Jerry was up to the challenge of that kind of music, and in fact it wasn’t a challenge— it was a real joy to him. He loved bringing as much expression into one note and one measure as was humanly possible. - Donna Godchaux



Catfish John - Jerry Garcia Band - 1976-01-27, The Keystone, Berkeley CA

Here’s the first song of the first gig of the new line-up of the Jerry Garcia Band, playing together forty years ago tonight at the famed Keystone in Berkeley, across the Bay from Marin County and a frequent hometown spot for Jerry and his band through the 70s.

Jerry on his Travis Bean, Kahn on bass, Ron Tutt on drums, Keith Godchaux on keys, Donna on vocals. This particular ensemble played from January 27, 1976 to August 7, 1977 - first and last shows both at the Keystone (with many more in-between).

Over the coming weeks and months I will highlight a few of the 70 or so shows they played together (as those show anniversaries occur), during what I consider one of the richest, most soulful periods for JGB. (My love is admittedly more of an obsession. I have managed to get my hands on all but 7 of these 70 shows, and the ones I don’t have aren’t in circulation. All the others, to a show, hold a gem in them.)



This is a time that included searingly gorgeous gospel that, to my ears, served as antidote for Jerry as the Grateful Dead juggernaut kicked into gear again. (More on this later.) I am thinking of Who Was John, My Sisters & Brothers, Sitting in Limbo, and other such tunes…



Four days before this gig (just two days before their Jan 25 Club Front rehearsal), Jerry said in a radio interview:

My band is in a state of flux right now. John Kahn and Ron Tutt and I are the main … are the nucleus of it, such as it is. We’re hoping to have a four-piece band that we all like, sometime. So far, the combinations that we’ve tried have been interesting, but not exactly where we’re trying to go musically. And so that’s, we’re waiting – we’re more or less auditioning keyboard players, playing with different people.

And then, this Jan 27 Keystone gig with Keith and Donna. (Ron Tutt had been with Jerry and John for Legion of Mary.) Followed by another gig the next night, followed by a mini West Coast tour in February, followed by an east coast tour in March and April, followed by…



The radio quote above is from an excellent essay on JGMF about the start of this period (Jerry’s January 1976) which lays out better than I can paraphrase the history and changes to JGB (Legion of Mary, Nicky Hopkins) that finally led to this particular group. It’s an interesting read, but shares a different view on the sound of this period (”The demise of 1975 marks the end of the challenge-seeking phase of Garcia’s Side Trips, and 1976 marks the start of a comfort-seeking phase.“)

Yeah, maybe. But the end result of that comfort is some of the most soulful music Jerry ever played. There, I said it. In the recent oral history by David Gans and Blair Jackson (This Is All a Dream We Dreamed; an excellent addition to the Dead canon, essential reading) Donna describes the period, and in particular the deceptively simple slow playing it is known for, thusly:

Jerry, Keith, and I were together a lot in Stinson Beach during that period, so the proximity probably influenced us joining that band. Garcia was at our house all the time and we would take out old gospel records and listen to them for days and days, and decide which ones we wanted to do. Like “Who Was John?” [an obscure black gospel song originally recorded by Mitchell’s Christian Singers in the thirties]. That was totally spooky; what you call a deep spiritual. But there was a spot in [Jerry] that was reserved for that. He had a little pocket in his heart that was opened up to that. But he had a lot of pockets! The old-time gospel stuff by real people who were really into it was incredibly soulful.

[The music in that band] was more deliberate; things weren’t quite as all-over- the-place as they were with the Grateful Dead. Even though there was still a tremendous amount of jamming, it was more structured in where it went and how it went where it went. Between John [Kahn] and Jerry and Keith, they figured an interplay that worked with just three musical pieces. I think it turned out really well.

That really slow stuff [that the band played] is only effective if you can command it. You really have to be in command of slow songs or people will think it’s boring and fall asleep. But if you’re really on top of each note, and the intent is to have some authority, then it will go over, and Jerry was a master at that. Jerry was up to the challenge of that kind of music, and in fact it wasn’t a challenge— it was a real joy to him. He loved bringing as much expression into one note and one measure as was humanly possible.

Amen.

