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Jerry Garcia Band

Song Of The Day – “Catfish John” by Jerry Garcia Band

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JGBLiveIt was a tale of two Jerries.

By 1980 Jerry Garcia had his day job with the Grateful Dead. During that year, the band released the somewhat weak studio album, Go To Heaven, and took to the road to promote it. While the 1979-1980 shows generally found the band in excellent form, in order to keep things interesting for the fans and themselves, they performed some very special shows.

They kicked off their 15th anniversary celebration (1965-1980) with residencies at Radio City Music Hall in New York City and at The Warfield Theater in San Francisco. The shows revived the format of an acoustic first set followed by an electric second set, for the first time since the early 1970s. For the most part, the acoustic sets were uniform ally superb, while the electric sets were workmanlike, as can be evidenced by the acoustic live album Reckoning and the electric Dead Set that were released to commemorate the event.

During breaks in the Dead’s touring schedule, Jerry Garcia toured with the Jerry Garcia Band playing small theaters around the U.S. with Ozzie Ahlers on keyboards, John Kahn on bass and Johnny De Foncesca on drums. It was during the JGB shows that Garcia’s enthusiasm really showed through,  as evidenced by this performance from the Capitol Theater in Passaic, New Jersey from March 1, 1980, that has just been released as part of the first volume in the newly launched Garcia Live series.

With the JGB (and in this particular show), Garcia had the freedom to stretch out and choose material that really turned him on, including tunes from the Motown songbook (“How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)”), songs by Bob Dylan “Simple Twist Of Fate,” The Beatles (“Dear Prudence”),  Jimmy Cliff (“The Harder They Come,” “Sitting In Limbo”), Elvis Presley (via Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup) “That’s All Right” and even Irving Berlin (“Russian Lullaby”).

The JGB repertoire for this particular show also included other Garcia related tunes including the Grateful Dead staples “Deal” and “Sugaree,” solo tracks like “Mission In The Rain,” and a thoroughly enjoyable romp through  the Old And In The Way favorite “Midnight Moonlight.”

Today’s Song Of The Day is “Catfish John,” which was written by Bob McDill and Allen Reynolds and was originally recorded by country singer Johnny Russell in 1972. Garcia originally recorded the song for his 1976 album Reflections.

The Capitol Theater in Passaic New Jersey was partially run by the promoter John Scher, who would come out at the beginning of each show to introduce the band. Hearing his introduction at the beginning of the show (and on the CD) brings back great memories of a great venue. It was pretty much standard practice that the shows at the venue would be filmed and recorded, leaving behind a treasure trove of great ‘70s and ‘80s concerts. Some of the notable artists who played the Capitol included Springsteen, The Who, The Grateful Dead and The Rolling Stones. The theater hosted shows between 1971 and 1989. If memory serves me right…and it doesn’t always…I think I was at this JGB Capitol Theater show…

And here’s the whole show…

Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Russian Lullaby” by Jerry Garcia

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Like his first solo album, Jerry Garcia’s second solo album was plainly title “Garcia.” When promo copies were shipped to reviewers upon its release in 1974, the cover came with a “Compliments” sticker on it and reviewers believed the record was titled “Compliments Of Garcia,” hence the record became known by that title. When it was re-released on CD in the 1990s, the title was officially changed to “Compliments.” I always liked going to see the Jerry Garcia Band in concert more than seeing the Dead. While I love the Dead repertoire, a Garcia show always promised a more interesting set of material featuring many covers that you wouldn’t think would be associated with the lead guitarist of the Grateful Dead. “Russian Lullaby,” written by Irving Berlin, was one of them. The song was written in 1927 and performed at the opening of The Roxy Theater in New York on March 11, 1927. The clarinet on this track was played by none other than Geoff Muldaur.

The Days Between – Celebrating Jerry Garcia

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jerry-garcia-2Among Grateful Dead fans “The Days Between” is not just one of the last songs from the Hunter/Garcia repertoire, but its has also come to symbolize the time between the date of the Jerry Garcia’s birth (August 1st, 1942) and the anniversary of his death on August 9, 1995.

See below for the special Psychedelic Time Warp tribute to Jerry Garcia

David Dodd in his blog post describes it, ““Days Between,” a late song in the Robert Hunter / Jerry Garcia songbook, was perhaps their last collaboration on a big, significant song, one that ranks with “Dark Star” and “Terrapin Station” as ambitious and intentionally grand. (I was talking the other day with a friend, about Garcia’s playing and songwriting, and the thought came up that Garcia, like few others, was unafraid of grandeur, and could successfully pull it off. Same with Hunter.)

“It was first performed on February 22, 1993, at the Oakland Coliseum Arena, the middle show of a three-night run. The night before, they had premiered three other new songs: “Eternity,” “Lazy River Road,” and “Liberty.” Its final performance was on June 24, 1995, at RFK Stadium in Washington, DC. During its relatively short time in the live repertoire, they played it 41 times, always in the second set, and fairly frequently rising out of the Drums.  It appeared like the ghostly ships it describes, as if gradually from a fog and only slowly revealing itself as something very big, towering above everything around. ”

Older Deadheads may remember August 9th as vividly as November 23, 1963. To younger fans, this may have been the first of many iconic music legend deaths along with Lou Reed and David Bowie.

We present the two hour tribute show from Psychedelic Time Warp, heard weekly on Acid Flashback Radio.

Hour 1

Hour 2

As a bonus, here’s a Spotify playlist of select Jerry Garcia music from throughout his career, including collaborations with Merl Saunders, David Grisman, and Old & In The Way.