Jerry Garcia>1978>Keyboards (Jerry Garcia-Bandleader)

A backstage pass from the October 27, 1978 show at Eastern Washington University

It is a conventional trope of Jerry Garcia scholarship that he deferred any responsibility for leading the Jerry Garcia Band. By the time the JGB was formed in 1975, Garcia was already a famous rock star, if in fact a famous rock star with a serious cash flow problem. After some brief flirtations with difficult geniuses like Nicky Hopkins and James Booker, Garcia seems to have spent the next twenty years working with low-key professionals who did not challenge the strange hegemony of Garcia and John Kahn's lucrative but part-time enterprise. It fits a certain narrative to say that Garcia was both compulsive and passive, wanting to play all the time, but seemingly refusing to exert any influence upon the band that bore his name. From that point of view, it would seem that it was remarkable that the Jerry Garcia Band was worth listening to at all.

Yet quite the opposite was the case. The Jerry Garcia Band played around a thousand shows, and a very high percentage of them featured exceptional music. Quite a few of them were exceptional from beginning to end. Of course, much of the excellence of the Jerry Garcia Band's various performances has to do with Garcia himself. If Garcia was on, then even the 200th version of "How Sweet It Is" would be emotionally powerful and musically inventive. Was this random chance? I accept that even a stoned out player with no plan can have a good gig now and again, but hundreds of great shows over the course of twenty years? Garcia wasn't very forthcoming with his plans to his own bandmates, and he certainly had his problems with drugs, but I will make the case that he was a very good bandleader, and it was no accident at all.

The cover to Miles Davis' groundbreaking 1969 album, In A Silent Way

Miles Davis, about whom I can make a very good case for being the greatest bandleader of improvised music in North American history, was a famously difficult bandleader from the point of view of his band. Miles typically had the greatest players in modern jazz history, and yet he always made things extraordinarily difficult on them. One famous Miles trick was to give sheet music only to the piano player, and to force the other musicians to simply guess what the guy was improvising off of, and thus have to struggle to make music out of it. Miles thrived on the tension, and he felt the lack of certainty added to the creative process, allowing him to achieve the collaborative synergy he was seeking. Yet his own band had mixed feelings, at least until afterwards, when they heard the tapes played back of the fine music that they had made.

Jerry Garcia was benign where Miles was acerbic, and talkative where Miles was silent. Yet I think he consciously led the Jerry Garcia Band in a very similar way. Garcia assembled the different pieces of the Jerry Garcia Band, and chose and sang the songs. Yet he never really told most of the band members what he was striving for, and seems to have exerted little direction beyond counting off the songs at very slow tempos. Descriptions of what few rehearsals there were, from David Kemper at least, describe a charming, talkative Garcia, discussing absolutely everything but the music that they were actually playing.

Yet a close look at the timeline for Jerry Garcia in 1978 reveals some fascinating insights into how Garcia asserted his influence on his own band. It's true that John Kahn took care of most of the musical business of the band, and was probably privy to some or most of Garcia's concepts, yet Garcia's hand was firmly on the tiller. Garcia seems to have exerted a firm grip on who was in the band, and by definition selected the songs he wanted to play at his own slow tempos. Nonetheless, that was part of Garcia's quiet method--having chosen whom he felt to be the right musicians, he wanted them to participate as they saw fit, rather than take direction. This post will look at Garcia's timeline for 1978, and how it foretold the next dozen years of Garcia's music, even though his handprints could hardly be seen later.

Jerry Garcia's 1978 Arista album Cats Under The Stars

Jerry Garcia 1978
1978 was a transitional year for The Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia. The Dead had had high hopes for their first Arista album, Terrapin Station, released in 1977, but it had been somewhat of a disappointment. Still, the first tour of 1978 featured some fantastic music, even if the January and February swing through the West and Midwest may not have been a great financial success. Garcia and Bob Weir also had high hopes for their Arista solo albums, but both of those made little impact. The dominant event for the Grateful Dead that year was their historic trip to perform in front of the Egyptian Pyramids during an Eclipse, so 1978 was a memorable year in the annals of the Dead.

By the end of 1978, however, the Grateful Dead's music seemed to be in a stagnant state, a situation mostly blamed on piano player Keith Godchaux. Keith's piano playing had been brilliant when he first signed on with the Dead, and he had held down the same chair with the Jerry Garcia Band. Yet by 1978, Keith had serious health problems, and his marriage to Donna Godchaux was shaky as well. In retrospect, all the members of the Grateful Dead, Donna included, have said they were planning on Keith and Donna's departure, even if no one actually spoke about it. The Dead generally, and Garcia particularly, were notoriously non-confrontational over personal and financial issues, and the music of the Dead generally suffered throughout the balance of 1978, even if there were still some great shows on occasion.

I have written at length about a show in Portland, OR, on October 26, 1978, where the Bob Weir Band opened for the Jerry Garcia Band. That show was the first time that Garcia heard Brent Mydland play, and apparently after the show Garcia told Weir "this guy might work." Apparently unspoken was the context, that Keith and Donna would need to be replaced. In a certain way, the exchange between Garcia and Weir was a profound insight into the inner workings of the Grateful Dead. With a relentless touring schedule, the Dead were not going to undertake the messy business of forcing out Keith and Donna Godchaux without a batter in the on-deck circle.

Upon further reflection, however, Garcia talent-spotting Brent Mydland in Weir's band turns out to be a hidden narrative of Jerry Garcia's 1978. Most of the shows that Jerry Garcia would play between 1979 and 1990 featured keyboard players in bands that opened for Jerry Garcia or the Grateful Dead in 1978. In that sense, Jerry Garcia defined some essential paths for his future music in 1978, even though it would not become obvious until later. What you think of those paths depends on how much you like the musical contributions of Ozzie Ahlers, Melvin Seals and Brent Mydland, but all of them were spotted by Garcia in 1978. In that sense, 1978 can be seen as a watershed year in the history of both Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead. This post will look at how Garcia appears to have spotted and chosen his keyboard players throughout that year.

Former JGB keyboard player Ozzie Ahlers with another great American

Ozzie Ahlers: February 18, 1978: Marin Veteran's Memorial Auditorium, San Rafael, CA: Jerry Garcia Band/Robert Hunter and Comfort
Ozzie Ahlers was from the Woodstock, NY, area, and he had been in a band called Glory River. Ahlers relocated to Marin County partly for the opportunity to work with former Woodstock resident Van Morrison. The mercurial Morrison mixed and matched band members, and was uncomfortable in many performance contexts, so Ahlers probably didn't play that many shows with him. Ahlers also ended up being a regular in Jesse Colin Young's band, alternating tours and recording dates with Scott Lawrence. In early 1978, Ahlers joined Robert Hunter and Comfort, replacing Richard "Sunshine" McNeese.

At the time, Hunter and Comfort were planning to release an album called Alligator Moon, although in fact it was ultimately never released. Probably in anticipation of this effort, Hunter and Comfort were to join the Jerry Garcia Band on several dates on their March, 1978 Eastern tour. Both Comfort and the Garcia Band played some warmup gigs on the West Coast to get ready for the tour. In a break from normal practice, the Jerry Garcia Band headlined two small concerts in the Bay Area, instead of only playing the Keystones. Robert Hunter and Comfort opened both shows. I assume that one reason for the concerts was for the JGB/Comfort team to get road ready, with a concert sound system and equipment.

In any case, Robert Hunter and Comfort opened for the Garcia Band on Saturday, February 18, at the 1900-seat Marin Veterans Memorial Auditorium in San Rafael. Even if Garcia had heard Ahlers in rehearsal with Hunter--unlikely--this would have been Garcia's first opportunity to see Ahlers in concert. Even if Garcia missed the set, it wouldn't have mattered, since the same bill played the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium the next night (Monday was President's Day, so Sunday night was like a weekend). While I don't think Garcia usually hung out backstage and watched other bands, the circumstances were a little different. Robert Hunter was one of Garcia's oldest and closest friends, and Garcia's opportunities to see him perform were rare, so there's every reason to think Garcia was hovering around with an open ear.

The Jerry Garcia Band opened their East Coast tour on March 9, 1978, in Cleveland. Hunter and Comfort were added to the bill in Long Island on March 12, and in the end Comfort opened for eight Garcia band shows (over six nights). Thus all told, Garcia had ten opportunities to hear Ozzie Ahlers play, and he must have liked what he heard. Keith and Donna Godchaux remained part of the Jerry Garcia Band through November, 1978, but Garcia put the JGB on hold after that. However, when the Jerry Garcia Band was re-established in September, 1979, Ahlers was in the keyboard chair.

No one inside the band has ever commented on Garcia's choice of Ahlers, to my knowledge. Based only on our knowledge of Garcia's comment to Weir, I have to think that Garcia and Kahn had some sort of moment where they listened to Ahlers and said to each other "this guy might work." Then they filed his name away. Ahlers didn't get a call until nearly 18 months later, but Garcia didn't get out much or socialize with outsiders, so there's scant chance that he bumped into Ahlers somewhere later, or checked him out at some local club. It appears that Ahlers played in Garcia's best friend's band, and as a result Garcia had confidence that Ahlers could be worth a phone call in the future.

Musical skill aside,  I think there's another factor in the Garcia Band that made choosing people from shared concert bills desirable. By 1978, although Jerry Garcia was not the icon he would become, he was still a figure that radiated an immense gravitational pull backstage at his own shows. There was also a weird, insular history to the Grateful Dead that could be difficult to penetrate. Even if Garcia had very little direct contact with Ahlers backstage, after an East Coast tour he would have known that Ahlers was not overwhelmed by Garcia's presence, and that he had a personality that suited Garcia. If Ahlers had been personally difficult, Garcia would have heard about it from Hunter.

In a BAM Magazine interview in 1978 (by either David Gans, Blair Jackson or both), Garcia said that his band and the Dead had different personalities. Garcia said that (to paraphrase) "the Dead were about dissonance, and his own band was about consonance." The key members of the Dead were great musicians, but they were opinionated and forthright, to the point of being difficult. Certainly the strong personalities of Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart were what made the Dead so vibrant. The Jerry Garcia Band, however--including Garcia--was historically full of fine players who had a reputation amongst other musicians for being a pleasure to work with: John Kahn, Ron Tutt, Maria Muldaur, and so on. This seems to have been borne out in interviews over the years.

Thus the Jerry Garcia Band not only had a musical profile, but a personality profile as well. Someone like David Crosby would have made a plausible member of the Grateful Dead, but he was too forthright for the low-key Garcia Band. After giving an ear to Ahlers' tasteful playing with Hunter, Garcia and Kahn would have also had a chance to see that Ahlers was a low mainenance band member, and that would have counted for a lot.

The Jerry Garcia Band had had episodes with Nicky Hopkins and James Booker, where they chose genius over professionalism, and they regretted it. Indeed, from one point of view, it appears that Garcia's frustration with Keith Godchaux in the Garcia Band seemed to have as much to do with Keith having become high maintenance, rather than direct criticism of his playing. It's also worth noting that when the JGB flirted with genius by hiring Hopkins and Booker, Garcia wasn't touring with the Grateful Dead. Yet Garcia seems to have realize that he could only have one band of jagged edges. As one scholar has observed, given how much Garcia had accomplished with the Dead, and how much effort Garcia still put into the Garcia Band, its not at all surprising that he wanted compatible band members as a prerequisite.

 

In this 1977 episode of The Midnight Special, Melvin Seals can be seen playing some funky piano as Van Morrison leads Mickey Thomas, Reni Slais and the rest of the Elvin Bishop Group through "Domino"

Melvin Seals: June 4, 1978: County Stadium, Santa Barbara, CA: Grateful Dead/Elvin Bishop Group/Wha-Koo
Even if Terrapin Station hadn't been a big success, the Grateful Dead nonetheless had become a bigger live attraction than ever. In the early Summer of 1978, they headlined an outdoor show in Santa Barbara. I believe that the approximately 20,000-capacity stadium would have been the biggest venue that the Dead had ever headlined in Southern California up through that time. To fill out the bill, however, and sell a few more tickets, the Dead were supported by their old friends The Elvin Bishop Group. The Elvin Bishop Group had a much higher profile than they had ever had, thanks to a big 1976 hit called "Fooled Around And Fell In Love," featuring vocalist Mickey Thomas. After that hit, Bishop expanded his group to a much larger ensemble.

Deadheads remember Elvin Bishop's performance in Santa Barbara mainly because Jerry Garcia came out and played a little bit, taking a solo on the song "Fishing Blues." As a result of being invited onstage to jam, which had to have been planned (for logistical reasons), we know that Garcia was hovering around the stage. In a 1991 interview with Scott Muni, Garcia recalled

;.... somewhere there in the '70s the Grateful Dead did a show with Elvin Bishop. I was standing behind this guy on the stage. He was the second keyboard player in Elvin's band. This big guy, he was just playing a Fender Rhodes. But he was playing so tasty, I'm just standing behind him. It's a pretty thick band, so figuring out just how to get in there was, I thought, the work of a good musician. He was just playing the tastiest little stuff. I thought, 'This guy is just too much!' 

I asked him what his name was. He said, 'Melvin Seals'. Melvin Seals. So years later I got Melvin. I don't remember exactly when he started playing with us, but right around the late '70s, early '80s, Melvin started playing with us, and he was just a monster. He's turned out to be the guy that we were looking for all along.

It seems pretty clear that the June 4, 1978 show in Santa Barbara has to be where Garcia heard Seals. Garcia had the foresight to ask Melvin's name. There has always been a tendency to think of Garcia as this sort of stoned genius, who let other people handle everything for him. That may have been true with respect to his personal life and finances, but Garcia was his own man as a musician. He heard a guy he liked, and knew he'd be looking for a keyboard player some day soon, so he filed the name away, even if Melvin Seals would not play with Garcia until 1981. Once again, it appears that the restless Garcia was looking for keyboard players where he could find them.

Intriguingly, Seals has a different memory

I did some gigs with Maria Muldaur. Her boyfriend at the time was John Kahn. He [came to] the gigs, and he admired what I was doing so he asked me if I'd be interested in jamming with another band sometime. He never really went into the details of what it was. Nobody even told me he played with [Jerry].

[Kahn] called me up one day [and said] we're trying to put some rehearsals together to get some gigs. I went up to the address and there's Jerry Garcia and John Kahn and all these other musicians. I didn't even know what was going on. Really, it still didn't hit me until the end of the rehearsal.

I have to presume that Seals was playing with Maria Muldaur in 1979 or 1980, and got scouted by Kahn (Seals was in the Elvin Bishop Group until at least mid-1979).  In fact, Garcia may have already given Kahn the heads-up, who passed the name to Maria. In any case, Seals' little story hints at the dynamic between Garcia and Kahn. Garcia finds a likely candidate, and the low-profile Kahn is able to check out prospects without attracting attention.

Merl Saunders 1979 album Do I Move You, on Crystal Clear Records, recorded Direct-to-Disc in early 1979

Merl Saunders: October 2-3, 1978: The Shady Grove, San Francisco, CA: Merl Saunders And Friends
I realize that the two guest appearances by Jerry Garcia with Merl Saunders at a tiny Haight Street club don't quite fit the narrative here. Ahlers, Seals and Mydland were all new to Garcia, while Saunders was an old pal. Garcia was present at the other shows, and simply listened to his opening acts, whereas Garcia made a conscious effort to drop in twice to sit in with Merl. However, Merl Saunders had been an active working musician since Garcia had stopped working with him in 1975. Garcia could have sat in at any time--why October of 1978, at a club where Garcia had no direct connection, and was nowhere particularly convenient? And why two nights?

In the context of this analysis, it seems pretty clear that Garcia knew he had to find replacements for Keith and Donna Godchaux, even if he was personally dreading any actual confrontation. Garcia, unlike the rest of the Dead, had to find two replacements for two bands, not just one. Of course, it would be theoretically possible for Garcia not to have a second band, or to only play acoustic, or something, but that clearly wasn't Garcia's plan. It seems that Garcia went to some effort to play some funky jazz for two nights with Merl Saunders to see if it was still musically viable. It clearly was, as John Kahn put together the Reconstruction band, and Garcia debuted with them on January 30, 1979.

From what we know, John Kahn had put together Reconstruction with the idea that it would be a working jazz band with or without Garcia. Garcia was almost always booked as a "special guest" with Reconstruction for this reason. Thus when Kahn and Garcia re-activated the Jerry Garcia Band in late 1979, it was originally with the idea that it would be parallel to Reconstruction, rather than replacing it. The reality didn't work out that way, more's the pity. From Garcia's point of view in 1978, however, the jams with Merl made it clear to him that Saunders was still a good interim partner, even if the longer range plans didn't work out. Once again, the seemingly casual Garcia was merely taciturn, and appears to have a much more organized plan for his bands than anyone gave him credit for.

Brent Mydland: October 26, 1978: Paramount Northwest Theater, Portland, OR: Jerry Garcia Band/Bob Weir Band
When Jerry Garcia saw Brent Mydland play and sing with the Bob Weir Band, his remark to Weir that "this guy might work," turns out not to have come out of the blue. We can see that Garcia was filing away keyboard players for future reference, but Mydland was finally the one he needed to allow the band to move past Keith and Donna Godchaux. Interestingly, I think it was Brent's harmony vocals that helped put him over the top, since he could replace both Keith and Donna, which Ahlers, Seals and Saunders could not have.

Once Keith's replacement was lined up, the Godchauxs could be moved out of the band, and touring could continue accordingly. Garcia had some candidates lined up for his own bands as well, so to the extent Garcia ever wanted any kind of confrontation, he would have been finally willing to take such a step. Fate intervened, however, when Garcia fell ill in November, 1978, canceling a  slate of Grateful Dead shows. Those shows were re-scheduled for January and February 1979, so the Godchauxs had to remain in the band. After a tour that was apparently very difficult personally but produced some fine music, the Godchauxs simply resigned at a band meeting on March 1. They may have seen the inevitable coming--Garcia had already started playing with Reconstruction--but it hardly mattered, as they needed out. It was unfortunate that having taken some control of his life, Keith Godchaux died in an auto accident in 1980.

Jerry Garcia's Other Choices
While it's fascinating to note that Garcia picked most of his future keyboard players from some opening acts in 1978, its important to at least think about what other alternatives Garcia may have been able to consider. For one thing, while the Grateful Dead were a pretty popular touring act after 1976, they generally headlined shows without having an opening act in support. The band played long enough for promoters to avoid having to have an opener to fill time, but the group was big enough to not need another band to help sell tickets. The Marin show with Comfort and the Northwest shows with Weir were consciously promoted as double bills featuring two Dead spinoff acts.

The June, 1978 show in Santa Barbara was one of the very few shows after 1976 where the Dead played with an opening act. Among those few were a number of bands without keyboard players (The Who, the New Riders and Marshal Tucker, for example), so the universe of players for Garcia to observe from backstage was pretty small. The only ones I can find would be Tom Coster (Santana, Cow Palace 1976), John Farey (Soundhole, Cow Palace 1976), Bill Slais (Elvin Bishop's other keyboard player, 1978) and Bobbye Nelson (Willie's sister, Giants Stadium, 1978). So while Garcia made some good musical choices, he didn't get a chance to observe a lot of players live.

On the other hand, Garcia knew a lot of keyboard players from the Bay Area, such as Mark Naftalin, Bill Champlin or Geoff Palmer, all of whom were quality musicians who would have been available for the long-term part-time employment of the Garcia Band. And Garcia would have known or been able to find out who was low-maintenance and who was difficult. Yet he passed on all the locals. John Kahn and Maria Muldaur knew their way around the Los Angeles studio scene, and Garcia had always done well with studio guys like Ron Tutt, Paul Humphrey and Larry Knechtel. In many ways, the Garcia Band was ideal for a Hollywood session guy: total freedom in an inherently half-time gig, leaving them free to make real money and live their life in Los Angeles. Yet Garcia made no effort that we know of, via Kahn or anyone else, to find an LA player.

So even if Garcia stuck to some players he had seen from backstage, and he hadn't seen many other candidates, Garcia wasn't completely boxed in. By 1978, the Jerry Garcia Band made good money, and it had a schedule that suited a lot of pros. Garcia's penchant for not rehearsing was generally a convenience for experienced musicians, too, as they didn't need the rehearsal nor have time for it. Yet Garcia passed on any old San Francisco hands or Hollywood studio regulars, and chose who he wanted.

For all the problems the Grateful Dead had in 1978, and there were a few, Garcia seems to have spent the year thinking about how he was going to move forward musically, even if he did it in his typical insular style that made no sense at the time.The fine music made in ensuing years by Reconstruction and the Jerry Garcia Band--not to mention the Grateful Dead--was hardly some kind of happy accident.

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

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

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

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

John Kahn concurred

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 15, 1978: Selland Arena, Fresno, CA (January 1978 Tour Itinerary)

My ticket stub from Selland Arena, Fresno, CA January 15, 1978

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the Grateful Dead's Winter touring pattern was pretty well established. They would have an extended stand in Oakland leading up to New Year's Eve, and then take about six weeks off. There would be a couple of shows in February, and then they would hitch up the wagon and start touring the East Coast some time in March. Most of January and February were vacation time for the extended Grateful Dead touring operation, except of course for Jerry Garcia who generally tried to jam in as many of his own shows as he could during the winter break.

However convenient and sensible this touring pattern was, the Dead did not fall into it lightly. At least once they tried a completely different approach to the winter. In January of 1978, instead of going on break, the Grateful Dead toured the West and upper Midwest. It made for a very different year, and they played some great music. Of course, all the evidence suggests that the little tour was not a financial success, so nothing like it was ever done again. This post will focus on perhaps the finest of those January '78 shows, and certainly the strangest Dead show I ever attended, the concert at Selland Arena in Fresno on Sunday, January 15, 1978. As an appendix, I will include a brief itinerary of the tour to put the show in context.

The handbill from the Grateful Dead/Country Joe And The Fish concert at Selland Arena from February 17, 1968

The Selland Arena, Fresno, CA
California's San Joaquin Valley is one of the great agricultural centers of the world. Highway 99 runs up and down the center of the state, and it did so long before Interstate 5, and all the towns along 99 are important centers of agricultural commerce. Although Fresno was not always a particularly large town, it was always an important center for dairy and farm products. By virtue of being roughly between Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Francisco, the city of Fresno became the biggest of the Valley cities. While its population was only 133, 929 in the 1960 census, by 1980 it had nearly doubled to 217, 129 (in 2010 it had doubled again, reaching 494, 665). By 1961, Fresno State College had joined the California State College system, and Fresno was starting to become a real city. Real cities, of course, build convention centers with an arena for sports, concerts and entertainment.

The Selland Arena, at 700 M Street in Fresno, was built in 1966, as part of the Fresno Convention and Entertainment Center. The arena had a capacity of about 6, 500, somewhat larger than Winterland, and quite large for the 1960s. Even though the city of Fresno was not large in the 60s and 70s, there were a lot of towns surrounding it, so there was a built-in audience for rock concerts. Also, touring rock bands discovered that they could play Fresno on an off-night between weekends in San Francisco and Los Angeles, so a lot of good bands played Fresno on school nights, particularly in the 1970s. In any case, once the Selland Arena was built, Fresno got its share of concerts.

The Grateful Dead played Selland Arena four times. The Dead had played the tiny Marigold Ballroom on May 12, 1967 (at 1833 E. Hedges, for you geocoders), but the first time the band played the Selland was February 17, 1968. They shared the bill with Country Joe and The Fish and a local band, Valley Fever. This was part of the tour that was mostly recorded for Anthem Of The Sun, but for whatever reasons, the Fresno event was not itself recorded. Back in 1968, the touring circuit wasn't fully built up yet, and San Francisco and Los Angeles bands would play shows in Fresno because it was an easy drive (for the roadies, anyway), and it filled up a night on the gig sheet. One of the many Valley teenagers who attended the show was Bob Weir's half-brother Jim Parber, then living in Merced, although neither Weir nor Parber knew of their relationship at the time.

The Grateful Dead came back on Friday, June 13, 1969. Deadlists shows the venue as "Fresno Convention Center," but its just another name for the Selland Arena. The Dead were supported by Aum and Sanpaku, both of whom were booked by the Millard Agency, as were the Dead. Members of both bands joined the group on stage at various times (Aum guitarist Wayne Ceballos and Sanpaku flautist Gary Larkey for certain), which suggests a rather loose evening.

The Grateful Dead returned again to the Selland Arena on Friday, July 19, 1974. The band was headlining at the enormous Hollywood Bowl on Sunday, July 21, so a Fresno booking made touring sense.  A friend of mine went to the show and said that the event was relatively thinly attended, for a Dead show, and the band was spacey and the vibe was very weird. At one point, Phil Lesh even left the stage during "U.S. Blues." Because of the enormity of The Wall Of Sound, the Dead had to have two days between venues, so they could not have played anywhere between Fresno (Friday) and Hollywood Bowl (Sunday).

The California Tour, January 1978
In December, 1977, the Grateful Dead played the first of their extended New Year's runs. They headlined Winterland for three nights on December 29, 30 and 31, and when those shows sold out--it took a couple of days--they added an additional show on December 27. At the time, there was no particular precedent or expectation for this. It was the third time in the year that there had been a three night run in Winterland, but there was nothing special yet about the December run-up to New Year's.

Soon after the New Year's shows sold out, Bill Graham Presents announced a string of dates in California throughout January. The band avoided many major Southern California venues and played some more out of the way places. The Grateful Dead had been able to successfully play some out of the way places in New York, like Hamilton, Rochester and Binghamton and perhaps Graham felt that there was pent-up Grateful Dead interest in the California hinterlands. In any case, the Dead played  San Bernardino, San Diego, Los Angleles, Santa Barbara, Bakersfield, Frenso, Sacramento and Stockton (see below for details).

Touring California in the winter made good business sense, because unlike other parts of the country, there wasn't a serious threat of snow, so audiences would be willing to drive longer distances. This was important in the valley, where there were a fair number of rock fans, but spread out over a wide area. Now,  I believe that the San Diego, San Bernardino and Los Angeles shows were successful, and the Santa Barbara show was a benefit in a relatively small theater. However, the San Diego, Sacramento and Stockton shows, while sold out, were in relatively small 3000-capacity venues, much smaller than anywhere the Dead could play on the East Coast, and not necessarily worth their time. Finally, the  Fresno and the Bakersfield show were financial debacles. The band never played either city again (if Bakersfield had decent attendance, the venue would still have fallen into the "tiny" category of Stockton or Sacramento). It's hard to say how much the financial bath the band took at the two valley shows discouraged Bill Graham or other promoters from booking another January California tour,  compared to other perhaps more prosaic reasons for not touring, but the fact is there was never any touring between New Year's and February after 1978, except to make up for canceled dates.

I was fortunate enough to attend the Grateful Dead show at Selland Arena on Sunday, January 15, 1978. It was one of, if not the, strangest Dead show I ever attended, and if I was forced to pick a show that was 'my favorite Dead show,' I would go with that Selland Arena show.

The back of my ticket stub from Selland Arena, Fresno, CA, January 15, 1978

The Grateful Dead, Selland Arena. Fresno, CA January 15, 1978
The Grateful Dead were still a popular group in early 1978, but they seemed a little old hat. Winterland was a mid-sized hall, and they had shown they could sell out four nights, but the implication seemed to be that it was the same people coming over and over. The biggest acts, like Eric Clapton, played the Oakland Coliseum or the Cow Palace, and the Dead didn't seem to have that kind of heft. One dynamic that I was only dimly aware of at the time but am acutely aware of now was the willingness of East Coast Deadheads to get on the road to see the Dead. The Dead could draw in places like Binghamton or Hamilton because Eastern Deadheads were willing to get in the cars and go up and down I-90 and I-95 in order to see as many shows as possible.

Its my belief that Bill Graham promoted Grateful Dead shows in Bakersfield and Fresno because he thought that West Coast Deadheads would travel like East Coast ones, and that turned out not to be the case. Eastern Deadheads bought the traveling ethos into the Deadhead universe--Westerners didn't do it. In my case, although I was a poor college student at the time, the Grateful Dead had played ten shows at Winterland in 1977, and I had seen seven of them. What was the urgency to travel? I had gone to Santa Barbara to visit a friend and see the Dead (February 27, 1977), but it hadn't even occurred to me that I should go to the San Bernardino show the night before.

Starting about 1980, I met more and more people at Dead shows who had moved to San Francisco for better access to the Dead, and those were the people who thought nothing of driving to Los Angeles or Portland, or both, just to catch a show or two. That's what they had been doing in New Jersey or Chicago, so it was no change for them. Locals like me got sniffy about attending Dead shows outside my own county, but the Easterners made the Deadhead traveling circus a reality. Yet no one had figured that out at the time, and Bill Graham's promotion was a bit ahead of the curve.

The big rock event in San Francisco on that weekend was the Sex Pistols show at Winterland on Saturday, January 14. It turned out to  be the last show of the Sid Vicious-era Pistols, and a legendary San Francisco rock moment. However, since I was going to see the Dead in Fresno on Sunday night, I had a paper to write, so I stayed home from the Sex Pistols even though my sister had an extra ticket, and thus missed one of the all-time rock events. Fortunately, my choice turned out to be worth it. However, my friend Jeff, who attended the Fresno show with us may have been the only person in history to have seen the Sex Pistols and the Grateful Dead on consecutive nights.

Fresno was about 3 hours from San Francisco, mostly on easy-to-drive Interstate 5. Even though we had all seen the Dead for three or four nights in December, it seemed exciting to actually adventure out into the valley to see the Dead. Of course, had we been Easterners, we would have gone to Santa Barbara (Friday Jan 13), Bakersfield (Saturday Jan 14) and then Fresno, but we didn't have that mindset yet. We also had tickets to the Wednesday night show in Stockton (Jan 18), about 90 minutes from Berkeley, but we were skipping the Sacramento show the night before (Tuesday Jan 17). Anyone from New Jersey or Boston or Utica would have thought we were nuts, but we were used to the Dead playing constantly, and missing a show didn't seem catastrophic.

One of the things that made the Fresno trip viable was my friend Jeff, whom I knew from the dorms. My other friends were from Los Angeles, and neither they nor I had ever set foot in Fresno. However, Jeff was from Fresno and had been to Selland Arena many times, so by bringing him with us we had a native guide. In the era before google maps and GPS, this was no small consideration. In any case, we grooved on down the road and made it to Fresno well before the start of the show, thanks to Jeff's expert directions. Although Jeff was from Fresno, he didn't express any pleasure at being back in his hometown, which he dismissed as hicksville.

When we got to the Selland Arena, we were in for a surprise. The place was your typical multi-purpose sports-enterntainment arena, used for basketball at Fresno State College and rock concerts for the city. Even if the Grateful Dead were only popular in an enclosed little universe, in San Francisco that universe was pretty intense. In 1977, Bill Graham Presents would open the doors at Winterland at 5:00pm because so many people were waiting in line, and there were volleyball games and movies to keep people entertained until the putative 7:00 pm start (which was often closer to 8:00). Thus it was a shock to get to Selland Arena a half-hour before show time and to find the arena largely deserted.

Now, if you've ever been in a large arena with a small crowd, it seems more barren than it really was. We were convinced that there were only a few hundred people there, but that is probably our minds exaggerating the emptiness. Still, even accounting for people who arrived late, people who were nestled in the dark seats far from the stage and people dancing around the lobby, there couldn't have been more than 2000 people there, tops. Most of the people didn't really seem like Deadheads, just people who lived in Fresno who liked rock music, and would go to see Johnny Winter or Kenny Loggins or whoever was playing (which my friend Jeff assured me was typical of Fresno at the time).

The Selland show was strange indeed: an arena the size of Oakland Auditorium, bigger than Winterland, with a very modest crowd that mostly sat bored in the seats, leaving the floor near the stage utterly deserted. You know those t-shirts that they used to sell at Dead shows that had a logo and words to the effect of "Grateful Dead 1966-1980: Sold Out!"? They didn't go to Fresno.

I have always been one who felt that the much-discussed symbiotic relationship between the Grateful Dead and their audience has received far too much attention, and that the Dead were more about music than their audiences self-declared insistence that there would be no Grateful Dead without their own presence. I still think that Deadheads overrate themselves, but the first set at Fresno gave me a major dose of what the Dead were like to an indifferent audience. They must have played a lot of gigs like Fresno in the 60s, out in the hinterlands. There were a few devoted Heads up front, and a bunch of bored locals, going "why are these guys so popular?"

Set One, Selland Arena, Fresno, CA January 15, 1978

Bertha>;	04:47
Good Lovin' ;	05:55
Dire Wolf ;	03:39
Mexicali Blues >	03:28
Big River ;	05:59
It Must Have Been The Roses ;	06:09
Passenger ;	04:37
Brown Eyed Women ;	05:17
The Music Never Stopped ;	07:53
set music:	0:47:44

 The first set at Fresno was the most lifeless, boring Grateful Dead set I have ever seen. There were a few people dancing up front, but just as an experiment my friend Mike and I walked up and leaned on the front of the stage barrier without touching another human being. I'm glad we did it, because we never got to do it again. The lack of enthusiasm in the crowd was palpable, and I got a unique glimpse of how the strange clunky energy of the Dead's improvisational style depended on an attentive audience, as every note seemed wrong. The fact that Garcia's voice was still very weak from a lingering illness added to the lethargy and strain of the performance. I swear that Garcia's solo on "Mexicali Blues" was so lifeless that he dropped his hands for the last several bars, since it was such a failure. The band made a little effort for 'The Music Never Stopped," but we wondered why we had made the effort to drive three hours through the Valley just to hear the worst Dead set in our lives.

Set Two, Selland Arena, Fresno, CA January 15, 1978

Samson And Delilah ; 07:45 Friend Of The Devil ; 08:21 Sunrise % 03:14 End Terrapin Station>; 09:57 Playing In The Band>; 27:05 Middle Wharf Rat>; 10:53 Sugar Magnolia ; 09:29 set music: 1:16:44
			show music:	2:04:28

Having driven so far, however, we stuck around for the second set. "Samson And Delilah" wasn't terrible, and "Friend Of The Devil" was OK, although I never cared for the slow version anyway. The first sign that something was afoot was "Sunrise," a song I largely paid no attention to. It had some life to it, and when the little solo came, Jerry played with surprising intensity, and the dripping notes rang around the echoey, empty arena. The band marched straight into "Terrapin," and despite the lifeless crowd and strange, boomy sound, no doubt caused by unexpected emptiness, they were killing it. My friends and I looked at each other with surprise and relief--the three hour drive may have turned out to be worth it after all.

After "Terrapin," the Dead launched into "Playing In The Band," and when the singing ended, Jerry, Bob and Phil huddled in front of the drummers and played the jam for themselves. There was practically no crowd there, and the band was getting nothing from them, so they just played weird, spacey music for their own pleasure. The lengthy jam that followed was the wildest, weirdest, spaciest jam I have ever heard at a Dead concert, and I went to a few. The surviving audience tape, while enjoyable, cannot capture the intense, self-absorbed weirdness of that jam.

The net effect of going from "worst Dead set ever" to "most far out jam I have ever seen" had a dramatic effect. Physics tells us that dramatic acceleration leads to escape velocity, and we definitely burst through the ionosphere, swirling in orbit far above the earth. The lengthy "Playing" was followed by an intense "Wharf Rat." Garcia's nearly broken voice was used to great effect, and his emotional solo was the capstone to the intense "Playin" jam that had preceded it. When it ended, a relatively brief "Sugar Magnolia" ended the show, and the band left the stage. The crowd was too small to cheer for an encore, as many of the locals had left, but in any case those of us who had been listening were too stunned to care. This was a clutch performance by the Grateful Dead: a mostly-empty venue in the middle of nowhere, no excitement from the crowd, and still delivering a show for the ages.

It goes without saying that I never saw another Dead show like Fresno. For one thing, I occasionally went to a Dead show that wasn't sold out, but I never went to one again that was deserted. In subsequent years even casual audiences had heard about expected behavior at Dead concerts, but in 1978 Fresno the Grateful Dead were like Marshall Tucker or Wishbone Ash, just another Winterland headliner trying to win over fans outside of their regular market. They couldn't do it, either, so they just made music. Maybe it was more about the Grateful Dead than the Deadheads after all.

All my friends were exhausted, but I was elated. One of my friends had seen the Dead in Selland Arena in 1974, and he opined that perhaps it was the same that time, with a small crowd and weird self-absorbed music, but that he didn't understand it. He promptly fell asleep, as did everyone else but me, as I happily drove my friend's car back to Berkeley up Interstate 5, knowing that I had seen something that would not pass my way again.

Appendix: January 1978 Grateful Dead Tour Itinerary
January 6, 1978: Swing Auditorium, San Bernardino, CA Grateful Dead
The Swing Auditorium in San Bernardino was at the edge of greater Los Angeles, because it had been the terminus of the Pacific Electric Railway. The Swing had a capacity of 10,00, and was actually one of the biggest places that the Dead headlined in California. Garcia had a fever and laryngitis, and his voice gave out after the first set, leaving all the second set songs to Weir.

January 7-8, 1978: Golden Hall, Community Concourse, San Diego, CA Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead had played the Community Concourse at 202 C Street a number of times over the years, but the complex was part of a maze of buildings, and I do not believe they actually played the same rooms each time. Garcia's voice was shot for these shows, and Weir and Donna Godchaux handled all the vocals.  I believe that Golden Hall was a Warfield-sized theater, with a capacity of 2500 or so.

January 10-11, 1978: Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles, CA Grateful Dead
There are actually two venues at the same address at the Shrine, the Shrine Auditorium and the Shrine Exposition Hall. I do not know which one the Dead actually played this time out. If it had seats, it was the Auditorium (where the Oscars are sometimes held) and if it didn't it was the Expo. Since the shows were on a Tuesday and a Wednesday, it seems more possible it was the actual Shrine Auditorium. The show opened with "Bertha," assuring the crowd that Jerry was back singing, even if his voice was shaky.

A number of commenters on the Archive describe shows similar to Fresno, with far out meltdown jams in the second set.

January 13, 1978: Arlington Theater, Santa Barbara, CA Grateful Dead
I believe the Arlington was a fairly small, Warfield-sized theater. This show was some sort of anti-nuclear benefit. The jamming in the second set is quite amazing; Fresno was no fluke.

January 14, 1978: Civic Auditorium, Bakersfield, CA Grateful Dead
By all accounts, Bakersfield was as weird as Fresno. We heard a rumor that Bakersfield was so empty, people were told that anyone with a Bakersfield stub could get into Fresno for free. I doubt that story was true, but I take the rumor as an indicator that it was not a typical Dead show. Bakersfield Civic had been used for many rock shows over the years, but I believe it was smaller than Selland Arena, so a modest crowd might not be so notable.

According to numerous commenters on the Archive, the Dead's soundman was arrested during the show by the Bakersfield police. The Dead apparently wrapped up the show quickly and declared their unhappiness with it from the stage.

January 15, 1978: Selland Arena, Fresno, CA Grateful Dead

January 17, 1978: Civic Auditorium, Sacramento, CA Grateful Dead
Even though this was a Tuesday night, Sacramento was only 90 minutes from the Bay Area and the Civic had a capacity of about 3,000, so it was like a regular show for the locals. 

My ticket stub from Stockton Civic Auditorium, January 18, 1978

January 18, 1978; Civic Auditorium, Stockton, CA Grateful Dead
My friends and I also attended the Wednesday evening Stockton show (well, except for the guy from Fresno). We had heard nothing about the other shows, of course, and were half-expecting a deserted auditorium and weird jamming, so we hauled ass to get there after class. We made the show minutes before it started, and naturally the place was packed to the rafters. Stockton, too, was just 90 minutes from the Bay Area, and while I'm sure there were many people from the local area it felt like a regular Winterland Dead crowd.

The Dead started out on a very high note with "Mississippi Half-Step," and despite Jerry's ragged voice, by the time he was taking us across the Rio Grande-io the place was going crazy. So much for a replay of Fresno. Still, it was a very lively show, even though Garcia's energy level gave out with his voice, as he was clearly not well. Garcia left the stage during "Playing In The Band," I believe for the drum solo, and when the band returned and started "Passenger," Garcia did not immediately come on stage. The band played the first verse without him, although he slowly made his way out there and managed to take his big solo, but it was plain that he was struggling.

January 22, 1978: McArthur Court, Eugene, OR Grateful Dead
Whatever weakness the Grateful Dead may have had drawing an audience in Central California in the Winter meant nothing in Oregon. On a population-to-attendance basis, the Dead's biggest market was Oregon. McArthur Court was the U. of O's basketball arena (where the Ducks would quack under pressure), and the Dead had been packing the joint for nearly a decade. As far as I know, the January '78 show was a huge financial success, too, and fans were rewarded with a great show that included the unique "Close Encounters" jam. 

January 30-February 1, 1978: Uptown Theater, Chicago, IL Grateful Dead
Why would the Grateful Dead play Saturday night in Eugene, and then take an eight day break in order to play Monday-thru-Wednesday in a 4000+-capacity movie theater in Chicago in the depths of winter? If a band is going to play Chicago in the winter, why not play a bigger place on the weekend? This strange itinerary only makes sense if there was a canceled weekend show.

I have to think that the Grateful Dead were scheduled to play the weekend of January 28-29 in either Seattle or Vancouver or both, and the shows must have fallen through. There may have been mid-week shows planned in the Northwest as well. Three dates in Chicago on a weeknight, followed by three dates in the frozen north (Madison, Milwaukee and Cedar Falls, IA) only make sense as part of a continuous tour. I have no idea how or why other Northwest dates fell through, and it's even possible they were supposed to play Denver or Salt Lake or Omaha, not Seattle, but in any case it doesn't seem to have worked out. Combined with the debacles in Bakersfield and Fresno, the Grateful Dead did not try a winter West Coast tour again.