Grateful Dead New Year's Eve Opening Acts 1970-79

The 2003 video of the 1978 New Year's Eve concert, Closing Of Winterland

When the Grateful Dead had played New Year's Eve concerts in San Francisco in the 1960s, they had been part of legendary bills that supposedly played from 9pm to 9am. These all-night affairs were somewhat scaled down as the 70s started, and by the end of the decade, the Dead were usually the sole major attraction. This post is an overview of the configuration of each Grateful Dead New Year's Eve concert from 1970 to 1979, with respect to the schedule and the opening acts. The live performances of the Dead on these dates are well-known and well-documented, so I won't comment on them here. Rather, this post is about considering the organization of the events themselves.

December 31, 1970: Winterland
Grateful Dead/New Riders of The Purple Sage and assorted friends/Stoneground
From 1966 through 1969, Bill Graham had had legendary New Year's Eve events at the Fillmore, Fillmore West and Winterland, that were scheduled to go from 9pm to 9am. No one remembers anything about them. The Grateful Dead had played The Fillmore in 1966, sharing the bill with the Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service. The Dead played New Year's again in 1968 at Winterland, sharing the bill with Quicksilver, and supported by Its A Beautiful Day and Santana. In 1969, the Grateful Dead had played Boston, while the Jefferson Airplane had headlined New Year's Eve at home.

For New Year's Eve 1970, the Dead returned home to headline Winterland. The Jefferson Airplane were off the road, due to a very pregnant Grace Slick, but with two hit albums under their belt the Dead were now big enough to headline Winterland on their own. This New Year's show seems to have been a much smaller production than previous years, and indeed, quite different than any New Year's which followed.

Stoneground was a San Francisco-based group that was backed by KSAN chief Tom Donahue. Stoneground was put together from various defunct Bay Area outfits, and played a lively kind of soul-influenced rock. They featured no less than five lead singers, including lead guitarist Tim Barnes (ex-Immediate Family). Stoneground had been the "house band" for Donahue's Medicine Ball Caravan traveling rock festival and movie, which the Dead had dropped out at the last minute. The tour had ended up in England, where pianist Pete Sears (who also had a Donahue connection) joined the group. Stoneground had recorded a planned debut album at Trident Studios in London, with Bob Matthews and Betty Cantor producing, as Alembic had been contracted for the Medicine Ball tour. However, the album was re-recorded in San Francisco with different engineers. Sears returned to the Bay Area with the band, however, and I believe he was still in Stoneground when they played New Year's Eve.

The New Riders of The Purple Sage were familiar to most Deadheads by this time. The December, 1970 iteration of the band still had Jerry Garcia on pedal steel guitar, but Spencer Dryden (ex-Jefferson Airplane) had taken over on drums. John Dawson, David Nelson and Dave Torbert anchored the band.

The poster lists the show starting at 8pm. I assume Stoneground began at 8:00pm, followed by the New Riders. I think the Grateful Dead came on at midnight and played a single extended set (of about 100 minutes and change). After the Dead set, Hot Tuna came out, joined by Bob Weir, and played about five songs. Hot Tuna at that time was Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady, Papa John Creach (electric violin), Joey Covington (drums) and Will Scarlett (harmonica).

There are many oddities about Hot Tuna's appearance, not the least being that they appeared after the Dead. The timing of the entire show is uncertain, but while it probably extended past official San Francisco "closing time" at 2:00am, it was was not an all-morning extravaganza, just an extended night at the Fillmore. Also, for hard core fans, the Dead had apparently played a benefit at Winterland just eight days before (Dec 23), and the bill included the Riders and Hot Tuna, so it wouldn't have been that different a night (not to say that I wouldn't have enjoyed both of them).

December 31, 1971: Winterland
Grateful Dead/New Riders of The Purple Sage/Yogi Phlegm
The 1971 New Year's Eve show started to establish the basic format for the balance of Grateful Dead New Year's Eve shows, although it evolved somewhat over the years. In 1971, there were two opening acts to get the party started, and the Grateful Dead came onstage at midnight. The Dead's set was broadcast in its entirety on KSAN, as was the New Riders'.

Yogi Phlegm was the new name of The Sons of Champlin. The band believed they no longer had the rights to the name The Sons Of Champlin, and they had changed their sound to emphasize jazzy improvisation. The name was a joke about gurus, which no one got, and most people called them 'The Sons' anyway (Bill Graham hated the name and insisted on calling them The Sons). Although Yogi Phlegm's music sounds incredibly contemporary now, they were generally disliked compared to their previous, more danceable incarnation as The Sons. The members of Yogi Phlegm were Terry Haggerty (lead guitar), Bill Champlin (organ, guitar, vocals), Geoff Palmer (piano and various), Dave Schallock (bass and guitar) and Bill Vitt (drums). Vitt was the main drummer for Garcia-Saunders at the time.

The Winterland New Year's performance would have been the first time that locals would have seen Buddy Cage on pedal steel with the New Riders. Cage had replaced Garcia out on the road. His first show had been in Atlanta on November 11, 1971. Given that the NRPS album had just been released, many fans were probably surprised and dismayed that Garcia was no longer in the group. The same would probably have been true of the Bay Area listening audience. They would have tuned in expecting to hear Garcia with his "new" group, having heard the NRPS album on KSAN, only to discover that he had left the band.

As a side note, the Dead and the New Riders record companies would have paid for KSAN to broadcast the band. Warner Brothers (for the Dead) and Columbia (for the Riders) would have compensated KSAN for the amount of ads that they would have lost by broadcasting an uninterrupted live show. Yogi Phlegm did not have a record company at the time, so there was no entity to underwrite a broadcast of them. In that respect, the fact that the New Riders were broadcast and the Sons were not had nothing to do with KSAN's "feelings" about The Sons (Yogi Phlegm) vs the Riders, as it would have been strictly a business decision.

The configuration at Winterland was different that year, with the stage on the right side of the arena instead of the rear. It would return to its "conventional" set-up by the next Fall.

December 31, 1972: Winterland
Grateful Dead/New Riders of The Purple Sage/Sons Of Champlin
New Year's '72 was structured just like the 1971 show. The same two bands opened, although The Sons were back to calling themselves The Sons Of Champlin. Their lineup was the same as the previous year, although old friend Tim Cain joined in on saxophone for much of the show. The Sons played a long set, captured in a glorious Betty board, and the New Riders played a long set as well. Once again, the Dead started their first set at midnight and played two extended sets. The Dead were broadcast on KSAN, as were the New Riders, but not The Sons.

Both the Dead and the New Riders had new albums (Europe '72 and Gypsy Cowboy, respectively). Both the New Riders and The Sons were booked by Sam Cutler's agency, so this was definitely a family affair. New Year's Eve 1972 also inaugurated the tradition of playing "Sugar Magnolia" at midnight.

December 31, 1973: Cow Palace, Daly City
Allman Brothers Band/Marshall Tucker Band/Charlie Daniels Band
As early as 1976, at a lecture in Wheeler Hall in UC Berkeley, I heard Bill Graham tell his oft-repeated story that he called the Dead in the studio and offered them $75,000 to play the Cow Palace, and they refused. They counter-offered with the idea that they would play a party at Bill Graham's Marin County house. This is a great story, but I feel there has to be more to it. I wonder why the Dead turned Graham down? Perhaps they felt there sound system wasn't ready yet. In any case, the Dead played Winterland three nights in February and the Cow Palace in March, so I can't fathom what their specific objection might have been to a New Year's Eve Cow Palace show.

The Allman Brothers Band, perhaps the most popular touring attraction of 1973, headlined the Cow Palace instead for New Year's Eve in the Bay Area. Their performance was broadcast nationwide on a network of FM stations. Jerry Garcia, Bill Kreutzmann and Boz Scaggs showed up to jam sometime after midnight, giving everyone in the country the impression that this was what happened every night in San Francisco. The Allman Brothers and The Grateful Dead had headlined the biggest rock concert ever that Summer in Watkins Glen, so there was a lot of symbolism embedded in Garcia's guest appearance. The nationwide network went off the air at 1:00am (4:00 am Eastern), but KSAN listeners were happy to hear 'Big Daddy' Tom Donahue's voice-over telling everyone that KSAN would stay on the air until the end, which they did. The event still ended before 2:00am, as far as I know.

Oakland Tribune Keystone Berkeley ad for Dec 29 '74

December 31, 1974: Keystone Berkeley
Garcia-Saunders/Lucky Strike
With the Grateful Dead on hiatus, Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders played New Year's Eve '74 at Jerry's main haunt, the Keystone Berkeley. One peculiar fact about this show is that we seem to know nothing about it. There is no tape, no review, no eyewitness account, and the show was never advertised, to my knowledge. The listing in the Oakland Tribune, for example (above), simply lists the local band Lucky Strike as playing the Keystone Berkeley on New Year's Eve. At times, I have wondered whether Garcia and Saunders actually played Keystone Berkeley on New Year's Eve '74.

The source of the date was Dennis McNally's original Garcia list (through me to Deadbase IX). McNally was scrupulous about sources, so I am confident the date was scheduled. Paradoxically, the lack of a headliner on the Keystone ad makes me think Garcia was booked that night, albeit stealthily. I find it highly unlikely that the Keystone Berkeley would leave New Year's Eve to a local band with no cover, when they had acts like Kingfish (Sunday Dec 29) and Van Morrison (Mon Dec 30) on other weeknights. I think Lucky Strike, a popular East Bay club band, was just a placeholder. I do suspect that Lucky Strike actually opened for Garcia, however, because they would have been counting on a paying gig for New Year's Eve.

Why, then, was Keystone Berkeley so stealthy about publicizing Garcia's New Year's Eve performance? I think there were three reasons:

• They were confident that the show would be packed via word-of-mouth. They probably just put Garcia's name on the marquee on the day of the show, and perhaps made sure there was an announcement on KSAN, and let the buzz take care of itself
• The Keystone Berkeley would have been more concerned that too many people rather than too few would show up, particularly on a New Year's Eve when everyone had been drinking. New Year's Eve would be exactly the sort of night that some rumor would get started that the Grateful Dead were playing the Keystone, and unprofitable madness might ensue
• I also suspect that the guest list was huge, because it would have been like a private party for many people in the Dead's extended family. With a huge guest list, the Keystone might not have been concerned about ticket sales, since they may not have wanted to oversell the place. This would also account for the fact that there seem to be no eyewitnesses and no tapes, as there were relatively few civilians who actually bought tickets

It still begs the question--does anyone know anything about the December 31, 1974 Keystone show?

December 31, 1974: Stanford Music Hall, Palo Alto
Kingfish/Osiris
I have written about this concert at length, so I won't recap it all here. Suffice to say, with the Grateful Dead on hiatus, Bob Weir and Kingfish used New Year's Eve to break in a new rock venue, formerly (and now again) known as The Stanford Theatre, an old movie house built in 1925. The downtown Palo Alto theater was pretty run-down at the time.  A good time appears to have been had by all.

The opening act was Osiris, featuring as its lead singer Pigpen's younger brother Kevin McKernan. Kevin was a dead ringer for his brother (I saw him once, riding by on his bike--he looked like Pig on the cover of Live/Dead), and he sang just like him too. An eyewitness reported a dead-on cover of "Hard To Handle," just like Pigpen's version with the Dead.

Hayward Daily Review Keystone listing for Dec 26 '75

December 31, 1975: Keystone Berkeley
Jerry Garcia Band/Grayson Street/Lucky Strike
Once again, the Jerry Garcia Band played the Keystone Berkeley for New Year's Eve. We do have an excellent tape. It appears that the JGB played a first set around 10:00pm, and then started the second set at midnight. However, once again we have no advertising, no review and no eyewitnesses. I have to think that the same conditions applied as they did the year before. Since the Dead had actually played a few shows in 1975, a rumor that they were playing could get started easily, and hundreds of people on University Avenue, trying to get into a sold out club on the basis of a false rumor, would not have done the Keystone any good.

Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Matt Kelly joined Garcia onstage at the Keystone. I have to think that Kingfish could have easily found a New Year's Eve gig, somewhere, but Weir seems to have chosen joining Jerry at Keystone Berkeley instead. This is one of the clues that leads me to think that the '74 and '75 Keystone Berkeley NYE shows were sort of like private parties.

Grayson Street and Lucky Strike were listed as openers. Grayson Street was also a popular East Bay club band, a blues rock band with a whiff of soul. Their one constant was saxophonist Terry Hanck, who worked with many Bay Area bands. Once again, I feel confident they actually played, probably starting at 8:00pm, because working bands need to work. The Keystone Berkeley, by the same token, would have wanted to encourage people to come early and drink beer.

December 31, 1976: Cow Palace, Daly City
Grateful Dead/Santana/Sons Of Champlin [replaced by Soundhole]
For New Year's Eve 1976, The Grateful Dead co-headlined the Cow Palace with Santana, and The Sons of Champlin opened the show. Santana had opened for the Grateful Dead on New Year's Eve before, in 1968, when Santana was still a popular but unsigned local band. By 1976, Santana was actually a bigger concert attraction than the Dead. However, Santana, although they had just come off a hugely successful European tour, seems to have accepted the premise that "traditional" New Year's Eve in San Francisco consisted of the Grateful Dead playing at midnight, so Santana appeared prior to the Dead. 1976 was the last New Year's Eve show where the Grateful Dead had a true co-headliner.

By 1976, The Sons of Champlin had backed away from their more jazzy experiments and veered back toward a funkier, more danceable sound. The Sons' current album was A Circle Filled With Love (on Ariola). The Sons's lineup for New Year's Eve '76 included old hands Bill Champlin, Geoff Palmer and Terry Haggerty, along with Rob Moitoza (bass), Jim Preston (drums), Steve Frediani (sax) and some other horn players (probably Mark Isham and Mike Andreas). Santana had just released their 10th album, Festival (on Columbia). Santana's Fall '76 lineup, besides Carlos, was Tom Coster (keyboards), Pablo Tellez (bass), Graham Lear (drums), Raul Rekow (congas), Chepito Areas (timbales) and Luther Rabb (vocals).

The concert started at 7:00pm, with the Sons [update: an eyewitness report by Jerry Moore himself, in an old Relix, available on the Grateful Dead Online Archive, reports that the Sons were replaced by Soundhole. John Cipollina sat in with Soundhole for their encore, as his brother Mario played bass in the band], and Santana came onstage around 8:00 pm and played a full 75-minute set. The Grateful Dead locked in the structure of New Year's for the next 15 years or so, as they played their first set at 10:00pm, returning to the stage at midnight for "Sugar Magnolia." Both the Santana and Grateful Dead sets were broadcast on KSAN in their entirety (the Dead's set became a Vault release). The show ended before 2:00am.

December 31, 1977: Winterland
Grateful Dead/New Riders of The Purple Sage
The Grateful Dead returned to Winterland with the New Riders for New Year's Eve 1977. The innovation of 1977 was that the Dead played a run of shows that culminated on New Year's Eve. This too became a regular tradition. For what it's worth, I bought tickets for New Year's Eve 1977 and two other nights the day they went on sale. I arrived about an hour after the BASS window opened (at Pacific Stereo in South Palo Alto), stood in a line of three people and bought as many tickets as I wanted. The Dead were popular at this time, but still basically a cult act.

The structure of the show was fairly conventional. The New Riders played at 8:00pm, and the Dead played their first set at about 10:00pm. The New Year's Eve celebration, and the beginning of the second set, were delayed until 12:30 so Bill Graham could come over from the Cow Palace, where Santana, Journey and Eddie Money were playing. Graham had been the "star" of that celebration, and he wanted to "star" in the Dead's as well (I think he rode down to the stage in a giant papier-mache joint, or something).

Little flyers were apparently passed out to some people warning about the delay until 12:30, but no one on my side of the crowd got any, and the crowd was pretty confused and unruly about the apparent delay. Fortunately, the second set was great, so it didn't matter. The show ended before 2:00am, as there was no third set.

The New Riders of The Purple Sage were kind of on an uptick that year. Their new album Marin County Line was their best in some time. New bassist Stephen Love added some new life to the band, and Dawson, Nelson and Cage were still lively. Drummer Patrick Shanahan had replaced Spencer Dryden, who had become the band's manager. However, in the spirit of the night, Dryden sat in anyway, giving the Riders two drummers. The New Riders set was released by the NRPS archives.

December 31, 1978: Winterland
Grateful Dead/Blues Brothers/New Riders of The Purple Sage
The New Year's Eve '78 show was the last show at Winterland, and as such a very nostalgic event. Winterland was the last direct link to the 60s. The Fillmore itself was still intact, but was hardly ever used for rock shows, so it had not been part of the rock scene for almost 10 years. The Fillmore West had become a car dealership (still is), so it too played no role in late 70s rock music. Winterland was a dump, but it was a rockin' dump, and it was sad to see it be squeezed out of the market for not being either big enough or nice enough. A big to-do was made about the closing of Winterland, and of course the Grateful Dead had to be the final act.

New Year's Eve 1978 was not only broadcast on KSAN and KQED-TV (the local PBS station), it was immortalized in an official video release. Although I am tremendously grateful to the people who got me a ticket (thank you Geoff W and Steve M), I am one of a minority who thought the whole show was a letdown, poorly organized and without much great music. Yes, the "Dark Star" that began the third set was truly magical, and the recording does not do it justice, but Weir ruined it by veering off too soon into "The Other One." Still, everybody but me (and Geoff W) remembers it fondly, so it must have been a great show, right?

I am a big New Riders fan, so I was looking forward to seeing them. We arrived at 7:45, about 15 minutes before showtime, to discover that the New Riders had been onstage since 7:30. It turned out that the last night at Winterland was the only show held there to actually start early. The New Riders were actually in a kind of down period at that time. Buddy Cage had left the band earlier in the year, replaced by Bobby Black from The Lost Planet Airmen, but he was also a fine player. Stephen Love had gone, too, replaced by Allan Kemp, who had been in the Stone Canyon Band with Pat Shanahan. The Riders weren't great, but they weren't bad, and I had wanted to see the whole set.

The New Riders had been moved up to accommodate televising the Blues Brothers' set at 9:00pm. The Blues Brothers are iconic now, but at the time they were a very hip and high profile addition to the New Years Eve bill. John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd were the newly popular stars of Saturday Night Live, and Animal House had just been released, so they were both huge stars. They had done their Blues Brothers schtick a few times on SNL, and then did a few Universal Amphitheatre shows in Los Angeles as The Blues Brothers, opening for Steve Martin, in order to record the album. Their album Briefcase Of Blues had just been released to huge acclaim, and the Winterland New Year's performance was The Blues Brothers' first show after the release of the album. At this juncture, Belushi and Ackroyd were much bigger stars than Jerry Garcia or the Grateful Dead.

To be fair, the Blues Brothers were absolutely great. All of the things which we have now seen a million times in the movies, or on SNL or YouTube, were done live and in person, and it was all totally new and surprising. The album had been released, but it wasn't ground into our skulls yet. The band was truly All-Star, including Steve Cropper (guitar) and Duck Dunn (bass) from The MGs, Matt Murphy (lead guitar) from James Cotton's band and Paul Shaffer (keyboards) and Steve Jordan (drums) from the SNL band. The horn section was led by the mighty Tom Scott, whom Deadheads will recall took the sax solo on the studio version of "Estimated Prophet." The band absolutely rocked the house, and although Ackroyd is a weak harp player and Belushi can't really sing, it didn't matter--Belushi in person was a star with a gravitational pull that can't be described, and he absolutely owned the place. The Blues Brothers played about an hour, and it was broadcast on radio and TV. I had to admit that I had reservations when they were booked, but they were absolutely great.

However, as a result of the Blues Brothers, the schedule for the New Years Eve show had been changed, which apparently was why the New Riders went onstage early. The Blues Brothers had come on at 9:00pm, so they would be on at the most advantageous time for TV. However, that left a two-hour gap from 10:00pm until midnight. It was filled by KQED reporters going around to very goofy, wasted people in the crowd and "interviewing" them for the TV audience at home. If you were in Winterland itself, however, after a very exciting set by the Blues Brothers, we stood around for two hours doing nothing. There was nowhere to sit at Winterland (unless you came realllly early and snagged a seat) so standing around was tiring. By the time the Dead came on, the crowd was both rowdy and tired, and honestly I felt the band was the same. Apparently the backstage party, with Belushi and Ackroyd among others, was pretty insane, and I don't think it improved the Dead's playing.

The Grateful Dead came on at midnight to play "Sugar Magnolia," like in days of yore. For all the talk of exciting guests, only old pal John Cipollina showed up, and great as he was, we had just seen him jam with the Dead two months before. Fortunately for the last night at the old ice rink, however, the Dead begat another New Year's Eve tradition and played a third set. For this night, the third set began at 5:00am. The Dead opened with "Dark Star" and I erased all my complaints, at least until Weir wrecked it. A touching "And We Bid You Goodnight" closed the old ice rink at about 5:45am. Then there was the much-heralded breakfast, the organization of which left much to be desired, but that is too trivial a subject for this blog.

An era had ended with the closing of Winterland, but supposedly there had been 500,000 ticket requests. From being a sort of cultish party the year before, New Year's Eve with the Grateful Dead became a must-see event.

December 31, 1979: Oakland Auditorium Arena
Grateful Dead/Flying Karamazov Brothers
All had seemed lost when Winterland closed, but of course BGP had known they had the Oakland Auditorium in their pocket. The old Auditorium was of the same vintage as Winterland, nicer, but still enough of a dump to have that old time psychedelic feeling. The venue was a bit larger than Winterland (7,000 vs 5,400), but it had a comparable atmosphere. The five-night run in December of '79 cemented the Oakland Auditorium as the new Home Court for the Grateful Dead, and as such it was the site of New Year's Eve 1979. This show cemented the format that would follow with few variations for the next dozen years of Grateful Dead's New Year's Eve shows. The structure was

• A run of shows culminating in New Year's Eve
• An New Year's Eve opening act chosen to be enjoyable, but with no concern for selling extra tickets (since NYE would sell out instantly anyway)
• The Dead would play their first set around 10:00pm and start their second set at midnight, usually with "Sugar Magnolia"
• The Dead would play a third set, often the platform for special guests or uniquely rehearsed songs
• Although the show would go past 2:00am "closing time," the concert would be over by 3:00am

Every subsequent Grateful Dead New Year's Eve show generally conformed to this pattern. Here and there a few alterations occurred (For example, the Dead played an acoustic set for 1980 shows with no opening act; Joan Baez was the guest in 1981, but she came on before the first set rather than the third set, and so on), but in general the 1979 show took the realities and innovations that had been worked out by the preceding decade's worth of shows and built them into a format.

The Grateful Dead New Year's Eve performance was now an established Bay Area "Event." The run of shows made it well worth the while of Deadheads who lived elsewhere to come out and see all the shows, and Bay Area weather made it all the more attractive. The December runs was where I first started to realize just how many people from the East Coast were just as fanatical Deadheads, if not more so, than those of us out West. The Dead no longer needed a co-headliner on New Year's Eve. The main purpose of the opening act was to entertain excited people who had often attended most or all of the other shows, and were looking forward to a giant blowout to end the week.

The Flying Karamazov Brothers were a troupe of juggling performance artists who had started out in 1973 in Santa Cruz. There were four of them, all long haired and goofy, and they would do amazing feats of juggling while carrying on amusing patter with the crowd (I should add that they were neither brothers nor Russian). It sounds really dumb, but in fact it was really impressive and funny, and they quickly won over the revved-up New Year's Eve crowd in Oakland. Part of their act was to juggle all these crazy objects--champagne bottles, bowling pins, meat cleavers, burning torches--while carrying on with funny dialogue. By the end of the show, there would be four guys spread out on stage about 30 feet apart, juggling a combination of a dozen or more completely insane objects. As their New Year's Eve show peaked, with objects flying all over the stage, and half of them constantly in the air, Jerry Garcia appeared from stage left with his guitar and casually walked across the stage, passing right through the semi-circle of juggling Karamazovs. The Brothers never missed a beat, as no objects hit either the ground or Jerry, and he casually sauntered off on stage right. The crowd, needless to say, lost their minds.

In December, 1979, the Flying Karamazov Brothers were in the process of moving from being 'Street Performers' to 'Legitimate.' I had already seen them, perhaps in Sproul Plaza in Berkeley, but never in a full performance. By 1981, the Karamazov's were playing in London's West End, and they even made an encore appearance with the Grateful Dead. On March 28, 1981, in Essen, Germany, the Flying Karamazovs made an appearance during the Rhythm Devils section of a Grateful Dead show, so obviously the Dead were amused and impressed. In the intervening decades, the Flying Karamazovs have appeared on Broadway many times, and they are starring in London once again as of this writing.

The Grateful Dead, New Year's Eve, 1980-1991
There were many fine moments yet to come in Grateful Dead New Year's Eve performances over the next dozen years. After the 70s, however, the general parameters were set. Indeed, many people's fondest memories of New Year's shows were when the Dead actually diverted from their script, such as the time in 1981 when Bill Graham requested "Aiko Aiko" at midnight, instead of "Sugar Magnolia." When Graham died, it is not surprising that the Dead simply gave up the New Year's tradition, as it had become somewhat ossified. Still, it was fun while it lasted, and as time keeps slipping, slipping, slipping into the future, seeing the Grateful Dead on New Year's Eve--any New Year's Eve--seems all the more remarkable.

John Kahn Live Performance History 1972 (John Kahn VI)

Merl Saunders's 1973 Fire Up album included a live track from February 6, 1972

Jerry Garcia's musical history outside of the Grateful Dead is remarkable for its breadth and longevity. Notwithstanding the Grateful Dead's extensive touring schedule throughout its 30-year history, Garcia played a remarkable number of shows with his own aggregations for 25 of those years. Garcia's principal right hand man for his own endeavors from 1970-1995 was bassist John Kahn, who besides playing exceptional electric and acoustic bass also took care of the musical business of the Jerry Garcia Band. Kahn hired and fired musicians, organized rehearsals and often helped choose material. Although Jerry approved every move, of course, without Kahn's oversight Garcia could not have participated in the Jerry Garcia Band. In many respects, the Jerry Garcia Band (under various names) was to some extent the Jerry Garcia and John Kahn Band; if Garcia had not met Kahn he would have had to be invented.

Most Deadheads are at least generally aware of Kahn's importance to Garcia's non-Dead music. However, Kahn is usually viewed through the filter of Jerry Garcia and his music. For this series of posts, I am looking at Jerry Garcia through the filter of John Kahn. In particular, I am looking at John Kahn's performance history without Garcia. Kahn's extensive studio career has been largely documented on the Deaddisc's site, so I don't need to recap it beyond some specific references. The posts so far have been:

• John Kahn I: Performance History 1967-68: A review of John Kahn's migration to San Francisco, his transformation from an acoustic jazz bassist to an electric R&B bass player and some history of his early live work.
• John Kahn II: Performance History 1967-68-T&A R&B Band and Memory Pain: A closer look at the history of Kahn's two original bands during this period
• John Kahn III: Performance History 1969: An analysis of John Kahn's participation in the somewhat casual Mike Bloomfield Band, with Nick Gravenites and others, who played regularly at Keystone Korner.
• John Kahn IV: Performance History 1970: while continuing with Mike Bloomfield, John Kahn starts to jam with Howard Wales at the Matrix, and then with Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
• John Kahn V: Performance History 1971: as Kahn's work with Bloomfield faded away, the Garcia/Saunders group started to become a regular band.  At the same time, Kahn's session work expanded
• John Kahn IX: Bottom Line, NYC July 1974: For various reasons, I skipped ahead and wrote about an East Coast by Garcia-Saunders at the Bottom Line in July 1974, in conjunction with some Maria Muldaur dates. Kahn was in both groups

This post will focus on John Kahn's live performance history for the year 1972.

John Kahn, early 1972
John Kahn played a steady run of shows with Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders in the first three months of the year. The band lineup wasn't absolutely stable, as Bill Kreutzmann seems to have substituted for Bill Vitt on some occasions, and the great conguero Armando Peraza apparently played on some March dates. The Winter dates were all at local nightclubs, save for a KSAN radio broadcast. However, Kahn and Garcia did not play another Bay Area show until June 30.

Everybody knows that Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead undertook their massive European tour in the Spring of 1972, so they wouldn't expect to see any Garcia/Saunders gigs during that time. What is considerably less well-known, however, was that John Kahn relocated to Woodstock, NY during this period and joined the Butterfield Blues Band. Kahn had done a session in Woodstock for Geoff and Maria Muldaur around December 1971, and re-connected with Paul Butterfield, for whom he had auditioned once before. Kahn helped Butterfield put together a band and did at least two tours with him. It seems that the brief run of Garcia/Saunders shows from Jun 30-July 11 was to accommodate Kahn's schedule, since he didn't live in the Bay Area anymore.

More surprisingly, Kahn actually got Merl Saunders to join the re-cast Butterfield Blues Band. Kahn only quit the group because of uncertainty about the finances of the band, a subject I will get to momentarily. It's important to realize, however, that as of mid-Summer 1972, John Kahn lived in Woodstock and was putting together a new Butterfield Blues Band, and that Merl Saunders was a member of the group as well. While the Garcia/Saunders band might have played the occasional show, they very nearly ceased to exist in the middle of 1972.

Geoff and Maria Muldaur's 1972 Reprise album Sweet Potatoes, with John Kahn on bass

Geoff And Maria Muldaur
Although I am not 100% certain of the date, I believe that in December 1971 John Kahn went to Woodstock, NY to record an album at Bearsville Studios for Geoff and Maria Muldaur. Kahn was in the East at that time to play Carnegie Hall and possibly a few other dates with Brewer and Shipley. They had had a big hit with "One Toke Over The Line," and took a band on the road for a few dates (Kahn may have played "The Tonight Show" with Brewer and Shipley as well, but I don't know when). The only date I know for sure is December 3, 1971 at Carnegie Hall, but I do know that Kahn played the next weekend (December 10-11) in Boston with Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield. It seems a fair assumption that Kahn spent some time in Woodstock recording at Bearsville around that window.

Woodstock, NY is about 100 miles due North of New York City and had been an artists retreat for Manhattan long before Bob Dylan moved there. By the 1960s, however, the place was famous as the Summer home of the likes of Dylan, The Band, Van Morrison and numerous other musicians, painters and poets. The famous 1969 festival had been originally scheduled to be held near the town, but ended up being held 45 miles to the West, in another county. Woodstock's leading citizen was one Albert Grossman, the legendary manager of Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul & Mary, Janis Joplin, Mike Bloomfield and many others. By 1971, Grossman had built a state-of-the-art recording studio in Woodstock, and was developing his own label, Bearsville Records, distributed by Reprise. The idea was that instead of just managing a band, Grossman would "verticalize" the product, recording and releasing it as well as providing management.

Geoff and Maria Muldaur had both been members of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, who had been a popular group in the mid-1960s. Indeed, Garcia and others had seen the Kweskin band at The Cabale in Berkeley on March 11, 1964, and it had been a key influence in the formation of Mother McRee's Uptown Jug Band. Maria was still in high school at the time (then Maria D'Amato), and would not have sang at the Cabale, but she was playing old-timey music on the East Coast (with David Grisman among others), and that is how she connected with Geoff Muldaur and the Kweskin band. When that group faded away for reasons too strange to explain here, the shrewd Grossman signed Geoff and Maria as a duo. Geoff was a fine singer, writer, pianist and arranger, and Maria of course was not just a wonderful, versatile singer but photogenic and charismatic as well.

Geoff and Maria recorded their album Sweet Potatoes at Bearsville Studios most likely in late 1971, since it seems to have been released on Reprise Records about March 1972. The core band included Kahn on bass, Billy Mundi on drums, Geoff Muldaur on keyboards, Bill Keith on pedal steel and Amos Garrett on guitar. Numerous guests play on various tracks, leading me to think that the core band recorded the basic tracks, and then overdubbing followed later, typical of the recording practices of the time.  While Maria Muldaur would have been a regular presence in the studio, given that Maria and Geoff had a six year old daughter at the time and Geoff was the producer of the album, she may not have been in the studio as much while Kahn was there. Nonetheless, it was an important album for Kahn.

The 1973 debut album by Paul Butterfield's Better Days

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band
Kahn had flunked an audition for the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in 1968. At the time, the Butterfield Blues Band were a major Fillmore headliner, but by 1972 fashion had somewhat passed them by. The quality of Butterfield's bands and performances had remained high from the very beginning, as one of the first successful American white blues performers. However, by the early 70s Butterfield seemed to be treading water, and he had not put out a new album since 1970. His harmonica playing was still the gold standard, however, so it was no surprise that he was invited to play on Sweet Potatoes at Bearsville. Kahn and Butter reconnected, and Kahn ended up helping Butterfield form a band, moving to Woodstock in the process.

Details about the Butterfield Blues Band's activities in 1972 are extremely hard to find. According to Kahn, he did "a couple of tours," which I take to be in the Spring and Summer of 1972. I have only found one date for Butterfield in 1972, and I think Kahn was out of the band by then (it was at Hofstra on November 11, with The Byrds--anyone with any live Butterfield dates for 1972 is eagerly encouraged to put them in the Comments or email me). According to Kahn, he also played some local gigs in the Woodstock area with producer/pianist John Simon, an interesting guy in his own right (he produced Cheap Thrills and The Last Waltz, among other things). Somewhere along there, however, Kahn helped put together Butterfield's next band, called Paul Butterfield's Better Days.

According to Kahn, he did more than one tour with Butterfield, but he quit after the first Better Days tour. I take this to mean that Kahn did a Butterfield Blues Band tour in the Spring, flew back to San Francisco for two weeks of shows with Garcia/Saunders, and then did a Better Days tour with Butterfield. Since the Better Days album was released around February 1973 and does not feature Kahn or Merl Saunders, I assume they must have left the group before the Fall, and the Garcia/Saunders touring schedule seems to suggest they had both relocated back to the Bay Area.

The band members for a Spring Butterfield tour are unknown to me, but I can piece together the first iteration of Paul Butterfield's Better Days, from mid-1972. The lineup most likely would have been

• Paul Butterfield-vocals, harmonica
• Geoff Muldaur-vocals, piano
• Amos Garrett-guitar
• Merl Saunders-organ
• John Kahn-bass
• Chris Parker-drums

update: fellow scholar JGMF found a review of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in Seattle on July 16, 1972, confirming the details:

Paul Butterfield band played 7/16/72 at the Paramount Northwest in Seattle. Reviewer says band has been together less than two months, and this was its fifth gig. 

PB, Geoff Muldaur (vocals, rhythm guitar, sax, piano), Chris Parker (drums), Kahn (bass), Saunders (organ), Amos Garrett (lead guitar). 

Band will play next week on Boston Common.
Seattle Times, 7/17/72 pA14.

When the Better Days album came out on Bearsville in early 1973, the organ was handled by Ronnie Barron and bass by Oakland's Billy Rich (ex-Whispers, ex-Buddy Miles Express), so they must have joined the group early enough to record the album. Other than this deduction, I am unable to pin down any dates for Kahn and Saunders's tenure with Paul Butterfield. 

Jerry Garcia, mid-1972
After the New Riders of The Purple Sage and the Garcia/Saunders group, it seems plain that Jerry Garcia was interested in developing ongoing ensembles to work on his music, rather than just having casual jam sessions at local clubs. After quite a few shows with Saunders and Kahn, he nearly lost them in mid-1972 with the formation of Paul Buttterfield's Better Days. Paul Butterfield was still a major deal in 1972, and he was backed by Albert Grossman, the most highly powered of high-powered managers of the era. Garcia had found two willing compatriots to play nightclubs with him, and he was about to lose them to a better paying alternative. Membership in a Butterfield ensemble with a big name manager offered the lucrative potential of a hit album with serious money. Futhermore, Kahn had ambitions as a producer and arranger, and Grossman could provide those opportunities as well through Bearsville Records.

In the Summer of 1972, the Grateful Dead's contract with Warner Brothers was expiring, and the band was being wooed by both Warner and Columbia. The Dead shocked the industry by choosing to go independent at a time when it was unthinkable for major bands. The key date, per McNally, seems to be a position paper by Ron Rakow dated July 4, 1972. I am not sure at what point they rejected Warner and Columbia, but the decision seems to have been made in the Summer. While most analysis of the Dead's record company negotiation focuses on the band's desire for independence--and rightly so--I am now seeing Jerry Garcia's position in a parallel light. From Garcia's point of view in mid-1972, he had just lost his band to a better offer that he was in no position to match.

If Garcia had wanted to find a way to engage in a paying project for Saunders and Kahn, he would have had to negotiate through Warner Brothers, who may not at all have had his interests in mind. Even if Garcia now had to form a new band--and at that point looked like he would have to--if he was an independent, he could exercise his franchise any way he wanted. There were plenty of reasons for the Dead to go independent in 1972, but Garcia turns out to have had a big reason of his own, namely that he had just lost his band to Paul Butterfield.

Denoument
The Garcia/Kahn partnership was rescued by Kahn's discomfort with the financial terms proposed by Butterfield manager Albert Grossman. Grossman was a wheeler-dealer of legendary proportions, and all his clients, from Bob Dylan on downwards, were frustrated about where the money had gone. Mike Bloomfield and Nick Gravenites had both been Grossman clients as a result of Electric Flag, and Gravenites in particular was unhappy with his contractual situation (often using Quicksilver manager Ron Polte as a front to get around it). Presumably Gravenites tipped Kahn off, and considering that Kahn's parents were both successful Hollywood talent agents, he was no babe in the woods. Kahn bailed out of Better Days after the first tour but before they recorded, and returned to San Francisco by the Fall of 1972, and Saunders stayed out West as well.

Garcia, Kahn and Saunders returned to a steady stream of gigs at the end of 1972. I am convinced, however, that Garcia took the risk of losing his band very seriously, and had no intention of letting it happen again. The Grateful Dead were under contract to Warner Brothers through about March of 1973, and the release of Bear's Choice.  However, if you look at the Live At Keystone Album, recorded in July 1973, Garcia's participation is courtesy of Grateful Dead Records. The album was released on Fantasy Records, Merl's label, and the artists and production are jointly credited to Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders, John Kahn and Bill Vitt. Garcia's name was what sold the album,  but the credits guaranteed that all the members of the band got an actual payday, presumably including 5-figure advances plus royalties. Since the album was recorded in July, the deal would have been done in March when the Warner contract expired, so this means that one of the first thing Garcia did with his independence was insure that his band got paid.

Paul Butterfield's Better Days was quite a good band, and in fact I would love to hear them with Merl and John, if such a tape existed. Nonetheless, I'm happy that Garcia and Kahn's partnership remained intact. Given Kahn's move to Woodstock in 1972, however, I think this year was the one when Garcia committed himself to his own endeavors and particularly to Kahn when he returned. From 1973 onwards, Garcia seems to have made a conscious effort to insure that Kahn had no financial reason to jump ship to another artist. From the end of 1972 onwards, Garcia and Kahn were partners.

Annotated 1972 John Kahn Performance List

January 7, 1972: Keystone Korner, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
There is some ambiguity about this show, but I am not using this thread to speculate about the provenance of specific gigs.

January 14-15, 1972: Keystone Korner, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
There is no certainty that Tom Fogerty was playing with the Garcia/Saunders at the time, as there was almost no coverage of the group in the press, and no tapes.

January 19-20, 1972: Lions Share, San Anselmo, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
From January 21 through January 29, Jerry Garcia went on his first non-Dead East Coast tour with Howard Wales. Although Kahn had played on the Hooteroll album, Wales had his own band by this time, with his old friend Roger "Jelly Roll" Troy on bass and vocals, so Kahn had no place. It's hard not to draw the conclusion that Garcia was implicitly taking Kahn for granted by touring the East without him, and it must have made Kahn's move to Woodstock seem more financially prudent to him.

February 3-5, 1972: Keystone Korner, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
There is some suggestion that the first two nights may actually have been at the Lion's Share in San Anselmo. However, I think that the third night (Feb 5) was most likely at Keystone Korner, because the crew could then have just toted the equipment over to 60 Brady for the next afternoon's studio broadcast. 

February 6, 1972: Pacific High Recorders, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
This KSAN live broadcast at the studio where Workingman's Dead was recorded was the first that most people in the Bay Area had actually heard of the Garcia/Saunders aggregation. Tom Fogerty was not present, and Bill Kreutzmann played drums. This leads me to suspect that Kreutzmann subbed for Vitt more often than may have been realized. Vitt was also the drummer in The Sons Of Champlin at the time (then calling themselves, regrettably, Yogi Phlegm), so he may have had a lot of conflicts.

February 11-12, 1972: Bojangles, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
A Phil Elwood review in the San Francisco Examiner reports that Kreutzmann played drums and that the great Armando Peraza played congas. Peraza was a North Beach legend, who would become a permanent member of Santana in the 1970s. Peraza's connection to Garcia may have come through trumpeter Luis Gasca, who is a story in himself. Bojangles was a club at 709 Larkin Street.

February 25-26, 1972: Keystone Korner, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
Armando Peraza is billed on all Garcia/Saunders shows through March. It's a shame that there's no taped evidence, as he was formidable indeed. Many years later he played with Garcia, Weir and Tower of Power at the Kaiser in Oakland (Jan 23 '88) and he absolutely dominated "Turn On Your Lovelight."

March 3-4, 1972: Keystone Korner, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders

March 8-9, 1972: Keystone Berkeley, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders

March 10-11, 1972: Keystone Korner, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders

March 15-18, 1972: Keystone Korner, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
It's important to remember that other than the Feb 6 KSAN show and the brief Elwood review of Feb 11 (Bojangles), we have no evidence of what Garcia played during this period, who was in the band, or anything else.

Spring 1972-Paul Butterfield Blues Band tour
I have pieced together some fragmentary information here, and I think that Kahn was on two Butterfield tours. One must have been in the Spring, while the Dead were in Europe. I have no idea of who might have been in the band, or what material they might have played. I don't think Butterfield even had a working band at the end of 1971, so it's very hard to speculate, even for me. 

[update: David Kramer-Smyth found some Butterfield dates]
June 25, 1972 Kansas City Memorial Hall, Kansas City, MO: Paul Butterfield Blues Band/Dr John (2 shows 8 and 11pm) Good Karma production {source KC Star 4 June 72}

June 30, 1972: Keystone Korner, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
This brief 12-day stretch of Garcia shows seems to have more to do with Kahn visiting from Woodstock rather than Garcia's heavy touring schedule with the Dead. I assume that this Keystone gig was a warmup for the higher profile show the next night in San Jose.

The San Jose Civic Auditorium, at 135 W. San Carlos St, as it appeared in July 2011. I saw Ted Nugent here!

July 1, 1972: Civic Auditorium, San Jose, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
Although Garcia/Saunders had regularly played San Francisco, Berkeley and Marin, they had rarely played anywhere else. Interestingly, their only previous South Bay show had been a sort of jazz festival at Stanford University the previous year, and once again they were playing an all-ages concert at San Jose's venerable Civic Auditorium, built about 1940. This show also inaugurated an informal tradition of having Garcia test out a venue that the Dead would play a few months later. The Grateful Dead played the San Jose Civic on August 20, 1972.

An eyewitness reports a two-set show with Tom Fogerty on guitar, and probably Vitt on drums. That suggests that Fogerty was a member of the ensemble for the brief July run.

July 7-8, 1972: Keystone Korner, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
The Keystone Korner had been sold by Freddie Herrera to Todd Barkan, a pianist (formerly in Kwane and The Kwanditos) who would turn the venue into San Francisco's pre-eminent jazz club. However, there was a pre-existing booking for Garcia and Saunders, which Barkan honored. They didn't even advertise, just put the band's name up on the marquee and the shows were packed, a clear sign of Garcia's burgeoning popularity even then [update: this date may be spurious and Garcia did not play. Note that Paul Butterfield is booked for July 8 in Fresno, so Kahn was engaged]

A circulating date of July 11 '72 at Keystone Berkeley for Garcia/Saunders appears to be spurious.

Summer 1972: Paul Butterfield tour
Thanks to JGMF, we know that Paul Butterfield played several dates in July with Kahn and Saunders. We also know that most of the band, including John and Merl, backed Nick Gravenites for the Steelyard Blues soundtrack session at Golden State Recorders in San Francisco. Triangulation suggests that there had been some Butterfield dates before July, and then the tour picked up again.

[update: David Kramer-Smyth found some Butterfield dates]
July 8, 1972 Rainbow Ballroom, Fresno, CA: Paul Butterfield Blues Band/Sons of Champlin {source Fresno Bee 7 July 72}

July 16, 1972 Paramount Northwest Theater, Seattle, WA: Paul Butterfield
JGMF reports

Paul Butterfield band played 7/16/72 at the Paramount Northwest in Seattle. Reviewer says band has been together less than two months, and this was its fifth gig. 

PB, Geoff Muldaur (vocals, rhythm guitar, sax, piano), Chris Parker (drums), Kahn (bass), Saunders (organ), Amos Garrett (lead guitar). 

Band will play next week on Boston Common.
Seattle Times, 7/17/72 pA14.

Since July 16 was a Sunday, it seems pretty likely there was other shows in the Northwest that weekend.

July 18, 1972 Pine Knob Music Theatre Pontiac, MI: Taj Mahal/Paul Butterfield and his Blues Band/Chris Stevens Group {source Windsor Star 15 July '72}

July 22 1972  Lenox Art Center, Lenox, MA: Paul Butterfield Blues Band /Doc Watson “Twilight series on the Lawn”{source North Adams Transcript 17 July '72}
The Music Inn was an outdoor bowl in Lenox, near Tanglewood. Tanglewood is the Summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, midway between Boston and Albany, NY. Correspondent LegsLambert recalls Merl and John in the Butterfield band with some clarity:

I saw the first Better Days incarnation with Saunders and Kahn at the Music Inn in Lenox, MA in July of 1972. I worked at the venue that summer, as DJ in the bar located in an old barn at the top of the outdoor music bowl, where I'd spin records into the night after the daytime concerts ended, and in that capacity I got to spring a nice surprise on Merl and John. Having seen the Garcia/Saunders band at one of their early gigs at the Matrix on my first visit to San Francisco in January of the previous year, I may have been one of the first people on the East Coast to have purchased a copy of Merl's "Heavy Turbulence." I knew that musicians often came up to the bar to have a beverage and mingle after the concerts, and sure enough, the moment Merl and John walked through the front door, I dropped the needle on the first track on the album, "My Problems Got Problems." The double-takes they did were priceless, and then they looked up to my booth with big smiles and thumbs-up signs. 

July 26, 1972 The Common, Boston MA: Paul Butterfield/BB King/ Bonnie Raitt Falstaff presents “Summerthings Sunset Series” {source Boston Globe 2 June '72}
This was an outdoor afternoon show in Boston Commons (near Fenway Park).

August 18, 1972: Keystone Berkeley, Berkeley, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
This one-off show is more speculative since I don't know what Kahn's prospective touring schedule might have been with Butterfield.

September 22, 1972: Berkeley Community Theater, Berkeley, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders/La Familia with Luis Gasca/Dakila  Farmworkers Benefit
Garcia appeared at this Farmworkers Benefit at Berkeley. He had to fly back from the East Coast to do it, but I now think that Garcia had a pattern of flying back to the West Coast to work on albums while playing shows at the same time. Garcia would have been working on Europe '72 at this juncture.

Once again it appears that Luis Gasca was probably the connection the booking. Whatever Kahn's touring schedule might have been with Butterfield, it does appear that he and Saunders had returned at this time.

October 6-7, 1972: Keystone Berkeley, Berkeley, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders

October 12, 1972: Keystone Berkeley, Berkeley, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders

November 4, 1972: Keystone Berkeley, Berkeley, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders

November 8, 1972: Longshoreman's Hall, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders, Tom Fogerty/Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks/Fletcher Bros/Natural Act
Garcia headlined this benefit at Longshoreman's. Tom Fogerty was on the bill, so I take that to mean he probably played some or all of the gigs in the Fall, even where he was not billed. This show was a benefit, for what I am not exactly certain, but it indicated another new pattern in Garcia's performances. Whereas in the 1960s, the Grateful Dead were on every benefit, Garcia's new band allowed him to play such events without involving other members of the Dead.

December 5, 1972: Boarding House, San Francisco, CA; Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders, Tom Fogerty
The Boarding House was very small, capacity 330. Musicians loved it, but no one got paid very much.

December 20-21, 1972: Keystone Berkeley, Berkeley, CA: Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders, Tom Fogerty

December 27-28, 1972: Lion's Share, San Anselmo, CA: Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders, Tom Fogerty
One show from this set of performances was recorded and broadcast on KTIM-fm in San Rafael. 

December 29, 1972: Keystone Berkeley, Berkeley, CA: Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders, Tom Fogert
Note that Tom Fogerty is once again billed regularly as a member of the group. 

December 5, 1977: Keystone Palo Alto, Palo Alto, CA Robert Hunter and Comfort (Alligator Moon-FM XIV))

KFAT, 94.5 FM in Giroy, CA--note the U. Utah Phillips reference

On December 5, 1977, Robert Hunter and Comfort played the Keystone Palo Alto, at 260 S. California Avenue in Palo Alto. The show is remarkable for the fact that the first set was broadcast on the legendary KFAT-fm, out of Gilroy, CA (94-oink-5 on your FM dial), and more remarkable in that the broadcast seems to have included the bulk of the new album that Hunter and Comfort were working on at the time, Alligator Moon. Since the Alligator Moon album was never released, the live version broadcast from Keystone Palo Alto seems to be the best evidence of what it was supposed to sound like. I think the "Alligator Moon" suite was Hunter's best songwriting for his own performance, and I have continually found it mystifying that the work has never been released. This post will talk about what little is actually known about the recording of the album and the December broadcast from Keystone Palo Alto, in the hopes of encouraging the powers-that-be to consider officially releasing the "Alligator Moon" suite in either its studio or live incarnation.

Robert Hunter and Comfort
I have written about the live performance history of Robert Hunter and Comfort at some length elsewhere, so I will only recap it briefly here. Robert Hunter had returned to performing in late 1975 with the band Roadhog, mostly made up of old friends from his folkie days in the early '60s. They were an enjoyable aggregation, but Hunter seemed to be mainly getting his feet back on the ground as a performer, and Hunter stopped playing with Roadhog about Halloween 1976. In mid-1977, Hunter joined Comfort, who appear to have already existed, and brought along his old friend Rodney Albin from Roadhog. The 1977 lineup of Comfort was

• Robert Hunter-vocals, guitar
• Kevin Morgenstern-lead guitar
• Rodney Albin-violin, mandolin
• Richard "Sunshine" McNees-keyboards
• Larry Klein-six string bass
• Pat Lorenzano-drums
• Marlene Molle-vocals
• Kathleen Klein-vocals

Although there is a tape for a Robert Hunter and Comfort show purportedly from May 77, the group does not start appearing regularly in Bay Area clubs until a July 29-30 booking at The Shady Grove in San Francisco. The band seems to have kept a fairly low profile throughout 1977, mostly playing some comfortable gigs in the Bay Area in clubs where Hunter had played before. I believe that the low-key activity was because the band began working on recording an album during the second half of 1977 and the beginning of 1978, and they planned to tour behind it starting in Spring 1978.

The Alligator Moon Album Project
As far as is known, the Alligator Moon album would have consisted of five regular tracks and then an entire "Alligator Moon" suite of six songs. I assume that the regular tracks would have been on side one of the LP (remember those?) and the title suite would have been on side two, following the music industry practices of the time. The indispensable Deaddisc site lists the proposed tracks for Alligator Moon, albeit with the six songs in the Alligator Moon suite listed first:

• Mesa Linda (Hunter)
• Domino, Cigarette and Melina (Hunter / Morgenstern)
• Domino (Hunter / Morgenstern)
• Blue Note (Hunter / McNeese)
• New East St. Louis Blue (Hunter / McNeese)
• Cigarette (Hunter / McNeese)
• She Gives Me Love (Hunter)
• Drunkard's Carole (Hunter)
• Hooker's Ball (Hunter)
• Jesse James (Hunter / Melton)
• Promontory Rider (Hunter)

In the end, only three recordings, "Promontory Rider," "Drunkard's Carol" and "Hooker's Ball" were released, on the 1984 Relix Records retrospective album Promontory Rider. "Jessie James" is known from the 1975 Barry Melton album The Fish (on United Artists) as well as many fine live versions, while "She Gives Me Love" remains unknown to me

[I was fortunate enough to hear recently from former Comfort keyboard player Richard McNees, who had numerous insights. With respect to "She Give Me Love," he pointed me to comments he made on the excellent Grateful Dead song finder site:

"When we were doing the collaboration, I think the deal was Kevin [Morgenstern] and I each would write three songs. I submitted three songs based on Bob's [Hunter] pretty random poetry that he had given to me to work from. He then took the songs and molded the lyrics and story. He only used two of the three, which became "Blue Note" and "New East St. Louis Blue". None of the final lyrics were the ones I selected from his poetry. It is a wonderful example of his genius as a writer that he could do that - populate what was mostly abstract thoughts and images with characters, romance, adventure and a stroke of drama. Pretty exciting stuff.
"The third song, which I called "Shades and Shadows" (from the raw poetry) was never done by him, although Kathleen Klein and I performed it a few times in a small venue on our own. He might referring that song as "Cigarette" as it was written for but not used in the suite. And the reason there are no words is it did not get reworked by him or appear in the final version.
"The song was closer to jazz, and was also in a 6/8 time signature, like New East St Louis, though more ethereal. And it was tailored in my mind for Kathleen's voice. I may want to use that one some day as I think it is a good song, particularly for jazz, and the lyrics are quite good and are unfiltered by reworking - more like poetry which goes real good with jazz."]

The key to the album was the linked suite of six songs that made up the "Alligator Moon" suite itself. To my ears, the live version from December 5, 1977 represents Hunter at his best, evocative without being too specific, contemporary yet timeless and steeped in Americana of all sorts. Comfort are more like solid musicians than virtuosos, but that is appropriate to Hunter's voice and music, as he generally left the peculiar chords and 5/4 rhythms to Garcia. "Alligator Moon" was written for Hunter to perform in his own unique style, and by 1977 Hunter had enough experience under his belt that he could really pull it off. Music for five of the six songs in the suite were written by members of Comfort, so it was a true group effort.

According to the never-reliable Relix liner notes for Promontory Rider, the Alligator Moon album material was produced by Bob Matthews and engineered by Betty Cantor at Front Street studios, and this has been generally confirmed by Betty Cantor in an interview. The interesting part about this is that Alligator Moon would have been the second album recorded at Front Street, right on the heels of Cats Under The Stars. Indeed, Le Club Front was originally the Jerry Garcia Band rehearsal space, and it got turned into a recording studio to facilitate Cats. Eventually the Grateful Dead took over the studio space, but in late '77/early '78 it was still Garcia Band property, so that means that Garcia was at least indirectly sponsoring the recording of the album. What happened to the record?

The back cover to Robert Hunter's 1984 album Promontory Rider, which included three songs from Alligator Moon

Unanswered Questions
According to Hunter, he was never satisfied with the studio recording of the "Alligator Moon" suite. He did allude to the fact that some live versions of the suite did a better job of capturing what he was intending. I can't help but think that one of those versions must have been the December 5, 1977 show, as Betty Cantor herself was mixing from the remote truck, along with Bob Matthews. We know this for a fact, because Hunter name-checks them from the stage during the broadcast ("we've got Bob and Betty doing our sound tonight") and nobody does a better live mix than Betty.

[Richard McNees sheds some light:

on hearing it recently for the first time in many years, I think there needed to be corrections to everyone's vocals and can understand that it wasn't possible.  After hearing the live version it is so much better.  Only thing is there is hole at the end of "The Blue Note" where the tone of the piece really shifts]

One question that has never seemed to have been asked, however, much less answered, was what label was Alligator Moon supposed to have been released on? I would have to think that Arista Records would have been the most likely candidate, but that is not necessarily a sure thing. Of course, Arista were releasing albums by Garcia (Cats) and Bob Weir (Heaven Help The Fool) during this period, so a Hunter album isn't farfetched, but I don't think there was a contract. It seems like Garcia was willing to finance the album on spec, a lot cheaper proposition if it was recorded at Club Front by Betty than at a regular studio, and they probably intended to sell it to a record company afterwards, a common enough industry practice. Since Comfort stayed home, for the most part, they could record when the Garcia Band wasn't using the facility, because the Dead were on tour, so the project made financial sense

[McNees:

I'm not sure about the financing, but the band was salaried (Very nice touch) and the checks came from the Dead. And the final destination label was never discussed with me. I sorta thought  "if we build it they will come."

Bob Matthews summoned me to a Dead concert in 1987 and told me Alligator Moon was his favorite thing he had done (up til then).  Quite a compliment]

If Hunter was unhappy with the studio recording, and Garcia had financed the project, Hunter would have been more free to shelve the project. I don't know exactly when the album was recorded, but I suspect it was late 1977 and early 1978. They may have booked their March-to-May 1978 tour in anticipation of supporting the album, or at least creating some buzz about its impending release, but once the album was on the shelf, it was just another rock tour. Ozzie Ahlers replaced Richard McNeese on keyboards in early 1978 , and given that McNees wrote some of the music, I wonder what that had to do with it. Perhaps McNeese was expecting to be working in a band with an album forthcoming, and once Hunter shelved the record McNeese may have had less reason to stay.

[I was close, but didn't have it quite right. McNees:

the band which was once a writer's collective performing each other's work, to a backup band.  I am primarily a writer and I wanted to write.  That's why I liked Bob, Kevin and Marleen in the first place.  So I had to go]

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

On the piece of the live tape that I have, Hunter cheerily name checks all his friends and family listening in the radio audience and jokes about the junior high in Palo Alto that he attended in the 1950s (Wilbur). At the end of the set, he encourages all the listeners to come down to the Keystone Palo Alto for the second set. This was a serious plea--the Fat Fry broadcast generally ended about 11:00, but there was always plenty of music left, and if you lived in the South Bay dropping by was very plausible.

I recognize that if Hunter was unhappy with the studio recording of "Alligator Moon", and that since there was no deep-pocketed record company to finance a re-recording, the album needed to be shelved. A lot of time has passed, however--why not release the album now? Since no record company ever owned it, shouldn't Hunter control the rights? [Richard McNees says that Ice Nine control the rights, which is good to hear.] Of course, Comfort's partnership agreement may have not made it so easy to release the album once the band had broken up, but usually any frustrations or wounds heal after a few decades. My solution is even better--why not release the first set of the show from Keystone Palo Alto on December 5, 1977, with Bob and Betty doing the sound and the complete "Alligator Moon" suite? Of course, we don't know that anything resembling the original tape still exists, since Hunter tapes weren't guarded with the care that Garcia or Grateful Dead tapes were, but it sure would be nice to hear "Alligator Moon" the way Hunter, Comfort, Bob and Betty intended it, even if just for one Monday night in Palo Alto.

John Kahn Live Performance History 1971 (John Kahn V)

John Kahn played bass for Brewer & Shipley's appearance at Carnegie Hall

Jerry Garcia's musical history outside of the Grateful Dead is remarkable for its breadth and longevity. Notwithstanding the Grateful Dead's extensive touring schedule throughout its 30-year history, Garcia played a remarkable number of shows with his own aggregations for 25 of those years. Garcia's principal right hand man for his own endeavors from 1970-1995 was bassist John Kahn, who besides playing exceptional electric and acoustic bass also took care of the musical business of the Jerry Garcia Band. Kahn hired and fired musicians, organized rehearsals and often helped choose material. Although Jerry approved every move, of course, without Kahn's oversight Garcia could not have participated in the Jerry Garcia Band. In many respects, the Jerry Garcia Band (under various names) was to some extent the Jerry Garcia and John Kahn Band; if Garcia had not met Kahn he would have had to be invented.

Most Deadheads are at least generally aware of Kahn's importance to Garcia's non-Dead music. However, Kahn is usually viewed through the filter of Jerry Garcia and his music. For this series of posts, I am looking at Jerry Garcia through the filter of John Kahn. In particular, I am looking at John Kahn's performance history without Garcia. Kahn's extensive studio career has been largely documented on the Deaddisc's site, so I don't need to recap it beyond some specific references. The posts so far have been:

• John Kahn I: Performance History 1967-68: A review of John Kahn's migration to San Francisco, his transformation from an acoustic jazz bassist to an electric R&B bass player and some history of his early live work.
• John Kahn II: Performance History 1967-68-T&A R&B Band and Memory Pain: A closer look at the history of Kahn's two original bands during this period
• John Kahn III: Performance History 1969: An analysis of John Kahn's participation in the somewhat casual Mike Bloomfield Band, with Nick Gravenites and others, who played regularly at Keystone Korner.
• John Kahn IV: Performance History 1970: while continuing with Mike Bloomfield, John Kahn starts to jam with Howard Wales at the Matrix, and then with Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
• John Kahn IX: Bottom Line, NYC July 1974: For various reasons, I skipped ahead and wrote about an East Coast by Garcia-Saunders at the Bottom Line in July 1974, in conjunction with some Maria Muldaur dates. Kahn was in both groups

This post will focus on John Kahn's live performance history for the year 1971.

John Kahn, Early 1971
In early 1971, John Kahn had the unique status of being the bass player for the part-time nightclub bands of not one, but two legendary guitarists, Mike Bloomfield and Jerry Garcia. One of many special features of the Bay Area rock scene at the time was how the City's resident rock stars regularly played around Bay Area nightclubs in different configurations. Bloomfield, Garcia and Jorma Kaukonen were among the best known guitarists in San Francisco, and yet they could be found on weeknights in local clubs, jamming away with their own little ensembles. No other city had such a scene at the time.

However, by early 1971, Mike Bloomfield had lost some of his taste for playing nightclubs. The always mercurial Bloomfield never wanted to be predictable, and once he became an expected commodity at the Keystone Korner, he started to play fewer gigs. Also, the extremely casual Bloomfield band also used a lot of substitutes, like a jazz group, and on occasion Doug Kilmer played bass instead of Kahn. The San Francisco studio scene was still booming in early 1971, so Kahn worked on a fair number of sessions, and he played in Los Angeles studios as well. Kahn was still close to his family, who lived in Los Angeles.

Kahn's friends recall that he would go to Los Angeles for weeks at a time, playing a few sessions but mostly just hanging out at home. While Kahn lived like a hand-to-mouth hippie like all his other musician friends in Forest Knolls, it was clear that his mother (an extremely successful Hollywood talent agent, like Kahn's late father) must have helped him out with money from time to time. This allowed Kahn to focus on making the music he wanted to, whether in the studio or on stage, rather than having to take some lucrative but dull Top-40 gig.

Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
Up through 1969, Garcia had been a regular attendee at jam sessions around San Francisco. Starting with the New Riders of The Purple Sage, however, Garcia seems to have become more interested in developing his music with regular ensembles. His appearances at Howard Wales's Monday night jam sessions in March 1970 had led to his introduction to Kahn and Bill Vitt, and when Wales was replaced by Merl Saunders, Garcia had himself a little band, even if they initially only played the Matrix.

In early 1971, the unnamed Garcia/Saunders aggregation had a little crisis, in that The Matrix closed. As a result, they began to play regularly at the Keystone Korner in San Francisco. I have to think that Kahn's regular appearances with the Bloomfield band at the club made him suggest it to Garcia. It was a fruitful partnership, since Garcia and Kahn would go on to play for Keystone owner Freddie Herrera an incredible 400 times over the next 16 years.

The Garcia/Saunders group still didn't play that many shows, as much of Garcia's excess time was taken up with his pedal steel guitar duties for the New Riders. However, knowing what we now know, there is good evidence that Garcia was thinking about making the Garcia/Saunders band his primary side project. We know that when Garcia met Buddy Cage in Canada in the Summer of 1970, he proposed Cage as his replacement. Garcia had recorded the NRPS debut album, which was released in October 1971. Garcia continued to play with the New Riders for most of the Grateful Dead's fall tour. The Riders (and the Dead) were broadcast live in every city that the band played, and Garcia's presence helped publicize the group.

However, we know that Buddy Cage had been rehearsing with the New Riders since September 1971, and although it may have been a surprise to the audience when Cage took over the chair (on October 31, 1971), it had been planned all along. Looking at the arc of Garcia's career, however, it seems that as he stepped aside from the New Riders he already had his next project up and running, even if the band did not begin to step out until 1972.

Tom Fogerty
Although it can be difficult to track exactly when Tom Fogerty played with the Garcia/Saunders group, his first appearance as rhythm guitarist seems to have been August 11, 1971. While I am not certain that Fogerty played every subsequent Garcia/Saunders show, he does seem to have become a regular member of the group. Fogerty, of course, had been a member of the hugely successful Creedence Clearwater Revival. However, various conflicts between his older brother John and the other band members caused him to leave the group, which broke up by the end of 1970 anyway. Tom Fogerty was a solo artist on Fantasy Records, and as a result he was friendly with his label-mate Merl Saunders. Fogerty played Stax-style rhythm guitar and sang the occasional lead vocal, and as a result the group was less focused on Garcia.

Brewer and Shipley
Brewer and Shipley were a folk rock duo out of Kansas City, via Los Angeles. They were on Kama Sutra Records, and Nick Gravenites had produced two successful albums for them at Wally Heider's  Studio in San Francisco. Gravenites used his stock studio players, who included Kahn on bass and Bill Vitt and Bob Jones on drums. "One Toke Over The Line," one of the tracks from the duo's Tarkio Road album, had become a substantial Top 40 hit. The song spent 10 weeks on the Billboard charts Peaking at #10 on March 13, 1971. A top 10 single in those days represented substantial sales, and the terrific Tarkio Road  probably got significant FM airplay in many cities. Kahn had played bass on every track of the album, so he must have heard his own work on the radio many times.

While Brewer and Shipley usually toured as an acoustic duo, for at least a few dates on their December 1971 East Coast tour, they had a band with them. In his Golden Road interview, Kahn alluded to having played Carnegie Hall with Brewer and Shipley in 1971, and I have been able to track the date to December 3, 1971. I assume there were a few other dates, but I don't know what they were.

I would presume that Brewer and Shipley still would have done some of their songs as a duo, as they usually did, and then brought out a band for some numbers. I assume that Bill Vitt was the drummer, because I know Bob Jones didn't go on the tour, but it may also have been Billy Mundi, a Los Angeles drummer with old connections to Mike Brewer (see below). I have to assume that there was a pianist and a guitarist as well, most likely Mark Naftalin and Fred Burton, although I don't actually know. It is interesting to contemplate the idea that while The Grateful Dead were playing Boston (Dec 1&2) and New York (Dec 4&5), Jerry Garcia's rhythm section was touring around the East Coast as well. Indeed, Garcia was free the night that Kahn played Carnegie Hall, and on his way to New York--too bad he didn't show up and sit in, but Carnegie Hall wasn't the Keystone Korner.

[Update: correspondent Randal G found this remarkable information on the Brewer and Shipley website, about Kahn's appearance with the duo on The Tonight Show, April 21, 1971]

Joey Bishop guest hosted the night we appeared.  John Kahn flew out to New York from the West coast and joined on bass but the show didn't want to pay to show John.  Also, they neglected to turn on his microphone, so he was there and he played, but couldn’t be seen or heard. To add insult to injury Tom's wallet was stolen out of his hotel room that was furnished by The Tonight Show. Ah, showbiz!

Other guests: Shelly Berman, Abe Drazed, Ashley Montagu, Romina Power

Richard "Zippy" Loren
Richard Loren, a former talent agent, was David Grisman's production partner. On September 20, 1970, they visited the Fillmore East to talk to Garcia about what city they should use to break their act, the Rowan Brothers (Chris and Lorin, not Peter). Garcia encouraged them to move to San Francisco, and by 1971 Grisman, Loren and the two younger Rowans had moved to San Francisco. By Fall 1971, Richard Loren had also become Jerry Garcia's manager for his non-Grateful Dead projects.

Up until this time, if Garcia had had a plan for his other musical endeavors, he hadn't told anyone and would barely have had time to execute it. With his own manager, however, Garcia had someone to book shows, negotiate contracts and make plans for him. Garcia's non-Dead career rested on the triangular pillars of Jerry, John Kahn and Richard Loren, who was known (on album liner notes at least) as "Zippy."

Garcia had a lot of obligations at the end of 1971, but he also seemed to be in a position where he was getting to do some things that he wanted to do. He recorded a solo album in July of 1971, he finished the New Riders album and toured with them, even though his hand picked substitute (Buddy Cage) was waiting on deck, all amidst the usual furious schedule of Grateful Dead concerts. Garcia's decision to have his own manager was a commitment to engage in real projects on his own, rather than just tagging along in jams or as a sideman. Although the relationship between John Kahn and Richard Loren is rarely discussed directly, without both of them all the various Jerry Garcia enterprises that followed after 1971 w0uld likely have never happened to the extent that they did.

Annotated John Kahn 1971 Performance List

February 2-3, 1971: The Matrix, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
Garcia had a busy Winter, recording with Paul Kantner and probably the New Riders as well. Between the recording projects and occasional Dead gigs, there weren't a lot of free nights for Garcia/Saunders gigs. At this juncture, Kahn probably mainly saw playing with Garcia as a fun part-time thing, rather than a career. 

February 12-13, 1971: The Matrix, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders

February 19, 1971: Swing Auditorium, San Bernardino, CA: Mike Bloomfield & Friends
The activities of Bloomfield were always murky, and a number of gigs may have featured Doug Kilmer on bass rather than Kahn. During this period, however, Bloomfield did play a few larger gigs. This show featured Kahn on bass along with future Reconstruction member Ron Stallings on tenor sax. A tape circulates, and it's quite a good show.

A listing from the Oakland Tribune Teen Age section from February 27, 1971

March 2-3, 1971: The Matrix, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
Originally Garcia and Saunders were booked for March 2 and 3, but the Grateful Dead played the Airwaves Benefit at Fillmore West on March 3. This doesn't rule out the possibility that Saunders, Kahn and Vitt played the Matrix anyway on the second night, possibly with another guitarist, such as Nick Gravenites or Tom Fogerty. 

April 1, 1971: Keystone Korner, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
This show would have marked the first performance by Garcia and Kahn at the Keystone Korner. Keystone Korner, at 750 Vallejo, was owned by Freddie Herrera. Herrera (with various partners) would go on to own the Keystone Berkeley, Keystone Palo Alto and The Stone, and Garcia would play for him over 400 times. 

April 8, 1971: Civic Center, Long Beach, CA: John Mayall/Mike Bloomfield & Friends-Chicago Slim
With the Grateful Dead on tour, John Kahn was free to tour with Bloomfield.  Chicago Slim was a friend of Bloomfield's named Noel Schiff. John Mayall's band at the time featured Harvey Mandel 9guitar), Sugarcane Harris (electric violin), Larry Taylor (bass) and Paul Lagos (drums).

April 16, 18, 19: The Ash Grove, Los Angeles, CA: Mike Bloomfield
The Bloomfield history site knows about the booking, but there is no certainty as to who played. Of course, with Garcia on tour with the Dead and his family in Los Angeles, a few stray SoCal gigs for Kahn make plenty of sense.

April 21, 1971: NBC Studios, New York, NY: The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson: Brewer And Shipley
Brewer And Shipley were booked for The Tonight Show, and John Kahn was flown out to accompany them. As described above, Kahn was neither shown nor miked.

April 29-May 2, 1971: Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA: Mike Bloomfield-Chicago Slim/Bola Sete/Mike Finnegan
Bloomfield was still a big enough name to headline at Fillmore West, but he was uncomfortable with his stature. From this point onwards, Kahn plays fewer and fewer gigs with Bloomfield, with Doug Kilmer taking over the primary bass duties. The strange nature of working with Bloomfield, however, meant that Kahn probably still subbed occasionally for Kilmer, just as Kilmer originally subbed for him. The Bloomfield history site has done an exceptional job of documenting his career, but it's impossible to say which band members played a Bloomfield gig during this period without a photograph, tape or review, since substitutions were common.

May 11, 1971: The Matrix, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
I'm not certain of this date.  The Matrix was on its last legs and the club may have closed before the show was played. A brief tape does circulate with this date (a 19 minute version of "Save Mother Earth"), but I have no reason to believe either that the date or the venue are correct.

May 14-16, 1971; Golden Bear, Huntington Beach, CA: Mike Bloomfield & Mark Naftalin
The Bloomfield history site lists Kahn as the bass player for these shows.

May 20-22, 1971: Keystone Korner, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
From this point onwards, the Keystone Korner becomes the principal venue for the Garcia/Saunders group, as the Matrix has closed. 

May 26, 1971: Keystone Korner, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders

June 4-5, 1971: New Monk, Berkeley, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
These shows were Jerry Garcia's first at 2119 University Avenue (at Shattuck), the site of the future Keystone Berkeley.  During this period, it appeared that Freddie Herrera was helping with booking the New Monk, and he would buy the club later in the year and change its name. Thus, while Jerry Garcia played 2119 University over 200 times (206 by my count), John Kahn had played there even more than that.

June 15-16, 1971: Keystone Korner, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders

June 26-27, 1971: New Monk, Berkeley, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders

July 10-11, 1971: Keystone Korner, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
Jerry Garcia recorded his solo album at Wally Heider's in July of 1971, playing all the instruments himself, except for drums. Afterwards, I don't believe he used anyone other than John Kahn as a bassist in the studio for his solo work, save for some 90s recordings with David Grisman.

July 18, 1971: Marx Meadow, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA: Mike Bloomfield & Friends

July 23-25, 1971; Golden Bear, Huntington Beach, CA: Mike Bloomfield & Mark Naftalin

August 11-12, 1971: Keystone Korner, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
Tom Fogerty was advertised at these shows, so I am marking his presence as having started here. There's no reason not to think he had already jammed with them on stage somewhere, as there would have been no comment or documentation of it in the press. I'm not certain Fogerty played every show in 1971, but I think he was a regular presence from this point until December 1972.

August 17-18, 1971: Keystone Korner, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders

August 29-30, 1971: New Monk, Berkeley, CA: Van Morrison/Mike Bloomfield & Friends/John Lee Hooker
Van Morrison was working with John Lee Hooker during this period, so if Kahn really played these nights it would have been a pretty memorable evening of the blues.

August 31-September 1, 1971: Keystone Korner, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders

September 10, 1971: Harding Theater, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
The Dead seemed to be experimenting with the Harding Theater, on 616 Divisadero. There was an apparent September Dead date--maybe--and a poorly attended New Riders show (September 23) as well as this performance, about which nothing is known save a newspaper listing. If the show really happened, it would have been the first "concert" performance of the Garcia/Saunders band, outside of the few hip clubs they had played up until this time. If the show happened, it was well below the radar.

September 16, 1971: Keystone Korner, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders

September 17-19, 1971; Golden Bear, Huntington Beach, CA: Mike Bloomfield & Mark Naftalin
If Kahn in fact played all the shows at The Golden Bear, it fits in with his friends' assertion that he liked going to Los Angeles to visit his family and play the odd session.

September 24-25, 1971: Lion's Share, San Anselmo, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders/Jerry Corbitt, Billy Cox and Charlie Daniels
The Lion's Share was a well-known musicians watering hole in Marin County. It was a tiny place, too, and it appears that there were early and late shows both nights, in order to turn over the house. For these shows, Bill Kreutzmann replaced Bill Vitt on drums. The truth is that we have very little idea how regularly Vitt and Kahn played with Garcia. Perhaps there were substitutes all the time, or perhaps this was the first time. We actually have almost nothing to go on besides newspaper ads that would have been prepared some time in advance. Ironically, tapes survive of both the early and late shows, so the earliest tape of the Garcia/Saunders ensemble features a substitute drummer (I'm not counting the uncertainly-dated May 11 tape).

The billing gives me good reason to think that the Garcia/Saunders booking was added at the last minute. Since Garcia could easily pack the Lion's Share, there would have been no need for an opening act, beyond perhaps a folk singer to keep people amused between sets. However, there was another act booked, featuring artists with actual albums in the stores. That band would not have booked if Garcia had already been signed on. I think the other act was scheduled, and when Garcia asked to be put on, the owner agreed and simply left the original act on the bill.

The other band was actually the original version of what became the Charlie Daniels Band. At the time, Daniels was a Nashville session man and producer who had released a solo album on Capitol in 1971. Daniels also produced Jerry Corbitt, who had been the guitarist in the Youngbloods, whom Daniels had also produced (Daniels played violin on "Darkness, Darkness" by the way). Corbitt and Daniels decided to team up, and added Billy Cox on bass (from Jimi Hendrix and Band of Gypsies), Jeff Myers on drums and Taz De Gregorio on drums. The story is very complicated, but in the end Daniels and De Gregorio went on to form the Charlie Daniels Band and they are still playing together today.

>September 24-25, 1971: Pepperland, San Rafael, CA: Mike Bloomfield & Friends/Stoneground/Clover
The Bloomfield history site lists John Kahn as Bloomfield's bassist for these Pepperland shows, along with Buddy Miles on drums, but in this instance we happen to know that Kahn was playing with Garcia and Saunders at the Lion's Share. Or do we? Do we know for a fact that Kahn played bass at the Lion's Share? Was he announced from the stage?

The opposite scenario is also possible: Kahn may have been booked to play with Bloomfield for some weekend shows with Bloomfield and Buddy Miles at Pepperland, and Bloomfield backed out of the booking (a common enough event). Garcia and Kahn might have put together a gig quickly, which was how they ended up at the Lion's Share on a weekend when another band was booked.

October 3, 1971: Frost Amphitheater, Stanford U., Palo Alto, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders/Bobby Hutcherson-Harold Land Quintet/Big Black
This show was in some ways the public debut of the Garcia/Saunders band, as hitherto they had only played nightclubs in San Francisco and Berkeley. Stanford had banned rock concerts from Frost Amphitheater at this point, but the show was billed as a jazz concert, and Garcia/Saunders seems to have qualified. JGMF wrote an interesting post about this show. 

October 8-9, 1971: Keystone Korner, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders

October 15-16, 1971: Keystone Korner, San Francisco, CA: Nick Gravenites, Merl Saunders, Tom Fogerty, John Kahn, Dave Getz
JGMF first noticed this show, and pointed out that Garcia was otherwise unnocupied this weekend, so may have shown up anyway. Regardless, I think the most revealing thing about this booking is how it reveals the working lives of the musicians. Nick Gravenites, Merl Saunders and Tom Fogerty all had solo careers of some kind, but no real working band. So they teamed up for the weekend with some players they knew: Kahn had worked with Gravenites in the Bloomfield band, and drummer Dave Getz had played with Gravenites in Big Brother in the previous year as well. In this context, to Merl and Kahn the weekend's gig would have been no different a booking than playing with Jerry Garcia, making a few bucks playing good music with your friends when you had nothing else going on.

December 3, 1971: Carnegie Hall, New York, NY: Brewer & Shipley/Steve Goodman
As discussed above, Brewer and Shipley were playing more substantial dates on the East Coast due to the success of "One Toke Over Line," and Kahn recalls playing with them at Carnegie Hall. It's possible that Bill Vitt was in the band, but it may have been Billy Mundi on drums, and probably a pianist and guitarist as well. I have to assume there were a few more East Coast dates for Kahn, but I haven't been able to track any down.

Opening act Steve Goodman would go on to write many great songs ("City Of New Orleans," "You Never Even Called Me By My Name") before his untimely death in 1984 (the ad at the top of the post is from the Village Voice, November 18, 1974, h/t All The Streets You Crossed).

December 10-11, 1971: Fenway Theater, Boston, MA: Mike Bloomfield-Paul Butterfield
Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield had a weekend reunion show of sorts in Boston. The Bloomfield history site lists Kahn as the bassist, along with Mark Naftalin on piano and Billy Mundi on drums. This is why I think Naftalin was also playing with Brewer and Shipley, and it's not impossible that Mundi (an old B&S friend from Los Angeles, formerly in the group Lamp Of Childhood as well as the Mothers of Invention) played with them too, rather than Vitt . However, knowing that Kahn was in New York City the weekend before makes it plausible that Bloomfield would use him in Boston the next weekend. Bloomfield stopped playing Bay Area clubs for some time after this, and save for a concert at Winterland in 1973, I don't believe Kahn and Bloomfield played together again on stage.

Geoff Muldaur also sang a song with the band on December 11, a minor point but one that would have significant implications for John Kahn's future career (but not in the way you think). Update: I now think John Kahn recorded with Geoff and Maria Muldaur in Woodstock in December, 1971 during the time surrounding the brief Brewer and Shipley tour and the Butterfield weekend in Boston. Bloomfield was well-connected to the Muldaurs, and must have recommended Kahn as the bass player, probably part of a package to get Kahn to come East for a little while. The full importance of this session will be explained in the 1972 entry, and it has almost nothing to do with Maria.
Update II: an incredible video of one of the Butter/Bloomfield shows at Fenway can be seen here on YouTube

December 23, 1971: Little Theater, Berkeley, CA: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
The Little Theater was a small auditorium associated with Berkeley High School, a sort of adjunct to the Berkeley Community Theater.