Garcia and the New Riders.. cool clip!!!

[Fish]

Speaking of "Change Partners" from Stephen Stills 2, does anyone else hear Garcia doing a wah-wah pedal thing to his licks in the second chorus?

[Mike Winter]

Gotta love Jerry. Like Bill Graham alluded to, he had a great music work ethic. Too bad some can't see past drugs/hippie stuff...he was almost a walking encyclopedia of Americana/roots music. I miss him.

[Doug Beaumier]

Interesting video. It's a rare opportunity to see Jerry's picking hand in action!

[Bob Carlucci]

Speaking of "Change Partners" from Stephen Stills 2, does anyone else hear Garcia doing a wah-wah pedal thing to his licks in the second chorus?

Absolutely!!!.. It sounds GREAT too.. fits like a glove.. Just plain WORKS.. This is one of the only wah/steel combinations you will ever hear on a well known recording... I have heard the combination before, Garden of Eden NRPS, Sugar Magnolia, Dead...bob

[Duane Reese]

I've criticized Jerry in the past for being a sour-sounding player, but in this video, he really isn't too bad. I think what Mickey said probably explains a lot. See, the video I was judging him by was this one from 1987. Come to think of it, I probably shouldn't have been all that critical of him in that one either, since it's hard to play a steel in tune when you have something else in the band that's off-key (notice he's playing with Bob Dylan ).

Seriously though, he wasn't sounding half bad in those days. I have a new found respect for his steel picking.

[Jack Stanton]

In the booklet that came with the "Europe '72" album there's a picture of Garcia onstage with a black Emmons in the background, and I'm pretty sure the New Riders were not on that tour, so it probably was Jerry's guitar.
I remember reading a Guitar Player magazine interview with Garcia, and when asked about his steel playing he said he was embarrassed by his level of competency in comparison to the Nashville pro’s and he listed Buddy Emmons and Lloyd Green as his favorite two steel players. He also mentioned that he probably would not be playing much steel with the Dead in the future.
Line up anyway you want on the issue of his playing, but Jerry sure brought the steel guitar to a lot of people's attention!

[John Drury]

Amen Stanton, and thats what its all about, getting more people behind these contraptions and hearing what they have to say.

When I was a kid growing up in Michigan it was impossible to find steel guitars or people that knew much about them. It was considered a very corny instrument among kids my age. Not many country stations up there at the time. Nobody up there had an inkling of who was actually responsible for the steel on country records.

I listened to what was available on most stations at the time, wich was guys like Garcia, and the West Virginia Creeper. They did a great job of sucking me into wanting one of these instruments.

When I moved to Nashville in 1983 the situation was much better, but I still had to dig to find out about getting a decent steel and lesson material, etc..

Now you can walk into most any music store and see some type of steel. I went into Sam Ash's the other day and the first thing I saw was an S-10 Carter. You can go into Amazon now and find all kinds of info on steel, pedal steel dobro or whadaywant.

I think Jerry made a very large contribution to the world of steel guitar!

[John Billings]

Okay! Okay! I gotta admit JG's playin' on this is pretty cool. I don't like the tone much though. By the time the Dead were in full swing, I was already a complete Zappa fan, and found the Dead to be pretty boring in comparison. Although I was a "Gonzo, the lead guitar player" type, I had started on Bluegrass. I used to get up early on Saturdays to watch all the country shows. That's where my love of steel comes from. My girlfriends would all scream at me,"You're driving me crazy! Why are you watching this?" By 1970, I had my first Crossover.
But, ya likes what ya likes. And I never liked the Dead!

[Peter Dollard]

Certain people always seem to end up as lightning rods you either love em or hatem. Take Bob Dylan he can't really sing but look at the content of the material he has written, he gets to do it because he wrote it; so the traditional " American Idol rules" of musical approval, a pleasent on pitch voice do not necessarily apply. Jerry was the zeitgeist of the Dead he was the quintessence of that band. When he took up the steel he was very well known and got attention no normal steeler ever would. I used to play in Pt Reyes CA in the early seventies. I still remember this tiedyed lady who sauntered up to my steel every friday and saturday night and said "Have you heard Jerry play"?. Didnt have to mention his last name...every weekend this went on!!!. So here is this guy, somewould say a musical dilettante and cuts in one session one of the most famous breaks in history and then goes back to playing his guitar as if it were nothing. I love that break it is perfect but I also realize it infuriates people who thought that he shoud have "suffered" musically the way a tortured artist does before he achieves fame. I could care less it is a good solo and it fits that song Teach Your Children like a glove.

[Jack Dougherty]

Too bad some can't see past drugs/hippie stuff....

Since I was the only one to reference this, I guess the comment was for me.
I have no problem getting past the "stuff". I've been past it for over 40 years. But that doesn't mean it wasn't a big part of the music scene back then.
It's like saying I like the taste of apple pie but I don't like apples.
For Jerry to add steel to the bands arsenal was way cool. But back then a lot of things were cool. I will always appreciate it for what it was and lament for what might have been.

[Duane Reese]

Certain people always seem to end up as lightning rods you either love em or hatem. Take Bob Dylan he can't really sing but look at the content of the material he has written, he gets to do it because he wrote it; so the traditional " American Idol rules" of musical approval, a pleasent on pitch voice do not necessarily apply.

Bob Dylan was easily one of the greatest songwriter/lyricists of the 20th century.. Easily. People have covered him possibly more than anyone else, and why not? His songs are great! This does not have any bearing on the fact that he can not carry a tune, nor does it excuse it. When he gets behind a mic, it peels the paint off the walls. In my opinion, the rules of singing on key still do apply - off-key is still off-key, even if it is his song and it's a great one... It's still sour.

But he's a great songwriter.

[Peter Dollard]

Duane you are right, if the world was in a musical vacuum. Dylans fans love the guy and are not concerned with the things normal musicians are, like singing on pitch. Although my original point was just to contrast Dylan and Garcia as musical iconclasts I would point out that Earnest Tubb had a kind of almost warbley vibrato that might not have been considered the norm for classic country music but Tubb countered by hiring brilliant musicians(Emmons, Charleton,Rhodes, and Billy Bird to name a few) that took the focus of the audience off his voice. Thus his career bloomed because he abondoned trying to sound like the original Jimmy Rogers and found his own groove. A style which is imitated on a nightly basis to this day. I would love for all poeple to be on pitch but the truth is, intended or not a lot of money has been made by following your own version of the musical dream

[Duane Reese]

Well it was specifically Bob Dylan's songs which made him famous, although being able to carry a tune wouldn't have hurt his success either - might have helped it a little in fact. Either way, I don't judge someone's ability based on how many other people like them - if that means I live in a vacuum, I'm just fine with it. I'll just eat the meat and spit out the bones, and I don't think I need to say which is which in this case.

[Peter Dollard]

Actually you reminded me of something I hadn't thought a lot about til now. Dylans entrance into the musical world was greased by musical columnist Robert Sheldon in the New York times, who wrote a highly positive review of the singer after he appeared at Gerdes Folk City in 1963 with the Greenbriar Boys.
Many of Dylans early acoustic songs were just traditional folk melodies which he essentially plagarized such as the melody for "Don't Think Twice" but no one seemed to care! The song's message overwhelmed the grumbling of the "original" melody crowd.
There was a price, however, for being the darling of the folkset and the civil rights movement. They expected him to continue on with it ad infinitem without changing his style. They sadly misinterpreted Dylans career intentions who appeared at the Newport Folk Festival with a fully electrified band intent on turning folkmusic into a different idiom. I can remember innumerable parodies that I, as well as innumerable others used to do to "like A Rolling Stone": "How does it Feel,"? we would whine thru our held noses. Believe me, we knew he wasn't a decent or maybe even an indecent singer it was just that his words, to paraphrase a Dylan Thomas poem, "Forked Lightning" and his shadow grew as the counter culture did. Finally I am sorry for hogging all this bandwith but I felt compelled to at least try to show why people were so gaga over Dylan sour pipes or not. And Duane I would have loved it if the guy could really sing!!!!

[Duane Reese]

I would have loved it too.. Good thing he wasn't stingy with is material though. It boggles my mind how many people won't even consider the idea of someone else maybe having a hit with their song... It's a win-win situation!

Anyway, let's all get back on topic

Yeah, Jerry was quite decent in this '72 film...

[Mark Eaton]

Veering off on a tangent about the quality of Dylan's singing voice, from the standpoint perhaps of a music professor, and whether or not Dylan would pass a vocal recital judged by said professor - strikes me as something that, had computer internet music forums existed, might have been "topical" about 40 years ago.

[Bo Legg]

OK Arch here I go. I'm not making judgments about Mr. Garcia but rather a comparison and let others make the obvious judgment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oItMfsNN ... re=related

[Archie Nicol R.I.P.]

Buddy Cage, right?

Arch.

[Fish]

Thanks for these clips....the Garcia vid is especially telling. Obviously the guy loved music and playing, for all the purest of reasons. Both Buddy Cage and Jerry Garcia were cool stylists and I learned a lot from each of them when I was trying to figure out our difficult instrument back in the early 70's.

Of course, I loved "Mansion On A Hill" too. ;0)

[JB Arnold]

Cage, who was there, asked me to post this.

Got sent a YouTube clip of Jerry 'tuning' up, impromptu jam w/early NRPS. Was that really an Emmons? Thought he only had a ZB from Scotty (I was there - the ZB was the one I saw on the Festival Express in 1070), later on down the line a Sierra by the time the Dead & Bob put that tour together (Jerry asked me to play it. Knowing about some of the faults dealing with the tuning, comes the story when I observed it had 6 knees, Jerry insisting it only had 5 ["ah man...count 'em Cage"] whereupon I picked the bottom B, hit the RKR and the B went UP ever so slightly) and said, "SIX, Garcia!!!"). Jer's comment was "A-r-r-r-g-g-g-g-h-h-h-h..!

Some real misconceptions here from that thread:

1. the aforementioned
2. the tone was really good!
3. Jerry could play! Dylan CAN sing - anybody out there too brain dead to grok this has zero ears and should just stick to selling shoe polish. But if you're looking for Sinatra or Streisand, you've stumbled onto the wrong string in your dodderingly, pathetic World.
4. I WAS on the Europe 72 tour w/NRPS - j-e-e-e-e-z-e who's Black D-10 Emmons do you think that really was???? Gar couldn't play my steel, he was too tall to fit behind it. We tried.
5. The guy taking the mike off the stand is Sparky. The GD roadies used to have an ad hoc band who with Dan Healy on guitar would play the GD's instruments at the check. Yclept: Sparky And The Ass-Bites From Hell
Any criss-crossing of opinions out there regarding Garcia and the Dead is your freedom to choose and express (I wouldn't presume to lecture any of you on Civics 101) - but make NO mistake, those guys could smoke any of you out there in their sleep. On anything. Either you 'get' the GD, or you don't - real simple.

But the Cons are beneath my contempt when they try to shove the shit my way regarding Jerry's alleged disqualification as a World Class Musician, to be so highly regarded by guys like me who go to work everyday, and have for the past 47 years as a working musician.

You guys are the same clowns I stand up to and figuratively battle with on a daily basis. All hat, no cattle.

Your steel guitar servant, residing in the 11th dimension,
Buddy Cage

PS/There will never be another cast of characters like Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead Family on this Planet. Glad to have been a part of it, invited into it and accepted and loved by some of the best people I will ever know. I will always try to share that with folks who missed it.

[Rick Abbott]

Many thanks to Mr. Cage! I really like the style of playing on the Hello Mary Lou clip. What basic pedal and grip combo make those scales? All I need is a clue, I can find it from there.

[Glenn Suchan]

Hey, JB, it's good to see you posting. Hope all is well up in Colorado!

Thanks, once again, for being the "conduit" for Buddy Cage. It would be great if he'd post "in-person". Alas, I fear he'd ruffle too many feathers... could be good for the the "Forum", though! Next time you converse with Mr. Cage, tell him a long-time fan of his, from Texas, sez "howdy"!

Regarding JG's steel playing; earlier in this thread, someone was asking about the collective Garcia-as-steel guitar sideman-discography. Here's is one that has always impressed me. Very understated, yet absolutely beautiful complementary playing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqXPt35KoU4

Keep on pickin'!
Glenn

[Mark Eaton]

Amen, Buddy Cage.

On one of these Garcia threads a few years ago, there was a guy that posted who was apparently completely ignorant of the Dead, but still took the time to criticize them, and referred to them as a "headbanger" band.

And another comment on Dylan - go back and listen to what I think is his greatest album:

Blonde on Blonde

That is some beautifully expressive singing.

Did he ever have the technical singing skills of this kid David Archuletta on American Idol, with his "gee whiz" squinty smile?

No.

The difference is that if David A. comes to a theater near me - I won't be there, even if someone sends me a free ticket, even though he is "on pitch" most of the time.

[JB Arnold]

Hi guys

the reason Buddy doesn't join is he knows his personality-he already feels the addictive pull of the internet-and thinks if he ever signed up he'd never leave, and there's already too many things pulling on him as it is.

But he lurks.

JB

[JB Arnold]

Correction - 1970. It was long ago, but not THAT long ago. bc


JB