in disarray. Most of the original members left the group. Drummer Greg Errico had split in 1971, and Graham followed by the end of 1972. Errico focused on production, and hung out with Mickey Hart in Novato (he played on the Rolling Thunder album, for example), but Errico still played around on occasion. Graham had initially signed on as a producer as well, of a band called Hot Chocolate. However, shortly afterwards, he joined the band, and they re-named themselves Graham Central Station.

Graham Central Station would release their first album in 1974, and they had a string of popular hits. In early '73, however, they were still figuring out where they were at in the rock and soul universe. Based on Keystone bookings, some shows were billed just as 'Graham Central Station,' and others, like this one, were billed as 'Graham Central Station, Neal Schon, Larry Graham and Greg Errico.' The implication seems to have been that GCS would do a set, and Schon, Graham and Errico would jam as well, with or without the other band members. Schon had just left Santana, and he and Errico were working on putting together a sort of "San Francisco Rhythm Section" for session work. Different players were involved, including Pete Sears and Prairie Prince. By the end of 1973, Gregg Rolie would leave Santana, and he and the above mentioned George Tickner would join Schon and Prince and (ex-Frumious Bandersnatch/Steve Miller) bassist Ross Valory to form Journey.

In the early 70s, Greg Errico hung out a little bit with Hart when he wasn't producing. However, by the late 70s, Errico had drummed with both Garcia and Weir's side bands, as well as sat in with the Grateful Dead. Errico was also intimately contacted with the formation of Journey, a band managed by long-time Deadhead Walter 'Herbie' Herbert (did you think it was an accident that Journey had an ubiquitous Kelly/Mouse logo from day one?).

I'm not sure about Pearl. In the mid-1970s, there was a man called Pearl who sounded very much like Janis Joplin who played her songs, and claimed that Joplin's last album was named after him, who played around the Bay Area. I saw him once in Sproul Plaza, about 1976--very strange. I don't know if that Pearl was the same one here.

Tower Of Power's third album, released on Warners in 1973. Tell me, tell me, what is hip?

Friday-Saturday, March 23-24: Tower Of Power/Graham Central Station
Tower Of Power, the pride of Oakland, had been discovered by Bill Graham at the Tuesday night Fillmore West auditions. They were initially signed by Graham's label, but after their initial 1970 album they were picked up by Warner Brothers. In late '72, they released their second album, the immortal Bump City. It included such classics as "You've Got To Funkifize," "Down To The Nightclub" and "You're Still A Young Man." In early '73, however, after a million gigs at the Keystone and every other dive in the East Bay, Tower Of Power were on their way up, giving hope to every band from Marin or the East Bay slugging it out on the circuit.

Tower drummer Dave Garibaldi was a long-time pal of Mickey Hart's, though I'm not sure how far back that went. For New Year's Eve 1982, the mighty Tower Of Power horn section joined Etta James and the Grateful Dead for a memorable third set. On January 23, 1988, Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir joined Tower Of Power for a truly epic jam, so the ties between the Dead and Tower ran deep, even if Tower was an East Bay band.

Graham Central Station, who had headlined Wednesday night (March 21), with the addition of Neal Schon and Greg Errico, were opening for the weekend. A few years later, these two bands would each be headliners at big theaters, but for tonight, they were laying it down at the Keystone Berkeley. Larry Graham defined funk bass to this very day, and Tower Of Power has one of the most iconic horn sections in soul music, and they were both playing for a few bucks cover and a couple of beers.

After many years as a session guy and hip insider, Dr. John hit it with 1973's "Right Place, Wrong Time," backed by the incomparable Meters. "I'd of said the right thing/But I must have used the wrong line." Been there.

Sunday-Monday, March 25-26: Dr. John The Night Tripper/Dixie Peach
Dr. John, the stage name of Mac Rebennack, had just released what would be his biggest and best-remembered song "In The Right Place," with The Meters in New Orleans. He was on tour behind the album, but the single hadn't hit yet, so he was still playing the Keystone. He was on his way up, however, and well-deserving of it.

Dr. John was based in Los Angeles, with roots in New Orleans, but he still ended up with a Dead connection or two. At some point around this era, New Orleans keyboard legend James Booker was in his band, and Booker played a few sessions in LA as well. This lead to John Kahn's ill-fated, if fascinating, suggestion to use Booker to replace Nicky Hopkins, an experiment that lasted for one weekend.

(Also, many years later, if memory serves, Dr. John opened for Garcia and Kahn at the Beacon Theater on April 21, 1982, and he played piano on the late show encore of "Goodnight Irene.")

The cover to the first Malo album on Warners, from 1972. The hit "Sauvecito" ('Little Sweetie') is still heard regularly today.

Thursday-Saturday, March 29-31: Malo/Hoodoo Rhythm Devils
Malo was another band on the way up. Their lead guitarist was Jorge Santana, Carlos' younger brother. Their first album had included the massively popular--and rightly so--hit "Sauvecito." Even if you say "I don't know that song," all I can tell you is "yes you do." Malo had come out of the Mission Street Latin/Jazz/Rock scene that had sprung up in the wake of Santana's success. That scene wasn't really part of the Grateful Dead orbit, yet there were still some connections.

Jerry Garcia had jammed with some of those Latin rock guys a bit, around 1972, and trumpeter Luis Gasca, a sort of elder statesman, had been essential to Malo's debut. Gasca had played the trumpet parts on "Mexicali Blues" when Ace was recorded. One of Gasca's replacements in Malo, trumpeter Bill Atwood, would play on Wake Of The Flood, so the Dead had plenty of professional connections to Malo, even if they weren't personally close to the members.

Aftermath
I could take any of the other four calendars from the Keystone Companions album--April, May, July and August 1973--and parse out all the Grateful Dead connections. There are plenty of other names who didn't happen to play in March: Nick Gravenites, Banana And The Bunch and Copperhead, just to name a few, have plenty of local Marin connections to the Dead. Out of town acts at the Keystone Berkeley during that time who have links to the Dead included Little Feat (spelled 'Little Feet') and Al Kooper. The Grateful Dead were very integrated into the Northern California rock scene in 1973, admired as prominent successes but not yet isolated as anachronistic freaks.

Within a few years, the music industry did its usual re-invention, and the Grateful Dead started to seem out-of-date. After some years in the wilderness, the Dead went from "out-of-date" to actually Jurassic, with all the attendant exceptions that goes with such status. Back in '73, however, they were just another band from Marin, a little older and a little wiser, but other than that connected to many of their long-haired peers trying to make it without succumbing to having a real job.