1967 is a year full of misdated shows and questionable tapes; I was doing reviews for a few of these shows on the Archive, but decided I should write a post covering the whole year. This won't be one of my usual musical posts - simply an attempt to clear up some of the confusion with 1967 Dead dates.
The reason we have so few shows from '67 is because Bear was not with the band. He visited them at Rio Nido in September, and recorded the 9-3-67 show, but otherwise most our other shows of the year were haphazardly captured by other anonymous tapers. We even have the earliest Dead AUD tapes ("1-27-67" and 9-15-67), though both are for fanatical Dead freaks only.
Bear started taping the Dead from the early Acid Test days, but split from them after the July '66 Vancouver shows (which is why there are so few recordings from the second half of '66) - he returned in June '68 when the Carousel closed. We have some of his June '68 recordings (undated) in this set:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd68-xx-xx.sbd.vernon.9426.sbeok.shnf
The first misdated show we come to is 1-27-67....immediately when we notice the twenty-minute Viola Lee, the half-hour Alligator>Caution, the swirling New Potato, it's obvious this show can't be from January!
In fact, it has an odd correlation with 10-22-67 - Morning Dew and New Potato Caboose are the same versions as on the 10-22-67 SBD, though from an AUD source. (The rest of the setlists don't match, though, which is puzzling.)
There is also another link to October....the surest way of dating many 1967 shows is to listen to the Alligator. The earliest versions start with Jerry's guitar intro and go straight into the jam after the song. After Mickey Hart joins, we can hear a change in 11-10-67 and the fall '67 studio session - Alligator now has a drum intro, and a drum solo after the vocals.
This "Avalon" Alligator is at a midway point - it starts with the drum intro, but dives into the jam after the vocals without a drum solo. So it has to come from after 9-15-67 (the last version with the guitar intro), but before 11-10-67....basically late September or October.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd67-01-27.aud.hanno.16744.sbeok.shnf
Our next problem show is 5-5-67 - only a few songs here so it's harder to pin down, but I don't think it's from May. (Early Deadbases claimed it was 9-29-67, which was nonsense.) We have a couple clues that it's from later in the year:
The Dead are supposed to have started playing Alligator in June, and this is similar to the other early versions from 6/18, 8/4, 9/3 and 9/15 - it starts with Jerry's guitar intro, not with the drum intro. (It also resembles the 8/4 and 9/3 Alligators in that it stops without going into Caution.)The New Potato also has a much longer jam than the 8-4-67 New Potato - I think 8/4 is the earliest New Potato we have, since it seems less developed.
So my guess is that "5-5-67" is actually from August/September '67 sometime.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd67-05-05.sbs.yerys.1595.sbeok.shnf
There has also been a dispute over whether the 6-18-67 Alligator>Caution actually comes from that date, since Bill Graham speaks from the stage after Caution. But it is from Monterey. Not only is the general sound & vibe the same, but it has the same rotten harmonica player who was in Cold Rain & Snow! (He's not Pigpen, by the way - Pigpen's mike was dead for the start of Alligator - but he might have been familiar with the songs since he seems to be trying to play in the right spots.)
I think this is the earliest Alligator we have. What puzzles me is that the Alligator blazes into Caution.... The next few Alligators all just stop with the vocal reprise; we don't have another Alligator>Caution until 9-15-67.
By the way, the Hollister copy of this show on the Archive is badly cut, so this is the link to use:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd67-06-18.sbd.mandrake.19586.sbeok.shnf
There are a few other corrections to make in the 1967 files as well:
The "12-5-66" studio session on the Archive actually has a few instrumentals from the first album sessions in January '67 - Minglewood Blues, Cream Puff War, Sitting On Top Of The World, I Know You Rider, Cold Rain & Snow, and King Bee (which is mistakenly listed as The Same Thing).
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1966-12-05.sbd.kimbro.23064.sbeok.shnf
The "2-12-67" Smokestack Lightning>King Bee is actually from the 11-19-66 show.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd67-02-12.sbd.theotherwayne.18124.sbeok.shnf
This raises another issue, though - is 11-19-66 actually the correct date? Apparently Dick Latvala said that show was actually from 3-17-67 Winterland! I haven't seen any other confirmation; but it makes sense to me, since the playing in that show seems too developed for November '66.
For now, though, I'll leave that show in its accepted place of 11-19-66, lacking any other proof.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1966-11-19.sbd.miller.94106.sbeok.flac16
Neal Casady's rap with the Dead on 7-23-67 has a treacherous file on the Archive - if you check the link, there's only two minutes of it!
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1967-07-23.sbd.bershaw-wulf.5418.shnf
Fortunately, an 8-minute copy (still incomplete) is available as filler here, and you can hear the Dead's earliest Lovelight behind Casady's rap:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd67-11-10.sbd.sacks.1612.sbeok.shnf
(Possibly an even more complete copy is available elsewhere, that I haven't spotted yet.)
There's a studio session labeled "10-20-67" on the Archive (which has an incomplete Viola Lee from 1-14-67 as filler) - but a better-quality copy of the same session is here:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1967-xx-xx.sbd.studio.81259.flac16
This date has also circulated as 11-19-67, but the actual date is unknown. (Unfortunately there is also an instrumental Other One suite>Death Don't Have No Mercy, and a 45-minute session of Lovelight rehearsals, which are not yet on the Archive.) However, this copy does have a unique, very bluesy studio version of Smokestack Lightning from an old vinyl bootleg.
And finally, "10-31-67 Winterland" is a fake; the music is actually from 11-10/11-67.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1967-10-31.sbd.unclebarry-kikola.33933.flac16
So to sum up - here is the list of our actual 1967 Dead shows, in accurate order:
1-14-67 Be-In -
http://www.archive.org/details/gd67-01-14.sbd.vernon.9108.sbeok.shnf
possibly "11-19-66"
3-18-67 Winterland -
http://www.archive.org/details/gd67-03-18.sbd.fink.10282.sbeok.shnf
6-18-67 Monterey
8-4/5-67 Toronto (2 songs each) -
http://www.archive.org/details/gd67-08-04.sbd.hanno.16752.sbeok.shnf http://www.archive.org/details/gd67-08-05.sbd.hanno.16753.sbeok.shnf
"5-5-67" (Aug/Sept)
9-3-67 Rio Nido (and a bit from 9-4) -
http://www.archive.org/details/gd67-09-03.sbd.backus.17272.sbeok.shnf http://www.archive.org/details/gd67-09-04.sbd.partial.jools.19514.19526.sbeok.shnf
9-15-67 Hollywood Bowl AUD -
http://www.archive.org/details/gd67-09-15.aud.vernon.9192.sbeok.shnf
"1-27-67" AUD (Sept/Oct)
10-22-67 Winterland -
http://www.archive.org/details/gd67-10-22.sbd.miller.18101.sbeok.shnf
11-10/11-67 Shrine (the first two shows recorded for the Anthem album)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd67-11-10.sbd.sacks.1612.sbeok.shnf http://www.archive.org/details/gd67-11-11.sbd.sacks.1613.sbeok.shnf
There are also a few other pieces of interest from 1967:
4-67 - Garcia & Lesh appear on a KMPX radio show to chat with DJ Tom Donahue and play various music they've been listening to - this show is kind of like a Phil & Jerry mix-tape.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd67-04-xx.prefm.vernon.9261.sbeok.shnf
4-8-67 - A show on KPIX-TV covers the San Francisco music scene with songs from the Grateful Dead, the Wildflowers, and Quicksilver Messenger Service - Ralph Gleason interviews Garcia, and the Dead do a short live Cream Puff War.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd67-04-08.tv.hanno.12623.sbeok.shnf
7-67 - This is a long interview with Garcia from sometime in summer '67. The sound isn't very good, but it makes me wonder why there aren't more interviews on the Archive?
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1967-XX-XX.sbd.bershaw.5419.shnf
11-14-67 - Studio outtakes of Dark Star & Born Cross-Eyed. (The Born Cross-Eyed might not be an outtake, but the actual single version, since it has a bit of Feedback from a live show added as a surprise coda at the end.)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd67-11-14.sbd.unknown.17417.sbefail.shnf
Charlie Miller has noted that the 1-14-67 Morning Dew is actually not from 1-14-67.
ReplyDeleteThe tape source is different; it has different sound quality; the band's playing is different than in the other songs; he hears two drummers in this Dew. (The crowd at the end also sounds like an 'indoor' audience to me.)
In fact, I don't think it's from '67 at all - not only does it sound much more advanced than the other Dews from this year, it's also conspicuously lacking Pigpen's organ in the mix (which we have in all the other early Dews I think), and it's much longer. Late '68 would be my guess...
I forgot to mention this earlier - but in the Taper's Section, David Lemieux noted that the Dead played for a week in Toronto in '67 (July 31-August 5).
ReplyDelete"Unfortunately there are reels in the vault clearly marked with the date and venue of some of these shows, which have been scratched out, as the tapes were recorded over."
Heartbreaking news! But sadly typical of how the Dead treated their tapes at the time... 9/4/67 was apparently also taped over except for the very end of Caution. And of course the Anthem shows in early '68 were chopped to pieces in the studio when preparing the album... The Dead little thought anyone would want to hear these shows years later!
Still, I wonder what was recorded on top of those Toronto tapes....
(A badly cut fragment of Lindy survives on the 8/4 reel, though it's omitted from most circulating tapes. A couple of the Jefferson Airplane's shows from the Toronto run also survive.)
As noted in the "Crowded Dead Stage" post, the 7/23/67 tape of Neal Casady rapping with the Dead is just an excerpt from a longer tape, presumably held by Hank Harrison. It would be nice to hear the whole thing...
ReplyDeleteHarrison included this recording as an acetate flexidisc with his 1973 Dead Book, with some notes:
"The audience, consisting mostly of young people from Haight Street, did not know who he was and were jeering him from the floor.
This recording is an edited version of a longer performance. The Grateful Dead are in the background making Prankster music and the totality is reminiscent of the acid tests."
I was checking the "10-20-67" studio session to see if I could pin down an accurate date for it. All we know for sure is that it comes from the Sep/Oct '67 Anthem sessions.
ReplyDeleteFortunately we can compare it to a nearby show - 10/22/67.
If you check the Lovelight from the studio session, it's obviously earlier than the 10/22 show. Pigpen & the band sing it rather differently and it's instrumentally not as developed - there are a lot of parts that are just missing in the studio cut, and Jerry in particular seems not to have figured out his soloing.
The Other One from the studio session also sounds earlier to me than the 10/22 show - it's very stodgy and uncertain (and short), whereas on 10/22 they burn it up.
One interesting thing about the Lovelight is that our earliest Lovelight, from 8/5, is also performed rather differently from the studio version. Maybe they decided the call & response or Pigpen's vamping wouldn't work in the studio? Hard to explain why it would've devolved.
Another thing is that there are two drummers in the studio session, so it has to be after 9/29, when Mickey first played with the band. Notice that the studio Alligator has the long drum break after the verses, which was not in the earlier live versions. So I think this is almost certainly a mid-October studio session.
One peculiar thing about 10-22-67 is that I only hear one drummer. Does anyone else hear two? I hear two drummers in the "1-27-67" Alligator>Caution - and, after a few minutes of jamming after the Alligator verses, they do stop for a drum break similar to the studio session where Garcia sings "Alligator runnin' round my door." So I think that show is definitely also from October '67.
You can tell from all this what a mess trying to date a 1967 tape is!
Checking 5/5/67 again, I'm pretty sure there's only one drummer throughout, so it's definitely pre-Mickey. (Deadbase used to assert that there were two drummers in Alligator, hence the show must be 9/29/67, but that was false. Could be the right month, though I lean towards August '67.)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I should also mention here that there's some debate about whether our 11/19/66 tape actually comes from 3/17/67. Latvala claimed it did, and the traditional tapedate aside, I think it's a strong claim.
I discussed that in the comments to the "1966 Songs" post, on 2/15/11 and 1/1/12.