September 5, 1982 Glen Helen Regional Park, Devore, CA: The US Festival

 

September 5, 1982 Glen Helen Regional Park, Devore, CA: The US Festival Fleetwood Mac/Jackson Browne/Jimmy Buffet and The Coral Reefer Band/Jerry Jeff Walker/Grateful Dead (Sunday) The US Festival
In the 60s, the Grateful Dead had a knack for acting as a fulcrum, playing a starring role in events that helped shape the culture. The most famous such events were rock festivals, of course: Monterey Pop, Woodstock and Altamont all had star-turns for the Dead, for good and for ill. But the Dead managed to insert themselves into all sorts things, like free concerts in the park, like LSD manufacture and even noise-reducing headphones for NASA.

By the early 1980s, however, the Grateful Dead were considered something of a dinosaur. Many ‘60s Fillmore acts were still touring and often more popular than ever, but generally not without substantial changes. Some bands hardly had their original members, like Santana, and others had smoothed out the edges of their sound to something more radio friendly, like the Steve Miller Band or Jefferson Starship. Bands who had been devoted to the blues were now singing songs of love and hope in three-part harmony, like Fleetwood Mac.

Yet the Dead not only had 4/5 of their original starting lineup intact, they had conceded very little to modern radio. Sure, they had tried to "go mainstream" with Terrapin Station, but fortunately they had failed. Constant improvisation and long jams were still the order of the day. Their albums barely made a ripple on the charts, and never got played on the radio. Still, the live rock concert business was bigger than ever, and promoters knew that the Grateful Dead were a reliable draw. Unlike many of their by-then-high-profile peers from Fillmore West, the Dead's concert receipts were never affected by record sales, or the popularity of their latest release. 

In the late 70s and early 80s, the Grateful Dead toured in isolation from the rest of the music industry. It was common to read newspaper reviews of Dead concerts where baffled critics said some variation of "who knew that there were still hippies that liked the Grateful Dead?" People who went to Dead concerts didn't often go see mainstream, popular bands in arenas, and vice versa. Concert promoters all loved the Grateful Dead, of course, but their guaranteed drawing power wasn't known so widely. 

The US Festival, an important but now largely forgotten event held in 1982 and '83, played a big role in changing the national perception of the Grateful Dead, even if it didn't bring the band any more respect. The US Festival, however foggy our memories may be, had a persistent influence on rock culture in the 20th century, and the Grateful Dead once again played a starring role. This post will look at the Grateful Dead's role in the 1982 US Festival, and touch on the wider influence of the Festival.

An aerial view of the crowd of approximately 600,000 fans at Watkins Glen Grand Prix Race Course, July 28, 1973, seeing the Grateful Dead, the Band and the Allman Brothers Band

Rock Festivals
Rock festivals had been an essential part of the history of rock concert business, but they had been a brief phenomenon. The Monterey Pop Festival had sparked the explosion, with a three-day event (June 16-18, 1967) at the Monterey County Fairgrounds, modeled on the long-running Monterey Jazz Festival. But shows in existing facilities were not large enough to make multi-day events profitable, and overwhelmed the facilities, so from late 1968 onwards rock festivals moved to muddy fields well outside any city limits. What began at the Sky River Rock Festival (Tenino, WA Aug 31-Sep 2 '68) would peak at Woodstock (Aug 15-17 '69), only to crash and burn at Altamont Speedway (Dec 6 '69). There were some rock festivals in 1970, and some were even successful, but communities didn't want them, promoters couldn't profit and fans who had attended one three-day event in a muddy field never wanted to go to another one.

In the early 1970s, there had been a movement towards "festivals" in sports facilities, first in football stadiums and sometimes at auto racing tracks, and only lasting a single day. The most high profile was the "Summer Jam" at Watkins Glen Grand Prix Racecourse (July 28 1973) with the Grateful Dead, The Band and The Allman Brothers Band. It had drawn 600,000 people to the track, and everything had happened in safety. The "California Jam" at Ontario Motor Speedway had drawn at least 168,000 paid (April 6 '74) to see eight bands, headlined by Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Deep Purple. 

By the mid-70s, however, rock had gotten so big that a single band could headline and sell out a football stadium by themselves. Groups like Led Zeppelin or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young might have a few opening acts to fill time, but they didn't need a "festival" to pack the house. Multi-act, multi-day events had become a relic of the 1960s, even as the rock concert industry had expanded massively. 

The logo for KFAT-fm, Gilroy, CA (94.5), early 1970s

Steve Wozniak and KFAT
Steve Wozniak was one of the founders of Apple Computers, and one of the first of the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to become fabulously wealthy at a young age. By 1980, Wozniak had stepped away from Apple and was finishing his undergraduate studies at UC Berkeley (using the name Rocky Clark). The Woz had been busy with computers throughout much of the 70s, but he had grown up in the San Jose/Palo Alto area, so he had long hair and liked rock music, even if it hadn't been a big part of his life. By the early 1980s, he had more time to reflect.

In particular, Wozniak missed the feeling of community in the 1960s, and he wanted to sponsor a Woodstock Festival for the 1980s. He wasn't alone in that desire, but he was the only person with that kind of money. Wozniak's favorite radio station was KFAT-fm, based in Gilroy, CA. KFAT was the original "alt-country" station, audible in Santa Cruz, Palo Alto and San Jose but not San Francisco. KFAT was  country, but truly free-form: you could hear Willie Nelson, Pete Seeger and the Allman Brothers all in a row. So Wozniak wanted to support a big rock festival, but with a comparatively broad base of music.

Gina Arnold's excellent Half A Million Strong (2018: U of Iowa Press) looks closely at rock festival crowds from the 1960s onwards

American Festival Crowds
Rock festivals are embedded in rock music history, not just for any music produced, but for the symbolic power of a huge crowd of people joined together to share the experience. The Woodstock Music and Arts Fair was immortalized, thanks to the movie, as much for its large, peaceful audience as for the music. The evil doppleganger of Woodstock was the Rolling Stones concert at tiny Altamont Speedway outside of San Francisco, also--not coincidentally---immortalized in the Gimme Shelter movie. Today, huge crowds gather regularly for music festivals like Coachella and Bonnaroo. The music could be heard in other settings, but it's the giant shared experience that sets them apart. 

The US Festival, despite being largely excised from the consciousness of rock history, played a critical role in the continuum from Woodstock to Coachella. What began as free concerts in the Golden Gate Park Panhandle led to nationwide rock festivals in 1969 and '70. Most of these festival events were in some farmer's muddy field or at an auto racing track. Although there were successful events at Watkins Glen Race Course (The "Summer Jam" with the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers on July 27, 1973) and the "California Jam" the next summer (at the Ontario Motor Speedway in Southern California on April 6, 1974), by the mid-70s the all-day outdoor "festival" model had pretty much died out. Promoters didn't want the risk, communities didn't want the hassle and any fans who had suffered in the sun all day didn't want to do it again, regardless of who was playing. The idea of an annual Coachella, Burning Man or Bonnaroo seemed remote. The US Festival revived the possibility of such events, despite its various shortcomings.

In her exceptional book Half A Million Strong: Crowds and Power from Woodstock to Coachella (2018: University of Iowa Press), Gina Arnold makes a coherent arc that goes from free concerts in Golden Gate Park to huge paid festivals in the Southern California. The US Festival plays an essential role linking the somewhat naive 60s with the profitable 90s, and her analysis of the US Festival is not only unparalleled but provides a unique perspective on the event's importance to American culture, beyond the narrow confines of rock music history (ok, Gina is my sister, but it's a really good book and you should read it).

The US Festival was the idea of a single person. It was enacted, however, through many links between a number of other institutions, including the U.S. Army, NASA, the Esalen Institute, and rock promoter Bill Graham. The festival that these weirdly assorted groups created some unforeseen outcomes. One outcome was Macworld, an annual computer exposition, and the profusion of technology-consumer expositions like it...a less concrete but equally clear outcome that one can attribute to the US Festival is the symbolic linkage of money, music, and computer technology as a discourse that the culture largely accepts as a natural, rather than artificial, triumvirate. Essentially the US Festival was a space where these three entities were bound together in the mind of populace in ways that differed substantially from how each had previously been imagined individually.

Lastly, the US Festival conjoined free-form radio and Apple computers in the public mind. Put simply, it anticipated a company called iTunes, and all that that implies. (p60)...

The initial concept of the US Festival began, in its founder Steve Wozniak's own words, as a "Woodstock West," though later on he would disclaim that title and refer to it instead as "the Super Bowl of rock festivals" and "the world's biggest party." The festival--produced twice in a twelve-month period--drew a total of almost a million people, cost over $40 million, and it is mostly remembered today for the large amount of money it lost. However, it was successful in other ways.

First, Wozniak's deep pockets showed subsequent promoters how to create large rock festivals on "outside lands" and established them as safe, hygienic fun "parties." By showcasing popular, apolitical acts, to blue-collar and conservative young people, while to adding to the sense that such festivals were destinations worth attending. (p62)

In the late 1970s, concerts at football stadiums were standard fare in every major market. Just about all of those stadium shows had a single major headliner, like the Rolling Stones, supported by a few acts in a similar vein. In some cases, there were two headliners that were considered to be an appropriate pair, like Chicago-plus-The-Beach-Boys. Led Zeppelin, in fact, would typically fill stadiums with no opening act whatsoever. The Grateful Dead had headlined a huge concert at Giants Stadium in New Jersey (September 2, 1978), supported by Willie Nelson and the New Riders of The Purple Sage. But the US Festival was bigger than any stadium concert, and different, too. 

The characteristic of late 70s's stadium concerts was the assumption that rock music tastes were fairly siloed. Fans of Aerosmith were presumed to enjoy the J Geils Band, but they wouldn't be booked with the B-52s. The B-52s might share a concert with The Police, but Foghat wouldn't be on that bill. The Marshal Tucker Band could open for the Grateful Dead, but they wouldn't open for Pink Floyd. Now, of course, we see all of these as 70s bands who are played on the same radio channel. Gina Arnold sums it up:

The US Festival is not well remembered by the culture at large, and one reason might be because of the very odd mix of acts that performed there in both years. To a young person used to hearing them all on Sirius XM's 80s station, they may just seem like a bunch of oldies acts, but at the time they were a hot mishmash of acts whose audiences didn't jibe. (p75)

The Friday night bill (headlined by The Police, supported by Talking Heads and B-52s) has a certain amount of coherence, as all those groups were in their prime at the time. Yet the Saturday night show was unthinkable for the 70s: The "modern rock" of The Cars was not seen to fit with the The Kinks, say, or the more conventional rock of Tom Petty and Santana. Now, we see them all as "Classic Rock," but that term was not yet in use. 

Initially the Grateful Dead were not booked on the Sunday afternoon bill. Fleetwood Mac was perhaps the most popular band in the land, and had a new album (Mirage), and Jackson Browne had scored a #1 album in 1980 as well (Hold Out, featuring "That Girl Could Sing"). The concert organizers had expected 200,000 fans each day, with many people camping out, and had prepared accordingly. The pre-sale was disappointing, however, and it was clear that the crowds would be underwhelming, though large. 

I lived in the Bay Area at the time. There was tremendous press coverage of the event, since Apple was an important Bay Area company. I can remember exactly nobody, however, who considered actually going to Southern California to see the Festival. Obviously, in Southern California, where it was a same-day-drive, things were a little different, but it was a big event without being seminal.

Bill Graham had been bought in to manage the concert, and it was through Graham that the Grateful Dead were added to the Sunday afternoon show. This was widely discussed in Bay Area newspapers in the run-up to the concert. To the rock market at large, much less to the culture, the Dead were just a left-over 60s band who had never had a hit. Yet they were brought in to save the day at a concert where the headliners were the biggest act in the country (Mac) and a singer with a #1 album (Browne). The presence of the Grateful Dead sold a huge rush of tickets, with Deadheads traveling from all over, as was their usual practice. The rock world, and even the regular world, suddenly found out that not only were the Grateful Dead still together, their fans could out-draw Fleetwood Mac. Up until then, most people had no idea.

A photo of the crowd at the US Festival, September 5, 1982 (from Rolling Stone)

Breakfast With The Grateful Dead
Graham's crafty innovation was to have the Grateful Dead open Sunday's show at 9:30am. The Sunday concert had been scheduled to start at noon, but that left the whole morning open. Much was made of the fact that the Dead had graciously agreed to open, rather than insisting on being first or second on the bill. At the time (and no doubt still), the order of the concert was a critical part of contract negotiation. Fleetwood Mac surely had it in their contract that they had to headline and close the show. The fact that the Dead were willing to save the day and forego the headline was a true outlier. According to David Davis, the Dead were paid $100,000 to open the show, an enormous sum at the time, and the band's first six-figure payday since headlining a drag strip  in Englishtown, NJ on September 3, 1977.

It also went without saying that Deadheads who only wanted to see the Dead would arrive the night before and camp out, or simply arrive early in the morning, and not have to wait through some opening acts. From a Deadhead perspective, this made the US Festival gig an attractive concert. Also, as showtime got nearer, it was plain that it was going to be a scorching hot day, so seeing the Dead in the morning, and then beating the traffic out of the facility was going to be an appealing proposition. Ticket sales for Sunday, per Graham, boomed. Bill introduced the band by saying "Breakfast With The Grateful Dead" and the band played two full sets. Jerry Jeff Walker had the unlikely role of following the Dead at a concert. 

One little-noticed fact about the Grateful Dead's appearance at the US Festival was that it may be one of the last times that the Grateful Dead performed a full concert without using their own sound system. While I'm sure they brought their own stage gear, as did every other band, they would have been playing through the festival's system. Now, the band trusted Graham, and he must have given appropriate assurances that the house system would be up to the task, but it's still a very rare occurrence after 1971 or so. The last "Festival" I can think of the Dead playing was in Kingston, Jamaica a few months later (November 25, 1982), and I assume they did not ship their entire system overseas. If anyone can shed light on the Dead's last performance not on their own system, please note them in the Comments. 

I have to assume that one of the attractions to the Grateful Dead to opening the show, rather than, say, second-to-last, was relatively unlimited time before the show to get the sound right. I don't doubt that Dan Healy and the crew left nothing to chance, and having all night to do it would have been far more appealing than a 30-minute set change after Jackson Browne. In Jesse Jarnow's excellent Deadcast episode about Watkins Glen (July 28 '73), he recounts the story about how the sensitive issue of who would close the show was resolved when Garcia unexpectedly insisted on opening the show, so the Dead would have time to "figure out the sound". As it happened, the Dead had provided the sound system for Watkins Glen, but the fact that they wanted to open saved some sort of summit with Allman Brothers management. Graham probably recalled that meeting (he was there), and would have had the foresight to make the same pitch.

How Did The US Festival Fail?
The US Festival is generally seen as a failure, though you can evaluate it by any standard you like. Gina Arnold's detailed assessment is the best analysis that I know of, but she has a much broader focus than this blog post. A few points of failure are notable:

The US Festival lost $12 million, even including the more focused four-day festival in May 1983. It cost around $40 million to stage, so that's a whopping loss. Of course, by his own accounting, Steve Wozniak had more money than he could ever spend, so he didn't really care. Importantly, however, his massive loss discouraged any other entrepreneurs from trying a giant festival for another decade or so.

• Attendance for all three days in 1982 was around 400,000. A ticket for all three days was $37.50, the equivalent of $113 in 2022. Keep in mind, however, that while it may seem that tickets were underpriced by our standards, all fans had the alternative to see the US Festival bands throughout the year at 1982 prices, so charging up wasn't going to increase attendance. This too would have been an disincentive to promote another such festival, since ticket prices couldn't have been doubled in this era. 
  
• The 1983 edition of the US Festival (May 28-30 and June 4 '83) was a four-day event with musical "themes" for the bookings. There was an implicit assumption that fewer people were coming for the whole thing. There was a New Wave day (May 28, headlined by The Clash), a Heavy Metal day (May 29, headlined by Van Halen), a Rock day (May 31, headlined by David Bowie and Stevie Nicks) and finally a Country day (Saturday, June 4, headlined by Willie Nelson). Attendance for the 4 days was 670,000. It is not clear to me if the total losses for the two festivals was $12 million, or if both lost $12 million apiece, but I think it was the former. 

The US Festival was supposed to be a "cultural happening," and it was just a big rock concert out at the edge of Los Angeles. The fact that it is rarely written about these days, or even recalled on Twitter, is a sign that it had no cultural impact. Wozniak didn't mind spending his $40 million, but he wanted something memorable to come out of it, and nothing did.

• In 1969, the most devoted of rock fans were about 15 to 23 years old, as they would have been 10 to 18 when the Beatles performed on Ed Sullivan in 1964. By 1982, those same people were 28 to 36. Sure, there were a lot of younger rock fans, but they didn't necessarily have $37.50. Thirty-somethings with jobs just weren't that likely to spend 3 days camping next to the desert. In any case, many of them had probably been to California Jam I (April 6, 1974) or II (March 18, 1978) and probably had no desire to re-live the experience, regardless of who was booked. 

No one recalls the principal spectacle of the 1983 US Festival, described by Arnold in great detail. Part of the US Festival was broadcast to the Soviet Union, as 500 selected Russian viewers saw Men At Work perform. A sort of video-conference was hosted between the Soviets and some American students, and the description, well, here's a taste:

• "Afterward, on the US Festival site a group of carefully screened students took part in a staged "conversation" which was also broadcast live on the US Festival and the Russian screens. Incredibly, included in the front row were a Native American dressed in full war paint and feathers (in a twisted way, does this foreshadow Coachella's obsession with headdresses?) and several African American concertgoers pulled from the crowd and placed specially in the front rows of the broadcasting tent" (Arnold p.69)
• Also, there was a fake UFO dangled over the crowd by a helicopter. Everyone's forgotten it all now. I think the UFO would have gone over better the year before, when the Dead were there, but perhaps that's just me?

How Did The US Festival Succeed?
Yet for all its massive loss of money, and unrealized dreams, The US Festival was a success in several significant ways. These successes were mostly noted by the music industry and other professionals, rather than cultural historians. Thus the ultimate output of the US Festival was a variety of commercial considerations. 

Though it lost money, the US Festival was a successful concert. This may seem a paradox, but although the US Festival lost an unthinkable amount of money, it was a huge outdoor event with giant crowds. Music was played, bands got paid, the sound system worked and there were no significant problems with the crowd. A promoter could see that the economics had to be resolved, but a large-scale multi-day concert was now technically viable. 

• It took a couple of decades for the economics to reach scale. As near as I can tell, a concert like Bonnaroo has a capacity of just 85,000 but ticket prices ranging from $350-$900 (for 2023). People will now pay that much for an event, so a huge outdoor event can be perpetually profitable. 
• Alternately, fully sponsored events can be universally free and yet accommodate enormous crowds. The best example is San Francisco's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, financed by (now late) billionaire Warren Hellman, an aspiring banjo player himself. Between Hellman and numerous sponsors, the costs of the three days of concerts in Golden Gate Park are fully subsidized. Gina Arnold writes at length about how HSB was a result of an evolution from the Grateful Dead playing for free in the San Francisco Panhandle, to Woodstock, to the US Festival and ultimately to Hardly Strictly.

Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America, by Jesse Jarnow (2016: Da Capo Press)

• The actual economics of huge outdoor festivals is a separate matter, best covered in Jesse Jarnow's book Heads. Jarnow tracks the underground psychedelic economy from Golden Gate Park, to Woodstock and then to the likes of Bonnaroo, capturing a continuum that mirrors Arnold's reflection on crowds. 

The Music Industry discovered that the Grateful Dead were a guaranteed draw. The rock concert industry exploded throughout the 1980s, but as the stakes got higher promoters were risking a lot on bands whose success depended on their next record. At the same time, some of the most popular bands hardly toured. 

• The Grateful Dead, meanwhile, toured hard all year around, every year, and always drew a huge crowd. The Dead didn't even release albums for much of the 80s, so their continued success was not predicated on a new hit album. Also, unlike almost every other band, fans did not tire of them when they had seen them the year before. Groups like Pink Floyd or the Rolling Stones drew huge crowds, but only once every few years.
• The US Festival gave notice to the concert industry that Deadheads would show up anywhere, whether in the blazing sun on Sunday morning or on a rainy Tuesday in Chicago, without advertising and with no new album. Concert promoters noted that the Grateful Dead were bailing out the US Festival, even when their record sales in the previous few years had been dwarfed by most of the other acts on the bill. The Grateful Dead's inexorable rise to concert prominence was triggered in no small part by the 1982 US Festival. 

An ad for the 1982 US Festival shows the location of the Technology Exposition, Beer Tents and other amenities. Note that the Grateful Dead are not yet billed in the this version of the ad.

The US Festival was the literal birthplace of MacWorld, a perpetual feature celebrated in lucrative conferences from 1985-2009. Arnold's book details how the US Festival was the very first one. 

• Arnold points out that the "Technology Exposition" (in the map above, the Technology Expo was #17, far behind the stage), which consisted of five tents, was the only air-conditioned location on the site. With brutal 95-degree weather, of course people found time to browse the exhibits. But it's important to note that the employed, 30-something rock fans were exactly the potential buyers for new technology, and manufacturers were eager to get in front of them. The US Festival Technology Expo was the direct inspiration for the MacWorld conference, in San Francisco. Comdex, in Las Vegas, had started in 1979, but it too boomed during the same period.

Huge outdoor concerts were easily leveraged for merchandise and food. There was a beer tent and plenty of food available at the US Festival. In fact, the Bill Graham Presents team modeled Shoreline Amphitheater on the US Festival grounds. Shoreline would open in Summer '86, and was designed to use a rock concert to extract the maximum amount of money from Silicon Valley residents at every event. If you know Shoreline, you'll see that the US Festival map looks familiar.

Notes On The Acts: Sunday, September 5
The Grateful Dead were added to the bill for Sunday, September 5. They opened the show at 9:30am. Based on the schedule in the ad (Sunday is shown as 10am-6pm), Graham probably always intended to add another act, but probably did not expect to need to add one of the Dead's stature. As noted, it was fortunate that the Dead did not insist on rock star prerogative and were willing to open the Sunday show.

By 1982, Fleetwood Mac were one of the biggest rock acts in the world, blasted into the stratosphere by their 1975 album Fleetwood Mac and its successor, Rumors. It had been followed by Tusk and now by Mirage, which had been released in July 1982. Mirage would reach #41 on Billboard. The hit single was "Hold Me," which would reach #4.

As all sentient rock fans know, this era of Fleetwood Mac had Lindsay Buckingham on guitar and vocals, Stevie Nicks on vocals, Christine McVie on keyboards and vocals, John McVie on bass and Mick Fleetwood on drums. Guitar tech Ray Lindsey would add guitar on a few numbers. As it happened, Fleetwood Mac in its original incarnation had plenty of ties with the Grateful Dead.

When Fleetwood Mac had first come to the States in June 1968, they had been booked to play with the Dead at the Carousel, but they were delayed by visa problems (the Mac would debut in LA, at the Shrine). A few members of Fleetwood Mac did manage to hang out with the Dead when they were in San Francisco. The next time through town, in January, 1969, some members of Mac made a pilgrimage to Marin County to jam with the Grateful Dead. Thanks to a detailed account from soundman Stuart "Dinky" Dawson, the date can be triangulated to January 13, 1969. Guitarist Peter Green, McVie and Fleetwood came to Novato to jam some blues with Garcia and Pigpen. Pig, rather surprisingly, played piano.

In 1970, Fleetwood Mac were finally on the same show with the Grateful Dead, at The Warehouse, in New Orleans, LA, on the weekend of January 30-31, 1970. On Friday night (Jan 30) Mick Fleetwood recalled declining an invitation to an after-show party in the Dead's hotel rooms, which was fortunate. The Grateful Dead were busted down on Bourbon Street, but members of the Mac were not involved. The Dead and Fleetwood Mac then played an additional show on Sunday night (February 1), and Peter Green joined the Dead on stage.

A few weeks later, the Dead were booked at Fillmore East with the Allman Brothers, while Fleetwood Mac was touring the Northeast as well. The Mac had a big Friday night show at Madison Square Garden, opening for Sly and The Family Stone on February 13. But they were free on Wednesday, February 11, which is how Fleetwood Mac joined the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers for an epic jam on the Fillmore East show. Hearing Garcia, Duane Allman and Peter Green trading licks on "Turn On Your Lovelight" was rock music at its most incendiary. 

By 1982, of course, Fleetwood Mac were bigger than they ever could have dreamed, Peter Green and Pigpen weren't around, the Allman Brothers Band had broken up and things weren't at all the same. Still--Fleetwood Mac and the Grateful Dead were at least on the same stage again, even if there wasn't an after show party.

Jackson Browne was another '60s character who had finally hit it big. His Asylum Records album Hold Out had been released in 1980 and reached #1. He had scuffled around as a songwriter in the 1960s, before he began his thriving solo career in 1971. Browne was an excellent performer, with a crack road band, even if maestro David Lindley had set out on his own with his band El Rayo-X. Neither Browne nor any members of his band (Rick Vito and Danny Kortchmar-guitar, Craig Doerge-keyboards, Bob Glaub-bass, Russ Kunkel-drums, Doug Haywood-vocals) had ever shared a stage with the Grateful Dead.

Jimmy Buffett's 1977 album Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes on ABC Records included his biggest hit, "Margaritaville." It was produced by Norbert Putnam, who had also produced The Adventures of Panama Red album for the New Riders of The Purple Sage.

Jimmy Buffett had been more or less a country singer, but he had added a unique Florida twist. His albums and singles were successful, but he had an enthusiastically loyal audience. Buffett (1946-2023), born in Mississippi, had a typical Nashville country singer resume when he had first visited the Florida Keys in late 1971. He promptly moved to Key West, FL, merging his country songwriting with his relaxed beach-bum persona and southern music. Buffett wrote country songs, but his Coral Reefer Band played them with a Caribbean overlay on his honky-tonk sound, and it was a successful combination. Pretty much all of America now knows what it means to be wasting away in Margaritaville. Buffett's January 1982 album Somewhere Over China, his tenth (or twelfth, depending) would reach #31. 

Besides his record sales, Buffett's fan base was extraordinarily loyal, and seeing Buffett over and over. Somewhere along the way, Buffett figured out that the Grateful Dead model made more sense for him than the Nashville model, and he focused his touring and recording on his fan base rather than for the general public. In 1985, Coral Reefer Band bassist Tim Schmidt (ex-Poco, ex-Eagles) would dub them "Parrot Heads," and the name stuck. Similar to the Dead, it was only decades later that the general music public caught on to Buffett's economic model and corresponding success. Buffett made no secret of his emulation of the Grateful Dead, often ending his ever-popular concerts with "Uncle John's Band."

At the time of the US Festival, the Coral Reefer Band was likely Michael Utley (keyboards), Barry Chance (Lead guitar), Josh Leo (guitar), Harry Dailey (bass), Matt Betton (drums), Ralph McDonald (percussion), Sam Clayton (congas, ex-Little Feat) and Greg "Fingers" Taylor (harmonica). Most of them had extensive studio credits with various artists.

Jerry Jeff Walker's 1968 solo debut for Atco Records included "Mr Bojangles"

Jerry Jeff Walker was the least known artist on the Sunday night bill, and probably the least known artist of the entire 1982 US Festival. Everyone associates Jerry Jeff with the Austin, TX "outlaw" country music scene. Indeed, he was one of the first to move there, around 1972, and was critical in encouraging the likes of Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings to join him. Jerry Jeff Walker, however, had a rather different back-story than you might expect for an Austin country music outlaw. 

The back cover of Circus Maximus' 1967 Vanguard lp. Ex-Greenwich Village folkie Jerry [Jeff] Walker was lead singer and principal songwriter for the psychedelic band.

Jerry Jeff Walker (1942-2020) was born Ronald Crosby in upstate Oneonta, NY. In the 1960s he had started using the names Jeff Ferriss and Jerry Walker, and he was one of many Greenwich Village folk musicians. Like many folkies, he "went electric" in 1967, although Vanguard insisted that his band the Lost Sea Dreamers change their name to Circus Maximus. They had released two albums in '67 and '68. When they split up, Jerry Walker went solo as Jerry Jeff Walker, generally accompanied by guitarist David Bromberg, another folkie (from upstate Tarrytown, NY). Jerry Jeff wrote his classic "Mr Bojangles" song about a man he had met in 1965 inside the New Orleans drunk tank (according to Bromberg, Jerry Jeff was "doing research").

A modestly successful solo career followed. "Mr Bojangles" was covered regularly, with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's version reaching #9 in 1971. Most importantly for this day, however, Jerry Jeff was the first one to take Jimmy Buffett to the Florida Keys in 1971. Walker's style also seems to have been influential to Buffett's music, but the drive to Key West had been the turning point for Buffett. In 1982, Walker was recording on MCA, just like Buffett (probably thanks to Jimmy, too), and had released Cowjazz, his last album until 1987. Walker had been in the Coral Reefer Band at various times, and probably joined Buffett during his set.

The Grateful Dead opened the Sunday show at the 1982 US Festival. They had formed in 1965, changing their name to the Grateful Dead by 1966. They recorded several albums for Warner Brothers Records, and then their own label, but by 1982 they were on Arista Records. Their most recent record had been  the double-live album Dead Set, which had been released in August 1981 and would reach #29 on the Billboard charts.

Appendix: The US Festival Site, Glen Helen Regional Park, Devore, CA
Steve Wozniak paid for the bulldozing and construction of a new open-air field venue as well as the construction of an enormous state-of-the-art temporary stage at Glen Helen Regional Park near Devore, San Bernardino, California, just south of the junction of Interstates 15 and 215. This site was later to become home to Blockbuster Pavilion, now Glen Helen Amphitheater (the largest amphitheater in the United States as of 2007). The festival stage has resided at Disneyland in Anaheim since 1985, and has operated under various names and functions as the Videopolis dance club, the Videopolis Theatre, and the Fantasyland Theater.

March 7, 1982 The Saddle Rack, San Jose, CA: Jerry Garcia Band KFAT Fat Fry (FM XIX)

 

Patrons at the Saddle Rack in San Jose, ca 2001

March 7, 1982 The Saddle Rack, San Jose, CA: Jerry Garcia Band KFAT Fat Fry (FM XIX)
Melvin Seals played organ in the Jerry Garcia Band from 1981 until 1995, playing with Garcia for several hundred shows.  Yet Seals was only on a Garcia radio broadcast a single time, on KFAT-fm from Gilroy, CA, recorded at an Urban Cowboy bar called The Saddle Rack, in San Jose. The entire time that Seals played with Garcia, both Garcia and the Grateful Dead became a greater and greater attraction. Yet Garcia radio broadcasts became a thing of the past, so Melvin only participated in that single one. In many ways, the early '82 period showed the Jerry Garcia Band at a crossroads, on the verge of separating itself from any normal part of the 20th century music industry. This post will examine how the Jerry Garcia Band not only came to play the Saddle Rack--a Silicon Valley joint that nonetheless had live, actual bulls in a stockade--but to see how it came to be broadcast on the radio.

Jerry Garcia Band: Status Report, 1982
In 1982, the Grateful Dead were not in a good financial way. Their concerts were still fairly lucrative, but they were carrying a lot of staff and had expensive gear, so profits were probably not high. Their record sales had cratered, too, so royalties were not adding to the bottom line. Songwriters would still be getting a little money, but with record sales down, their fortunes were not swelling. Also, by the early 1980s, none of the Grateful Dead or their extended family wanted to live commune style on an old ranch. They all wanted a somewhat middle class life in a house with their family members and a car that worked, so their expectations of what was a reasonable to receive as compensation would have been higher than it was a dozen years earlier. The Grateful Dead members, crew and staff were generally hurting for cash. 

The Jerry Garcia Band had gigged steadily throughout 1981, ending their year with a substantial Eastern tour in November. In late December, the Jerry Garcia Band had started recording at Club Front, and they would continue recording through February, in between some Grateful Dead shows. The JGB played just a few shows in early 1982, two at the Old Waldorf, two at the Catalyst in Santa Cruz, and five at the various Keystones (Berkeley, Palo Alto and The Stone). On Wednesday, March 3, the band had played an afternoon show at a tiny (300 capacity) room at San Francisco State. 

Unknown to most fans at the time (certainly unknown to me), "Jerry Garcia Band" was not just a name under which a band was booked, but a corporate partnership between Garcia, John Kahn and Ron Tutt, dating back to 1975. Originally the LLC had included pianist Nicky Hopkins, but he had been written out when he left the group at the end of '75. The Jerry Garcia Band had released one album, the poorly-received Cats Under The Stars on Arista. Tutt had stopped performing with the band before the album was even released, and I don't know whether this was directly related to the death of Tutt's other employer, Elvis Presley. Buzz Buchanan and then others had taken over the drum chair in the meantime.

The Fall '81 Jerry Garcia Band tour had stood out not least because Ron Tutt had returned to the band on drums. I can remember calling the Grateful Dead Hotline and hearing (I think) Steve Marcus announce the tour as "The Return of Ronnie Tutt." Drummer Daoud Shaw had left the band at the end of the Summer, Bill Kreutzmann had briefly filled in, and Tutt came on board for the big East Coast tour. When Garcia had returned to the stage, however, for three Keystone shows in December, 1981, I asked someone who went and he assured me that Kreutzmann had played drums. Did this mean Billy was just the filler for local gigs, or that Tutt was out of the band? In retrospect, it looks like Kreutzmann was just intended as a fill-in drummer for local gigs, but Tutt ultimately left the group without making any more live appearances with the Jerry Garcia Band.

Run For The Roses Sessions at Le Club Front
The Jerry Garcia Band still existed as a company, and it appears that Garcia and Kahn were bringing back Tutt in order to record. There were Club Front sessions intermittently between September 1981 and February 1982. Tutt played on the tracks that were released on Run For The Roses, but I don't know exactly when he was recording. Given that Bill Kreutzmann drummed for the Garcia Band in September and December 1981, its possible that Bill had some involvement in the sessions, but more likely in a rehearsal role.

The Run For The Roses album would not be released until Fall 1982, and the release was confusing to fans. We now know that while 5 of the tracks were recorded in 1981, two of them were 1974 outtakes from Compliments Of Garcia. That wasn't clear from the album credits, however, and to contemporary record buyers (like me) it had appeared that Merl Saunders had been invited to Garcia Band sessions, even though he hadn't played with Garcia since Reconstruction in 1979. It is difficult to explain how little information there was about the Jerry Garcia Band at the time. A few insiders may have known (or figured out) that Roses included two outtakes from the prior album, but it was largely unknown when the record came out.

Based on a Jake Feinberg interview with Melvin Seals from just a few years ago, it appears that Ron Tutt was surprised at what bad shape Garcia was in. Now, sure, Tutt was no innocent, and he had toured with Elvis, so he wasn't naive about the pressure on rock stars. Certainly the Garcia of 1975 through 1977 hadn't adhered to any kind of clean living. But Tutt was still surprised, and did not stick around. As far as I can tell, Tutt did perform on the October tour, and recorded the basic tracks (probably in 1981), but had left the band by the beginning of 1982. I assume that the release of Run For The Roses as a "Jerry Garcia Band" album was the vehicle for Tutt exiting the partnership with Garcia and Kahn. 

For the purposes of this post, however, it's important to remember that in the Spring of 1982, Garcia was still looking to make a viable proposition out of the Jerry Garcia Band as a recording and performing entity in line with the music industry orthodoxy of the time. The Garcia Band was recording an album for a major label, and was at least thinking about how they might present the album to the record-buying public.

Jerry Garcia FM Broadcasts
Live FM broadcasts were an essential part of the Grateful Dead's history, and their Fall 1971 tour was an integral component in making the band a long-lasting phenomenon. Most early 70s bands (or their management, anyway), wrung their hands in anxiety that any FM broadcast might create a bootleg LP. The Dead, while no fans of bootlegs, nonetheless benefited hugely from the bootleg phenomenon. For major market FM broadcasts, however, the critical component was a record company willing to compensate the radio station for lost advertising time. Warner Brothers had shown themselves willing to do that in 1971, and the Dead--and Deadheads--had been the beneficiaries.

The Jerry Garcia ensembles of the early 1970s did not have the backing of any major record company. Yet Garcia managed to play on the radio anyway, due to a combination of the unique conventions of Bay Area rock radio, and Garcia's own willingness to appear live on the air. KSAN-fm regularly broadcast live shows, mostly from local studios, and some other stations followed suit. So the Garcia-Saunders ensemble and Old And In The Way had appeared live somewhat regularly around the Bay Area, thanks to these practices.

Another Bay Area practice, probably somewhat related to KSAN's habits, was that local college stations also broadcast shows live. Stanford's station KZSU, for example, just had a 10-watt signal that could  only be heard on campus and in Palo Alto, but Garcia was willing to allow broadcasts on the station (not surprising, when you find out that Garcia had been broadcast live on KZSU since 1963). Old And In The Way also had some broadcasts on other local college stations, in a nod to the post-WW2 tradition of bluegrass bands. So even without record company backing, live Garcia was not without a presence of FM radio.

Once Garcia became a solo artist on Arista Records, the Jerry Garcia Band had a live FM broadcast in Washington DC on March 18, 1978. I assume that Arista supported this, even though the 1978 show was prior to the release of Cats Under The Stars. I think Clive Davis had a long enough view to see that Garcia's appeal was over a long period of time, so he made sure there was a broadcast.

KFAT-fm, 94.5 Gilroy, CA
The Jerry Garcia Band show from the Saddle Rack in San Jose was recorded on March 7, 1982, and broadcast on KFAT-fm, out of Gilroy, CA, as part of an ongoing series called The Fat Fry. The tale of KFAT is hard to imagine these days, and I can only sketch it out. Suffice to say, the KFAT Fat Fry appealed to fans in the range of KSAN and the Bay Area tradition of live rock broadcasts, and it was largely self-supporting. Thus a band did not require support from their record company. My guess is that the Garcia Band was offered a lucrative gig at the Saddle Rack, in return for allowing the show to be broadcast throughout San Jose and the South Bay. Unlike many acts, FM broadcasts were always fine with Garcia. It would have been a good paying show and broadcasting was normal for him. Who knew that it would be the last live broadcast of a Jerry Garcia Band show?

The Keystone Palo Alto broadcast a live show on KFAT every Monday night back in the late 70s and early 80s, as part of The Fat Fry. KFAT was a legendary psychedelic country station in then-tiny Gilroy, CA (pre-Cisco Systems), whose story is too bizarre to believe (read it and weep--radio was like this once, but only once). Every Monday night a local live attraction would play the Keystone Palo Alto and their first set would be broadcast on KFAT, audible all over the South Bay, and even in South Berkeley if you were lucky. To some extent, this was to advertise the bands themselves, and to some extent this was to promote the Keystone Palo Alto.

KFAT broadcast a quirky mix of country, blues, old-timey music, raunchy comedy, bluegrass, Hawaiian, and whatever struck the fancy of the disc jockey. It was on the air from mid-1975 to January 1983 at 94.5 FM. From high atop Mt. Loma Prieta (site of the famous 1989 earthquake) near San Jose, its signal reached to the edge San Francisco to south of Monterey and east to the Sierra Nevada mountains. Some of the original KFAT staff carries on the tradition (updated for the 21st Century) at KPIG in Freedom, CA (107-oink-5 fm). KFAT wasn't really audible in San Francisco, and reception was sketchy in South Berkeley (and non-existent further North). So the real audience was the greater San Jose, Santa Cruz and Monterey areas, back before the area was dominated by well-off Silicon Valley suburbs. It wasn't exactly rural--although there were some farms and ranches--but it wasn't really suburban either. 

On December 5, 1977, the headliner for the second-ever Monday Fat Fry had been Robert Hunter and Comfort. They brought along Bob Matthews and Betty Cantor (Hunter name-checked them from the stage) to ensure a great sound. They performed a complete version of Hunter's "Alligator Moon" suite. Since Hunter never allowed the Comfort version of the suite to be released, the live Fat Fry version remains the definitive recording. As at any Fat Fry from that era, the first set was broadcast, and Hunter encourages the listening audience to come down to Keystone Palo Alto for the second set. So the Dead family, if not actually Garcia, was familiar with the Fat Fry, and must have been positively disposed.

A promotional belt buckle for KEEN, San Jose (1370am). "Country Music 24 Hours A Day"

San Jose and The San Jose Country Music Scene
San Jose had initially been a medium-sized California city, but in the 1960s it underwent explosive growth. At a time when San Francisco's population growth was capped by geographic limitations, the flat plain of the Santa Clara Valley was custom-made for suburbs. San Jose boomed, and the suburban cities around it (Santa Clara, Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Campbell and others) expanded as well. Given that the city was full of teenagers, its no surprise that San Jose had a thriving rock scene in the 1960s, even if much of it was somewhat self-contained. Certainly the Grateful Dead and all the other San Francisco bands regularly played outdoor and indoor shows in San Jose, because it was too lucrative not to. 

Comparative Population (Census Data)
Census    San Francisco    San Jose
1960        740,316             204,196
1970        715,674             459,913
1980        678,974             629,400
1990        723,959             782,248
2019        881,547            1,019,995

Come the 1970s, however, while San Jose was bigger than ever, the rock market had regionalized. Rock promotions were focused on San Francisco and Berkeley, mostly at shows promoted by Bill Graham Presents. Rock fans from San Jose or the nearby suburbs had to expect to get in their cars (or their parents' cars) and drive to Winterland, Berkeley Community Theater or Oakland Coliseum to see big rock shows. There were a few venues in San Jose, but there weren't that many memorable rock shows. 

As far as the 1970s went, Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead had each played a show at the San Jose Civic Auditorium in 1972, the Jerry Garcia Band had played Cupertino in 1975 and the Grateful Dead had played the San Jose State football stadium in 1979, but that was about it. Jerry Garcia and The Grateful Dead had played Palo Alto and Stanford in the 70s, so San Jose Deadheads had some opportunities, but Palo Alto wasn't San Jose, and everybody knew it.

By 1982, San Jose was not only booming, it was getting wealthy. The early harvests of microprocessors had made Silicon Valley increasingly prosperous. It is a long-forgotten fact that the original coinage of "Silicon Valley" was a play on the Santa Clara Valley. The Santa Clara Valley had been a prosperous agricultural area since the mid-19th century, and up through the 1960s, San Jose had basically been a farm town. All of the farms and ranches throughout the greater South Bay bought their feed and tractors in San Jose. The Bay Area's biggest country radio station was KEEN-1370-AM, out of San Jose. When Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia talk about hearing country music on the radio growing up, they were talking about KEEN. As far as the Bay Area was concerned, San Jose was a farm town, and a big city like San Francisco or a college town like Palo Alto was always going to look down on San Jose. San Jose got no cultural respect from anywhere else in the Bay Area, and once rock music became "Art," that was true of rock as well. 

Don Cox, owner of Cowtown in San Jose, had a local hit with "Crazy Gringo" in 1976

As it happened, however, and not surprisingly, San Jose was the heartbeat of a thriving country music scene since at least World War 2. Not only was there KEEN, but there were numerous venues and bars for country and honky tonk music. This was true well into the 1970s. Among the biggest country music venues in San Jose was Cowtown, at 1584 Almaden, opened in the late 1950s by local country singer Don Cox. Cowtown had a house band, playing music for dancing and sometimes backing visiting country stars. Cowtown was open on Almaden up through the early 80s, and when it closed Cox re-branded his other joint, Sam's Club (over on Monterey Road), as Cowtown, and the successor stayed open until 1988.

In fact, there were a few Grateful Dead connections to Cowtown. In the early 1970s, one of the regular pedal steel guitarists in the house band was Bobby Black. The story goes that Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen heard Black--they may have been booked at Cowtown--and were so impressed that they ended up hiring him in 1972. In 1978, Black would spend a year in the New Riders of The Purple Sage, after Buddy Cage quit (and before Cage returned). Black was a fine steel player, with a more pronounced Western Swing style than Cage. It was Black on pedal steel with the Riders when they opened for the Grateful Dead on the night Winterland closed, New Year's Eve 1978.

A more intriguing Cowtown connection, however, involved Garcia's old pal Peter Grant. According to Grant, back in '64 or so, when Grant and Garcia were in the Black Mountain Boys together (Grant on dobro, Garcia on banjo), they were driving around in Garcia's Corvair when they hear Buck Owens' new hit "Together Again," with the great pedal steel ride by the Buckaroos' Tom Brumley. Both Grant and Garcia agreed on the spot that they each had to learn pedal steel. Although Garcia had bought a Fender pedal steel in 1967, he sold it because he couldn't keep it in tune, so Grant had learned the instrument first. It was Grant that played pedal steel on "Rosemary" on Aoxomoxoa. 

By April 1969, however, Garcia had bought a Zane Beck Double-Ten (ZB10) pedal steel at Guitar City in Lakewood, CO. He had started to play it with John Dawson, then the Grateful Dead and then the New Riders. He also played some sessions on some rock albums, including the Jefferson Airplane's Volunteers and "Teach Your Children" by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. By 1970, the New Riders were turning into a serious enterprise, and for his own Garcia-reasons, Jerry bought a new Emmons DB 10. So--being Jerry--he called up Grant and asked him if he wanted his earlier one. Grant owned a pedal steel guitar, but it wasn't nearly as good as the ZB10 that Garcia was moving on from, so he gladly said yes.

Peter Grant and Jerry Garcia's old ZB10 Pedal Steel Guitar at Cowtown in San Jose, ca 1974

By the mid-70s, Peter Grant was a regular member of the house band at Cowtown. Grant was a full-time musician, and though he went on tour once in a while (with Hoyt Axton, for example), he lived in San Jose and his main gig was Cowtown. And so it came to pass that Jerry Garcia's legendary ZB10 was live at 1584 Almaden Avenue in San Jose at a honky tonk bar many nights of the week in the mid-70s, just as it was intended. Garcia never played Cowtown, but his steel guitar was regularly in the house. 

The Saddle Rack opened on August 13, 1976, at Lincoln and Auzerais Avenues, near downtown. Unexpected as it may have seemed, in the heart of early Silicon Valley, it was a savvy move to open a Cowboy bar in urban San Jose. True, San Jose had not really been a Feed And Seed hub for some years, and many of the former orchards in San Jose were now housing developments. Thanks to San Jose's inferiority complex towards Palo Alto and San Francisco, however, the city was an attractive place to live for the kind of guy who worked in a factory and liked Merle Haggard. 

It's largely forgotten now that the first wave of Silicon Valley, from the early 60s onward, was oriented towards manufacturing. There were a lot of factories, and the men and women who worked there didn't have advanced degrees from Stanford. When that bell rang at 5:00pm, they wanted a cold one, dim lights, thick smoke and loud, loud music. The Saddle Rack hit the mark, and was an instant hit. The 1980 Urban Cowboy movie, with John Travolta, captured this dynamic in Texas a few years later, but it was already in full force at the Saddle Rack.

According to a 2001 Fare-Thee-Well retrospective of the Saddle Rack in the San Jose Metro, Travolta's Urban Cowboy movie supercharged the atmosphere at the Rack. The club's manager said "At the time the movie came out, it moved from a little country bar into a massive, and I mean massive, country bar." The Saddle Rack had a mechanical bull, and for a year or two, they even had some real ones. Yes--it's possible that the Jerry Garcia Band played a live concert in a room with real actual bulls:

[owner Hank] Guenther turned up the cowboy mystique when he incorporated a bull pen--yes, live bulls--in the back corner, where the dance floor closest to the bathroom now stands, around 1982. The story sounds familiar. On a busy Thursday night [in 2001], Patty Gergel, 22 and a recent graduate of San Jose State University, tells her group of friends that she heard a rumor about the bulls. 

"They got loose and started running on 280," she tells her sorority sisters.
"Shut up!" one of them screams. 

"It ran on Meridian [Avenue], not 280," says [manager Andy] Buchanan, clarifying the rumor later that night. 

Was it all the bulls?
"Just one. It jumped over a 10-foot fence. That was amazing to see. An 1,800-pound bull jumping the fence." 

An automobile traveling on Meridian hit the bull and ended its spree of freedom. The bull arena didn't last much longer and in 1984, after their insurance company said they wouldn't cover it, Guenther shut it down. These days, the mechanical bull is one of the largest draws, with many just-turned-21, it's-my-birthday gonzos tanked on liquid courage lining up for a crack at it. (Wednesday bull riders pay $1; Thursday is free and Fridays and Saturdays is $2.)

More importantly for our story, however, was that the Saddle Rack became a live venue. San Jose had no nightclubs booking original music at the time (notwithstanding The Bodega in the nearby suburb of Campbell), at least not on any level beyond local bands. Somewhere around 1981, the Saddle Rack took over from the Keystone Palo Alto as the sponsor of the Fat Fry. In 1981, the Saddle Rack was a big, booming operation and the financial arrangement was probably better for the bands. In any case, San Jose was right in the center of KFAT's audience, even if Palo Alto had a bigger irony quotient. More from the Metro:

Beginning in 1981, the Saddle Rack hosted live shows and concerts featuring singers and rockers--heavy metal and country--on the way up and on the way down, Buchanan says. Over the years, they've booked such acts as James Brown, B.B. King, Garth Brooks, Huey Lewis, Roy Orbison, the Charlie Daniels Band, Johnny Cash, Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn, Martina McBride and an all-star roster of other bands and singers. And it's not all Texas-style bragging. Inside Guenther's office, just like in the movie where Wes attempts to rob Gilley's (which inspired Guenther's Rack), wood-framed photos of celebrity singers line the faux wood-paneled walls.

Recap: The Jerry Garcia Band at The Saddle Rack, San Jose, CA March 7, 1982
The Jerry Garcia Band played an Urban Cowboy bar, perhaps for the only time. There was a mechanical bull in the house, and just maybe a couple of real ones. It was perhaps Garcia's only direct nod to the country tradition in San Jose, even if Jerry himself hardly thought about it. Garcia had played a fair amount in San Jose in the 60s, but despite the increasing size and importance of the city in subsequent decades, it remained outside the Garcia and Grateful Dead orbit (save for a Jerry Garcia Band show at the Events Center in San Jose State University on April 25, 1992, capacity 7400).

The Saddle Rack show was the last Jerry Garcia Band live broadcast, and I believe his last non-Grateful Dead live broadcast of any kind. I taped it myself, in my Berkeley apartment. I was thrilled to get some current Garcia on my cassette deck, of course, but it never occurred to me that it would be the very last one. No doubt, Garcia rocked the house, and everyone was dancing--I wonder if there was any line dancing? It is a latterday Garcia irony that in contrast to most touring bands at the time, Garcia's manager would have been more concerned about the payday for the show--no doubt pretty darn good--and unconcerned about the virtues or defects of performing live on the radio. Garcia, with and without the Dead, had appeared so many times on air by 1982 that he would have had no reservations, and rightly so.

One indeterminate question is whether the show was broadcast live or tape-delayed. KFAT Fat Frys were always on Monday, and March 7, 1982 was a Sunday night. I do know that while the Keystone Palo Alto Fat Fry was always live--artists always encouraged listeners to come on down for the late set--at least some Saddle Rack shows were taped. According to one internet posting, at least once the Saddle Rack had multiple bands that were then broadcast on successive Monday nights over the next few weeks. I myself taped the Garcia Band show, but I no longer recall if it was broadcast or tape-delayed to the next night. I also no longer recall if they only broadcast one set. My guess is that they probably just blasted out one set, since I think I would have recalled an all-night Fat Fry (I long since gave up my original cassette to the four winds).

And as for the Jerry Garcia Band in 1982, its future arcs were unexpected in any number of ways. Run For The Roses was released by Arista in November, 1982, to very little fanfare. Only the title track passed into the regular JGB repertoire, with the rest of the new material fading into obscurity. The covers were unmemorable, including a needless "Knocking On Heaven's Door." Presumably Ron Tutt opted out (or was bought out) of any partnership, and the Jerry Garcia Band would not release any material until a live double cd in 1991. The Jerry Garcia Band retreated into the silo of Grateful Dead fandom, and disassociated itself from the rest of the music industry in almost every way. 

Yet, remarkably, the Jerry Garcia Band thrived against all odds. It wasn't just that the Grateful Dead became huge, massively huge, far beyond the dreams of even the most devoted Deadhead. It was also that, in some strange way, the Jerry Garcia Band was a contrast of sorts to the Dead themselves. Given, of course, the inevitable effect of "The Garcia," the Jerry Garcia Band strove to minimize the trappings of a Grateful Dead concert. The pacing and song choices at JGB shows minimized the raucous drama of Dead shows, and Garcia's own choices de-emphasized his most famous songs. For many years, the Garcia Band never did an encore (before caving in to the inevitable). As a result, many aging Deadheads, myself included, stuck with the Garcia Band long after going emeritus on the full circus of the Grateful Dead themselves. Thus, the Jerry Garcia Band developed into a massive concert attraction, outside the scope of the music industry at the time.

The condominium development at the former site of The Saddle Rack uses the old club as its street name (above: 1390 Saddle Rack St, San Jose, CA)

The Saddle Rack in San Jose closed on August 5, 2001. The site is now a high-density condominium unit. The condo is now located on Saddle Rack Street, which did not exist when the club was there. The club moved to 42011 Boscell Road in Fremont, across the Bay. It continued to thrive for many years, but finally went out to pasture amidst many other closures in May, 2020. 

Two big questions remain about the Jerry Garcia Band's last live broadcast on March 7, 1982 at the Saddle Rack:

• Was the show broadcast live on Sunday night, or delayed until March 8 (Monday)?, and
• Were there live bulls in the house while Garcia played!

Anyone who knows, or thinks they know someone who knows, or has something interesting to say anyway, please suggest it in the Comments

Appendix: Setlist from The Saddle Rack, San Jose, March 7, 1982
I: Sugaree, Catfish John, Valerie, Second That Emotion, Tangled Up In Blue
II: The Harder They Come, Mystery Train, Knockin' On Heaven's Door, Tore Up Over You, Midnight Moonlight

Note: while it is suggested in JerryBase that Dave Torbert played bass this night, no evidence seems to support this claim (unfortunately). Torbert did sit in for the first set in Chico just 10 days later, as John Khan was delayed by fog.

December 31, 1982: Oakland Auditorium Arena, Oakland, CA: The Dinosaurs

My notes from the Dinosaurs' performance in Oakland on December 31, 1982

The December 31, 1982 Grateful Dead show is usually recalled for a variety of reasons. Most prominent of those reasons is the third set, when Etta James and the Tower Of Power horns joined the Dead for a high-energy R&B set that harkened back to the Pigpen era. The 1982 New Year's Eve show was also the last Dead show at the old Oakland Auditorium Arena, before it was upgraded to become the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center. One fact of the show that usually gets overlooked, however, was that it was the only Grateful Dead show where Robert Hunter performed as the opening act. Hunter performed as part of his then-new group The Dinosaurs, which featured veterans of bands that had been the Grateful Dead's peers and rivals in 60s San Francisco. An old arena, an old band, and what was left of their old friends: at the time, enjoyable as the show was, it was a nostalgic look back that in itself would not be repeated. This post will look at Robert Hunter and The Dinosaurs opening set on New Year's Eve 1982/83, in the context of the Grateful Dead's history.

Robert Hunter and The Dinosaurs
Robert Hunter had returned to live performance in late 1975. He had had two bands, Roadhog in 1975 and '76, and Comfort in 1977 and '78. Hunter then scaled back to tour as a duo with bassist Larry Klein, and from 1979 he had toured as a solo artist, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. Comfort, a fine live band, had opened some Jerry Garcia Band shows in the Spring of 1978, and Hunter had opened some Jerry Garcia Band shows as a solo act in 1980. On a 1980 swing through the East Coast, Hunter had not only opened for Garcia, but each night he joined the Garcia Band for two of his own numbers, "Tiger Rose" and "Promontory Rider." Yet Hunter had never performed with or even performed on the same stage as the Grateful Dead. Given that the Grateful Dead didn't have many opening acts in the 1975-82 period, perhaps that is not at all surprising.

In July of 1982, Barry "The Fish" Melton, formerly of Country Joe and The Fish, invited former Big Brother and The Holding Company bassist Peter Albin to play a one-off gig in Marin County. In response to some kind of good natured heckling from the crowd, Melton remarked from the stage that the band was just "a bunch of old Dinosaurs." Although both Melton and Albin were under 40, they felt a long way from the Avalon and Woodstock, when their bands headlined and their albums were bestsellers. This inspired Melton to form a group of players from that era to play occasional gigs in the style that brought them to fame in the first place. Their first show was August 13, 1982, at the Old Waldorf in San Francisco. The initial lineup of The Dinosaurs was

• Barry Melton-lead guitar, vocals (ex-Country Joe and The Fish)
• John Cippolina-lead guitar (ex-Quicksilver)
• Peter Albin-bass (ex-Big Brother)
• Spencer Dryden-drums (ex-Jefferson Airplane)

The band was joined by a variety of guests of similar vintage. Stepping on stage at The Old Waldorf for a number or two were ex-Charlatan guitarist Michael Wilhelm, ex-Stained Glass (and High Noon) organist Jim McPherson and ex-Quicksilver drummer Greg Elmore. Robert Hunter was apparently enticed on stage to join Melton in singing their joint collaboration "Jesse James." The band played another well-received gig in Southern California, at The Roxy on September 18, but I don't think they had any guests, since all their old friends mostly lived up North. Nevertheless, At the time, psychedelic rock seemed all but extinct, so calling a collection of original Fillmore guys "Dinosaurs" seemed appropriate. More shows were booked.

By December, Robert Hunter had returned from a solo tour of the East Coast, and he threw in his lot with The Dinosaurs. Hunter's presence gave the Dinosaurs a connection to perhaps the five most iconic San Francisco bands of the 60s. The Dinosaurs played another show on November 21, at the Inn Of The Beginning in Cotati. I don't know if or how many friends dropped by, but Cotati was a nice safe place to figure out what they were doing.  The Dinosaurs "re-debuted" with two shows on December 10 at The Old Waldorf, then San Francisco's most high profile rock club.

Since many of the older San Francisco musicians were hardly working anymore, it turned out that they were very available for guest appearances. One of the perhaps unexpected dynamics of The Dinosaurs was that the concept was a perfect platform for old friends to get together on stage, since the fan base of all those groups was by now largely the same. Although the five Dinosaurs, now including Hunter, were the core group, both Old Waldorf shows featured numerous guests who each sat in for a number: Merl Saunders, Country Joe McDonald, Mickey Hart, David Nelson, Greg Elmore, Dave Getz (Big Brother drummer), Sam Andrews (ex BB guitarist, now playing saxophone) and Michael Wilhelm. Nicky Hopkins sat in on piano for the entire late show. Old friend Dan Hicks (an ex-Charlatan himself) opened the shows. Given that almost none of the band members or guests had record contracts or current albums at the time, there was a fair amount of attention given to The Dinosaurs. When it was announced that The Dinosaurs would open for the Grateful Dead on New Year's Eve, for some Deadheads at least, certainly including me, there was a fair amount of interest. It was also a strangely appropriate throwback to the New Year's Eve concerts of the 1960s.

New Years Eve at The Fillmore and The Avalon
On December 31, 1966, the first full year of psychedelic rock in San Francisco, Bill Graham Presents had put on a legendary show at the Fillmore, featuring the Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service. The poster bragged that the event would run from 9pm until 9am, including breakfast. A dozen blocks away, at the Avalon, Chet Helms held a similar extravaganza, featuring Country Joe And The Fish, Moby Grape and Lee Michaels. Big Brother and The Holding Company put on their own New Year's Eve concert at the Kezar Pavilion in Golden Gate Park. New Year's Eve was thus established as a night when the psychedelic crowd raved all night, all over town, or so it seemed.

Of course, not a soul remembers a thing about any of these New Year's concerts. There is a brief tape fragment of a jam from the Fillmore, but other than that I know of no tape, no review and no first-hand eyewitness account of any sixties New Year's show in San Francisco, save a Hot Tuna tape from 1969. Once I was at an Avalon reunion, in April of 1994, and Barry Melton and Jerry Miller led the Dinosaurs through a great version of Moby Grape's "Murder In My Heart For The Judge." After the song, Melton fondly reminisced from the stage, "I remember doing about a 63-minute version of that with Moby Grape one New Year's Eve." After pausing to let that sink in, Melton wryly added, "it as probably about 4 minutes, but it seemed like 63." All the participants seemed sure they had a good time, even if they are not certain what it actually consisted of.

Although the action had moved to Winterland by 1967, there was always a blowout show in San Francisco on New Year's Eve, headlined by a couple of major bands: the Airplane, Big Brother and Quicksilver in 1967, the Dead and Quicksilver in '68, the Airplane and Quicksilver in '70, with appropriate supporting acts. No one remembers anything about any of those shows either. By 1970, the New Year's Eve franchise was effectively bequeathed to the Grateful Dead, and in some form or another the Grateful Dead or Jerry Garcia had performed on New Year's Eve in the Bay Area ever since.

By 1982, The Grateful Dead were the last of San Francisco's psychedelic squadrons still riding the range. Quicksilver Messenger Service and Big Brother were gone, and after a brief and interesting reunion in 1978, Country Joe and The Fish were emeritus as well. Jefferson Airplane had morphed into the Jefferson Starship, but although a few old Airplaners were still on board (Grace Slick, Paul Kantner and David Freiberg), the music that Starship was very far from anything that used to get played at the Fillmore. That left the Dead, still exploring the path they set out for themselves 17 years earlier, long after their peers had faded away or stepped off. In that respect, the Dead were very much like a coelacanth, a prehistoric fossil still living in modern times, so it was appropriate that the Dinosaurs were opening for the Fillmore's only non-fossilized life.

The Dinosaurs
The Dinosaurs were a fun, lively band. Melton and Cipollina were both excellent lead guitarists, and Albin and Dryden were a solid rhythm section. Hunter and Melton shared most of the lead vocals, with Cipollina and Albin taking an occasional turn. The Dinosaurs made no specific effort to have a 60s San Francisco sound, because they didn't need to. They just played their music, and it just so happened to remind you of the Fillmore and the Avalon. Given that the New Year's Eve concert with the Dead was the highest profile the band had ever (or would ever) play, they invited a few of their friends to join in. Of course, those friends had pedigrees as well, but that too was simply a byproduct.

As far as I know, the Oakland New Year's Eve show was the Dinosaurs fifth booked date, although some of the dates had featured early and late shows. Now, saying it was their fifth show is slightly misleading, since all of the band members except Dryden and Hunter had other ensembles, and sometimes they played together, so some members had played together many times. As a result, given the standards of psychedelic blues in general, the band members were pretty comfortable with their material. While a few connected tapers had heard some recordings (it's not impossible that I had, too, by that time), in general the experience of hearing the Dinosaurs was quite new to the audience.The Dinosaurs came on stage some time after 8:00pm and played about an hour.

Dinosaurs Setlist, Oakland Auditorium Arena, December 31, 1982
"Who Makes The Moves"-Melton and Hunter shared vocals on this original song.
"One Way Out"-Hunter sang lead on this venerable blues song, made famous by the Allman Brothers. Hunter didn't really have the voice for it, but that didn't really matter. For this song, the Dinosaurs were joined by Nicky Hopkins, looking healthy and playing a Yamaha electric grand piano, similar to the kind Keith used to play (no mirror for Nicky this time). Hopkins was living at least part time in the Bay Area, and playing regularly with John Cipollina in one of his many bands. Hopkins, too, had played New Year's Eve in San Francisco (in 1969 with Quicksilver). Hopkins played throughout the rest of the show.
"Love"-This was an old Barry Melton song from the Country Joe and The Fish days, I believe from their debut album.
"Promontory Rider"-Hunter sang one of his more recognizable electric songs, recognizable not least because he had performed it with the Jerry Garcia Band in 1980.
"I Can't Dance"-Melton sang another old song from his own career. Melton in particular said later that he never had any intention of writing new songs for the Dinosaurs.
"Save The Whales"-Country Joe McDonald came on stage to sing his biggest solo hit.
"Street Life"--Hunter sang a song that would turn up on his Amagamalin Street album a few years later. Hunter, unlike Melton, used the Dinosaurs to try out all sorts of new songs.
"Level With Me"-Melton sang this one. I'm not sure of its provenance.
"St. Louis Blues"-Hunter sang this blues song. I think it was a traditional blues tune that was lyrically modified by Hunter, but I'm not sure.
"How Blue Can You Get?"-Kathi McDonald, one of the lead singers for Big Brother and The Holding Company in the early 1970s (after Janis), came out and belted out this standard to close the show. McDonald was very high energy, and with both lead guitarists wailing away, it was an appropriately high octane ending to the set. For this song and the encores, the band was joined by Steve "Teenage" Douglas on tenor sax, a legendary session man who had played on many Phil Spector hits.

encores
"San Francisco"-Melton sang lead on this high energy boogie celebrating San Francisco music.
"D.I.N.O.S.A.U.R.S."-Hunter sang the Dinosaurs sort of theme song, which he had written. It was a slow, ironic ballad that ended the set on a suitably nostalgic note, given that it was a band of a bunch of old guys opening for the last of the breed.

Although there was a conscious element of nostalgia applying to the Dinosaurs opening for the Grateful Dead, the music was energetic and enjoyable. There was no effort expended to make the music "modern" or "relevant," To some extent it reminded me of seeing traditional music in its native habitat, like seeing The Preservation Hall Jazz Band in New Orleans. Even though the Dinosaurs were an amalgamation of members of bands who had once been booked themselves for New Year's Eve in San Francisco, they were proud representatives of a past musical style, rather than apologetic or bitter.

Robert Hunter was making his first New Year's Eve live appearance ever, as far as I knew. Other members of the Dinosaurs, however, had appeared many times on December 31. Just limiting myself to the sixties, John Cipollina had played New Year's Eve all four years from 1966 to '69 with Quicksilver (first at Fillmore, then three at Winterland). Barry Melton and Joe McDonald had headlined New Year's Eve shows at the Avalon in 1966 and '67. Peter Albin, as a member of Big Brother, had played New Year's Eve in 1966 at Kezar Pavilion and '67 at Winterland. Spencer Dryden, as a member of the Jefferson Airplane, had headlined New Year's Eve shows in 1966 (at the Fillmore), '67 and '69 (at Winterland). The Dinosaurs's appearance on New Year's Eve with the Grateful Dead was a true encore, when a quorum of Veterans of the Ballroom Wars gathered together to stand with the regular forces of the Grateful Dead.

Aftermath
Robert Hunter continued to perform with the Dinosaurs for another year-and-a-half. He wrote and performed a number of interesting songs with the band, while continuing his solo career. However, Hunter found himself at friendly odds with Melton and the others, as the sole songwriter in a band full of jammers. Hunter stepped aside, and Merl Saunders took his place from late 1984 onwards. The Dinosaurs continued in various forms until the mid-90s, including membership and numerous guest appearances by many of the band's peers and friends from the good old days. Hunter participated in the Dinosaurs's studio album, released in 1988. However, Hunter never opened for the Grateful Dead again, making New Year's Eve 1982 a singular event.