old and in the way was a short-lived bluegrass group formed in 1973. it featured peter rowan on guitar, the incomparable vassar clements on fiddle, jerry garcia on banjo, david grisman on mandolin, and john kahn on string bass. they released their only album in 1975 and it became one of the best selling bluegrass albums of all time. that album was culled entirely from the second show on this release – the complete recordings of two separate shows at the boarding house in san francisco in october of 1973.

recorded by owsley ‘bear’ stanley, it stands up well and is maybe the best representation of the group ever released. each show has nearly 30 songs in the two set lists. even though the second show will be more familiar to fans due to being used on the album, i think the first show may be better. they sound more crisp and focused, and the crowd seems to be more appreciative. there seem to be a few inebriated attendees in the second show, yelling out requests a little too aggressively. but i quibble.

it has been argued that the commercial success of the original album was due to the crossover appeal from fans of jerry garcia, and that no doubt is true. but, similar to the bluegrass popularity surge from the soundtrack of ‘o brother where art thou’, a lot of people got turned on to bluegrass in the mid seventies due to this band. and that’s a good thing. the genre is one dear to my heart, and deserves more sunlight. it should also be mentioned that this was perhaps the most productive period of jerry’s life. the grateful dead were touring heavily during 1973, and he was also playing with merl saunders on the side in the early formations of the jerry garcia band. four full discs of music at under 24 bucks, it is worth a listen.