I love it when two musicians from completely different musical backgrounds come together and play music. This performance by Sam Bush and Jorma Kaukonen from High Sierra Music Festival on June 30, 2000 could be what influenced Jorma to record Blue Country Heart which is a masterpiece of roots blues and country featuring Jorma, Sam, Bela Fleck, Byron House and Jerry Douglas. The picking in this set is mind blowing and the synergy between Jorma and Sam is amazing. For some of the tunes, Sam plays slide on what he refers to as a ham can which is a National dobro mandolin. Jorma accuses Sam of being a “very disturbed man” for playing such an instrument. The rhetoric between these guys is hilarious. This is one of the favorite live shows in my collection and I hope you find it as much fun as I did. Its a 256kbps MP3 rip of a lossless soundboard and the sound quality is A+. Enjoy!

Jorma Kaukonen & Sam Bush

6/30/00

SBD>Tascam DA-30MKII>digital out>Sek’d Prodif plus soundcard >
Sound Forge>CD Architect>Plextor 8/20

Recording:
Ken “Easy Ed” Edwards
CD Mastering & Seeding:
Ken “Easy Ed” Edwards

01. intro by Wesley Robertson

02. Hesistation Blues

03. the roots of Rock and Roll and Bluegrass

04. Crossroads Blues

05. if you have any questions

06. Sally Where’d You Get Your Liquor From?

07. deeply disturbed

08. How Long Blues

09. my middle name

10. Mann’s Fate

11. favorite Jerry tune

12. Sittin’ on Top of the World

13. (applause)

14. 99 Year Blues

I’ve always loved the vintage aesthetic to this recording. It gives me a good sense of what it might have been like to live in San Francisco during the sixties and bear witness to all sorts of spontaneous musical events. Janis‘ heart wrenching voice is accompanied by the fingerstyle sounds of Jorma Kaukonen on the guitar.

Recorded on June 30, 1964, they call it The Typewriter Tape because you can hear a typewriter in the background played by Margareta Kaukonen (Jorma’s wife at the time) as a percussion instrument. Check it out:

1. Trouble In Mind

2. Long Black Train

3. Kansas City Blues (false start)

4. Kansas City Blues

5. Hesitation Blues

6. (strumming)

7. Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out

8. Daddy, Daddy, Daddy

I’ve been wanting to share this bootleg for a long time. The copy that my sister gave to me as a gift years ago is entitled Lonesome Prison Blues. This is Jerry Garcia playing acoustic with John Kahn on the bass in front of a small audience of inmates at the Oregon state penitentiary on 5-5-82.

The recording is decent with only a couple of flaws. Jerry was in great spirits this day and his playing reflects it. Jerry sounds much like he does on Run For The Roses, the last of his solo albums which was recorded around the same time. The Oh Babe It Ain’t No Lie still brings a tear to my eye when I hear it.

Most deadheads will already have this in their collection and if anybody is willing to trade for the lossless soundboard version in circulation I’d love to get a copy. Here is the info from the etree db. As far as I know, this show has never been officially released and is under no copyright restrictions. So sit back, listen and enjoy!

Oregon State Prison, Salem, Or. (5-5-82)

1. Deep Elem Blues 2:30

2. Friend Of The Devil 5:45

3. Jack-A-Roe 4:39

4. Babe, It Ain’t No Lie 6:12

5. It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry 5:33

6. Run For The Roses 3:45

7. Ripple 4:20

8. I’ve Been All Around This World 4:06

9. Valerie 6:32

10. Dire Wolf 3:43

11. Rubin And Cherise 5:50

I was a little nervous when I heard that Rhino records was going to replace Grateful Dead Productions.  I had a feeling that they were going to try and squeeze every little penny of profit out of one of the most important musical archives of all time.  This still remains to be seen, but I feel a little bit better about it after checking out the new Dead.net.  They have a new feature called the Tapers Section which is updated weekly with free mp3 downloads and bits of information.  Its sort of a “this week in Grateful Dead” thing.  Its great to see Rhino embracing the Dead community and giving a little something for free.  I’m looking forward to future enhancements to the site which I plan on visiting weekly for my free downloads!  Here is the skinny:

”

Aquarium Drunkard has posted the outtakes from the David Crosby album If I Could Only Remember My Name. Not sure where he gets these things but he sure does deliver the goods! Here’s an excerpt from the post where you can grab the mp3s:

“One of my favorite LP’s from the early ’70s is David Crosby’s underrated masterpiece “If I Could Only Remember My Name?” A fully realized embodiment of the “sound” of California’s folk/rock/country/psychedelia movement of the time, the album features such players as Neil Young, Jerry Garcia, Joni Mitchell, Phil Lesh, etc., etc. Almost as good as the album (and just, if not more interesting) are these outtakes from the 1970 sessions. These tracks are further proof that Crosby was an artistic force to be reckoned with at his creative peak.”

The Grateful Dead community suffered a great loss on June 2 when their keyboard player from 1990 to 1995, Vince Welnick took his life. Vince was an incredibly talented musician that filled some huge shoes for the Grateful Dead after Brent Midland passed in 1990. Not only did Vince fill those shoes, but he brought his own creative touch to the music. Songs like Samba in the Rain and Long Way To Go Home were some of my favorite jams of the 90’s era Grateful Dead. He added alot to the Dead’s sound both instumentally and vocally.

I feel especially close to Vince because he was the only keyboard player I got to see with the Dead (the only shows I was lucky enough to participate in were 3-4-94 and 3-5-94). I remember seeing him behind those keys over on the right side of the stage just wailing like some musical God. In fact, I think that the creative energy that Vince brought to the Dead made it possible for them to make it through those last five years. It was a very hit and miss era for the Dead. Many shows, especially the 1995 shows bring a tear to my eye to hear because Jerry was just off so much of the time. But there was still a silver lining. Just listen to that last show at soldier field (7-9-1995) or the two I mentioned above and you will hear a Grateful Dead that is on, thanks in large part to Vince Welnick. We will miss you brother Vinnie!

I’ve been wating a few days to chime in on this because I’ve had many mixed emotions about it. Vince’s webmaster posted this message on his website calling out the existing members of the Dead, shaming them for their treatment of Vince. About 6 months after Jerry Garcia checked out, Vince tried to take his life on the Rat Dog tour bus (here is a Relix interview from 2003 in which Vince talks about it), an incident which resulted in Vince’s excommunication from the Grateful Dead family. Vince was not invited to any of the family reunion shows or any of the various formations of the surviving members of the Grateful Dead. This took its toll on him as he deeply desired to be part of the scene. Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann should be ashamed of the way they treated their brother. Abandonment is painful and takes is a very hard pill to swallow. Sometimes when people deserve friendship the least, they need it the most. Vince suffered from clinical depression which is a very tragic and painful condition for people who have it as well as their loved ones. John Perry Barlow had a great Eulogy for Vince. Barlow made a comment about clinical depression which really moved me:

“Fighting clinical depression is inevitably a lonely struggle. What could be less conducive to compassion than a disease that make you whine? Laymen and loved ones tell you to get a grip. They make you feel ashamed to be sick. Even if they’re more enlightened about the disease, they can’t help but harbor a secret, naturally human, belief that you are suffering a failure of will rather than biochemistry. Meanwhile, the doctors consider little but the neuro-soup and turn you into a shambling medical experiment, testing pharmaceutical nostrums on you that are as blunt as the mind is subtle, though just as unpredictable. But, for you, life just trudges on. It remains, despite whatever visible signs of well-being - wonderful spouse, great kids, well-located house, etc. - a purgatory of uselessness, barren of joy and meaning. Love, incoming or out-going, becomes something you think, not feel.”

Its easy to discount people who commit suicide and cheapen their legacy, but its not fair. Nobody ever condemns a cancer patient for dying and nobody should condemn a mental illness patient for dying either.

With all that said, I will still go to Rat Dog and Phil and Friends shows. I will still purchase live Dead shows and I still have a great appreciation for all the joy and happiness that these guys have brought to me. The sum of the good that these guys have done in this world far far outways the bad. For myself and many other Deadheads, this music has helped us triumph through hard times in life. The problem that people have is that they hold the human members of the Dead to all of the hippy ideals of the 60s (love, peace, happiness, etc…) in a world where those ideals were never realized. There isn’t a person on this planet that hasn’t been an ass at times. Its not a black and white issue, you can’t just slap a good/bad guy label on people, we are so much more complicated beings than that.
So please download some Missing Man Formation and other music that Vince created and remember him for what he was: a musical geneous!

Here are some mp3s David Gans posted from the KPFA studios in 1999:
What’s Your Name?
Emperor’s Suit
A Day in the Life
Cosmic Charlie

Peace be with you Vince, say hi to Jerry for me!

I love Drew Emmitt! I think he was one of the key ingredients to Leftover Salmon. My favorite songs that they played were the ones that he sang. In addition to being a great singer, he’s a killer mandolin picker. I wrote about Vince Herman’s post Leftover Salmon carreer here and I’m happy to see his former band mate is also alive and kickin. I found a killer Drew Emmitt band show in the archive that I’d like to share:

Band/Artist: Drew Emmitt Band
Date: April 3rd, 2005
Venue: The Cabooze
Location: Minneapolis, MN

Source: AT933/853C [ortf] > AT8533x > Edirol UA-5 > D100 (FOB/DFC - mics clamped to a post at 10′ high, 10′ back)
Lineage: D100 > Edirol UA-5 > Audacity > CDWave
Taped by: Steve Pzynski
Transferred by: Steve Pzynski

Thanks to Steve Pzynski for taping and sharing!

Details and downloads (stream, mp3, flac) here!

Spring time has found me outdoors and unglued me from the computer. A good break from the mouse and keyboard could do anybody some good. Before you pry your eyes off the monitor, check out these luscious mp3s outtakes from Bob Dylan’s Freewheelin sessions, a must listen for any Dylan fan. Thanks Perm and Skullet!

If you haven’t checked out Martin Scorsese’s documentary on Bob Dylan, No Direction Home then you owe it to yourself watch it too. What an amazing life Dylan has lived.

I never realized that Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan had ever played together but apparently they have and below is the MP3 to prove it! What an amazing moment in music that was. When I listen to the sessions I can really hear the mutual respect that the two have for eachother. They play eachother’s songs as well as many standard tunes. I know that Johnny Cash always had an admiration for Bob Dylan as does almost every musician. My favorite part of the Johnny Cash movie Walk The Line is when Johnny and June (played by Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix) play It Ain’t Me Babe. I found this on An Aquarium Drunkard which is quickly becoming my favorite MP3 blog!

Get the Dylan/Cash Sessions MP3s here.

Details Here

I just got my ears on The Black Crowes unreleased album Meet The Band which was recorded in 1997 and is incredible! I wonder why they never released this album because it would surely have achieved great commercial success. The Crowes insted released the album By Your Side which wasn’t nearly as good in my opinion. Thanks Aquarium Drunkard!

Album details here.

blackcrowes.com

Get the lossless sessions here

MP3 download here.