Jerry Garcia Concert Attendance 1961-90

Palo Alto High School, at 50 Embarcadero Road, as it looks today, where Jerry Garcia saw Joan Baez in concert in 1961 in the auditorium. The old auditorium has long since been replaced.

One of Jerry Garcia's most enduring traits was that he chose playing music over everything else. The Grateful Dead played more shows than almost any band of their era, and yet Garcia had a massive performing career separate from the Dead. He recorded numerous studio albums, played sessions, recorded film soundtracks and generally found a way to make music for as many of his waking hours as he could manage. Although Garcia was famously sociable to those who met him, the truth was his preference was to have a guitar in his hand--or a banjo or anything else--and to be actively making music.

Like any great musician, Garcia had giant ears, and he learned from numerous musicians and recording artists throughout his career. Yet most of the live music he heard was played by musicians on the same bill with him. Early in his career, Garcia had very little money, and as he attained a level of success, he worked so much that he rarely had the time to go out. When the Grateful Dead achieved a certain level of economic success, Garcia responded by forming other groups--the New Riders, Garcia/Saunders, Old And In The Way, and so on--so he still had little time to see other artists.

Because Jerry Garcia's live appearances have been so carefully studied, just about all the times that Garcia has sat in with a band as a guest artist have been documented. However, Garcia was so forthcoming about his interests, and his performing history has been so well known, that we are generally aware when seeing another performer has influenced Garcia's music. At different times, for example, Garcia had mentioned how seeing a Pentangle or a Miles Davis when they shared a bill with the Dead had influenced his music.

Yet there is a short but important list of concerts and performers that Garcia was known to have seen that appears not to have been written out. Garcia liked to perform, and didn't like to hang out, so the number of times Garcia saw a show without playing is surprisingly few. Particularly in later years, I think Garcia attracted an extraordinary amount of attention, and going backstage or sitting in regular seats was probably not a relaxing experience for him. Nonetheless, Garcia did get out once in a while. This post attempts to document every known performance where Jerry Garcia attended the show, but did not perform, nor was scheduled. The emphasis is on different performers, rather than specific dates, although of course I am tremendously interested in actual dates where they are known. Anyone with additions, corrections, insights or entertaining speculation on this subject is encouraged to Comment or email me.

[update] Numerous readers have Commented or emailed me, and the entire Comment thread is at least as interesting as the post itself, and well worth a read. I have updated the post accordingly. Thanks to Light Into Ashes, Jesse, JGMF, ChicoArchivist, Nick, Legs Lambert and the ever-present Anonymous

[update] For a fascinating companion piece to this list, see this amazing post on Jerry Garcia's Record Collection.

ca. 1959, Fillmore, San Francisco and Roseland, Oakland, CA: Rhythm & Blues shows
[update] Tireless scholar and fellow blogger Light Into Ashes seems to have uncovered the earliest concerts that Garcia attended:

In the late 50s, round the time Garcia was going to the School of Fine Arts in SF, he was also going to see R&B shows: "Me and a couple of friends used to go out to black shows, not only at the Fillmore, but also at Roseland over in Oakland. I'd usually hear about the shows on the radio." (Troy, Captain Trips p.14) No bands named.

Joan Baez, circa 1961

June 1 or 2, 1961, Palo Alto High School Auditorium, Palo Alto, CA: Joan Baez
Jerry Garcia was a struggling musician and former GI in 1961. However, he saw Joan Baez at the Palo Alto High School Auditorium and was instantly struck--this was something he could do. Joan Baez had gone to Palo Alto High School, but she hadn't graduated, as her academic father had moved the family to Boston for her senior year. However, she was still a local girl made good, and that had to give some inspiration to Garcia as well.

Both Pigpen and Bill Kreutzmann went to Paly High. Pigpen was probably a student at the time, although he was expelled and did not graduate. Kreutzmann did graduate from Paly (as did I, somewhat later). Paly High (as we all called it) was Palo Alto's first high school, opened in 1898. The old auditorium was replaced in the early 70s (and has probably been replaced again). Paly was not impossibly far from either downtown Palo Alto or Santa Cruz Avenue in Menlo Park, so for a mostly-carless bohemian like the model 1961 Garcia, the fact that he could have walked there if he had to must have made it a relatively attractive event.

The May 25, 1961 Stanford Daily ad for Joan Baez at Palo Alto High School (Joan had gone there through 11th grade, but then moved to the Boston area). Opening act Dick Jaqua was an early local folk musician. I am fairly certain that his son was Molly Tuttle's guitar teacher. Jerry Garcia was in the front row for one of these shows.

[update]: LIA:

Charlotte Daigle also remembered the Joan Baez show at Palo Alto High School in summer 1961:
"Jerry wanted to go to the Joan Baez concert and sit in the front row so he could watch her. He watched her intently, commenting, 'This is great, I can out-guitar her.' Jerry wanted to see what kind of musician she was...he was terribly excited that she was well-known and he was as good on guitar or better." (Troy p.30)

September 1961, Monterey County Fairgrounds, Monterey, CA: Monterey Jazz Festival, with Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Brubeck, John Coltrane with Wes Montgomery, and many others
[update] LIA

In September 1961, Garcia went to the Monterey Jazz Festival. Charlotte Daigle recalled: "It was Jerry's idea to go to the festival. He bought the tickets for us, and we went two days. We had reserved seats, and Jerry took it very seriously. Jazz fans were very formal at the time, and other people were dressed up. Our crowd from Palo Alto was very beatnik-looking, and we stood out from the rest of the audience. It created something of a stir." (Troy p.34)

1962, Fox And Hounds, San Francisco, CA: Peter Stampfel
[update] In a recent and yet-to-be published interview, original Holy Modal Rounder Peter Stampfel says that Garcia told Stampfel he saw him play at the Fox And Hounds, a San Francisco folk coffee house. LIA also found a Garcia quote about that time

"'61 or '62, I started playing coffeehouses, and the guys who were playing around then up in San Francisco at the Fox and Hounds, Nick Gravenites was around then - Nick the Greek they called him - Pete Stampfel from the Holy Modal Rounders, he was playing around there then. A real nice San Francisco guitar player named Tom Hobson that nobody knows about...

I am not aware of any other performers that Garcia saw between 1961 and '64, other than nights he was performing. The Top Of The Tangent opened in early 1963, and a fair number of folk performers must have passed through. I would be very interested to know how many of them Garcia actually saw, outside of the nights he was performing. Garcia was married and living hand-to-mouth in 1963-64, and would not have been able to afford to go out much. [update: there are some interesting points in the Comments about this subject].

[update]: As ever, LIA was able to shed some light

David Nelson recalled Garcia taking him to see Jorma Kaukonen at the Tangent around the summer of 1962 [sic--it actually had to be 1963, The Tangent did not open until January '63]
"Garcia grabbed me and said, 'You gotta hear this guy.' I said, 'Who is he?' Garcia said, 'Jerry Kaukonen, he plays that Reverend Gary Davis and Blind Boy Fuller stuff, he does it right.' I remember going to the Tangent and peering out from the back room, which is where we put our instruments, and hearing him play and looking at Garcia who is looking at me, and we're just going 'Wow!'" (Troy p.39)

1963 or '64, unknown venue, San Jose, CA: New Lost City Ramblers
[update] LIA

One of Garcia's guitar students at Dana Morgan's in 1963/64, Dexter Johnson, recalled, "He turned me on to Mike Seeger and the New Lost City Ramblers. I remember once coming to a lesson and he wasn't there, and on the music stand was a note: 'Gone to New Lost City Ramblers concert in San Jose. See you next week.'" (Greenfield p.41)
Hard to say when Garcia would have first seen the Ramblers - he was already enough of a fan to do songs from their albums in his shows in 1962, so he wouldn't hesitate to go see them if they were anywhere in driving distance. As his folkie friend Marshall Leicester said, "In those days we all wanted to be Mike Seeger."

The first Jim Kweskin Jug Band album, released on Vanguard in 1963, which in its own way spawned a tiny revolution.

March 11, 1964, The Cabale, Berkeley, CA: Jim Kweskin Jug Band
The Cabale, at 2504 San Pablo Avenue, was not Berkeley's first folk club (that was The Blind Lemon), but it was the first important one. Although a tiny little cavern of a place, all the important early 60s folk acts played there. The city of Berkeley was very suspicious, and to this day it is illegal to have a business in Berkeley named "Cabale."

The Jim Kweskin Jug Band had released an album on Vanguard in late 1963, and their unexpected popularity all but single-handedly made jug band music popular. Mother McRee's Uptown Jug Band Champions followed shortly afterwards. Jerry and Sara Garcia and others made a pilgrimage to Berkeley to see them, and it triggered a lot of excitement about the possibilities of making music your own way.

Kweskin Jug Band singer Geoff Muldaur, later a good friend of John Kahn's and an occasional guest with Garcia/Saunders, reflected in a recent interview with Jake Feinberg about the importance of The Jim Kweskin Jug Band for folk musician in general and Garcia in particular. Up until then, even folk performers had "acts:" they dressed a certain way, they had onstage "patter" and a somewhat fixed set. The Jim Kweskin Jug Band was none of those things. The Jug Band wore whatever they happened to be wearing that day, bantered with the audience and generally did the music they felt like playing at that moment. In so doing, Garcia saw the nascent possibility of the existence of the Grateful Dead, even if it wasn't clear to him at the time.

Bluegrass legends Jim and Jesse McReynolds

May 1964, unknown venue, Dothan, AL Jim And Jesse
Sandy Rothman and Jerry Garcia took a trip across America in Garcia's white 1961 Corvair, and it was perhaps the only time in his life that Garcia was more music fan than musician. The principal purpose of the trip was to tape bluegrass musicians. After a stop in Bloomington, IN, to see old friend Neil Rosenberg and visit the "Mr. Tapes" of Bloomington (TV repairman Marvin Wollensak), Jerry and Sandy drove to visit old friend Scott Hambly at an Air Force base in Panama City, FL. Garcia in fact played his first out-of-California gig at an Officer's Club at Tyndall Air Force Base.

In any case, Jerry and Sandy's next stop was Dothan, AL, where they saw and recorded Jim And Jesse. Jim and Jesse McReynolds were one of the great brother duos of bluegrass, and for this week, anyway, Jerry was like the rest of us, hitting the road for the next gig so that he could come back with a good tape.

May 24 1964, Brown County Jamboree, Bean Blossom, IN Bill Monroe and The Bluegrass Boys/other artists
Garcia and Rothman returned to Bloomington for Bill Monroe's annual bluegrass festival, the Gathering Of The Vibes for that crowd. Apparently their tape was ruined, per McNally, and of course Garcia was too shy to approach Bill Monroe for an audition, but it was a great day of bluegrass, and Garcia was just a fan like everyone else that day.

late May 1964, White Sands Bar, Dayton, OH  Osborne Brothers
Garcia and Rothman's next stop was Dayton, where McNally says they got a great tape of the Osborne Brothers. I wonder if copies of these tapes have survived?

early June 1964, Bluegrass Festival, Union Grove, PA
Near the end of their little trip, Garcia and Rothman went to another famous bluegrass festival, in Union Grove, Pennsylvania (near Lancaster). This was where Garcia met David Grisman, so the event would have been historic in any case, but after struggling to hear real bluegrass on the West Coast, Garcia must have enjoyed hearing the real thing in prodigious quantities.

The posthumous 1975 live album of the Kentucky Colonels, Livin' In The Past, recorded November 15, 1964 at the Comedia Theater in Palo Alto, CA

November 15, 1964, Comedia Theater, Palo Alto, CA Kentucky Colonels
We know for a fact that Jerry Garcia saw the Kentucky Colonels at the Comedia Theater in Palo Alto. We know that because an excellent album was released featuring recordings from that show, and on that album we hear the band introduced by Jerry. It's not impossible one of Garcia's bands opened the show, but for now we will treat it as belonging on this list.

The Comedia was a tiny theater on Emerson Street. I think it may have become the Aquarius Movie Theater later in the 60s (for any of you old Palo Altans). Garcia had done the lights there at one point in 1961 (apparently for "Damn Yankees"), and that was where he first met Robert Hunter.

Buck Owens and The Buckaroos, outside of Carnegie Hall, presumably when they performed there on March 25, 1966. The Buck Owens album Carnegie Hall Concert was released on Capitol in July 1966

1964/65, Foresters Hall, Redwood City, CA: Buck Owens and The Buckaroos
According to writer John Einarson, Garcia went with Herb Pedersen and David Nelson, among others, to see Buck Owens and The Buckaroos at the Foresters Hall in Redwood City. The Foresters Hall is at 1204 Middlefield (at Main), and it is still there.The concert was around 1964-65, but I don't know an exact date.

Buck Owens and The Buckaroos were hugely popular, particularly in the West. They were proponents of "The Bakersfield Sound," a more swinging, rock-oriented approach to country music. Although some of the early 60s corniness of their music grates to modern ears, the Buckaroos are as good as a band ever got. Lead guitarist Don Rich and pedal steel guitarist Tom Brumley were hugely influential for rock and country music. Indeed, the Eagles and most of modern (Garth Brooks era) country music owes more to Buck Owens and The Buckaroos than they do to any other band. Even the Beatles had a hit with the Buck Owens song "Act Naturally."

1965, The Ash Grove, Los Angeles, CA: The Kentucky Colonels
[update] Intrepid scholar and Commenter Light Into Ashes reports that Blair Jackson writes, "On a couple of occasions in 1965 he traveled down to the Ash Grove in Los Angeles to see his friends the Kentucky Colonels." (Garcia p.75). The Ash Grove was the legendary folk club at 8162 Melrose Avenue (now The Improv, a comedy club), which was the hub for serious Southern California folk musicians. Garcia also probably saw the Colonels at the Cabale in Berkeley in 1964.

The hugely popular first album on Kama Sutra by The Lovin' Spoonful, called Do You Believe In Magic after the hit single of the same nam

August 4, 1965, Mothers, San Francisco, CA: Lovin' Spoonful
Mother's was Tom Donahue's night club in North Beach, at 430 Broadway, near the future site of The Stone (at 412 Broadway, then called The Galaxie). It was the first avowedly psychedelic night club, although its version of psychedelia was somewhat different than what would follow. The Lovin' Spoonful had a big hit with "Do You Believe In Magic," and the Spoonful played a week or two at Mother's. the Warlocks scrounged up enough money to go.The Warlocks were so impressed that they started playing "Do You Believe In Magic" (McNally p.86).

A poster for the second Family Dog dance, " A Tribute To Sparkle Plenty," held at San Francisco's Longshoreman's Hall on October 24, 1965

October 24, 1965, Longshoreman's Hall, San Francisco, CA: Lovin' Spoonful/The Charlatans
According to McNally (p.96), Lesh, Garcia and other members of The Warlocks went to Marin in the afternoon and then San Francisco. After a meal at Clown Alley, they went to Longshoreman's for the second Family Dog show. Midway through, Phil Lesh grabbed promoter Luria Castell and said "Lady, what this little seance needs is us!" He was right.

LIA (of course), found some great quotes from Garcia about the Family Dog show:

 We ended up going into that rock and roll dance and it was just really fine to see that whole scene - where there was just nobody there but heads and this strange rock & roll music playing in this weird building. It was just what we wanted to see... We began to see that vision of a truly fantastic thing. It became clear to us that working in bars was not going to be right for us to be able to expand into this new idea." (Signpost p.20-21)

And, talking to Ralph Gleason in March '67, he looked at the show from a technical perspective:
"We went to the very first Family Dog show stoned on acid, or maybe it was the second one, the one where the Lovin' Spoonful were... We'd been playing out in these clubs - and we went in there and we heard the thing. And from the back of the hall you couldn't hear anything. You could hear maybe the harmonica. As you moved around you could hear a little of something, a little of something else, but you could never hear the whole band, unless you were right in front of it, and in that case you couldn't hear the vocal. So in our expanding consciousness we thought, the thing to do obviously, when you play in a big hall, is to make it so that you can hear everything everywhere. How do we go about this, we thought? And the most obvious thing was, we just turn up real loud. But that's not exactly where it is... It's more important that it be clear than loud." (GD Reader p.28-29)

July 4, 1966 Greek Theatre, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA: Jefferson Airplane/Greenbriar Boys/others
[update] The UC Berkeley Folk Festival was an annual weekend extravaganza from 1958-70. In later years many rock bands played. On the final afternoon concert of the 1966 Festival, the headliners were the Jefferson Airplane, who at the time considered themselves "Folk-Rock." Also on the bill were the Greenbriar Boys, probably featuring Frank Wakefield, which likely explains why there is a photo of Jerry Garcia hanging out backstage with Jorma Kaukonen and Marty Balin (yes I have seen it). Jerry saw the Airplane all the time, but the Greenbriar Boys would have been special.

July 26, 1966, Cow Palace, Daly City, CA: Rolling Stones/Standells/McCoys/Trade Winds/Jefferson Airplane/Sopwith Camel
Jerry Garcia attended the Rolling Stones Cow Palace show as a roadie for the Jefferson Airplane, apparently the only way he could afford to see the Stones.

October 6, 1966, Basketball Pavilion, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA: Butterfield Blues Band/Jefferson Airplane
Anonymous

The Airplane and Butterfield played at Stanford on October 6, 1966, the day acid became illegal in California. They split a $2,500 fee. Garcia sat right behind me.

The Butterfield Blues Band and the Jefferson Airplane headlined three memorable weekends at the Fillmore and Winterland in October of 1966. They had different opening acts on the bill, and on the middle weekend the Dead were booked. On Thursday, October 6, however, Butter and the 'Plane were at the Stanford basketball pavilion. This was the old gym at Serra and Galvez, now called Burnham Pavilion. The facility is currently used for other sports, as the Men's Basketball team plays at nearby Roscoe Maples Pavilion, which opened in 1969.

October 6, 1966, was quite a day. As the Commenter says, LSD was declared illegal in California. The Grateful Dead played a free concert in the Golden Gate Park Panhandle for thousands of people, and the entire hip, long-haired community in the Bay Area found out that there were a lot more of themselves than they had thought. Since October 6 was a Thursday, Butter and the Airplane could play Stanford, but Garcia would have been done by the afternoon, and would have been available to see the show. Legend has it that Mike Bloomfield borrowed Jorma's guitar that night.

Garcia's presence at the Stanford show may have been no coincidence. I know that Ken Kesey was at the Panhandle show. I have heard reliably that there was a free midnight concert scheduled for the San Francisco State campus, with the Dead, Airplane and Butterfield, effectively an Acid Test, if now an illegal one. Supposedly the police were very concerned with security, and Kesey and the bands agreed to cancel the event. Strange as this may sound, on the previous weekend the police had killed a young black man, and there had been riots in the Fillmore district, so the atmosphere in San Francisco that week was hardly peaceful.

June 1967, Garrick Theater, New York, NY: The Mothers Of Invention
[update] LIA:  

Lesh wrote in his book that he took Garcia, Weir & Kreutzmann to see Frank Zappa & the Mothers at the Garrick, upstairs from the Cafe au Go Go in June '67. He says it was the day before they started their Cafe au Go Go run - but that would make it the evening of May 31, the day the Dead arrived in NY?

The Grateful Dead's first beachhead in Manhattan was a two-week run at the Cafe Au Go Go in Greenwich Village. At the very same time, Frank Zappa and The Mothers Of Invention had a summer long residency at the tiny Garrick Theater, above the Au Go Go. The marquee said "Absolutely Free." The lineup in June of 1967 would have been the classic early Mothers, with Ray Collins on vocals, Bunk and Buzz Gardner on horns, along with Motorhead Sherwood, Don Preston on keyboards, Roy Estrada on bass, and Billy Mundi and Jimmy Carl Black (the Indian of the group) on drums. I doubt Ian Underwood or Artie Tripp had joined yet. 

My cousin actually attended a Garrick show on July 18, his 13th birthday (his notoriously cheap father thought the show would be free). To open the show, the quite unattractive Mothers came out in dresses and did a Supremes medley. Then it got progressively weirder. So whichever night he went, Garcia probably saw a pretty way-out show. A reasonable facsimile (albeit with Underwood on board) would be the album Tis The Season To Be Jelly, recorded on September 20, 1967 in Stockholm.

Ramrod and some other crew members would apparently participate in some of the madness with the Mothers when the Dead were not playing. According to the memory of Dead manager Rock Scully (in his book Living With The Dead), Frank Zappa’s enmity for the Dead partially stems from these two weeks when The Mothers were playing upstairs at The Garrick while the Dead played in the basement at the Au Go Go. The perpetually anti-drug Zappa resented that the Mothers would sneak downstairs to get high with the Dead. The Mothers were deathly afraid of being caught by Zappa, knowing that the punishment was more rehearsal.


August 22, 23, 24 or 25, 1967, Fillmore, San Francisco, CA: Butterfield Blues Band/Cream/Southside Sound System
August 29,30, 31 or September 1, 1967, Fillmore, San Francisco, CA: Cream/Electric Flag/Gary Burton Quartet
[update]  LIA reports

Garcia definitely saw Cream at the Fillmore in September 1967, apparently more than once; he lavished praise on Cream's shows in an interview later that month. Cream played at the Fillmore from August 22-September 3, 1967 - the Dead were out of town for a couple weekends, but Garcia would have had ample opportunities to see Cream during the week.

The Dead played Lake Tahoe on August 19 and August 25-26, and, somewhat amazingly, the hotel was so tacky that Garcia and Mountain Girl camped for a day or two. However, LIA has found a strong suggestion that Garcia saw Cream both weeks, suggesting that he zipped back to San Francisco for a few days.

"I would say the Cream are damn near the best group there is... Their music is really strong. I mean, really strong... They're much better musicians than Jimi Hendrix... You should have seen them at the Fillmore...cause they played with a lot of very heavy bands. They played with Gary Burton's band. They played with the Electric Flag. They played with Paul Butterfield's band and with Charlie Musselwhite's band. And they made them all sound pretty old-fashioned..."

So he lists all of the bands who played with Cream in the two-week run, and they all came up short... That's what makes me think he saw Cream in both those weeks.

Cream's incredible two-week stand at the Fillmore made them. Already popular from the first free-form FM rock station, KMPX-fm, the format of two hour-long sets induced Cream to jam out their songs, since they had so few. The results were sensational, for the band, the audience and the music industry as a whole. The Gary Burton Quartet, with Larry Coryell on guitar, was also a brilliant, groundbreaking group. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band were still powerful, featuring Elvin Bishop on guitar and David Sanborn on alto sax, and Harvey Mandel and Charlie Musselwhite led the Southside Sound System, so it was a truly impressive weekend at the Fillmore. The Electric Flag, with Mike Bloomfield and Nick Gravenites, were very talented, but notoriously erratic live.

December 1967, Carnegie Hall, New York, NY: American Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski perform Charles Ives' 4th Symphony
[update] LIA has another remarkable addition

It's not rock, but Phil mentions that he & the rest of the band went to see a performance of Charles Ives' 4th Symphony when they were in New York in December 1967 (at Carnegie Hall, the American Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski) - this was a key influence on the Anthem album.

Cream's immortal Wheels Of Fire album, released on Atco Records in August 1968. The live half of this double album was recorded March 7, 8 and 10 at the Fillmore and Winterland in San Francisco

March 1 or 2, 1968; Winterland, San Francisco, CA: Cream/Big Black/Loading Zone or
March 10, 1968: Winterland, San Francisco, CA: Cream/James Cotton/Blood, Sweat & Tears
Cream was the biggest and most exciting touring live act in 1968, and the band that really cemented the synergy between FM airplay and live performance as a pathway to huge record sales, all without benefit of a conventional hit. We know for a fact that Garcia saw Cream during the historic run in 1968 when they recorded the live parts of Wheels Of Fire over two weekends at the Fillmore and Winterland. We know that because Mickey Hart talked about it.  The indispensable Deadessays blog has a complete account, but the key quote is this one, from Mickey Hart in a 1981 interview in the great English fanzine Comstock Lode:

"Ginger Baker did it for me once at the Winterland with Cream, we'd just finished mixing Aoxomoxoa or one of those [sic-it was actually Anthem Of The Sun], and we walked in just as he was getting into his solo. It was amazing. I turned to Jerry and said, 'They have to be the best band in the world,' and he said, 'Tonight they are the best band in the world.' They were that night. 

It's hard to be certain of the exact date that Garcia saw Cream, and it's not impossible he saw them more than once. Cream played two weekends at Winterland, with some shows at the Fillmore as well. Cream played Friday and Saturday March 1-2 and then again on March 8-9-10 (they played Fillmore on Sunday March 3 and Thursday March 7). Since the Grateful Dead played the Melodyland Theater at Disneyland on March 8 and 9, we know that Garcia and Hart couldn't have seen those shows. There's also a photo of Garcia and Eric Clapton hanging out in Sausalito on the afternoon of March 10 (Cream was staying in Sausalito), so that seems to add to the likelihood of Garcia going to Winterland on Sunday, March 10, and maybe he did.

However, I would like to submit the possibility that Garcia and Hart saw Cream at Winterland on Friday March 1 or Saturday March 2. Most analysts routinely assume that the Grateful Dead were playing that weekend, since Deadlists shows them performing at the mysterious Looking Glass in Walnut Creek. In fact, JGMF has looked into this, and there is no sign that those shows ever took place, whatever The Looking Glass may have been, if it even existed. Whatever may have been scheduled and canceled in Walnut Creek, I think the Dead preferred to work on Anthem Of The Sun that weekend, rather than scramble to find another gig. Thus, when the night's work was over, Garcia and Hart would have been free to check out Cream. Anthem was being remixed at Columbus Recorders, at 906 Kearny Street (at Jackson), just 2 miles from Winterland (at Post and Steiner), so dropping by after work was done would have been easy.

A poster for the Bill Graham-produced Ornette Colenan show at Fillmore West on August 5, 1968

August 5, 1968, Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA: Ornette Coleman
In the recent book Owsley And Me: My LSD Family (by Rhoney Gissen Stanley and Tom Davis, Monkfish Press, 2013), Rhoney Gissen says that Garcia and other members of the Grateful Dead "family" attended the Ornette Coleman show at Fillmore West.

This Monday night jazz show at Fillmore West does not usually appear on Fillmore West lists (excepting the best one, of course), because those lists are mostly lists of posters, not concerts. However, Graham promoted this show, and even printed a poster, but it was not part of the collectible rock series, so the event has been obscured. I have no idea how many people attended the show.

Ralph Gleason's column in the SF Chronicle from Sunday, November 9, 1969

November 9, 1969, Oakland Coliseum Arena, Oakland, CA: Rolling Stones/Ike & Tina Turner/Terry Reid (early and late shows)
The Rolling Stones played two shows at the Oakland Coliseum, an event described in detail by Sam Cutler in his book You Can't Always Get What You Want (2010: ECW Press). Keith Richards blew his amp during the first show, so the second show was delayed while the Grateful Dead's crew raced back to Novato to get Garcia's rig as a replacement. The late show was immortalized on a legendary bootleg called Liver Than You'll Ever Be.

The Byrds Untitled album was released in September 1970

August 21-23 , 1970, Ash Grove, Los Angeles, CA: Freddie King/The Byrds
I read in a Wolfgang's Vault comment thread that I can't recover that Garcia dropped in to see The Byrds when they played The Ash Grove. I'd love to get confirmation of this. Freddie King had an extended booking there that week, and The Byrds were added at the last minute. The Byrds were too big to "need" to play an LA club date, but sometimes they did such things, to work on new material or just have some fun. According to Christopher Hjort's indispensable Byrds chronology So You Want To Be A Rock And Roll Star (2008: Jawbone Books), the Byrds were supposed to have played "Fiesta Da Vida" in Anza, CA, in Riverside County. It was apparently supposed to be held at the Cahuilla Indian Reservation, but the Riverside County Sheriff blocked it at the last minute, so the Byrds were available.

The Kentucky Colonels had been good friends with Jerry Garcia and Sandy Rothman since 1964, and indeed they had driven across much of the country together. Clarence White, a true guitar giant on both electric and acoustic guitar, was a significant influence on Garcia as well. White played some amazing electric guitar with The Byrds--if you haven't heard live Byrds from 1969-73 with Clarence, you're missing out--and if this sighting was accurate, it's nice that on one of his rare "nights out" Jerry went to check in with his old friend. I don't know what Garcia would have been doing in Los Angeles, but perhaps he had business with Warner Brothers. Certainly the Dead were not booked, since their sound system was on tour with the Medicine Ball Caravan. In any case, the Dead did play an acoustic show in Los Angeles the next weekend, so Garcia's presence isn't so far-fetched.

[update] LIA found the link to the Wolfgang's Vault Comment

I was at this show. Freddie was the opening act for the Byrds! Jerry Garcia was in the audience. One of the most memorable shows I had the good luck to be at. Freddie tore the place down. Hot pink satin suit, white frilly shirt with French cuffs. He took his coat off after the first song and ripped! I never saw anyone sweat so much. just BURNIN!

1970 or '71, The Crossroads, Bladensburg, MD: Roy Buchanan
[update] Guitarist Roy Buchanan had been a legendary guitarist in the 50s and early 60s with Ronnie Hawkins and others, but by the late 60s he was a family man. He pretty much only played at one bar in suburban Washington, DC. Over time, visiting rock musicians, particularly English guitarists, passed the word around, and many guitarists made a pilgrimage to see Buchanan when they were in town. Eventually, Buchanan became such a legend that PBS made a documentary about him. LIA reports

Garcia apparently saw Roy Buchanan at the Crossroads nightclub in Bladensburg, Maryland sometime in 1970-71.
Garcia appeared in a TV documentary on Buchanan that aired in November 1971, saying, "He's probably just the most original country-style rock & roll guitar player, a Fender guitar player. He has the nicest tone, the most amazing chops technically, super fast. And much neglected."
The thing is, Buchanan didn't have any albums out yet. He'd been playing in the houseband at the Crossroads since summer/fall 1970 - I'm not sure when Garcia could have been in Maryland in 1971, but possibly he made a trip during the Dead's fall 1970 east-coast tour. (At that point Buchanan was an unknown, but word-of-mouth about him was going around the Washington DC area - the Washington Post ran an article on him in Dec 1970 - and some folks were even traveling from New York to see him.)

Kenny Burrell's classic album Midnight Blue, released on Blue Note in 1963

1971, El Matador, San Francisco, CA: Kenny Burrell
Tony Saunders was interviewed by journalist and scholar Jake Feinberg, and he had a variety of interesting revelations (continued here). One of the interesting details was that when Garcia found out that Merl Saunders knew Kenny Burrell, Jerry and Merl went to see Burrell play live in San Francisco, and hung out with him either before or after the show. The El Matador was the upscale jazz club in North Beach, at 492 Broadway, from back when jazz was popular music. They still had fine music, however, if not always particularly far out.

Kenny Burrell is one of the deans of jazz guitar, inevitably funky and sophisticated, but in a cool, laid back way, where the notes he doesn't play are as important as the ones he does. Garcia's playing in the earliest incarnations of the Garcia-Saunders band seems to owe something to Burrell, and it seems it was not a coincidence.

[update] LIA found the quote from Merl Saunders, in Robert Greenfield's oral biography of Garcia:

I found more details on the early-70s Kenny Burrell show, from Merl Saunders:
"One night, Jerry called me. 'Merl, you know Kenny Burrell?' I said, 'Yeah, I know Kenny Burrell, he's at the El Matador. Why don't we go see him?' After the show was over, Jerry wanted to meet Kenny Burrell. He asked him questions, and Kenny didn't know who in the hell Jerry was until after I talked to Kenny the next day." (Greenfield p.139)

October 14 or 15, 1971, Berkeley Community Theater, Berkeley, CA: Crosby And Nash
[update] LIA: in the Signpost to New Space interview (p.49, my edition), Garcia says, "I saw Mickey last night, he was at the Crosby & Nash concert."

"Killing Me Softly With His Song" was a big hit for Roberta Flack in early 1973

October 1, 1972, Civic Center, Springfield, MA: Roberta Flack
This one is a little different. The Grateful Dead were between gigs--September 30 in Washington, DC and October 2 at Springfield Civic. On the night off, however, and the night before the Dead's Springfield gig, Roberta Flack was playing there. The sound man was an old pal of the Dead's, former Fleetwood Mac sound wizard Stuart 'Dinky' Dawson, who by this time had his own sound company in Boston.

Garcia and Owsley sat at the mixing board with Dinky, checking out his state-of-the-art system, thinking about how they could build their own, research that would lead to The Wall Of Sound. Roberta Flack is a fine singer and had a great band, so even if Garcia was there for the PA, he probably enjoyed the music (there is a tape of it on Wolfgang's Vault). I have a post about this night, drawing from Dinky Dawson's description of the night from his fine book Life On The Road (for the record, Dawson's biggest problem was that he was very thirsty, since he refused to drink any liquid with Owsley around).

October 1973, The New Matrix, San Francisco, CA: Bob Marley And The Wailers
[update] Garcia was apparently intrigued enough by Bob Marley and The Wailers to check them out at the New Matrix, where they played several shows in October of 1973 (17, 18, 19, 20, 29 and 30). The Matrix had closed in 1971, but it reopened in 1973 on 412 Broadway, an address that Garcia and his fans would come to know well some years later when it became The Stone.

Planet Waves, by Bob Dylan and The Band, was released on Asylum Records in January 1974

January 14, 1974, Oakland Coliseum Arena, Oakland, CA: Bob Dylan And The Band
Joel Selvin of the San Francisco Chronicle reported that every San Francisco luminary was at the two 1974 Bob Dylan concerts in Oakland (early and late shows), although I no longer recall if he explicitly mentioned the Dead. So Garcia's presence is unconfirmed for now, but I would be pretty surprised if he didn't make it. I posited the idea that Garcia's presence at the show caused him to bring back "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" a few times in 1974.

May 29, 1976, Paramount Theater, Oakland, CA: Bob Marley And The Wailers
[update] JGMF: There are also eyewitness accounts to Garcia seeing BMW at the Paramount in Oakland in, I think, May 1976.

The Paramount, built in the 30s, was restored in the mid-70s, and Bill Graham put on a fair number of shows there for a while. Its a beautiful theater, but the sound isn't great, and deserved or not, downtown Oakland wasn't an appealing destination for many suburban fans. Nonetheless, seeing a show at the Paramount remains a treat. Marley and The Wailers did two shows. Garcia would have been rehearsing with the Dead over at the Orpheum, so he probably caught the late show.

The Last Waltz, by The Band, was a triple album commemorating their "final" concert at Winterland on November 25, 1976

November 25, 1976, Winterland, San Francisco, CA: The Last Waltz with The Band
The Last Waltz was the can't miss rock event of 1976 in San Francisco. Once again, Selvin reported that "everybody" was there, although I'm fairly certain he mentioned the Grateful Dead this time. Once again, I'd be surprised if even the homebound Garcia missed this one, but I don't have confirmation.

April 1, 1979, Old Waldorf, San Francisco, CA: Dire Straits
[update] LIA found an interesting quote from Garcia, in the 1985 Jas Obrecht article

Q: Any bands you'd go out of your way to see?
Garcia: "There are a few, yeah. Let's see - the last band I went to see is Dire Straits. That was the last band I went to see live, a couple of years ago. There are others that I would, but most of the time I'm out working and stuff. So I don't really get a chance. But there are more that I would go to see if I were in a situation where I wasn't working nights so much. I would go out more. But yeah, there's actually a lot of music that I would go to see. It's just the opportunity doesn't present itself that often. That's the problem. Time and space, you know."

I'm guessing a little bit about the date, but Dire Straits did not play the Bay Area very much. They played The Old Waldorf on March 31/April 1, and Reconstruction had a show the first night, so that points towards April 1. At the time, "Sultans Of Swing" was hitting, and Dire Straits was already a kind of retro sensation. For that initial tour, the Straits were just a simple four-piece.

The River, by Bruce Springsteen, released in 1980

August 20-24, 1981? Sports Arena, Los Angeles, CA: Bruce Springsteen And The E Street Band
I have never gotten confirmation on this. The San Francisco Chronicle used to have a great column called Question Man, and in one 1982 edition, backstage at The Bammies, she asked various musicians who was the best performer today. Jerry Garcia said the best performer today (in 1982) was Bruce Springsteen. I had the yellowed clipping for years, but I can't find it now.

This raises the question of when, or even if, Jerry saw a Bruce show. For years I had assumed he had seen one of Oakland shows on The River tour (October 27-28, 1980), but in fact the Dead were at Radio City Music Hall. Bruce did not play the Bay Area until 1984, so when did Jerry see him, if he did? The Dead were in Southern California in August 1981, so maybe Garcia saw one of the Sports Arena shows, right before the Dead's Long Beach show. Given how few concerts Garcia saw from this point on, I really hope Garcia got to see Bruce and the E Street Band in their prime.

[update] Given that we have learned that by 1985 Garcia had not seen anybody since Dire Straits, when did Garcia see Bruce? Maybe he just saw a video or something, and drew his opinion from that. Too bad, if it was the case.

July 28, 1981, The Stone, San Francisco, CA: High Noon
 A commenter on a different post noted

Michael Hinton posted this little vignette at Facebook: "Played all 3 [Keystone family] venues in 1981 w/Mickey Hart's band High Noon. Most memorable was when Jerry Garcia came backstage and shook my hand at The Stone. Mickey said "we actually got Jerry to leave his house!"" Based on your list, this had to have been 7/28/81.

Mickey Hart put together a little band called High Noon, which I have written about them extensively elsewhere. High Noon mostly featured the original songs of Jim McPherson, who also played piano and guitar. Other band members included Merl Saunders, guitarist Michael Hinton, bassist Bobby Vega, harmonicat Norton Buffalo and percussionist Vicki Randle, with almost everyone singing.

June 1985, Opera House, San Francisco, CA: Wagner's Ring Cycle
[update} LIA

Also, in June 1985, Phil persuaded Garcia & others in the Dead to see Wagner's Ring opera done by the San Francisco Opera, even canceling some Dead shows in Sacramento to do so. Garcia didn't make it through the whole series though, even falling asleep during the performance on the third night: "In the end Jerry didn't make it back for the final opera of the cycle, having made previous plans to take his daughter Annabelle to see Phil Collins at the Oakland Coliseum. 'What?' I asked when he told me. 'You're going to pass up 'Twilight of the Gods' for Phil Collins?' 'If it was just me - but I promised Annabelle.'"  (Phil's book p.273-74)
McNally mentions that 'Ride of the Valkyries' started popping up in Dead rehearsals... 

No Jacket Required, Phil Collins third album, released in 1985. Although Collins had already been successful, and he was the singer and drummer for the very popular Genesis, this album made him a mega-star

June 7, 8 or 9, 1985, Oakland Coliseum Arena, Oakland, CA: Phil Collins
In a unique occurrence, Garcia used his status to take his daughter to see Phil Collins at the Coliseum on his No Jacket Required world tour. Although Collins' music was far from Garcia's normal fare, Collins is an excellent musician who had a top-flight band (anchored by Darryl Steurmer, Pete Robinson, Leland Sklar and Chester Thompson), so there's no doubt Garcia could at least appreciate the professionalism

The Detroit Free Press from June 29, 1986, reporting on Jerry's assessment of Bob Dylan's show with Tom Petty at The Greek on June 14, 1986

June 14, 1986 Greek Theatre, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA: Bob Dylan with Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
[update] Grateful Seconds reported that Garcia attended the second of two Bob Dylan concerts in Berkeley, apparently in anticipation of Summer touring.

December 19, 1986, The Omni, Oakland, CA: Go Ahead
In July of 1986, Jerry Garcia had a very close brush with the other side, but he returned. By December 19, he had already performed with both the Jerry Garcia Band and the Grateful Dead. Yet, perhaps in a different frame of mind, he made a rare trip outside to see Go Ahead, the new band with Brent Mydland and Bill Kreutzmann (for the complete Go Ahead story see here).

The Omni, formerly an Italian-American social club built in 1938 as Ligure Hall, was on 48th and Shattuck in Oakland. The owner was John Nady, who had made a fortune inventing wireless guitar pickups. He decided to use the money to open a rock club, and more importantly, a rock club near my apartment at the time. Unfortunately, The Omni was a terrible dump and mostly featured metal bands. I'm not surprised Jerry never set foot in it a second time.

September 1987, unknown venue, New York, NY: Suzanne Vega
[update] Per JGMF, Garcia caught Suzanne Vega while the Dead were in New York for their Rainforest benefit.

September 23, 1988, Oakland Coliseum Stadium, Oakland, CA: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band/Peter Gabriel/Tracy Chapman/Youssou N'Dour/Joan Baez Amnesty International Benefit
[update] Chico Archivist: Some people I knew saw Jerry at the Peter Gabriel show at the Oakland Coliseum Arena [sic] Sept 23, 1988. Supposedly Jerry liked the show enough to ask around if anybody had taped it.
Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel and Sting played several stadium shows in support of Amnesty International, although Sting had to miss the Bay Area show. I wonder if Jerry got his tape?
[update] The Dead were playing MSG this night, so Jerry couldn't have been at this specific show.

March 14, 1989, Oakland Coliseum Arena, Oakland, CA: REM/Robyn Hitchcock and The Egyptians
[update] This was confirmed by a couple of correspondents. Supposedly, when Jerry and Bob entered through backstage, a security guard who did not recognize Jerry told him to put out his joint. I saw this show, and it was great. So I can say that Jerry, Bob, me and my sister saw REM together.

March 15, 1989, Fox-Warfield Theater, San Francisco, CA: Gipsy Kings
[update] Legs Lambert: Jerry and Bob Weir attended a show by the Gipsy Kings at the Warfield in San Francisco (I'm told Bill Kreutzmann was there as well, but I did not see him).
During this period, Garcia seems to have gotten out to a relatively large number of shows. I believe it was the period when he was living with Manasha Matheson.

August 5, 1990, Concord Pavilion, Concord, CA;  Bruce Hornsby And The Range
According to McNally, shortly after Brent Mydland's unfortunate death, Phil Lesh and Jerry Garcia went to a Bruce Hornsby concert "in the Bay Area" to offer him the Dead's keyboard chair. Garcia had played that afternoon at the Greek Theatre, and I'm not even sure if he stuck around for the concert.

May 11, 1994, Zellerbach Auditorium, Berkeley, CA
[update] various people pointed out that Jerry showed up to watch Phil Lesh guest-conduct the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra in two selections - the Infernal Dance from Stravinsky's "The Firebird" and Elliott Carter's "A Celebration of Some 100 x 150 Notes,"

Coda
In the 19 years after The Last Waltz, Garcia seems only to have gone to see music five times: he saws Bruce Springsteen once--if he actually saw him--went to a Phil Collins concert with his daughter, and went out three times to see "family" members, one of those times strictly a business trip to try and line up a keyboard player. 
Thanks to all the Commenters, we know that Garcia got out a little more often to hear music than I had originally feared. However, it seems to have been largely confined to a relatively brief period from 1987-90, and then he retreated into isolation. Although Garcia himself preferred playing over watching, it's still a telling sign that Garcia could not simply go out and enjoy some artist he would like without attracting a ruckus. In the larger picture of Garcia's life and career, it's not a big thing, but it's still a clear sign of how isolated Garcia had become once the Grateful Dead became truly iconic.

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.