April | 2020 | redeyegin

this year’s box set release from the vast archives of the grateful dead features five complete shows from june of 1976 – two from boston, two from nyc, and the fifth from passaic, nj. this was an interesting period for the band for a number of reasons. most importantly, they were just coming back from the longest touring hiatus of their career – having not been out on the road since october of 1974. of secondary importance was the return of drummer mickey hart to the fold. he had left the band in february of 1971. in addition to this, they also had a wealth of new songs to perform from recent studio albums. many dead fans don’t pay a lot of attention to this period, and my guess is that it may be due to two reasons. first and foremost could be the fact that 1976 lurks in the shadow of 1977, long considered to be one of their greatest years ever. the second could be that there is less material to work from – they didn’t start their return to touring till right before these shows, and ended in mid october. i know that i did not have a lot in my collection from this era.

that has now changed for me. part of the reason they had never been released from the vault before was because all of these shows were part of the wealth of tapes made by legendary engineer betty cantor jackson that found their way back to the group’s archives a few years ago. as such the recording quality is of the highest order – clean and warm at the same time. the other impression i had from listening to all of the shows was how tight this band was at the time. although it is closer in time to the renowned spring of ’77 tour, it has a feel more akin to 1974, with it’s precision and jazz leanings. everybody is at the top of their game (donna has never sounded better) and the return of the two drummer system is better than what could be expected so soon. kreutzmann himself admits that he was bitter about hart’s return. he had gotten quite used to being the only drummer for over five years. if you listen closely, you can tell that billy is still in charge here, with mickey doing basically fill on some of the larger songs. this would all change substantially by the time we get to the next year, but i think it works very well here.

one of the possible complaints of the box set (or this period) is that the song rotation is not as expansive as other periods. of the five shows presented here, there is a lot of overlap. but keep in mind that they hadn’t been on the road for quite a while, they had a new member they were reintroducing, and they had new material from ‘blues for allah’ they wanted to flaunt. if i had known ahead of time that they would play the cover of martha and the vandellas’ ‘dancing in the street’ on all five shows, i would have been skeptical. but, true to their nature, all five are really good and really different.

another possible issue is the price tag, which is around $150. but keep in mind these are five complete grateful dead shows, which means they are long. around fourteen hours of music. three cds per show, for a total of 15, or about ten bucks each.

if you are interested, you should probably grab one fast. they only made a limited edition of this, and once it sells out it is gone.

speaking of 1977, you might want to also check out this year’s first installment of dave’s picks, volume 33. this is another ‘betty board’ featuring the show on october 29, 1977 at dekalb, illinois. the first disc contains one of the highest energy first sets i have ever heard. an excellent recording of the band in peak form.

dave’s picks 34 comes out next week – a 1974 ‘wall of sound’ show from miami, and garcia live 13 comes out friday, a jgb show in 1989 at poplar creek music theater featuring clarence clemons on saxophone.

giddy up.

‘he was in heaven before he died’

today the music world is mourning the loss of one of my favorite songwriters of all time, john prine. even though i was aware that he had been hospitalized nearly two weeks ago with this dreaded virus and that the outlook was not good, i was still stunned when word came down last night that he didn’t make it. i have heard it said a number of times in the last two weeks that there are two kinds of people: those that love john prine, and those that have never heard of him. all you need to do is type his name on your web browser today, and you will see how many people are in the ‘love’ group. the outpouring of emotions and tributes in the musical world today is amazing, and mr. redeyegin’s eyes have been welling up with moisture all day. you can see the amount of respect and admiration that the musicians have for not only his songs and career, but maybe more importantly, the man himself. one of my favorite mantras in life is to try and give more than you receive, and this was certainly true of john – at least until the last two weeks when it all came back to him.

i am not going to go into the details of the aspects of his career here, as you can go back to that web browser and finds dozens of articles spilling ink on his nearly 50 year career. i just want to share a few thoughts on him personally, and drop a few nuggets i read about him recently.

i cannot remember who turned me on to him, but i do know that my first album i bought was ‘ the missing years’, and my friend mike t. and i listened to it relentlessly all that summer of ’91. ‘great days’ came out in 1993, which was a compilation of his work up to that point, and i was hooked (if you fall into that category above of those who have never heard of john, that is a good place to start). i own nearly his whole catalog, and i can tell you that there really aren’t any bad prine songs. there actually aren’t very many mediocre ones. his writing style was unique. dylan considers him one of his favorite writers and once said ‘prine’s style is pure proustian existentialism, midwestern mindtrips to the nth degree’. if what he was trying to say was that his writings were simple and profound at the same time, then i agree. the first three songs he performed in front of a live audience were ‘sam stone’, ‘hello in there’, and ‘paradise’. most artists would be happy to have written those three masterpieces in their entire career, but john was just getting started. the redeyegin studio has numerous playlists built to suit my various moods, and i can tell you that much of his catalog dominates those playlists and get heavy play to this day.

the last song on his last album (2018’s ‘tree of forgiveness’) was titled ‘when i get to heaven’. he writes that when he gets there he’s ‘gonna have a cocktail, vodka and ginger ale’. well, i stopped at the liquor store on the way home. going out to the porch now with ‘great days’ on random play and two cocktails in hand. one for me, and one for john.