Formation of The Bob Weir Band-Fall 1977 (Enter Brent)

Brent Mydland in 1984

The World Historical Nature of the Grateful Dead has led to a slow explosion of scholarship in the previous few decades. One powerful strain of Dead research looks into the formative experiences and early musical careers of the band members, in order to better understand the music they made in the Dead. I myself have made great efforts to contribute to these studies. Strangely, however, very little effort has been made to contemplate the pre-Dead history of Brent Mydland. Brent had the longest run of any Grateful Dead keyboard player, probably played the most shows--at least on keyboards--and is fondly remembered by any fans who were lucky enough to see him with the group. Yet his pre-history is generally shrugged off in a few sentences.

Unlike every prior member of the Grateful Dead, when Brent Mydland joined the band in 1979, he had been a working rock musician for at least 5 years. He had played on albums with a major label, and wrote songs on one as well. As for the prior members, only Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart had any kind of performing experience on the instrument they actually played with the band, and Hart had mostly played rock music as a sideshow in the Air Force. Hart had recorded a few singles (in Spain in 1964), but the rest of the players made their studio debuts with the Warlocks or The Grateful Dead. Sure, Donna Jean Godchaux (nee Thatcher) was a professional studio singer in the 1960s, but ironically she had never performed live as a professional singer. Brent, younger than the rest of the band, had already been doing that thing for several years.

OK, sure, interviews with Brent were few and limited. Tragically, Brent made the final load-out before anyone expected, and there was no time to ask him about some missing pieces. Even so, a fair amount is known about his career prior to the Grateful Dead. So on one hand, this post is a summary of the known touch points of Brent Mydland's professional career. At a higher level, however, this story is a meditation about how a shy, talented guy from a very out-of-the-way town ended up in the Grateful Dead, through no fault of his own save for talent and luck. Brent's talent isn't in dispute. You can decide for yourself if his luck was good or bad.

Bob Weir's second solo album, Heaven Help The Fool, released on Arista Records in January 1978

Heaven Help The Fool

In order to traverse the circuitous path that led Brent Mydland to the Grateful Dead, it's easier to start at the key moment, namely October 26, 1978. Bob Weir had formed a band to tour in support of his Arista solo album Heaven Help The Fool. The album had been released in January 1978, and per record company orthodoxy, Weir had then played a few dozen dates across the country in February and March. Live, the Bob Weir Band played the entire album, plus a few choice covers and a couple of songs that Deadheads recognized as "Weir songs." Brent Mydland was the keyboard player, mainly playing Hammond organ, and shared harmony vocal duties with lead guitarist Bobby Cochran.

In October 1978, Weir reconvened the Bob Weir Band, albeit with a different bass player. They played a few local shows, and then a three-day weekend of shows with the Jerry Garcia Band in the Pacific Northwest. Weir, Garcia and the rest of the Dead had apparently been contemplating the idea of replacing Kieth and Donna Godchaux. Although Garcia had definitely met Brent (documented by David Browne in So Many Roads p.277), he had almost certainly had not seen him play live. The apocryphal story was that after seeing Brent play with the Weir Band in Portland, Garcia told Bob "this guy might work." Brent started rehearsing with the Grateful Dead in late March of 1979.

A poster for the Bob Weir Band, including Brent Mydland, performance at the Franklin Pierce College Fieldhouse in Rindge, NH on March 4, 1978

The Bob Weir Band: February>June 1978

Bobby Cochran-lead guitar, vocals
Bob Weir-rhythm guitar, vocals
Brent Mydland-organ, keyboards, harmony vocals
Rick Carlos-bass
John Mauceri-drums

I believe that Heaven Help The Fool was recorded in the Summer of 1977. Mickey Hart had injured himself in an auto accident, and a lot of Dead shows were canceled, so Weir would have been available. The album was produced by Keith Olsen, who had recorded the Fleetwood Mac hit album Rumors and also Terrapin Station. It's important to remember that in mid-1977 many of the best-selling album acts were old Fillmore stalwarts who had simplified their traditional approach with a healthy dose of radio-friendly production. Prominent examples were not only the Mac, but Steve Miller Band, Boz Scaggs and Jefferson Starship. The idea that photogenic rock and roller Bob Weir had serious commercial potential was a pretty sound one.

Some interviews with lead guitarist Bobby Cochran suggest that the band was being put together in November/December 1977. The Dead, and thus Weir, had no gigs between November 6 and December 27. One-off touring bands cost money to put together, so this suggests a timeline of a December '77 tour. That only makes sense if the album was going to come out before Christmas (it actually came out in January of '78). Nonetheless it seems that the Bob Weir Band was put together in November 1977, but did not tour until February of 1978.

Lead guitarist Bobby Cochran was introduced to Bob Weir by Ibanez executive Jeff Hasselberger, who had been working on guitar ideas with Weir. Per Cochran, from a Jake Feinberg interview, the band already existed when Cochran joined. The band leader was drummer John Mauceri. Mauceri had brought in bassist Rick Carlos and Brent on keyboards. For whatever reasons, the tour and album were delayed until the first of the year. So John Mauceri had brought Brent to the Weir Band, and set the wheels in motion for him to end up joining the Grateful Dead.

John Mauceri-Drums
John Mauceri was an excellent drummer, and probably still is, but his understated style made him an excellent hired gun who never took the spotlight. If you had no life in the 1970s, and spent a lot of time in record stores memorizing the backs of albums (reflecting on no one in particular), his name turned up here and there, but for the most part he was a well-regarded but semi-anonymous professional. For this story, Mauceri turns out to be the key link between Grateful Dead and Brent Mydland, but for no other reason than the fact that Mauceri grew up in Las Vegas.

In late Summer 1977, Mauceri got a call saying that he had been recommended by David Lindley for the drum chair in the Jerry Garcia Band. Much as I love the idea of Jer calling up Mr. Dave and asking for a scouting report, I don't think that's what happened. John Kahn was the JGB straw boss, and he would have asked a producer, very likely his old pal Michael Stewart. Stewart, who had produced Billy Joel ("Piano Man") and Tom Jones, among others, was probably the one who checked in with Lindley.

As it happened, David Lindley was effectively Jackson Browne's band leader, and Mauceri had been Browne's drummer since 1976. Browne toured relentlessly, so Lindley had plenty to go on. While I don't think Lindley was personally close to the Grateful Dead, Kaleidoscope has shared bills with the Dead many times in the 60s, so surely Garcia was aware of him. Anyway, Lindley had been the banjo champion five years running at the Ash Grove folk club (after which he was made a judge), so that had to count for something.

According to Mauceri, in a remarkable 2014 interview with Jake Feinberg (excerpted below), Mauceri said he got to the point of starting to learn Garcia Band songs, only to find out that he was not going to be the JGB drummer. Although Buzz Buchanan got the Garcia chair, Mauceri's bona fides were in turn passed on to Weir, and he was Bob's first hire. In turn, Mauceri hired two old band mates, both from the the distant East Bay town of--I kid you not--Brentwood. Rick Carlos joined the Bob Weir Band as bass player, and Brent Mydland joined on organ. Mydland and Carlos had been playing together since Liberty Union High School in Brentwood, where Brent had graduated from in 1971.  Mydland, Carlos and Mauceri had all played together in a group called Batdorf & Rodney, and after that in a band called Silver.

The Silver lp cover, released on Arista Rcords in 1976. The cover design was by future SNL player Phil Hartmann, whose brother John co-managed Silver

Silver

It was strange coincidence that prior to joining the Grateful Dead, Brent Mydland had recorded one album with a group, and that group was on Arista Records. I don't think Arista had any contractual hold on Brent, it's just one of those strange coincidences. Silver released their lone album on Arista sometime in 1976.

Silver played "AOR" (album oriented radio) rock, kind of like Kansas or REO Speedwagon. They were a little less rockin' than those two, however, and were probably aimed more in a sensitive vein, like Fleetwood Mac. The front line trio of Brent and guitarists John Batdorf and Greg Collier all sang and wrote, and the harmonies were well done. Brent wrote and sang two songs on the album. It was OK, fairly typical of the many carefully sculpted albums promoted by record companies at the time, but nothing special. Certainly nothing that hinted at Brent's future contribution to the Grateful Dead.

Originally, Silver was supposed to include Rick Carlos and John Mauceri on bass and drums, but they were somehow forced out, according to Mauceri (replaced with Tom Leadon-bass and Harry Stinson-drums). I don't know how much touring Silver did, but they did play on some big national dates supporting the group America (you can see the dates listed here, on the great GDSets site). The connection seems to have been the management team of Hartmann and Goodman, who appear to have managed both America and Silver. In any case, the pairing tells you who their management thought would buy the Silver album.

Of the known dates listed for America and Silver, it's interesting to see that Brent had already played at some of the venues that he would play with the Dead in the future. Some examples include War Memorial Auditorium in Syracuse, SPAC in Saratoga Springs, McNicols in Denver and the San Diego Sports Arena. Silver seems to have ground to a halt in mid-1977, once they were dropped by Arista.

The only real research about Brent's life during the Silver period was done by David Browne, for his indispensable book So Many Roads (pp.276-280). It appears that after Silver disintegrated, Brent went home to stay in a house in Concord owned by his father. He was living with his girlfriend, and apparently not doing much of anything, when he got a call out of the blue from John Mauceri, inviting him to play for the Bob Weir Band. It was the Las Vegas connection of Mauceri that had made it happen.

The 1971 debut album on Atlantic by Batdorf and Rodney, Off The Shelf. John Batdorf wrote the songs, he and Mark Rodney both sang and picked guitar, session guys filled out the sound.

Batdorf & Rodney

In the early 70s, one popular format favored by record companies was two long-haired dudes playing acoustic guitars and singing in harmony. Seals and Croft, Loggins and Messina, Zager and Evans, Crosby and Nash, the list goes on and on. More broadly, you can see this as a variation on groups like Crosby, Stills and Nash and America, only with fewer members. There were a lot of these groups, mostly forgotten, a few just partially remembered. If you spent a lot of the 70s in your local record store, flipping through albums, you will sort of remember Batdorf & Rodney. They weren't big, but they weren't obscure, either. As it happened, they put out an album on Atlantic, one on Asylum and another one on Arista. They turn out to be essential to the Brent Mydland saga.

Drummer John Mauceri had grown up in Las Vegas, in a "showbiz" family. His father was a classically trained percussionist, so when young John discovered rock 'n' roll, falling into playing drums was easy. After a brief sojourn to Los Angeles, soon after graduating high school in 1970, Mauceri had to return home to his family in Las Vegas. He reconnected with Mark Rodney, whom he had known earlier. Mark was the son of trumpeter Red Rodney, a jazz legend who had been the only white member of Charlie Parker's groundbreaking bebop quintet from 1949-51. After various difficulties, Red had moved to Las Vegas.

Mark Rodney had been playing in Las Vegas venues with John Batdorf, playing their guitars and singing Batdorf's original songs. In 1970, this is what was happening. Batdorf and Rodney were playing in Las Vegas venues--I'm not quite sure exactly where--and got signed by Atlantic. They put out their debut album, Off The Shelf, in 1971 and were set to go on the road. So they needed a band. Mauceri got the call, because he knew Mark Rodney and he was a drummer. Mauceri in turn called bassist Rick Carlos, whom he had known from earlier. The live band was then:

John Batdorf-guitar and vocals
Mark Rodney-guitar and vocals

Rick Carlos-bass

John Mauceri-drums

The first big tour for Batdorf and Rodney was opening for the band Bread, who were huge at the time. No one recalls Bread now, but they had huge "soft rock" hits with songs like "If," "Make It With You" and "Baby I'm A Want You," to name a few. The Batdorf & Rodney live quartet was steered right at the Bread demographic.

Batdorf & Rodney, the second album by the duo, was released in 1972 on Asylum Records

Come 1972, Batdorf & Rodney had moved from Atlantic to Asylum. The album was recorded at the Record Plant in Los Angeles, with John Mauceri and Rick Carlos on the tracks. So even though Batdorf & Rodney were pitched as a duo by their record company, they were acting like a band in the studio.

In the 1970s, the record business made a lot of money, so much so that record companies could justify keeping promising bands going, even if they weren't actually playing anywhere. In 1973, Batdorf & Rodney seemed to ground to a halt. So much so, that their rhythm section went on tour with David Blue, another Asylum artist. On August 11, 1973, at Winterland, I saw Mauceri and Carlos as part of Blue's band (along with future Eagles guitarist Don Felder). They were supporting Blue's album Nice Baby and The Angel, produced by Graham Nash. Nash himself joined Blue for a few numbers at Winterland that night (Blue was fourth on the bill below Poco, Mark-Almond and Robin Trower--a really great show, by the way).

Life Is You, Batdorf & Rodney's third album, was released on Arista Records in 1975. Brent Mydland plays some uncredited parts on the album

By 1974, Batdorf and Rodney were reactivated again, this time signed to Clive Davis' Arista Records. For the new live configuration, the band needed a keyboard player. Rick Carlos called his old high school pal Brent Mydland, and Brent got the gig.  What music was Brent playing between graduating high school in 1971, and joining Batdorf & Rodney in 1974? For that matter, when did he get a Hammond organ? You don't learn that instrument overnight, however good a piano player you might be. Was he in a band? Did he jam with anyone or hang out? No one seems to have any information until 1974.

Most people who remember Batdorf & Rodney recall them as a sort of Seals & Crofts type duo, with a soft rock vibe. Apparently, however, the duo saw their music as more like the Doobie Brothers, with twin guitars and a jumping rhythm section. Brent Mydland's contribution on organ sound a lot more interesting in that context, but I know of no live recordings of Batdorf & Rodney from the 1974-75 Brent era. It was Arista boss Clive Davis who wanted the duo to sound like Seals & Crofts, and insured that every guitar solo was cut out, and the rocking minimized.

Batdorf & Rodney weren't huge, but they had a following, and they toured a far amount. Mauceri (in the Feinberg interview) speaks highly of Brent's playing, as does John Batdorf (when interviewed by Browne). Both of them, however, say that Brent did not compromise well, and did not really have the "take-it-as-it-comes" vibe of most traveling musicians. According to Browne, Brent had a lot of anxiety, and sometimes disappeared for a few days at a time. Batdorf & Rodney was just five guys in a van, plus maybe a roadie or two. The Grateful Dead circus was several magnitudes of The Crazy more than that, so it must have been hard on Brent. That being said, he never missed a Dead gig that I know of.

The 1975 Batdorf & Rodney album on Arista, Life Is You, was recorded with session players. Rick Carlos does play on it, but I think most of the record was recorded before the duo put the touring band back together. In late 1974, when they decided they needed a keyboard player, Rick Carlos recommended Brent, with whom he had played back in bands back in High School.

According to John Mauceri, Brent did a little uncredited work on the album. Batdorf & Rodney did released a single in 1975, however,  that had not been on the record. Apparently the touring band played on it, so if you come across the single "Somewhere In The Night" (Arista 1975 b/w "Ain't It Like Home" album track), it could be a lost Brent artifact.

Soon after he joined Batdorf & Rodney, Brent got together with Cherie Barsin, who was John Batdorf's sister-in-law. The two of them lived in a trailer in Thousand Oaks, between Oxnard and Los Angeles. At home, Brent liked playing board games and listening to jazz and classical music. Per Cherie Barsin (via Browne) "his preferences were Chick Corea, Jeff Beck. Nothing with lyrics." When Batdorf & Rodney ground to a halt, Brent joined Batdorf's next venture, which was Silver. Mauceri and Carlos got pushed out of Silver, for whatever reasons, but they did not forget Brent's playing.

Jethro Tull's great album Benefit was released in April, 1970. In May, John Mauceri and Rick Carlos' band Terracotta opened for them in Las Vegas

Terracotta

John Mauceri had grown up in Las Vegas as part of a showbiz family. His mother was a dancer and ice skater, and his father was a singer/dj/comedian. His stepfather was a classical percussionist, and while he wasn't really a drummer, there were drums around the house. Once Mauceri heard The Beatles, all he wanted to do was drum. He took some vibraphone lessons, but he wanted to be a drummer. His family lived near the great Buddy Rich, and Mauceri used to hear him practice, but he just wanted to rock. This would have been around 1967, and there was no FM radio.

A band called Terracotta, from the East Bay, turned up in Las Vegas. They were mostly "emancipated" (legal adults), but they were Mauceri's age. Their drummer split on them, and they had heard about Mauceri some how, so he joined Terracotta. They played around a lot, and even opened for Jethro Tull and Spirit, so this must have been 1970 (per Ministry Of Truth, Jethro Tull played Las Vegas on May 9, 1970). The day Mauceri graduated high school, Terracotta moved to Los Angeles. They broke up a month later. Mauceri was crestfallen and returned home to Las Vegas.

When Mauceri returned home, he reconnected (in his words) with his birth father. So he also connected, or re-connected, with guitarist Mark Rodney. As noted, Mark Rodney was the son of famous jazz trumpeter Red Rodney, so he too was from a "showbiz" family. In any case, Rodney played guitar and had teamed up with another singing guitarist John Batdorf. They had been playing around as a duo, and they had gotten signed to Atlantic, so they needed a band. Mauceri was in as a drummer--did he know a bass player? Yes he did.

Mauceri called the former bassist for Terracotta, Rick Carlos. Carlos didn't have a gig, mainly because Terracotta had broken up. It's not entirely certain to me whether Carlos came to Las Vegas, or met Batdorf, Rodney and Mauceri in Los Angeles. For our story, however, it doesn't matter. A long forgotten East Bay band called Terracotta, featuring a bunch of legal-adult-teenagers, was how Rick Carlos ended up playing bass for a Las Vegas group with an Atlantic Records contract. Brent Mydland, a senior from Liberty Union High School in Brentwood, now had his unlikely path to join the Grateful Dead. If Mauceri had called someone else, it wouldn't have been Brent, because Rick Carlos had played with Brent in high school.

Liberty Union High School, in Brentwood, CA, sometime in the 20th century

Liberty Union High School, Brentwood, CA

You can look up Liberty Union High School, now Liberty High School. The most famous alumni from that school is Brent Mydland. There's no need to name the school after him, though--Liberty Union High School was in the then-tiny Contra Costa County town of Brentwood, so the town is already named after him.

In the conventional thumbnail biographies of Brent Mydland, it's always mentioned that he grew up in Concord, CA, an East Bay town just North of Walnut Creek. It's reasonable to assume that when Brent's family first came to the Bay Area, they lived in Concord. Since Brent went to Liberty Union HS, however, we know he had to live near Brentwood, and not Concord. Concord was two high schools away.

Back in the 20th century, people who grew up, lived or worked in San Francisco, Oakland or Berkeley largely ignored anything in Contra Costa County beyond Walnut Creek, and sometimes the Concord Pavilion. Anything North of Walnut Creek was often vaguely referred to as "Concord," even if it was 10 or 20 miles East of Concord proper (the comparison is Brooklynites who say "anything above Columbus Circle is Upstate New York"). I was as guilty of this as anyone. I heard that Brent was from Concord, or maybe Antioch, and couldn't have cared less at the time.

The only reliable detail we have about Brent's adolescence comes from David Browne, who reported that Brent's 70s girlfriend (John Batdorf's sister-in-law) said that teenage Brent felt isolated from his family, living on a houseboat on the San Joaquin River Delta while his sisters and parents lived in the main house. For that geography to work, the Mydland compound would have had to be somewhere around present-day Oakley (we will leave aside the synergy of two consecutive Dead keyboard players living on houseboats).

For Brent to have gone to Liberty Union, he would have had to be nearer to it than Antioch High School. Today, Antioch (pop. 111,000) and Brentwood (pop. 64,700), just East of it, are bedroom communities for families who work in Walnut Creek, Oakland or San Francisco. Antioch has a BART station, and Brentwood may have light rail to the Antioch BART soon. But when Brent was there, it wasn't like that at all.

Antioch is one of the oldest towns in California, founded in 1849. It was primarily a boat landing for grain shipped in from the Delta and out to San Francisco Bay. The land that Brentwood was built on was acquired in 1837 from the original Mexican land grant. Brentwood was a rural agricultural area, but it had a post office in 1878, although the town only incorporated in 1948 (the name came from the original landowner's home town in County Essex). Old as they were, Brentwood and Antioch were tiny in Brent Mydland's day. In 1970, when Brent would have been a junior at Liberty Union, the town of Brentwood only had a population of 2,649, and Antioch (25 miles West, nearer Concord), only had 28,600. Since then, the population has exploded by nearly 600%.

But back in the day, Brent probably went to school with farm kids from the surrounding area. An unsourced Wikipedia entry says that Brent played trumpet in the marching band, but was kicked out for having long hair. It's likely true [update: confirmed]. Brentwood wasn't Berkeley in1970, even if it was just an hour away. Who were Brent's friends? What were the names of his bands? Did he sing with them, or just play keyboards? And when did he get a Hammond organ? Now sure, his father was (or had been) a minister, so maybe there was a church connection, but that's interesting too--did Brent play organ in his father's church? No one seems to have found out, or even asked the questions.

Correspondent Eric sends a photo from the 1968 Liberty Union HS Yearbook, with freshman Brent Mydland (circled) and his trumpet

All we really know is

• Brent graduated from Liberty Union High School in 1971
• Rick Carlos played in bands with him in those days

We don't even know if Rick Carlos went to Brentwood. But, in the end, it didn't matter. Brent was a talented, quiet guy in a farming community. He was a million miles from the music explosion in the Bay Area 60s, even if he was just an hour from Berkeley. But a bass player in some now-forgotten band remembered when other guys asked for a good organ player. Not once, but twice Brent got the call, first from Rick Carlos for Batdorf & Rodney in late 1974, and then again from John Mauceri for the Bob Weir Band in late 1977. Brent ended up in the Grateful Dead from 1979 to 1990, and he's easily the most famous person who ever went to Liberty Union.

Esteemed scholar LightIntoAshes noted that Blair Jackson, ahead of the curve as always, interviewed Brent Mydland on October 21, 1987, for the Fall 1987 issue of Golden Road Magazine. The indispensable GDSets has scanned the  entire issue, and the whole interview is worth reading. But here are the backstory highlights, clarifying some hitherto unknown points:

[Germany] We moved to Antioch when I was 1, so I don’t remember Germany.

[Do you remember your first band?]
The first thing you could almost call a band? Yeah. We played a few bars on the river [in the Sacramento River Delta region] for small crowds. We did things like”When A Man Loves A Woman,” “For What It’s Worth.” We even did that Arlo Guthrie song “I don’t want a pickle/I just wanna ride my motor-sickle.” Anything with just two or three chords, cause most of the guys couldn’t play anything harder.

I had a little Thomas organ you could barely hear. A couple of years later I got a Gibson Kalamazoo,, which was sort of like a Farfisa…I was even in a band where I used to sing “Morning Dew.”

In my junior year in high school [at Liberty], there was me and one other guy who had long hair, and by “long” I mean the length I have it now [ca. 1987]. I got kicked out of school for long hair just before finals. I stayed out for a few days and then decided it wasn’t worth having to repeat a semester for that, so I got my hair cut. They said “Sorry, not short enough.” They mad me get a crew cut before they’d let me back in to take my finals. This was at Liberty High in Brentwood. SO I took my finals and then moved to Concord where you could have long hair in school [for Contra Costa in the 60s, Concord was hip]. I didn’t cut my hair for a long time after that.

Senior year I got thrown out of the high school band for long hair anyway: “Sorry, we’ll lose points for your long hair.” So that was the end of my band career. I gave up trumpet and concentrated on keyboards.

[What did you do right after high school?]
Senior year I got together with this guitar player named Dave DeMille who’d come up here from Southern California and went to another high school in Concord. The day after we graduated [1971] we drove down to L.A. and tried to get a band started down there. He knew a drummer and bass player who were pretty good. We were serious about it for about the first six weeks or so and then it kind of fell apart…I ended up living alone in a Quonset Hut in Thousand Oaks, writing songs and eating a lot of peanut butter and jelly…

Eventually I came back to the Bay Area and lived with my dad and just jammed around for a couple of years. I played with a lot of different people. We’d have these jams that would turn into parties with like 300 people and we’d play until the police would break it up. Then I started playing in bands hat actually made some money, mainly playing Top 40 clubs. This was around ’72, I guess, and it was mainly black music.

[Did you ever have to wear matching suits?]
Yeah, for a couple of months once. It was really embarrassing. I hated it. II’d rather not dwell on that [laughs].

The best music I played back then was with this guy who’d gone to the Berklee School of Music [in Boston] and wrote this interesting music that sounded like John McLaughlin. We tried to get a band together and actually had some really nice music, but we never could get any gigs. I learned a lot from it but we couldn’t earn any money. So I ended up going back to playing rock ’n’ roll, though in cooler clubs, where we could play some originals.

In one of the bands, I [had] played with a bass player named Rick Carlos, and he got a call from John Batdorf of Batdorf & Rodney asking him to come to L.A. to play with them. A couple of months later they were looking for keyboard player who could sing high parts so I went down there and checked that out an joined the band, which was a great experience.

Brent has compressed the Batfdorf& Rodney timeline a bit (Rick Carlos had been playing with B&R for two years), but we now see the essential thread.

• Brent grew up in Antioch, or thereabouts
• He went to Liberty Union High in Brentwood, but graduated from a Concord high school
• He played in various obscure bands from 1971-74, playing both originals and covers
• Rick Carlos played in one of those bands around 1971-72, and doesn't appear to be from Brentwood

Besides playing in the Grateful Dead, Brent Mydland played on the 1981 debut album by Bobby And The Midnites

After The Bob Weir Band

Per John Mauceri, Brent Mydland made something like $1000 a week on the road with the Bob Weir Band. For Brent, in 1978, that was probably the life he always dreamed of. Making actual money playing good rock and roll for a living, with a girlfriend back home in Thousand Oaks. Who could wish for anything more? Indeed--be careful what you wish for.

In August of 1978, Brent and his girlfriend were invited to Jerry Garcia's birthday party, in the house he shared in Hepburn Heights (San Rafael) that he shared with Rock and Niki Scully. Later, Garcia heard Brent play live, in the Pacific Northwest, and raised the possiblity of Brent replacing both Keith and Donna Godchaux. Weir in turn mentioned it to Brent, and (per David Browne) Brent and his girlfriend were invited backstage for the Closing of Winterland New Year's Eve show. Contemplate that for a moment. If you see backstage footage from the video of a guy who looks like Brent--well, it's Brent.

Keith and Donna Godchaux left the Grateful Dead around March 1, 1979, and Brent began rehearsing with the Dead later in that month. Brent's live debut with the band was April 22, 1979, at Spartan Stadium in San Jose. Brent held down the keyboard chair for the Grateful Dead until his untimely passing on July 26, 1990. I have not counted, but Brent has to have played keyboards at more shows than any other member of the Grateful Dead (Pigpen having mostly been supplanted in 1969). Brent also played for about a year in Bobby And The Midnites, from Fall '80 until late 1981.

Come 1982, Brent was dating Betty Cantor, and she recorded a solo album for him. John Mauceri was called back to play drums. Mauceri asked Brent if he should call Rick Carlos, but Brent rejected the idea, an irony considering how Rick Carlos had given Brent his big breaks. Nonetheless, Brent let Mauceri pick the bass player (Paul Solomon Marshall on bass, and Kevin Russell played guitar). The album is interesting, but has never been released.

In 1985, Brent played a few East Coast dates with a band called Kokomo, including Bill Kreutzmann, ex-Santana bassist David Margen and guitarist Kevin Russell (ex-707, who had played on the solo album project). The next summer, with the Dead off the road due to Garcia's coma, and finances precarious, the band was reconstituted as Go Ahead, adding Alex Ligterwood (ex-Santana) on vocals and Jerry Cortez (ex-Youngbloods) on lead guitar. The 1986 Go Ahead tour was very fondly remembered (check the Comment Thread), and successful enough to have an encore tour the next Summer.

In 1987, "Touch Of Grey" hit big time. The Grateful Dead were a huge concert attraction, and Brent had songwriting credits on the album. Brent co-wrote more songs on the next album, Built To Last. Suddenly, from living hand-to-mouth, money was rolling in. John Mauceri, by his own admission, had spent the 1970s and the early part of the 80s drunk and stoned. Drinking was one of the things he had shared with Brent. Mauceri always stayed with Brent when he was in the Bay Area, but by the end of the 80s, a sober Mauceri would try to reach out to not-sober Brent, but he couldn't get through. Brent had everything he could have ever wanted, and it all crashed down around him.

American Capitalism

Being a musician or artist in America in the late 20th century was a hard, hard road. Yes, the potential rewards for a lucky few might be huge, but talent and ambition wasn't enough. So many things had to go right. If you were lucky enough to be a young man in San Francisco in 1965, or have a family connection to the music industry, or were willing to go out and meet every important person you could, maybe you had a fighting chance. While it doesn't diminish any star's talent to have been in the right place at the right time, it's another barrier for everyone else. We all know of musicians, either personally or from their music, who were talented and just never got the break.

Brent Mydland's father was from Norway, and apparently emigrated to Minnesota to study as a minister. Mydland Senior was a chaplain in the US Army when Brent was born in Germany in 1952. The Mydland family ended up in Concord, CA, afterwards, and seems to have stayed around there. Brent's dad, at least, seems to have done well enough to own a house or two. Brent himself, in the immigrant tradition, far surpassed his father. He had a wife and family, and more money than he must have ever expected.

Brent didn't really express his feelings, except through music, so we can't really know what he was thinking. The most appropriate choice seems to be the actual expression of a song not by Robert Hunter, but David Byrne

You may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
You may ask yourself, "Well, how did I get here?"

How indeed. Brent Mydland (October 21, 1952-July 26, 1990), Rest In Power.

Appendix: Notes from Jake Feinberg's Interview with John Mauceri (Nov 25, 2014)

Jake Feinberg interviews rock and jazz musicians from the late 20th century. With no time limit and a wide-open format, his conversations roam far and wide. What follows are my notes from Feinberg's interview with drummer John Mauceri on November 25, 2014.

I took notes for research purposes, so these are paraphrases rather than transcriptions. I also left out parts that didn't focus on areas of importance to me. All of Feinberg's interviews are interesting, and it is well worth subscribing to his site.

John Mauceri Nov 25 2014

Part 1

Come from a showbiz family, mother was a dancer/ice skater, dad was a singer/dj/comedian. She ended up in Vegas. Grew up in LV. Saw a lot of shows backstage in the RatPack era as kids. Stepfather was a classical percussionist. Not really a drummer, but he had drums around the house. Attracted to drums right when the Beatles broke through. Also played the vibraphone, and took lessons for a few years. 

Buddy Rich lived a block away, his daughter was friends with my younger sister. I used to stand outside his wall and listen to him practice. But I didn't care about jazz, I just wanted to rock. This was around 1967, there was no FM radio. 

I was doing after hours clubs in Vegas, and I also did original stuff, and that's where I met Rick Carlos. I was 16, Rick came in with a band called Terracotta. They were all from the East Bay (Contra Costa), and they came to LA with this drummer (David Blanchard). The band were legal adults. They heard about me (through an agent) and he put me with this band. Three guitars and a bassist, a lot of three part harmonies. Good singers, good songwriters. I hooked up with them

We opened for Jethro Tull and Spirit. We moved to LA the day after I graduated from High School. A month later we broke up. I cried. 

Carlos went back to the Bay Area. I went back to Vegas, I was semi-homeless. Reconnected with my biological father. I was in touch with Mark Rodney, whom I knew from Vegas (his dad was Red Rodney). Mark had heard Terracotta. Batdorf and Rodney had done an album with Ahmet Ertegun, and Mark called me, and I called Rick. 

Rick Carlos was an East Bay Funk guy, he liked Tower and Sons of Champlin, I was more into folk rock, Doors and Byrds. 

First tour with Batdorf and Rodney was with Bread, who were the biggest band at the time. Ended up being in a solo band with Jamie Griffin

I got kicked out of Silver. Rick and I were bounced out of Silver. Rick went back to the East Bay. I ended up getting the David Blue gig [note: Mauceri has the timing wrong, David Blue was in 1973]. I think my wife might have known him or something, I don't remember. David Blue was on Asylum, so were B&D. They needed a bass player, so I called Rick. Then they needed a guitar player so they got Don Felder. David and Felder were doing duo gigs opening for Crosby and Nash. They needed a band, so they got Rick and me. 

We did a tour with Deep Purple. That was our one tour [note: forgot about Poco gig at Winterland]

Went to Jackson Browne in 76, worked with him for a year, and worked with Lindley. Garcia was looking for a drummer, and Lindley recommended me for a gig, and they sent me all the Garcia albums. Then I got a call that they were using someone else (Feinberg: Buzz). But right after that I got a call from Bob Weir, who was needing to put a band together. 

The Bob Weir thing only lasted a few months, but they were huge on the East Coast. Bob was happy, and he talked about wanting to do more. I'd gotten Brent into Bob's band. Rick had gotten Brent into the Batdorf band. 

We did some shows with the Garcia Band, and Bob and Jerry got to hear Brent. 

John Batdorf had split up with Rodney, and he had Hartmann and Goodman and we had Mark, Brent, RIck and me. However, mgmt wanted to replace Rick and me with Tom Leadon (bs) and Harry Stinson (drums). I don't know why.

I saw a [Dead] show in 68 at the Convention Center in Vegas. 

I saw Brent spiraling down and tried to help him, but I wasn't successful. Brent and I did a lot of drinking when we were young. We always drank. In the Bob Weir Band he probably made 1000 a week, I made a little more. When the Dead happened, he became wealthy very fast. I would see shows and visit him, and we would get high and then I would go home.He lost his license, then lost his family, and finally lost his life.

I was friends with Jon McIntire. I used to stay with Brent when I was in the Bay Area. I was out of the picture by then. It was very sad. Jon said "they believe very much in personal responsiblity."

I saw Mahavishnu in the Whisky and Billy Cobham was so intense I had to leave. 

Flying Burrito Brothers: I was still doing drugs, so I don't remember how I got the call. I did some dates in California with them. Sneeky Pete the only original. Skip Battin, John Beland (ex-Dolly Parton) and Gib Gilbeau. Toured Pacific Coast and the West, and did a tour of Italy. [probably late 70s]

Brent called me around '82 to work on his solo album. I'm the drummer probably on all all of it. I asked him if he wanted to use Rick and he said no, but he wanted me to pick someone I had been using. I got this guy Paul Solomon Marshall (sp). We recorded at the GD studio (Club Front). We were flown up from LA. He was dating Betty Cantor. She was a really good engineer. 

Brent was living with his parents. 

Growing up he was into Brian Auger, Tower of Power and some of these progressive rock guys. However, good as he was musically, he was just inept socially. It was like all of his energy went into music. He could play Jimmy Smith stuff like it was nothing. 

I toured with the Dillards, toured with Hoyt Axton for a year. Height of my drinking and drugs, took time off to get sober. 

Part2

Brent played on the last Batdorf and Rodney album Life Is You (not credited). There was a single [might be song "Somewhere In The Night," not on Life Is You]

Jon McIntire was Bob Weir's road manager. One time, we played a soundcheck at the beginning of the tour, and our road money was in a briefcase backstage and it got stolen. It was like $15000. McIintire called together both bands, explained that the money was stolen and that he was going to sit in the audience and he wanted it back in two hours. The money was returned. Never found out who did it, but we got the money back.

McIntire moved to LA for a while, tried to make it as an actor. My style is based on four guys, Jim Gordon, Jim Keltner, Russ Kunkel and Hal Blaine.

[can you tell me a Brent story?] We were on the road with Batdor &Rodney when Brent was in the band. We traveled together in a van. Doubled up in rooms. Me, Rick and Brent would share a room. We would flip coins to see who lost and sleep in the rollaway, Brent hated it. One night he had slept in the rollaway twice in a row, Brent and Rick flipped for it. Brent was mad and he went to sleep in the van. When he woke up in the van (Summer) it was 100 plus degrees.

When Brent wanted to express intimate feelings, he put it into a song. You could get along with him, but if you had to wrangle with him, disagree with him, he didn't know how to compromise or give and take. Had a short fuse and got frustrated. I never had long intimate conversations with him like I did with other people. Near the end, when I got sober, I tried to reach out to him, but I couldn't succeed. I could see him any time.

Appendix 2: Brent Mydland Discography

A correspondent snipped out the Brent section from The Compleat Grateful Dead Discography. The Batdorf & Rodney details were not included, because they were not known at the time.

from 'the compleat grateful dead discography':

Sweet Surprise - Eric Andersen (Arista 4075)  Brent Mydland sings on
"Crazy River" and "Dreams Of Mexico" on this 1975 release.  This is
prior to Brent Mydland joining the Grateful Dead.

Silver - Silver (Arista 4076)  A pre-Grateful Dead Brent Mydland plays
on this 1975 release.  Brent Mydland was in this band before he joined
the Grateful Dead.  Two of Mydland's songs appear on this album:
"Musician (Not An Easy Life)" and "Climbing".  Prior to Silver,
Mydland had been with Batdorf and Rodney.

A Wing And A Prayer - Matt Kelly (Relix RRLP 2010)  With Jerry Garcia,
Bob Weir, Billy Kreutzmann, Brent Mydland, and Keith Godchaux.  It
includes "Over And Over" (3:38), co-written with Brent Mydland.

 - Go Ahead ( )  This unreleased album includes "Nobody's", written by
Brent Mydland, which was broadcast on the "Grateful Dead Hour".
Members included:  Jerry Cortez (guitars), Bill Kreutzman (drums),
Alex Ligertwood (vocals), Brent Mydland (keyboards and vocals), and
Dave Margen (bass).

 - Brent Mydland ( )  Mydland recorded and mastered a solo album, but
it was never released.  Intended for this album were "Tons Of Steel",
with Monty Byron on guitar, a rock arrangement of "Maybe You Know",
"Nobody's", "Long Way To Go", and "Dreams".  Betty Cantor-Jackson did
the engineering and production for this album.  Other songs possibly
intended for this "album" are "Inlay It In Your Heart", "See The Other
Side", and "Take One".  These comprise about 40 minutes of music.
Some of the tapes that circulate in trading circles list a date of
February 25, 1982.  The possible songs slated for the album were
"Inlay It In Your Heart", "Tons Of Steel", "Dreams", "Maybe You Know
(How I Feel)", "Nobody's", "See The Other Side", "Long Way To Go", and
"Take One".  A tape of the original version of "Tons Of Steel" was
played during the intermission of the Dead's June 21, 1984 broadcast
from Toronto.  Brent Mydland authored several songs, including "Fire",
in 1987.  Songs, in collaboration with John Perry Barlow, include
"You're Still There", "Love Doesn't Have To Be Pretty", "It Doesn't
Matter", and "It Is What It Is".  Songs, in collaboration with Matt
Kelly, include "If That's The Way", "Over And Over", and "Shining
Dawn".

Down In The Groove - Bob Dylan (Columbia OC 40957)  Garcia, Weir, and
Mydland sing backup on "Silvio".  Hunter wrote "Silvio" (3:06) and
"Ugliest Girl In The World" (3:32).  Released on May 30, 1988.  Some
verses of "Silvio" originally appeared as verses in "Black Muddy
River", dated September 14, 1986.

New Frontier - New Frontier (Polydor 835695)  Brent Mydland plays
keyboards on "Motel Rain" on this California's band debut album from
September, 1988.  The band includes Timothy B. Schmidt, David Lindley,
and Paulheno Dacosta.  Out of print.

Mahalo - Bill Kreutzmann (http://www.ocean-spirit.net, 2003)  This CD
was released as a complimentary CD and not for sale or public
broadcast.  The cover artwork is "Sun Sun" by Bill Kreutzmann.  The
five tracks on the CD are:  "Girl Like You" (Jennings/Seals) (4:06),
recorded at Front Street on July 24, 1985 by BBDK (Bill Kreutzmann,
David Margen, Brent Mydland, and Kevin Russell); "Are You Lonely For
Me" (Berns) (21:42), from a live performance by Garcia/Saunders
(Martin Fierro, Jerry Garcia, John Kahn, Bill Kreutzmann, and Merl
Saunders) at the Keystone in Berkeley on January 17, 1974 with ;
"10,000 Mics" (Dipirro/Kreutzmann/Woodson) (8:58) by the Trichromes
(Mike Dipirro, Sy Klopps, Bill Kreutzmann, and Ralph Woodson) at the
Sy Klopps Studios on March 30, 2002; "Hey Jude > Dear Mr. Fantasy"
(14:47) by Go Ahead (Jerry Cortez, Bill Kreutzmann, Alex Ligertwood,
David Margen, and Brent Mydland) at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic,
New Jersey on October 31, 1986; and "Eyes Of The World" (9:41) by The
Dead (Rob Barraco, Jeff Chimenti, Mickey Hart, Jimmy Herring, Bill
Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh, Joan Osborne, and Bob Weir) at a rehearsal on
May 27, 2003.

The Twilight Zone (CBS Broadcasting, 1985)  The Grateful Dead and Merl
Saunders, with Bob Bralove, wrote a number of the scores for this
series which premiered on September 27, 1985.  The main and end titles
music is by the Grateful Dead.  This TV series, produced by Phil
DeGuere, was broadcast in 1985 and 1986.  The opening theme piano
music is Merl Saunders and Brent Mydland playing together.  Robert
Hunter had been hired to write the introductions to each episode, and
had been considered to do the voice-over as well.  One of the
agreements between CBS Entertainment and Grateful Dead Productions
(i.e., the band members) is dated June 12, 1985.  Individual band
members recorded a number of stings and bumpers that were used to
present different moods in the programs.

The Heroes Journey:  The World of Joseph Campbell ( )  Premiered on
May 29, 1987 in Los Angeles at a benefit for the Hermes Society.  The
soundtrack includes Mickey Hart, Jerry Garcia, and Brent Mydland
playing.

Nobody's - Go Ahead ( )  The video for this song by Brent Mydland was
directed by Justin Kreutzmann and Gian-Carlo Coppola.

Transformation Of Myth Through Time - Joseph Campbell ( )  Music
composed by Rand Weatherwax, and performed by David Jenkins on guitar,
Brent Mydland on piano, and Jerry Garcia on banjo.  Broadcast on PBS
in 1990.

The Music Never Stopped (2011)  This film, directed by Jim Kohlberg,
was released on March 18, 2011.  It is adapted from the essay "The
Last Hippie" by Oliver Sacks.  The Grateful Dead are played by actors
Phil Bender (Jerry Garcia), Rich Campbell (Bob Weir), Buzz Roddy (Bill
Kreutzmann), Ethan F. Hamburg (Phil Lesh), Mark Greenberg (Mickey
Hart), and Paul Sigrist (Brent Mydland).  The soundtrack includes
several Grateful Dead songs:  "Uncle John's Band", "Sugar Magnolia"
(live), "Not Fade Away / Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad" (live),
"Truckin'" (live), "Touch Of Grey" (live), and "Ripple".

March 18, 1973 Felt Forum, New York, NY: New Riders Of The Purple Sage & Special Friends (FM VI and 1/2)

The Village Voice ad from February 15, 1973 for the March 18 NRPS show at the Felt Forum

(this is a modified version of an earlier post)

On March 18, 1973, the New Riders Of The Purple Sage played The Felt Forum, the auditorium in the basement of Madison Square Garden. The show was broadcast in its entirety on WNEW-fm, New York City's leading rock station. Besides being a fine broadcast of the New Riders in their prime, the show featured numerous special guests. Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Donna Godchaux helped out on vocals on different songs, Jerry Garcia played electric guitar and banjo on a few numbers, Bob Weir sang a couple, and Keith Godchaux played grand piano for much of the show. The most memorable part of the performance, however, was when Garcia, Weir and Godchaux joined the New Riders and began the second set with a trio of gospel numbers: "Cold Jordan", "I Hear A Voice Calling" and "Swing Low". Garcia played banjo and Weir played acoustic guitar, the only instance of the two playing acoustic together on the East Coast between 1970 and 1980.

The Grateful Dead were playing three nights at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale in Long Island, but for whatever reasons (probably the New York Islanders) they were booked for March 15, 16 and 19 (Thursday, Friday and Monday), so they had the Sunday night off to hang out with the New Riders. It's remarkable enough that the Dead guested on a radio broadcast, but thanks to the great Its All The Streets You Crossed blog, we can now see that the Grateful Dead were all but advertised in the Village Voice. The ad above is from the February 22, 1973 edition of the Voice, a full month before the show, and the ad says "New Riders Of The Purple Sage & Special Friends." The message would be unmistakable: in 70s rock talk, "Special Guests" would have meant 'opening act who hasn't been booked yet', but "Special Friends" would imply extra people on stage. It wouldn't take a genius to note the Dead's performance dates on Long Island and see that they had the night off.

There were plenty of live FM performances in the 1970s, but relatively few of them featured guests, as the record company was paying for the band to be on the air. The economics of 70s FM broadcasts depended on some entity, usually a record company, buying up the ad time that was "lost" during the time the band was playing live on the air without commercials. Generally speaking, if a record company paid for their band to be broadcast live on FM radio, they did not want their sponsored act upstaged by friends, however talented, when the purpose of the financial subvention was to promote the company's act. Columbia Records, the New Riders label, would have paid good money to make sure that the New Riders were broadcast live for some hours on the biggest New York rock station. As a practical matter, I suspect that Columbia agreed to purchase a substantial number of ads through the month of March, rather than laid out cash per se, but the net effect would have been the same.

In the case of the Dead, however, since they were bigger than the New Riders and had a unique relationship to them, Columbia would have been ecstatic to have the Dead join the New Riders on the FM broadcast throughout the entire Tri-State area. For the Dead, the significant factor here was that by Spring 1973 they had left Warner Brothers and were working for themselves, so they didn't have to concern themselves with whether their own record company "approved" of them appearing with their friends. In early 1973, Grateful Dead co-manager Jon McIntire (reputedly "Uncle John" himself) was the manager for the New Riders Of The Purple Sage. Both the Dead and the New Riders were booked by Out Of Town Tours, Sam Cutler's agency, so coordination would have been easy.

In fact, as an indication of the clout of the Dead in this context, not only were the New Riders broadcast in their entirety, but the set of opening act Ramblin' Jack Elliott was broadcast as well. At the time, Elliott, though a legend, did not have a label and had not released an album in three years (his last album had been released in 1970 on Reprise). However, Elliott was also booked by Sam Cutler, and clearly the presence of Jerry Garcia was enough to induce Columbia to subsidize the broadcast of Ramblin' Jack's set as well as that of the Riders.

However, since the Dead were performing elsewhere, their contract with the Nassau promoter, whom I believe was Bill Graham, would have prevented them from being mentioned by name. Also, since the name "Grateful Dead" was not formally invoked, the band members could show up and perform on whichever or whatever songs they felt like. Knowing what we know today, Garcia must have had his banjo with him because he was probably practicing constantly, trying to get up to speed for Old And In The Way, which had just begun to play in the Bay Area. It's a great touch that he used it to perform with the Riders--I think March 18, 1973 was almost the only time he played banjo on stage with them (Garcia did play banjo briefly at a unique show at The Matrix on July 7, 1970). Besides the mini-acoustic set, Garcia played banjo on "Henry" as well as electric guitar on "Glendale Train," obviously just having the kind of fun he couldn't have if the marquee had said "tonight: NRPS with Jerry Garcia."

The Village Voice ad from February 15, 1973 for upcoming Capitol Theater shows

Pity poor John Scher. In New York at the time, Ron Delsener promoted shows North of the Hudson River (New York City proper) and John Scher generally promoted shows South of it (in New Jersey). Scher's principal venue was the Capitol Theater in Passaic, NJ. Scher had booked the New Riders at the Capitol for Friday, March 23, 1973, five days after the Felt Forum show. The New York City (Tri-State) metro area is so large that the Passaic show would have drawn a different crowd than the Felt Forum show, even though they were only 20 miles away from each other.

The Grateful Dead had been booked for March 15, 16 and 19 at the Nassau Coliseum. Their scheduled opening act was their Marin County compatriots The Sons Of Champlin, who had recently released an album on Columbia as well (the great Welcome To The Dance). However, after the first night, the Sons found out that the entire family of bassist David Schallock had been murdered, in a terrible tragedy. The Sons all rushed home. Who filled in as the Dead's opening act? Well, apparently the New Riders played with the Dead the other two nights (there's even a tape of March 19).

However, with the Dead having made a surprise guest appearance at the Felt Forum show, and the Riders opening for the Dead, the buzz would have been in the air, so everybody in New Jersey must have assumed that the Dead were going to drop in at Passaic, too. Never mind if that's a rational judgment: I guarantee you everybody standing in line for the show that night had heard about New York (probably in a greatly exaggerated fashion) and was fully expecting Jerry and the boys to make an appearance. Anyone on the Deadheads mailing list could have seen that the Dead were booked for Utica on March 22 and the Spectrum March 24, so it would have seemed perfectly plausible.

The 1973 New Riders were a great live band, and I'm sure they put on a terrific show at the Capitol, but the audience was probably still let down. It must have been tough for the Riders to rock through their best songs while a crowd of Jersey Deadheads (plus some Philadelphia lunatics, of course) shouted "Jerrrry!"

September 2, 1966, Ayn and Lyn Mattei Debutante Ball, La Dolphine Mansion, 1760 Manor Drive, Hillsborough, CA: The Grateful Dead/Al Trobe

Joan White's San Francisco Examiner Society column from Monday, September 5, 1966, celebrating a debutante ball on the previous Friday featuring the Grateful Dead at a mansion in the wealthy South Bay town of Hillsborough

People such as myself who have regularly analyzed the historic lists of Grateful Dead concert appearances have been aware of the band playing at a debutante ball in exclusive Hillsborough on Friday, September 2, 1966. Like many people, I had generally assumed this to be Bob Weir's sister's debutante ball. However, Eric of LoneStarDeadRadio recently sent me the newspaper source for the information, and it tells a somewhat different story. It's still true, though: the Grateful Dead, then known as scary long-haired, drug-addled outlaws, played a high society ball for the most eligible of young ladies, at perhaps the biggest mansion in the toniest town in the Bay Area.

Debutante Balls and High Society in the United States
Before we get down to the serious business of Grateful Dead performances, a word about debutante balls is in order. For some centuries in France and England, young women of the upper classes made their "debut" amongst their peers when they were eligible to marry (as Jane Austen put it, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife"). They were presented to eligible young men in a series of parties and dances, and formally speaking their "debut" was when they were presented to royalty. Wealthy Americans adopted similar traditions, although obviously without the presentation to Royalty. At least until the 1960s, most major metropolitan areas had a system of parties and events that led to a formal "cotillion" where eligible young women from usually wealthy families were formally presented as part of adult society.

The parents of these debutantes had usually spent significant money on parties and dances leading up to the major event, although there was no formal structure. The young women were known as "debutantes," and were often local celebrities in their own right. Such events were written up in the  local papers. The major papers in the Bay Area all had "society columnists:" the infamous Patsy Lou Montandon was the San Francisco Chronicle's society columnist (her immortal 1968 book How To Be A Party Girl is a true camp classic), and Joan White was the SF Examiner columnist. Appearing in the society column in effect made a young woman part of the upper class, whether or not that was a true representation of the family's income.

A photo from the September 5, 1966 San Francisco Examiner. The caption reads "Bob Weir of "The Grateful Dead" wails away at ball which was also attended by his deb sister, Wendy Weir."

Joan White's Column in the San Francisco Examiner, Monday, September 5, 1966
For those of you who can't expand the screen easily, here are the key parts of the article (up top) [update: the article refers to the family as "Mattel" with an L, but I am assured now that the family spelled the name "Mattei."]

Brilliant Deb Ball In A Bay Chateau
Debs Danced To Rock 'n' Roll Beat
by Joan White, Examiner Society Editor
La Dolphine, the beautiful Hillsborough mansion that has been silent and unoccupied off and on since it was built before World War 1, burst into brilliant life with a rock 'n' roll beat Friday night, for a deb ball the Albert C. Mattels gave for their granddaughters, Ayn and Lyn Mattel [sic].

The Mattels have been leasing the home, which is modeled after Le Petit Trianon at Versailles, for six months of the year from the Hugh Chisholms.

The 18th century styled chateau is set in 3 1/2 acres of terraced gardens which were floodlighted with pink and white spots for the party. Despite the evening's chill, the young set stayed outside to dance to the rhythms of the Grateful Dead, while their elders remained in the ballroom where Al Trobe played.

It was a wonderful mixture of old elegance and Carnaby Street. In fact, two young men, Bruce Webster and William Lombardo, wore their dinner jackets over mod pants and boots. And another was in acceptable black tie with the exception of the wide mod belt that circled his waist.

One of the members of the Grateful Dead is Bob Weir, the brother of Peninsula Ball deb Wendy Weir, who made her bow earlier this year at a marvelous pop party at San Francisco Airport.

The beat of the band was so infectious that the adults were eventually lured to the outdoors dance platform where credible frugs were performed by Mrs. Ernest O. McCormick and Berens Nelson, and Mrs. William Wallace Mein Jr and Bryan Hemming.

Guests were shuttled up the drive to the mansion by Volkswagen buses. Pots of yellow spider-chrysanthemum lined the divided staircase where dinner tables were covered with moss green cloths and centered with yellow and white chrysanthemums and white candles.

La Dolphine Mansion, 1760 Manor Drive, Hillsborough, CA, just south of San Francisco

Society And 60s Rock
Up until the mid-60s, becoming a debutante was an indisputably glamorous thing for a young woman to do. Debutantes could hope (truthfully or not) to be the envy of all their peers, and might even become local celebrities. Young people are young, however, and one different thing about "society" events is that they were attended by both young and old people. Where a dance was involved, the sixties solution was to have two groups: a big band to play dance music for adults, and a rock group to provide dance music for the younger set. The groups would typically alternate, giving each social set a break to relax and mingle while the opposite group played. In the Bay Area, at least, and probably in many places, playing a society dance was a common paying gig for working bands. In some cases, they had to wear suits and ties to do it, but a paid booking was a paid booking.

The La Dolphine event seems to have been on a far grander scale than a typical debutante dance. For one thing, the mansion was so big that the two bands could play simultaneously. The Grateful Dead played outdoors, while pianist Al Trobe (probably leading a Count Basie-style big band) played in the ballroom. Keep in mind also that probably about 200 people were invited to the event, at most, and only half of them would have been interested in a rock band. Thus the Grateful Dead were engaged to entertain 100 teenagers.

In September 1966, the Grateful Dead had not yet released an album, and they were more infamous than famous. Nonetheless, they were becoming San Francisco headliners. The La Dolphine ball was on the Friday of Labor Day weekend, and on that Sunday night the Dead would be headlining the Fillmore. While the Dead were far cheaper to hire in Fall '66 than they would be later, hiring a Fillmore headliner would be far more expensive than the usual teenage dance combo. Clearly, the event was on a higher order than a typical dance.

Eric of LoneStarDeadRadio, who procured the newspaper article up top, did have an interesting, if unverifiable story that he sent me in a personal email

amazingly enough after I posted it in Facebook someone commented that he is married to the sister of the 2 girls mentioned in the article the Mattei sisters Ayn and Lynn he said they were in Europe and wouldn't come home for deb ball unless grandma Mattei got the Dead to play so the old lady made it happen or so the story goes

I find this story pretty plausible. Under normal circumstances, a debutante ball would not hire an expensive city headliner, when any local combo would do. However, if the granddaughters insisted on a certain band, a family that could accord to rent La Dolphine could afford the Dead's fees, whatever they were. Given that Bob Weir's sister was part of the same society circles, it would not have been hard to approach the band, and the group surely needed the money.

So, props to the Mattei sisters, for choosing to have the Grateful Dead when they could have had anything. Certainly if I was having a party for 100 of my friends, and I wanted a band for dancing, the 1966 Grateful Dead would be a great choice. I suspect the Dead may have dusted off some favorites by the Rolling Stones and the Olympics that didn't get played as much at the Avalon and the Fillmore, but I doubt we'll find out. Many of the attendees may have only been vaguely aware, if at all, of the name of the scruffy, unsigned band who were playing the dance music. But here's to hoping that Ayn and Lynn are still out there, and maybe they can tell us the setlist highlights, at least.

The Players
Albert C Mattel
Albert C Mattel had been President of the Honolulu Oil Company, until it was bought out by Jersey Oil in 1962, which is today better known as Exxon. The Honolulu Oil Company was associated with the 19th century steamship captain and entrepreneur William Matson, who was a pioneer of the San Francisco to Honolulu trade. However, the Honolulu Oil Company was based in San Francisco, and when it was sold in 1910 its principal fields were in Kern and Coalinga, CA. While the Mattel family was clearly quite wealthy, there was no connection to the Mattel toy company [note: I don't know why the name is googlable as Mattel, even though the family name was Mattei by this time]

Hillsborough, CA
Hillsborough is a wealthy Peninsula town halfway between San Francisco and Palo Alto. It is on the hills overlooking the Bay, just above San Mateo and Burlingame. Beginning with the formation of the Burlingame Country Club in 1893, Hillsborough society flourished around this area, with many of San Francisco’s most influential citizens commuting to country leisure via the newly minted Burlingame Train Depot. Several magnificent estates remain, including La Dolphine, orginally built for George Newhall by Lewis Hobart in 1913, then on 20 acres and known as Newmar.

The peninsula south of San Francisco had originally been a mixture of farms and "country estates" for wealthy city residents. The Southern Pacific train line extended down to Menlo Park because SP partners had huge estates there. After Leland Stanford and Timothy Hopkins purchased land in 1875 to create Palo Alto and Stanford University, the line was extended down to Palo Alto. By the mid-20th century, however, while the South Bay was prosperous, they were by and large typical middle class suburbs.

A few communities, however, were still the provinces of the rich, particularly old San Francisco money. Old San Francisco money styled themselves as very European, and flashing wealth in public was frowned upon, but debutante balls were a place where conspicuous consumption was not forbidden. In the picture above, I suspect that the necklaces the Mattei sisters are wearing were not costume jewelry. Hillsborough was by far the toniest and richest community in the South Bay, followed closely by Atherton, where Bob Weir grew up. Nonetheless, save for a few families, possibly including the Matteis, most residents of Hillsborough and Atherton were not crazy rich in the way that Silicon Valley residents are today.

The Good News perform at a debutante ball, with their strobe-light-ready clothing. The caption from  a forgotten newspaper says "Peninsula Deb Janet Laird, Steve Boyden dance to the Big Beat"--clipping courtesy Tim Abbot

Wendy Weir's Debutante Ball, Spring 1966
For many years I (and others) had assumed that the La Dolphine event was for Wendy Weir, and that was why the Grateful Dead had played it. However, while Wendy must have been instrumental in making sure the Dead played La Dolphine, according to the article, it turns out that Wendy had come out in the Spring of that year. Joan White's article says "Peninsula Ball deb Wendy Weir, who made her bow earlier this year at a marvelous pop party at San Francisco Airport." If Wendy Weir debuted at a marvelous pop party, why didn't the Grateful Dead play at it? The issue appears to have been one of scheduling.

Generally speaking, debs do not "come out" in the Summer, so Wendy's event must have been in April or May of 1966, or even earlier. A debutante dance was a carefully planned event, so all the arrangements must have been made months in advance. Back in February and March of 1966, the Grateful Dead had relocated to Los Angeles, seemingly permanently, to "make it" in the music business. Thus they would not have seemed to have been available for Wendy Weir's event. Of course, we know that the Dead had returned to the Bay Area by April, but the debutante ball would already have been booked. If there had even been a plan to have the Grateful Dead play for Wendy, and there's no certainty that there was, the band missed any opportunity to book themselves in advance.

However, the discovery of this article solves a peculiar little mystery, and as a result I know which pop band played Wendy Weir's party. Sometime ago, I published a post on the interesting history of Redwood City's first blues band, The Good News. Besides being one of the first white blues bands in the Bay Area, modeled on the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, The Good News also seem to have been the first band around the Bay Area to tour with their own light show. The light show was mainly a strobe light, but that was pretty far out for the time. The band wore outrageously colored Day-Glo clothes that looked exotic under the strobes.

I learned about The Good News in detail from their lead guitarist Tim Abbott. Abbott went on to play with The Chocolate Watch Band (and later Shango), but he mentioned in passing that The Good News had played a debutante party for Bob Weir's sister at the SFO Airport. I had wondered about that, since I had thought her big event was at La Dolphine, but Joan White's article confirms that Wendy came out at the Airport. Strange as it may seem, SFO Airport was fairly new at the time, and there was a lounge that could be rented. I suspect that if guests were flying in, it was very convenient. In 1966, at least, it must have been a desirable place to host an event, and with the strobe lights and DayGlo clothes of The Good News, it must have indeed been a marvelous pop party.

The picture of the Good News above was sent to me courtesy of Tim Abbott, and it was taken at a South Bay deb party, even though Abbott no longer remembers which one, where it was held, or what the newspaper was. It's not impossible that the picture actually was from Wendy's deb party, but in any case it's a good representation of what her event must have been like.

Yet the world of the South Bay was still quite small in the 60s. When the Mattei sisters wanted a specific band at their event, one of the band members had a sister who was part of their social circle. The Good News were a popular South Bay blues band in Spring 1966, but since they never recorded, they are thoroughly forgotten now. However, besides lead guitarist Abbott, the other members included lead singer Dave Torbert and drummer Chris Herold. Both Torbert and Herold would leave The Good News to join The New Delhi River Band with David Nelson. Torbert and Nelson went on to join the New Riders Of The Purple Sage, and when Torbert left the Riders, he re-united with Herold. Herold and Torbert went on to form Kingfish in 1974, and of course Bob Weir joined Kingfish a few months later. I wonder if Torbert and Herold recalled that they had played Wendy Weir's debutante ball eight years earlier?

Appendix
September 4, 1968 Suzanne Bradford Debutante Ball, Burlingame Country Club, Burlingame, CA: The Sons Of Champlin/Walt Tolleson Orchestra
Bay Area Rock bands regularly played Debutante Balls in the 60s, usually on their way up the ladder. Just for comparison, here is a clip from Oakland Tribune society columnist Robin Orr, describing an event where the Sons Of Champlin alternated with a local big band. I think this event was a more typical debutante ball, while the Mattel sisters event at La Dolphine was grand even for the well-to-do.

Two members of the Sons Of Champlin, pianist Geoff Palmer and guitarist Terry Haggerty, were the sons of professional musicians. In fact, Terry's dad, Frank Haggerty, a fine jazz guitarist, even played some gigs with Al Trobe, so it's not impossible that he had played the La Dolphine show.

Robin Orr's society column from the Oakland Tribune on September 5, 1966. A debutante dance was held at the Burlingame Country Club that featured both the Sons Of Champlin and The Walt Tolleson Orchestra

Jerry Garcia Album Economics Spring 1978 (Tour Itinerary February 1978)

The cover of Cats Under The Stars, by The Jerry Garcia Band, released on Arista Records in April, 1978

In late 1977, the Jerry Garcia Band recorded Cats Under The Stars at Club Front. The old warehouse had been the Garcia Band rehearsal hall, but Ron Tutt liked the drum sound so much that Garcia had Betty Cantor-Jackson convert the room into a recording studio. The album was released in April of 1978 on Arista Records, and it sold very poorly. Garcia often recounted how much effort he put into the album, and how disappointed he was that Cats did poorly:

• "[Cats Under The Stars] had everything - chops, production, songs"
• "Cats Under The Stars is my favorite one. That's the one that I'm happiest with, from every point of view in which I operate on that record. We did all those tunes on tour right after the album came out, with John and Maria, Keith and Donna"
• "The record I worked hardest at and liked best was Cats Under The Stars. That was kind of like my baby. It did worse than any other record I ever did. I think I probably gave away more copies than I sold. It was amazingly, pathetically bad. But I've learned not to invest a lot of importance in 'em, although it's nice to care about your work."

John Kahn concurred

"We put so much blood into that record. That was our major try. It was all new material and we did it ourselves. We spent so many hours in the studio" (all quotes via Deaddisc)

After the financial debacle of Grateful Dead Records and its sister, Round Records, the Grateful Dead signed with Arista Records at the end of 1976. For the first time since 1967, the Dead had worked with an outside producer who was not a friend of the band, as Keith Olsen had produced 1977's Terrapin Station. After the greatly disappointing sales of Cats, Garcia seemed to lose interest in studio recording and writing original material. He continued to play fantastic live music with both the Dead and his own ensembles throughout the remainder of his career, and he did write the occasional fine song with Hunter. Garcia also participated in some fine studio projects as well, such as In The Dark and various records with David Grisman, but compared to the first 10 years of his rock career, it was plain that Garcia wasn't really interested in the studio after Cats Under The Stars.

Garcia was such an engaging and articulate interview subject that it was easy for him to hide in plain sight. No one ever really inquired what he expected from Cats Under The Stars, and how he saw the future playing out. I cannot divine how Garcia felt personally, so I won't attempt it. However, I think I can construct a reasonable picture of of how Garcia felt that the economics of the Arista Records contract would have worked to his and the Grateful Dead's advantage, allowing him and his friends and bandmates to make the music they wanted to and live the lives they chose. It didn't work out that way, but I will argue that the 1977-78 period represented a "Plan B" to replace Grateful Dead Records. It was a "Plan B" that failed, by and large, and I think that accounted for much of Garcia's musical retreat towards emphasizing live performance.

What Did Jerry Want?
In a 1971 Rolling Stone interview, Keith Richards was asked about John Lennon' stature, and Keith said "no one gets to be John Lennon by accident." This was not a jealous snipe; indeed, Keith was very much implying the same about himself. It's no less important to apply Keith's dictum to Jerry: no one gets to be Jerry Garcia by accident. Some of the byproducts of being Jerry Garcia may have been unintended, but Garcia worked incredibly hard for decades to achieve his stature as a musical giant and an iconoclastic rock star who became rich and famous almost entirely on his own terms, while breaking most of the written and unwritten rules in the music industry.

Garcia ultimately may have wished that less attention would have been paid to his non-musical utterances, but with a guitar in his hands he was a gunslinger. He wanted the maximum reach for his music, and he didn't want to get it by giving away the challenging edge that made him appealing in the first place. At any time, he could have taken a year or two off from touring and hung out, as so many others did, but instead he did the opposite, starting new bands and touring and recording just as much outside the Dead as with them. For all Garcia's uniqueness, he was still an ambitious rock star. Gracious as he generally was, he had to have quietly enjoyed the Dire Straits song "Money For Nothing" because he was actually the object of the song, not the subject. Garcia wanted three things from rock stardom, in this order:

1. Freedom to play the music he wanted, regardless of the cost of sound systems or any equipment
2. Financial security for his fellow musicians, including their families
3. The material trappings that go with stardom: black BMWs, rare comic books, recreational substances, money for nothing and chicks for free

For all these things, Garcia and the Grateful Dead needed money, lots of it. By the mid-70s, they were touring successfully enough to make a living, but they couldn't do just anything they wanted. They had tried that with Grateful Dead/Round Records, and they had taken a huge bath. To compound the problem, Garcia had spent two years working on the Grateful Dead movie, and that project had sucked up enormous amounts of cash in its own right. Garcia and the Dead may have needed the money when they finally signed with Clive Davis and Arista Records in late 1976, but I think Garcia looked at his peers and he had a plan. I don't think that Garcia and the band sat around the office and had a meeting about strategic branding, but I think with some nudges from Arista, Jerry saw a way he could still get what he wanted within the confines of the late 70s record industry.

The cover to the Grateful Dead's Terrapin Station album, released on Arista in July, 1977

The Grateful Dead and Arista Records: Plan B
Touring was profitable in the mid-70s, but not nearly as profitable as it would become in the late 1980s, once concert sheds like Shoreline Amphitheater ruled the land. The real money was in record sales. Grateful Dead Records had sagged because distribution was inferior--the band could sell records, but they couldn't get paid. However, by the mid-70s the record industry was so lucrative that independence wasn't absolutely necessary. Many of the Jerry Garcia's peers were becoming extremely successful, much more so than they had been in the 1960s. I think Garcia's plan for success was modeled on the Jefferson Starship, the Steve Miller Band and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, all of whom (in various forms) were more successful than they had been when they were 60s legends. What the three bands had in common were both commercially successful albums and a financial house in order.

I don't think Garcia and the Dead were sitting around reading Billboard Magazine, but Arista surely was, and they must have helped to persuade Garcia of the value of this approach. Many of the big bands in the mid-1970s had been slugging it out on the Fillmore circuit in the 60s, but were only reaping the rewards 5 to 10 years later. By 1977, for example, The Jefferson Starship had had huge hits with "Miracles" and many other songs, and the Steve Miller Band had had a gigantic album with Fly Like An Eagle. Many of the most popular English bands that were headlining baseball stadiums in 1977 had members that had been in bands that had opened for the Dead at the Fillmores, like Peter Frampton (in Humble Pie), Robin Trower (in Procol Harum), Foghat (in Savoy Brown) and, of course, the new edition of Fleetwood Mac.

The quietly competitive Garcia can not have been happy to see guys in bands who had opened for the Dead several years ago now headlining stadiums, even if he didn't begrudge them personally. Some of the professional decisions that Garcia and The Grateful Dead made in 1977 make sense if we consider that Garcia was looking to emulate the success of his peers in order to play the music he wanted.  I am going to consider the various peers Garcia was probably thinking about, and consider the Grateful Dead and the Jerry Garcia Band in comparison.

The cover to the Jefferson Starship album Red Octopus, released on Grunt/RCA Records in June, 1975

Jefferson Starship
The Jefferson Airplane had been a very successful band in the 1960s, and they sold a lot of records and made a lot of money, most of which didn't go the Airplane members themselves. Even through the 70s, most of the members were tied up in litigation with their former manager Matthew Katz, and the usual poor judgement of 60s musicians had made the band members perpetually cash poor. By 1974, however, Paul Kantner had righted the ship by renaming the band Jefferson Starship. The band's creative but notoriously diffuse talents were harnessed by professional production, and albums like Dragonfly and Red Octopus made money hand over fist. The story is too long to tell here--read Jeff Tamarkin's fine Airplane biography Got A Revolution for the whole tale--but by the late 1970s the Starship were hugely successful, and keeping the money.

By 1977, the Dead had resolved their management issues and settled their debts, but they didn't really have any cushion beyond their touring income. Garcia had always been personally and professionally close to Paul Kantner, Grace Slick and David Freiberg, so he had to be acutely aware of the Starship's triumphs. The Starship was less adventurous live than the Grateful Dead, but there were fewer restrictions on a popular band in the 1970s concert environment. I think Garcia saw the economic benefits of Red Octopus, and felt that if the Dead could emulate that, it would finance the music they wanted to make. I don't for a second mean to suggest that Garcia wasn't trying to make great music with the Dead, just that he was trying to make that music in live performance, and let a producer make the studio album.

Keith Olsen had been a 60s musician himself (surely you recall "Talk Talk" by The Music Machine), and he had produced the hugely popular Fleetwood Mac album for that band. The Mac were old pals of the Dead, albeit in a different configuration, so I think Garcia hoped that Olsen could make Terrapin Station into Red Octopus. The resulting windfall would have allowed Garcia and the Dead to make whatever music they wanted on stage while insuring financial security. Another comparison would have been Santana, who had recently released some commercially successful records, with singles like "Well Alright" and "Winning," while still playing exciting, improvisational music on stage. Garcia had helped produce the Dead's last three studio albums, but the band hadn't really had a studio success since 1970's American Beauty, and even that had been produced by a semi-outsider, ace engineer Stephen Barncard.

The cover to Fly Like An Eagle, by The Steve Miller Band, released on Capitol Records in May, 1976

Steve Miller Band
Although Garcia had deferred production of Terrapin Station to Keith Olsen, Garcia's creative goals remained intact. Having written a few songs for the Dead's Terrapin Station album, he seemed to have focused his efforts on his own band. Garcia's music had its own internal dynamic, but I think on a business level Garcia modeled his approach on the Steve Miller Band. The Steve Miller Band had been peers of the Grateful Dead in the 60s, a little less popular, but more or less on the same tier. The Steve Miller Band had released some fine albums in the 60s, but they had treaded water in the early 70s. Although there was a continuity in the group's sound, the "Band" was just Steve Miller and whoever he was playing with. In 1973, Miller had had a surprise hit with "The Joker," but he then confounded orthodoxy by not releasing an album for the next three years.

The Steve Miller Band returned in 1976 with the stunning Fly Like An Eagle. Eagle took all the virtues of Miller's previous records and distilled them into a radio friendly format. The sound on the album was spectacular, and it was even more so on the widely available high fidelity FM radios in so many new cars. The blues, space and swagger of Miller's previous albums was smoothed out to make them more accessible, and in return, the Steve Miller Band had a giant, multi-platinum album, along with some giant singles (the title track, 'Take The Money And Run," and "Rock 'N' Me"). It was followed in 1977 by the equally huge Book Of Dreams album. Whether you like Fly Like An Eagle better than 1968's Children Of The Future is a different question. From Miller's point of view, after Fly Like An Eagle, he could do whatever he wanted. I think Garcia noticed.

By the end of 1977, the Steve Miller Band was one of the best selling bands in the world, and they weren't even a band. By the mid-70s, Miller had a rotating cast of players, many of whom had toured with Miller at one time or another, and they were used on different tracks as appropriate. So while the Steve Miller Band wasn't a group in the traditional sense, the players had a collective consciousness that lent the albums a cohesive feel. While Miller and Garcia weren't close like Garcia and the Starship crowd, they had certainly played together a number of times and shared backstages often, so Garcia can't have been unaware at Miller's ability to take his own music and make it a commercial success.

I think Garcia planned Cats Under The Stars as his Fly Like An Eagle. It was all Garcia music, but it was designed to have the craziest edges rounded off. The songs were five minutes long instead of fifteen, and the production had that FM sheen that sounded good on the highway. The Garcia Band would still have been free to play "Don't Let Go" for as long as they wanted on stage, but the album was aimed towards a more general audience. By choosing the name Jerry Garcia Band, Garcia and Kahn were not tied to specific collaborators. Besides Keith and Donna Godchaux, Ron Tutt and Maria Muldaur, old friends Merl Saunders and Steve Schuster each played parts. Looking forward to future albums, the Garcia Band name would have allowed Jerry and John to use whomever they wanted as the music dictated.

The cover to the CSN album by Crosby, Stills and Nash, released on Atlantic Records in June, 1977. The original lp had a different cover photo, although from the same photo shoot.

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
In 1978, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were not an intact band, but I still think they were influential. The quartet were peers and friends of Garcia as well, to differing extents, so I think Garcia would have felt that their experiences could provide an adequate comparison to the Dead. Back in 1970, CSNY had been one of the biggest acts in the country, but the band disintegrated soon afterwards. However, all of the band members released fairly successful solo albums, and when CSNY re-united to tour in 1974, they were an even bigger attraction than when they had broken up, and this was without a new album.

An abortive 1975 reunion album devolved into a pair of duos (Stills/Young and Crosby/Nash), both of which toured successfully (1976 live tapes of the Stills/Young Band are amazing, by the way). In 1977, Crosby Stills and Nash gave up on the mercurial Neil Young, and recorded the CSN album. Released in June, 1977 the album reached #2 and the trio toured successfully without Young. The lesson that the record industry took from CSNY was that music fans were sophisticated enough to understand that artists had many facets. Solo success by Stills, Young and the Crosby/Nash duo only added to the luster of CSN and CSNY. Successful albums and tours by Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir would only add to the success of the Grateful Dead.

Arista must have pointed this out to Garcia, figuring that between the Dead, Jerry and Bob they had tripled their chances for a hit. From Arista's point of view, other companies were making a pile of money on old Fillmore bands: Captiol (Steve Miller), Columbia (Boz Scaggs), RCA (Jefferson Starship) and Warners (Fleetwood Mac) were all cashing chips big time, and Clive Davis and Arista probably felt that the Dead were as good a bet as any of those bands. Thus Garcia's focus on his own album would have been pitched by Arista as financially good for the Dead, rather than a threat, and I think rightfully so. Even if Grateful Dead Records was no more, Garcia still had a vision where he could get where he wanted to go in the way he wanted to get there. If Cats Under The Stars (or Heaven Help The Fool) had been a big hit, the Grateful Dead as a whole would have benefited enormously.

The cover to Bob Weir's Heaven Help The Fool album, released January 1978 on Arista.

Grateful Dead/Jerry Garcia/Bob Weir/Robert Hunter Tour Itinerary, February 1978
The remarkable flurry of activity in February 1978 makes more sense in the context of the band's multi-faceted assault on rock stardom. Terrapin Station had been released in July of 1977 and had not been a huge success, although it hadn't completely tanked. In January of 1978, Bob Weir had released his Heaven Help The Fool album, also produced by Keith Olsen. It was designed to make Weir a star along the lines of someone like Boz Scaggs, ironically enough a former member of the Steve Miller Band himself.

Meanwhile Garcia was still finishing up Cats Under The Stars. Since the Jerry Garcia Band would tour the East Coast in March, the month before the album came out, I think there was a disconnect between the plans of Garcia and Arista, but in any case Garcia Band tours were inherently profitable. At the same time, Robert Hunter had recorded an album at Club Front, recorded by Betty Matthews and probably financed by Garcia. While success for Hunter was less critical to the grand scheme--except to Hunter, of course--it fit in with the CSNY concept that success for any component strengthened the whole edifice.

None of it happened. Terrapin Station did OK, but it was no Red Octopus. Cats Under The Stars and Heaven Help The Fool were--in industry parlance--stiffs. Hunter's album was never released. Garcia and Hunter stepped away from recording in the studio, and Garcia narrowed his focus to live performance. Time kept slipping, slipping, slipping into the future, however, and ironically, with the growth of the concert industry in the 80s and 90s, the Dead finally made the money they had been hoping to make, long after Garcia had given up on flying like an eagle.

That's not how it seemed in February of 1978. Every band was on tour, everything was happening, and after the disappointments of Grateful Dead Records and Blues For Allah, it seemed like success was finally just around the corner.

January 30-February 1, 1978: Uptown Theater, Chicago, IL: Grateful Dead
I have discussed the Grateful Dead's unique tour itinerary for January 1978 elsewhere. The band played California and the West Coast and made some great music, but the tour may not have made financial sense. Fresno was thinly attended--really thinly--and Bakersfield was problematic as well. The Dead's peculiar touring scheduled suggests that a show or shows on the weekend of January 27-28 were canceled. That is the only explanation I can find for the Dead taking an eight day break after Eugene, OR (January 22) and then playing three weeknights in Chicago in the Dead of winter.

The Uptown Theater in Chicago, located on 4816 N. Broadway, was built in 1925 and had a capacity of 4,381. The Dead played Monday through Wednesday nights. Tapes suggests that the band played terrifically well, as they had throughout the tour.

February 3, 1978: Dane County Coliseum, Madison, WI: Grateful Dead
On Friday night, the Grateful Dead played the Dane County Coliseum in Madison, WI. Madison was the home of the University of Wisconsin, and I have to assume it was prime Deadhead territory. I also think that not too many bands came through Madison in the Winter, and a rockin' good time must have been had by all. Dane County Coliseum was a typical Midwestern hockey arena, built in 1967 with a capacity of 10,231. The Dead always played well in places like this, possibly because venue operators were used to crazy hockey fans, and found Deadheads harmless. The venue is now known as the Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

I had this tape many years ago, and much of the second set was released on Dick's Picks Vol 18. If I recall correctly, there was no drum solo in the second set, an indicator that the dreaded "format" was not fully locked in yet. 

February 4, 1978; Milwaukee Auditorium, Milwaukee, WI: Grateful Dead
On Saturday night, the Dead played the much smaller Milwaukee Auditorium, capacity 4,086. It was built in 1909 and located on 500 W. Kilborn Avenue. It is now known as the Milwaukee Theater. Even though Milwaukee is a bigger city than Madison, the Dead played a smaller venue, a clear sign to me that the band's primary audience was over in Madison. Also, back in '73, the Dead's sound system was so big it took two days to set up, but now the band could roll in and out of a venue in a night. A few songs from this show were released on Dick's Picks Vol 18.

February 5, 1978: Uni-Dome, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA: Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead's winter mini-tour ended in the far-flung outpost of Cedar Falls, IA, at the University of Northern Iowa. Cedar Falls is 275 miles East of Milwaukee, 125 miles Northeast of Des Moines, and not really near anywhere. Football is a Fall sport, and yet the newly-constructed (1976) Uni-Dome at the University of Northern Iowa provided a domed venue for football games. This tells you how cold the area was in the Fall, much less in February. The capacity of the Uni-Dome ranges from 10,000 for basketball, to 16,000 for football to 22, 000 for special events.

I don't think a lot of major touring bands get up to Cedar Falls at all, much less in February. A commenter on the Archive says it was the coldest night of the year--which in Iowa would be pretty darn cold--but it didn't matter. The house must have been rocking, and I have to think mostly with students who had nothing else to do on a cold Sunday night. I wonder what the actual attendance of the show was? There were probably only about 12,000 students in the school at the time.

Some of the show was released on Dick's Picks Vol 18 as well. I had a tape of the second set for many years. If a casual concert goer wasn't persuaded by that night's show, they definitely weren't Deadhead material. The Dead's strange ability to blow the big ones while delivering a knockout blow in the middle of nowhere remains one of their most emblematic traits. 

February 7-8, 1978: Shady Grove, San Francisco, CA: Robert Hunter and Comfort
Meanwhile, back in San Francisco, various Grateful Dead entities were preparing to go out on tour, beginning their multi-pronged assault on America. I have written about the touring history of Robert Hunter and Comfort at some length, so I needn't recap it all here. However, by February of 1978 they had finished recording their album, though it isn't clear to me whether Hunter already knew it wasn't going to be released. Indeed, it remains obscure what label it was intended for, and why exactly it has never seen the light of day.

Nonetheless, in early 1978 Comfort pianist Richard McNeese had left the band, and was replaced by local pianist Ozzie Ahlers, a transplant from the Woodstock, NY area. Ahlers had played with Van Morrison and Jesse Colin Young, among many others. Hunter and Comfort played two weeknight shows at one of their regular haunts, The Shady Grove, presumably to get ready for some high profile touring with the Jerry Garcia Band. The Shady Grove was at 1538 Haight Street, between Ashbury and Clayton. The club featured mostly local bands. I believe Comfort had played there regularly before Hunter had even joined up with the group.

February 14-16, 1978: Keystone Berkeley, Berkeley, CA: Jerry Garcia Band
Less than 10 days after returning from the Grateful Dead's winter tour, Jerry Garcia and Keith and Donna Godchaux were back on stage at Garcia's home court, the Keystone Berkeley. Garcia must have still been finishing up Cats Under The Stars, if only to approve final mixes, album art and so on. The Jerry Garcia Band was gearing up for a 9 date East Coast tour, which included a number of double shows and some very high profile bookings. I have to think the tour was planned with the idea that Cats Under The Stars would already have been released, but presumably something held it up. As was his custom, Garcia seems to have minimized rehearsal and preferred to play shows at the Keystone Berkeley instead.

The Jerry Site shows four consecutive nights at Keystone Berkeley, on February 14-17. However, I don't think that the Garcia Band played 4 nights in a row at Keystone Berkeley, certainly not before two nights of concerts on the 18th and 19th. I am unable to track the provenance of this, but as usual I may be at least partially guilty. My notes (the source for Deadbase IX) say that JGB played three nights in Berkeley, and then has Keystone Palo Alto on February 17 as a question mark. Regardless, I don't think the Garcia Band played anywhere on February 17, and I wouldn't be surprised if they only played two of the three nights from the 14th through the 16th.

February 17-19, 1978: The Roxy, Los Angeles, CA: Bob Weir Band (early and late shows)
With Heaven Help The Fool having been released in January of 1978, the Bob Weir Band was gearing up to tour as well. Rather than draw from the usual San Francisco suspects, Weir had organized a group of Los Angeles based musicians. I have dealt with this subject at length as well. Ibanez guitar rep Jeff Hasselberger had introduced Weir to guitarist Bobby Cochran, and the two Bobs had signed up drummer John Mauceri and bassist Rick Carlos. Carlos in turn invited organist Brent Mydland, with whom Carlos had played in various bands. The Bob Weir Band tour was originally scheduled for December of 1977, which leads me to think that both Garcia and Weir's albums were originally scheduled for earlier than they were actually released. Unlike Garcia, however, Weir could not afford to tour until he had an album to support.

Weir and his cohorts must have spent the time between the end of the Dead tour and the beginning of the Bob Weir Band tour rehearsing. I have to suspect that the Bob Weir Band rehearsals were held in Los Angeles and not in San Francisco, another break from regular Dead practices. The Bob Weir Band debuted at The Roxy on the Sunset Strip, far and away the most high profile rock club west of the Mississippi. The Roxy, at 9009 W. Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, had opened on September 23, 1973. The Roxy was operated by Elmer Valentine, the proprietor of West Hollywood's legendary Whisky A Go Go. It was backed by some of the biggest names in the industry: Lou Adler (of Ode Records), David Geffen (of Asylum Records), Elliot Roberts (the manager of CSNY and Joni Mitchell) and Peter Asher (besides being "Peter" in Peter & Gordon, he was Linda Ronstadt's producer). Artists played The Roxy to see and be seen, in true Hollywood fashion.

Weir had played The Roxy before, with Kingfish in March of 1976. Then, too, when he had played The Roxy it had been because Kingfish had also just released a new album. The Roxy wasn't intended to be financially sound for bands. They got paid, but not that much. Playing The Roxy meant that everybody in the industry checked you out. For a member of the Grateful Dead to begin his tour by playing The Roxy on a weekend was a clear indicator that Weir was approaching his album differently from the usual Grateful Dead spin-off.

February 18, 1978: Marin Veterans Memorial Auditorium, San Rafael, CA: Jerry Garcia Band/Robert Hunter and Comfort
Bill Graham Presents promoted two Jerry Garcia Band shows in the Bay Area, quite a rarity during the 1970s. At this time, Freddie Herrera's Keystone family of clubs were Garcia's home base. However, there were not Keystones in Marin or Santa Cruz, so presumably Garcia felt that his loyalty was not compromised. The Jerry Garcia Band was about to embark on a 9-date, 12-show East Coast tour in March, with Robert Hunter and Comfort opening several of the shows. Money aside, I assume that one reason for these two Bay Area shows was for the band and crew to check out the concert configuration of the two bands

The Marin Veteran's Memorial Auditorium, part of the Marin Civic Center in San Rafael, was finished in 1971. It seats 1,960. It was rarely used for rock shows in the 1970s, although interestingly enough, parts of Peter Frampton's bestselling Frampton Comes Alive album was recorded there. Over the years, Marin Vets was used more often for shows, and the Grateful Dead played a number of fine shows there. In 1978, however, I believe this was Garcia's first concert (as opposed to nightclub) appearance in his home county in some time.

In retrospect, one interesting footnote to the Marin Vets show was that it would have been the first time Jerry Garcia heard keyboardist Ozzie Ahlers play. Ahlers had recently joined Comfort, replacing Richard McNeese on piano. After the early 70s, Garcia was no longer able to casually hang out and jam with or listen to musicians without attracting attention. Nicky Hopkins, Brent Mydland, Ozzie Ahlers and Melvin Seals had all been in bands that opened for Garcia or the Dead, and that seems to have been Garcia's principal source of new keyboard players (James Booker and Jimmy Warren excepted). Although no one ever asked him about it, he would have had a good chance to hear Ahlers in February and March of 1978, and he seems to have stored that information away for a while, as Ahlers was invited to join the Garcia Band in October of 1979.

February 19, 1978: Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, Santa Cruz, CA: Jerry Garcia Band/Robert Hunter and Comfort
The Jerry Garcia Band had played Santa Cruz with some regularity, but mostly at the smaller Del Mar Theater. The Civic Auditorium, at 307 Church Street, has a capacity of about 2000. Garcia had played there before with Old And In The Way. I have also written about the Dead, Garcia and Santa Cruz at length, so again I won't recap it all. However, while Garcia's future haunt The Catalyst had opened some years earlier, in 1978 it was still a coffee shop on Front Street, and had not moved to its current location on Pacific Avenue where it was big enough to book the JGB.

February 19, 1978 was a Sunday night, but Monday was President's Day, so it counted as a weekend night. Tracks from both Marin Vets and Santa Cruz were part of the fine Bay Area 1978 release.

February 23, 1978: Civic Center Theater, St. Paul, MN: Bob Weir Band/Doucette
Having debuted at The Roxy in Los Angeles, and with Heaven Help The Fool in the stores, the Bob Weir Band began a relatively traditional 70s rock tour. It began in Bloomington, MN, in a suburb of Minneapolis, at the Metropolitan Sports Center. The Met Center was a hockey arena built in 1962, home of the NHL's Minnesota North Stars, with a capacity of 15,000. While I find it surprising that Weir could headline such a big place on a Thursday night, I suspect that like many indoor arenas it had different configurations, and the functional capacity for the Weir show was considerably smaller.
Update: I had thought that the tour opened in Bloomington, MN, at the Met Center, but Commenter John says that in fact the show was at the Theater in the St. Paul Civic Center. The Civic Center, at 175 W. Kellogg Boulevard, was built in 1973. I'm not sure which of the smaller theaters attached to the main facility was used for Weir's show.

On the other hand, not so many bands tour the very cold upper Midwest in February--well, other than the Grateful Dead--, so there may have been a fair amount of fans happy to see any member of the Dead in any configuration. A booking like this was as much to generate attention and encourage FM radio play for a new album as it was for concert receipts. Singer-guitarist Jerry Doucette had just released a successful album in his native Canada, Mama Let Him Play. His tour with the Bob Weir Band was an effort to expand his audience into the States.

February 25, 1978: Riviera Theater, Chicago, IL: Bob Weir Band/Doucette
While its possible the Bob Weir Band played somewhere on Friday, February 24, the second known date was Saturday, February 25 in Chicago. In fact, the Grateful Dead had just played three nights at The Uptown Theater in Chicago a few weeks earlier, but Chicago is a huge city so there were plenty of potential fans. The Riviera was at 4715 N. Broadway, not far from the Uptown. It was built in 1915, with a capacity of 2500

If normal record company practices were followed, and I'm sure they were, Arista Records would have invited every disc jockey, program director (AM and FM) and rock critic in town to the show, and plied them with free drinks. 

February 26, 1978: BJ's Concert Hall, Mt. Clemens, MI: Bob Weir Band/Doucette
Mt. Clemens, Michigan was a suburb about a half hour North of Detroit. A Sunday night show in Mt. Clemens would likely have been a little more about making some money than a high profile show. That isn't to say that many Detroit DJs and PDs would not have been invited, I just don't know whether or not they were likely to go to Mt. Clemens.

One thing about a suburban show was that many younger people who might not be able to or allowed to go to big, bad Detroit for a rock show would have been able to see the Bob Weir Band in the suburbs. In the Bay Area or the Northeast, Garcia Band or Kingfish shows had been common enough, but if you were a Deadhead in suburban Michigan in 1978 in the Winter, you were probably pleased when any member of the band showed up.

February 28, 1978: Bogart's Cincinnati, OH: Bob Weir Band/Doucette (early and late shows)
Ohio has quite a rocking history, and indeed the Grateful Dead themselves had some history in Cincinnati. Bogart's, which is still open, is at 2621 Vine Street. It was built in 1890 with a capacity of about 1500. I suspect this Tuesday night show as also a sort of "showcase," with all the jocks from the likes of WKRP (and Loni Anderson, I'm sure) invited. The fact that there were early and late shows suggests that the club expected a fair turnout, but perhaps the two-show format was standard.