Jerry Garcia Band, 1980ish?

Posted by: Top Cat on 16 November 2004

Hi folks.

A couple of weeks ago, I was at a record shop and they were playing something by the Jerry Garcia band. It was a triple cd and I liked what I heard, but stupidly neither purchased it nor noted down its name.

All I can recall is that amongst other things, it had a rather fetching cover of "Eleanor Rigby" which was very good indeed.

Anyone have any idea what release this is?

Ta,

John
Posted on: 16 November 2004 by BigH47
This one?
Here

Did you know you can't copy and paste the url thingy in Mozilla Firefox? Had to do this in IE



Howard
Posted on: 16 November 2004 by bdnyc
Top Cat-

What you were hearing was a new Jerry Garcia Band CD titled "After Midnight" which was originally recorded for radio broadcast on a remote truck, on multi-track reel to reel analog tape, so the sound quality is quite good. Jerry is in fine voice and very energetic in his guitar playing at this 1980 concert. Unfortunately, it is not the strongest band he ever toured with, and the keyboard player leaves much to be desired. All in all though, a good live release.

The Eleanor Rigby jam was something Jerry only did about ten times, in a very small window of time in late 1979 and into the winter of 1980, which this show is taken from. The completist collectors say it wasn't necessarily the best example, but it will probably be the only one to receive a commercial release. My favorite performance of Jerry's on this release is his reading of "I'll Take A Melody" which is stunning. The other unique aspect of the show is that Jerry invited his songwriting partner Robert Hunter on stage to sing a few of his songs backed by Jerry and his band. While Hunter's singing is an acquired taste, at best, it is neat to hear them working together in a way they rarely did live.

I don't know if they are still offering it, but when I bought the release from the Garcia website, they added in a bonus disc with another hour of material taken from the same tour.

If you are willing to try lower fidelity releases, the Garcia Estate is now releasing shows in a series titled "Pure Jerry" that are only available by mail order or the web at www.jerrygarcia.com and they have released a few shows so far. These releases are intended to offer a "Dick's Picks" program for Garcia's solo live shows, generally taken from board two track tapes, not professionally done multi-track tapes. My favorite of these releases is the just released Garcia on Broadway material, from 1987, and I am sure more will follow.

If you don't have it, I would also endorse the recent Jerry Garcia studio album box set entitled "All Good Things", which collects all of Jerry's solo albums, and adds tons of bonus material. All in beautifully restored HDCD sound. It is a good time to be a collector of Garcia and the Dead.

Good listening!

Bruce

[This message was edited by bdnyc on Wed 17 November 2004 at 6:19.]