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| Marvin Boxley playing harmonica behind Jerry Garcia, at the Human Be-In at Golden Gate Park's Polo Grounds, on Saturday, January 14, 1967. Boxley can be heard on "Viola Lee Blues." |
At this seemingly infinite distance from the genesis of the Grateful Dead, it's startling that there are still undiscovered countries in that land. Yet there are, and even more remarkably, we can still unpack some mysteries that initially seemed impossible to resolve. The Grateful Dead played at the Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park on Saturday, January 14, 1967, as did their friends, amidst "acid, incense and balloons," to quote Paul Kantner. The Grateful Dead did a 30-minute set, playing three songs. Over time, a decent tape surfaced, and those in the know were able to confirm that the dating was accurate. On the last number, there's some flute playing and apparently an extra vocalist. For reasons I will shortly dismiss, the flute and vocals were incorrectly attributed to the great jazzman Charles Lloyd.
In recent decades, some photographs and videos from the Human Be-In have surfaced and circulated, too. So we had a photo of an unnamed African-American blowing harmonica behind the Dead, albeit inaudibly. Was he also the guest vocalist? Furthermore, a video capture of some silent footage of the Grateful Dead shows us the flautist. Who were these guests? Given the importance of the event, this is no small quest. Scholarship is an iterative process that happens over time. In this post I will answer one question definitively, and at least reflect on the other question for further scholarship to ponder.
The African-American blowing harp in the photo with the Dead was a pal of the band from the College Of San Mateo named Marvin Boxley. He was later in the band Petrus, with Peter Kaukonen (Jorma's brother), and he appeared on stage at other times with both the Grateful Dead and Mickey and The Hartbeats--yes, we have tapes and you can listen for yourself.
The flautist remains unknown. I will raise and reject some obvious possibilities, but maybe someone will see a flaw in my reasoning. In any case, partial victory is still a victory. If anyone has suggestions, corrections, insights or amusing speculation, please include them in the Comments. Flashbacks welcome.
In the early 60s, politically active students at campuses like UC Berkeley and the University of Michigan began protesting by holding "Sit-Ins," where students would sit down in protest and wait to be removed by the police. They were inspired by the efforts of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, who in turn had been inspired by Mahatma Gandhi. As the Vietnam War heated up, Sit-Ins were followed by Teach-Ins and other variations. The "-In" suffix would now be recognized as a Social Media meme, but no such concept existed then.
In the Fall of '66, the San Francisco rock bands that played the Fillmore and the Avalon ballrooms began playing for free in San Francisco. Sometimes they played in Speedway Meadows in Golden Gate Park. At other times they played in a grassy strip in the Haight-Ashbury, on several blocks between Fell and Oak Streets, known as The Panhandle. The Panhandle abuts Golden Gate Park, but is not actually part of it. Bands like the Grateful Dead would rent a flatbed truck and some generators, play for an hour in the afternoon, and split before the cops showed up. No permits, no permission, no matter.
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| Half A Million Strong by Gina Arnold (U of Iowa Press, 2018) includes a definitive look at how "free concerts in the park" evolved into rock fesivals (she's my sister but you should read the book) |
The concept of the Human Be-In was to link Political Action, Higher Consciousness and Free Rock Music into one unstoppable force. Certainly, the entire hip undergrounds of Berkeley and San Francisco heard the clarion call, and were astonished to find they had 20,000 compatriots. To the dismay of political activists, however, rock music decisively won the day. The Human Be-In, with its national publicity, was one of the central inspirations for 60s rock festivals. That rapid evolution is a vast subject covered well by Gina Arnold in her 2018 book Half A Million Strong: Crowds and Power from Woodstock to Coachella (Iowa Press), so I will not discuss it here.
As a result, however, the Human Be-In is often recalled for the famous rock bands that played. From an historical perspective, the Be-In offers an interesting historiographical problem. If you know people of the right age, who were in Berkeley or SF at the time, it's not hard to find people who went. They are proud to brag that they were there. But--eyewitness accounts? Well, no. No one remembers a thing, except that it was a nice day and everyone had a nice time. Who they saw, who they went with, how they got home--not a single clue. So we are left with more formal methods of research.
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| The tape box for Owsley Stanley's recording of the Grateful Dead at the Matrix on December 1, 1966. In the right hand column, four lines down, the ever-meticulous Owsley notes (MARVIN), to identify Marvin Boxley as the harmonica player. It worked, albeit 56 years later. |
Harmonica and Vocals: Marvin Boxley--One Mystery Resolved
It
has been good to put a name to Marvin Boxley's face after all these
years. Deadheads of long standing may recall that one of the first
circulating Mickey and The Hartbeats tapes, from the Matrix on October
10, 1968, had a guest come out of the audience and play some tunes. When
I first heard the tape, around 1981, I was absolutely astonished to
hear a Dead show so casual that a friend could be invited up on stage to jam
with Jerry Garcia. It remains astonishing today.
December 1, 1966 The Matrix, San Francisco, CA: Grateful Dead (Saturday)
Marvin Boxley can also be heard with the full Grateful Dead at the Matrix, from December 1, 1966, leading the entire band through "Yonder's Wall." Owsley taped that night at the Matrix, and wrote "Marvin" on the tape box.October 10, 1968 The Matrix, San Francisco, CA: Jerry Garcia and Friends (Thursday) "Mickey and The Hartbeats"
The Matrix recording with Mickey and The Hartbeats was two years later, on October 10, 1968. The Hartbeats, in that incarnation, were Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart. The goal was to provide a platform for open ended improvisation, as well as a vehicle for inviting friends to jam.On the tape, after an initial opening jam, and then the blues "It's A Sin," sung by Garcia, the band pauses. Someone, likely Mickey Hart, says "does anyone want to get up and sing a song?" After some indecipherable chatter in the tiny club, Garcia says "oh, Marvin's here--did you bring your harmonica?" Boxley comes on stage and leads the musicians through two instrumental blues shuffles, and then sings Elmore James' classic "Look Over Yonder's Wall." Ross Hannan, Runonguinness, Hawk Semins and I managed to solve this mystery after 40 years of wondering.
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| Petrus opened for the Grateful Dead at the Carousel Ballroom (and also free in the Panhandle) on the weekend of May 31-June 2, 1968. The poster has the dates wrong (May 30-June 1) and also spells the band's name as "Petris." We have to assume Marvin Boxley sat in at least once. |
On The Trail Of Marvin Boxley
Marvin Boxley (1946-2003) seems to have played music most or all of his adult life, although he probably made his living in other ways. His 2003 obituary in the Marin Independent-Journal summarizes his life:
Marvin Dean Boxley
Was called home to God on September 20, 2003. He was born on May 5, 1946 in Tyler, TX, moved to Denver, CO in 1948 and in 1962 the family moved to San Mateo, CA. He was a scholar athlete and remains Class President of Poly Technical High School Graduating Class of 1964. He attended the College of San Mateo and University of California, Berkeley where he mastered the guitar, prompting a life-long career in Rock-n-Roll, Jazz and Fusion. He was also a talented harmonica player, singer and poet.In the course of his career he founded several bands, including J4, and played with scores of other musicians such as the Jazz great Lenny McBrowne, Carlos Santana, Jerry Garcia, Esther Phillips, Jefferson Starship, Elvin Bishop, George Duke, Pointer Sisters, Merl Saunders, Sheila Escovedo and Steve Miller, to name a few. He had a long-time love for the outdoors and nature, and spent much of his time hiking the trails of Mount Tamalpais.
In the summer of 1982 he moved his family to Tiburon, California where he continued to live until his passing. He is survived by his wife, Nancy Beaudry-Boxley, and three children, Althea Boxley, Serafina Miller and Harold Boxley.
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| Recipients of three scholarship awards [of] the Faculty Wives Club of College of San Mateo are (left to right) Sharyn Colquhoun, Maija Gudrala and Marvin Boxley, who were honored recently at a luncheon club at the Castaways Restaurant, Coyote Point (San Mateo Times March 31, 1965) |
My first clue about Boxley came from researching a forgotten (except by me) band called Petrus, based near tiny Half Moon Bay, CA, and led by songwriter Ruthan Friedman (famous for "Windy") and Peter Kaukonen, brother of the Airplane's Jorma, and later a long-time recording artist in his own right. Eventually I discovered the names of the rest of the band in a concert review, and that they were a quintet that included Marvin Boxley on guitar and harmonica.
After some elaborate exchanges, Ross Hannan discovered Marvin Boxley's obituary, and connected the dots between Boxley and the "Marvin" on both the Hartbeats tape and the '66 Matrix tape. I went on to find the newspaper clipping above about the College Of San Mateo (above), and that provided a photo of Boxley. From that, I could not only identify Boxley on stage with the Dead, but have confidence that he would have been invited to play with them.
The linchpin of Boxley's connection to the Dead has to be the College Of San Mateo. The two fulcrums of the early 60s Peninsula folk music scene were Palo Alto and Stanford at one end, and the College Of San Mateo at the other. Rodney Albin, his younger brother Peter, and Peter's best friend (David Nelson) had a folk club in San Mateo called The Boar's Head. Rodney was a student at CSM, and was the central figure on the folk scene there, hanging out and playing music on the lawn. When Marvin Boxley showed up and could play, probably in Fall 1964, no doubt he was discovered in about ten minutes. From Rodney and Peter Albin it would have been a direct line to Jerry Garcia and Pigpen.
Unlike all the members of the Grateful Dead, Marvin Boxley seems to have successfully completed his college studies. Thus it makes sense that he doesn't appear in a full-time group until early 1968, likely about when he graduated from UC Berkeley. Petrus only lasted a few months, however. They did open for the Dead one weekend at the Carousel, however (May 31-June 2 1968), so there's good reason to assume Boxley sat in again with the Dead.
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| "Hey Baby" by Percy BB, Ashbury Records 1974. Marvin Boxley guitar, vocals, songwriting. |
In 1974, Marvin Boxley seems to have released a single on Ashbury Records. The record is credited to "Percy BB." He is listed as guitarist, vocalist and songwriter for the tracks "Handyman" and "Hey Baby." Keyboards are credited to Nick Buck. Buck would later play for Hot Tuna and then SVT, Jack Casady's post-Tuna band.
A search through Discogs captures Marvin Boxley on a 1978 Elektra Records album by jazz violinist Micheal White, The X-Factor. White had played with John Handy and then the band Fourth Way in the sixties, before leading his own ensembles. The X-Factor album includes a number of heavyweight players, like George Duke, Michal Babatunde and Frank Zappa's horn section. Even if Boxley was a friend of White's--he very well may have been--you don't get invited to such a session unless you can bring it. Boxley also played on a 1979 Babatunde album.
The obituary alludes to the group J4, which seems to have been mostly a studio project. Boxley's partner in J4 was Roger Saunders (1948-2006), who played guitar and other instruments. Saunders' best known outfit was the 60s Avalon band All Men Joy, perpetually confused historically with the Allman Brothers (Duane and Gregg Allman were in Los Angeles during the 60s, leading a band called The Hour Glass). So Boxley had a lengthy musical career, even if he did not fly as high as some other San Mateo compadres like Garcia or the Albins. It's nice to finally be able to connect some of these dots after all these years, and give him his due. I'm glad the Hartbeats found a harmonica for him that night at the Matrix.
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| A video capture of the guest flautist with the Grateful Dead on January 14, 1967 |
Open Mystery: Who Played Flute With The Grateful Dead at The Human Be-In On January 14, 1967?
We have long had the tape of the Grateful Dead's performance at The Human Be-In, so we have known for decades that a flute player sat in with the Grateful Dead and played on "Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl." As has been traditional in Grateful Dead scholarship, the guest flute was always assigned to Charles Lloyd. This is incorrect, as the video capture above makes clear, but I want to make the point that every single attribution on a Grateful Dead tape to Charles Lloyd--yes, that's correct, every single one--is incorrect. Lloyd had apparently jammed with the Dead, but it was never captured on tape, not once (see below for some rabbit holes in that area). In this case, we have a fairly clear photo capture of the flautist, But I don't recognize him. I will run through some other possibilities, mainly to eliminate them, but the question remains open.
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| Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson remains perhaps rock's most iconic flute player (shown here in 1969) |
A Note About Flutes In 1960s Rock
Scholarly Deadheads will note a number of guests sitting in on flute with the Grateful Dead throughout the 60s, and various rock ensembles were surprisingly heavy on flutes. The most obvious example would be Jethro Tull, but Andy Kulberg was featured on his famous instrumental "Flute Thing" for the Blues Project (and later Seatrain). Chris Wood of Traffic was another performer who took his share of flute solos. It's worth reflecting briefly on why the Grateful Dead had more guests on flute in the 1960s than on saxophone.
Loud, high-quality sound amplification was in its infancy in the 60s. Bands like the Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd and a few others were just figuring out how to properly amplify and reinforce basic rock instrumentation--electric guitars, electric basses, drums, electric organ and vocals. Integrating the amplification of acoustic instruments into a full electric setting was challenging. When you hear 60s bands that had grand pianos and acoustic guitars combined with electric instruments, actual audience tapes suggest pretty suspect results. In the case of pianos and acoustic guitars, at least a lot of rock bands wanted to include those instruments. Saxophones and wind instruments were a different matter.
There were electric pickups for saxophones in the 60s, but I don't think they worked that well. More importantly, bands like Blood, Sweat & Tears or Chicago Transit Authority, whose horn sections were integrated into the band's soundscape at every show, had to figure out the pitfalls. But for a band like the Grateful Dead, including a saxophone wasn't like including another guitar--the Dead's system wasn't designed for wind instruments.
Another factor was that most saxophonists focus on tenor and alto sax, and roughly speaking the range of those instruments was about the same as a guitar. A tenor sax with a loud rock band, less than perfectly amplified, just sort of blares, as the sax and the guitar kind of merge. Soul music has a more rhythmic, distinct role for the electric guitar, leaving room for the sax, but most rock bands weren't designed that way. Flutes and soprano saxophone, however, find their own register above the electric guitar. So both instruments fit much better with an electric band with prominent guitars. Note that Branford Marsalis typically played soprano sax when he sat in with the Dead. The flute, too, carefully floats high above the guitars, and assuming good live sound--a fair assumption with the Dead--that flute will be fairly audible.
Finally, a simple note: flutes are played at the same elevation as a singer. So a flute player stepping up to jam can simply blow into a vocal mic, not having to unscrew and lower the stand, perhaps messing with a carefully constructed configuration. In 60s rock, a reed player with a lot of instruments would find it easiest to play flute casually with a rock band, for both audio and practical reasons.
Who Didn't Play Flute With The Grateful Dead at the Human Be-In?
I don't know who played flute with the Grateful Dead at the Human Be-In on January 14, 1967. But let's run through some possibilities. Some of them can be actively eliminated, and some others can be shown as unlikely.
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| The Daily Cal from September 29, 1967 ran a promotional photo of Charles Lloyd. Lloyd's quartet opened for the Grateful Dead at the Greek Theatre on October 1. 1967, and he didn't sit in. |
Charles Lloyd
We can see that the guest flute player was a white guy, so it's simple to outright reject Charles Lloyd as the guest. Given the persistence of assuming Lloyd's presence, however, it's worth making a few key points. Lloyd was a prominent West Coast tenor saxophonist who was also proficient on flute. He replaced Eric Dolphy in the Chico Hamilton Quintet in 1960, which in itself was a huge mountain to climb. He went to New York in 1964, where he played with Cannonball Adderley for two years, and also released his first albums as a leader. By 1966, Lloyd was leading his own quartet, with Keith Jarrett on piano, Jack DeJohnette on drums and Ron McClure on bass. The Charles Lloyd Quartet was among the first jazz groups to regularly play the Fillmore and The Avalon.
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| Love-In, by the Charles Lloyd Quartet, released by Atlantic Records in July 1967. The album was recorded at the Fillmore on January 27, 1967. The Jim Marshall cover photo gives a rare color impression of what the Fillmore stage really looked like back then. |
Charles Lloyd was billed at the Fillmore with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in January, 1967. The album Love-In was released in July, recorded on January 1967. It was notable that an established player like Lloyd was playing uncompromising jazz at the Fillmore. In late March 1967, Lloyd's quartet would open for the Grateful Dead at the Rock Garden. Sometime after that, Ralph Gleason alluded to Lloyd jamming with the Dead there. It's important to note, however, that this was after the Be-In, and after Lloyd had been booked at the Fillmore. While Lloyd was likely at the Human Be-In, as he was booked in town, he didn't know any of the hippie rockers. He probably hung out with Dizzy Gillespie, who was definitely there. Yet Lloyd is perpetually mentioned as a likely guest flute player with the Dead, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Susan Graubard
As a footnote, although I can flatly reject Susan Graubard as the flautist, I should point out that she was there, and had already known Jerry Garcia for years. Graubard played flute and koto with the Berkeley band The New Age, who performed at the Be-In. A few years earlier, Graubard's older sister Phoebe had dated Jerry, and Jer took a liking to Susan. When he found out that Susan wanted a koto--a Japanese stringed instrument--he bought her one. Susan Graubard emailed me her story of standing in a circle behind the stage at the Be-In, playing flute for Dizzy Gillespie, so she would have recalled if she had sat in with the Dead.
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| Andy Kulberg on stage playing flute with the Blues Project, somewhere in 1966 or '67 |
Andy Kulberg
One of the critical points to consider about our mysterious guest flautist is that he had long hair. That may seem counter-intuitive, since we are used to photos of the Grateful Dead and their friends in 1967, and plenty of the men had long hair. But the fact is that long hair on men was not common in early 1967. Now sure, by '67 young men had Beatle haircuts, or so-called "Prince Valiant" haircuts, but long, flowing hair just wasn't that common. That means the Dead's guest was already a serious hippie by then. OK--if you were at the Human Be-In, likely tripping hard and invited on stage with the Dead, you probably already were a serious hippie. I am just making the point that trying to find a professional musician with "straight gigs" who may have sat in isn't likely a fruitful path, since long hair would have been a professional barrier. Just to eliminate a few other considerations, it's not Jeremy Steig, nor Herbie Mann, nor some other even less obvious choices.
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| Plain Dealer Jan 6 |
One very likely candidate for me was Andy Kulberg. Kulberg was the bassist for the Blues Project, who had already played the Bay Area many times and likely knew the Dead. Kulberg played flute as well as bass, and (as noted) the song "Flute Thing" was the big rave-up for Blues Project in concert. For that song, Kulberg played flute and guitarist Steve Katz would switch to bass. It's a great theory, but it turns out that Blues Project was playing Cleveland all weekend (h/t Bruno). I mean, I guess they could have canceled, but what would Kulberg then have been doing in San Francisco?
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| Steven Schuster on stage with the Keith & Donna band at Winterland, October 4, 1975. I don't think he was the Dead's guest at the Human Be-In, but I'm open to suggestion. |
Steven Schuster
Another very likely candidate would have been Steven Schuster. I'm no good at faces, and I don't have a photo of Schuster prior to 1975, but it just doesn't look like the same guy to me. Now--Steven Schuster: he came to California from NYC in '62, played tenor and flute. Ended up as roommates with Paul Kantner, David Freiberg and David Crosby in Venice Beach in '63. By 1965 he was hanging out in Palo Alto, trading quips with Ken Kesey when they saw Mother McRee's Uptown Jug Band Champions at the Tangent. He was Quicksilver Messenger Service's equipment manager ("Qwippie"), so he was involved in every QMS/Dead adventure between 1966 and '68. It's almost an afterthought that he ended up recording with Jefferson Starship, the Grateful Dead ("Sage and Spirit") and Jerry Garcia (Cats Under The Stars), and touring with the Keith and Donna band in 1975. But I don't think it's him.
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| San Francisco Examiner, Saturday, May 7, 1966 |
Another likely candidate would have been veteran San Franciscan jazz musician Noel Jewkes. Jewkes is a fine tenor saxophonist, and he plays excellent flute as well. In 1966, Jewkes was a regular in San Francisco jazz clubs, though he hadn't yet expanded beyond the local scene. In the above ad, Jewkes' quartet plays the off nights at the popular Both/And club on 350 Divisadero in the Haight-Ashbury (Andrew Hill and Sam Rivers, woo-ee, I would like that tape).
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| The 1998 Arhoolie reissue of the 1967 album Ara-Be-In. (L-R), Michael White (violin), Noel Jewkes (ts, fl), Hahn (gtr), Jack DeJohnette (dr), Ron McClure (bs) |
In the next few years, Jewkes would go on to play in the Jerry Hahn Quintet, who released an album in 1967 (Ara Be-In, on Berkeley's Arhoolie Records). Hahn was a Kansas guitarist who had played with saxophonist John Handy. The players in his quintet were veterans of the Handy group, save for Jewkes. In 1967, Jewkes would also play in an ensemble called Light Sound Dimension, which attempted to merge light shows with a jazz group. Psychedelic legend Bill Ham presented the light show, and the music was provided by Jewkes, drummer Jerry Granelli and bass guitarist Fred Marshall. They had their own venue, eventually (at 1572 California, at Polk). Light shows had lost their cachet, however, and it never caught on.
By 1969, Jewkes had married Denise Kaufman, the guitarist and singer in the all-woman rock band Ace Of Cups. The Aces, as the only all-female band on the Fillmore scene, had a fascinating if frustrating career in the 60s, which I have discussed at great length. Ace Of Cups were tied to the management of Quicksilver Messenger Service, and so Denise wrote a song that was used on Quicksilver's Shady Grove album in late 1969. The song? "Flute Song." The un-credited flute is pretty likely Noel Jewkes. So there's no doubt that Noel Jewkes was super-wired to the Fillmore scene and the Grateful Dead.
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| Noel Jewkes in the 21st Century |
But here's the thing--I don't think the flute player is Noel Jewkes. Now, I don't have an early 1967 photo--all I've got is the Jerry Hahn album and a 21st century photo. He just doesn't look like the guy in the Be-In photo. If you think he does, we're onto something. Put it in the Comments.
Who Was It?
The guy playing flute with the Grateful Dead at the Be-In. Who was he? Long-haired white dude--rare for January '67--good enough to jam with the Dead, enough of a head to deal with all the circulating Owsley product, and friends enough with the band to get invited on stage. He didn't come from nowhere. We figured out Marvin Boxley, after just 40-some years after I first heard the Hartbeats in my Berkeley apartment on Haste and Telegraph. So let's get to solving this one.
January 14, 1967 Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA: Grateful Dead
01. Dancing in The Streets
02. Viola Lee Blues ; w/Marvin Boxley-harmonica, vocals
03. Good Morning Little Schoolgirl* w/?-flute, ? (Boxley?)-vocals
