jam at Mickey's barn 8/21/71
 
Setlist and review by Adrian M. Johnson <jelly@thebigj.demon.co.uk>
 
Source: Recorded on a Sony TC-24 with supplied Sony stereo mic**
Lineage: AUDMC > Nakamichi Dragon (no Dolby) > Sony D7 DAT > optical digital cable (DTC-700 was the playback
unit) through a Zefiro ZA2 soundcard, tracked and normalized in Sound Forge and burned to 2 cdrs (61:47 and 42:41) using CD Architect. Nothing from the original tapes was omitted; one or two quick fades were done
to make cuts less abrupt.
 
DISC 1 (61:14)
Jam #1                          12:24
Wall Song->Jam->Wall Song       29:27   (tape flip? at 29:18)
Jam #2                          18:59
Noodle Part 1                    0:24
 
DISC 2 (42:35)
Noodle Part 2                    1:15
Jam #3                          11:17
Jam #4                          14:29   (tape flip? at 11:48)
Tuning Jam #1                    0:44
Ghost Riders In The Sky Jam      3:23
Winin' Boy Blues                 3:40
Tuning Jam #2                    0:57
Tore Down                        6:50
 
The tape was stopped and restarted between each track; there is no major
loss at the start of any of the tracks except perhaps the very first
one.
 
The order on my existing tape, and as listed in the compendium, was
Ghost Riders, Winin' Boy Blues, Jam #1 >> Jam #4,
with a tape flip (and c. 1 minute loss) during the Wall Song reprise and
Jam #4 cut at about 11:30. So basically, my understanding of what is the
generally circulating tape (and I must have put a dozen or so copies of
it into circulation :-) is by and large the bulk of the session,
slightly shuffled to get as much as possible on. What these discs add
are a bit of continuity where the cassette ran out, plus another song.
Oh yes, and a noticeable improvement in quality.
 

So, what is it? As you'll have gathered from Easy Ed's post, it's a
bunch of musicians just kicking back and jamming. No particular place to
go, but good stuff all the same. The sound is quite dense on a lot of
the jams, with 2 or perhaps 3 guitars a lot of the time, as well as
piano and/or keyboards, which are noticeably quiet, (when they are not
unnoticeably so!). Maybe it's got something to do with the set-up, and
probably it's got rather more to do with the informal nature of it all,
but instruments seem to come and go during the longer numbers. Not that
there's anything wrong with that; this is guys just playing for fun
rather than a chamber recital. Pretty much every track has drums, bass,
and 2 guitars minimum; anything else is mentioned if I noticed and
remembered to make a note. No guarantees that they play/are audible for
the entire track.
 
Jam #1
(I was tempted to call this the Quickfire jam, since it's both fairly
rapid and briefly flirts with the Fire On The Mountain riff at one
point) We fade into something that's already started and been going for
an indeterminate length of time, with both organ and piano in the mix.
It starts slow and majestic (sort of a Morning Dew feel), picks up at
about 1:30 when the drummer really ups the pace to sort of Viola Lee
Blues climax speed. (The drumming on this track seems louder and fiercer
on this track than the rest of the session) The tempo drops slightly at
3:10, but is still pretty quick. The rhythm guitar is much louder than
lead, and there's possibly a 3rd guitar in here. About 5:15 the jam
drops into a quickish Fire On The Mountain type riff which it mutates
out of quite quickly, although still playing around with the theme. The
piano also seems to have gone. Jams around this theme, builds to a
crescendo then the guitars drop out, leaving just bass and drums at
11:00; an amazing piece of Phil ensues for about half a minute then the
odd tinkle of piano reappears as this winds down at 11:45, to finish at
12:19
 
The Wall Song->Jam->The Wall Song
Starts with organ which is replaced by simple piano. This is a fairly
unadorned version of The Wall Song (Garcia, Lesh and Kreutzmann played
on the released version of this which came out on the Crosby and Nash
album in Summer '72, and it'd been played at the PERRO sessions at the
turn of the year as well); Crosby sings at least some of the lyrics on
the initial instalment of the song. There is some introspective lower-
register soloing by Garcia reminiscent of some of the Hartbeats Dark
Star jamming. After about 16 minutes it moves to into an uptempo jam;
about here I think we get Cipollina coming in and picking up the guitar
that was lying around and joining the melee. The jam drops back into an
instrumental Wall Song reprise just before 24:00. There's a slight tape
flub towards the end, which I guess may have been a quick flip.
 
Jam #2
Starts with an organ in the mix, a piano is added a little later. It's a
mid-tempo jam which picks up in tempo. Towards the end there's either a
"shaky" flute or weird guitar noise, or something else which my non-
musician's ear can't quite pin down. Pretty much stops just short of
18:00. I'm guessing that this is the jam after Cipollina had been out to
get his own guitar out of his car - it's definitely him, but different
to the previous jam to my ears, more like his usual trademark quiver.
 
Noodle #1
various instruments deciding what to do next
 
Noodle #2
continuation of pondering what to do (Easy Ed has put a slight overlap
in here so DATers can stitch it back together if required, or if we ever
get a single DVD audio standard...)
 
Jam #3
organ, probably a third guitar as well. Mid tempo jam, which early on
sounds not dissimilar to the way Terry & The Pirates were to play Rodney
Crowell's "Ain't Living Long Like This". This one is a real beauty; not
a moment's respite from some great straightahead jamming, guitars nicely
weaving in and out of each other.
 
Jam #4
Organ as well. Another mid-tempo jam this sounds a little like the
instrumental break in Silverado Trail by Terry & The Pirates from the
1990 CD of that name. There's a little bit more light and shade in this
than the previous jam, a bit more room within the structure to
manoeuvre. There's a nice sustained increase in intensity until about
11:45, at which point we get a slight tape flub (original flip?) and a
quietish coda.
 
Tuning Jam #1
Similar tune to the mindless "here we go, here we go, here we go" chant
so beloved of soccer fans over here; probably either from a traditional
ditty or something classical.
 
Ghost Riders In The Sky Jam
Fairly standard run through, with some nice leadwork from Cipollina
 
Winin' Boy Blues
Again a fairly straight run through. Sounds like the good Mr Weir
singing, and he sounds at home with song. I'm surprised the Dead didn't
play this more often; perhaps it was too much thought of as a Tuna
song.
 
Tuning Jam #2
This sounds familiar, like some old-time music hall tune or something
 
Tore Down
Piano on this one; standard bluesy song. Doesn't sound like Bob's
singing; can't put my finger on anyone it might sound like.
 
 
 
So who's on it?
Well working from Rick's notes, other than Lesh and Hart, I'd say it's
obvious we have Cipollina from the Wall Song jam onwards; he's pretty
prevalent, as are the rhythm section at times. Obviously we have Crosby
for the Wall Song, and probably for the Jam before (Jam #1). I think we
have Garcia on all of disc 1, and possibly the first long jam on disc 2,
if not the second as well. Bob's obviously in there for at least some of
the time. Keyboards? I dunno. I've seen suggestions of Nicky Hopkins
sometimes, but he's remarkably laid back and doesn't seem to take a solo
at all; generally it doesn't sound busy enough to be him. I wonder if
Pete Sears was perhaps around at the time. That said, the keyboards on
The Wall Song are obviously by somebody who doesn't earn their living as
a keyboard player; they're pretty elementary. Maybe Bob or Crosby play
some of them? Other guitarists? maybe? And since this grew out of a
taping session of the New Riders, I guess there's likely to be the odd
NRPS-er in there. I think we can definitely rule out anybody from the
Airplane or Hot Tuna, since I understand they played Cobo Hall in
Michigan on 20 & 21 August. However, since Spencer Dryden was drumming
for NRPS by this time, I think he may well be on some of the tracks; it
certainly sounds to me like his jazzier feel on Jam #1. Additionally I
understand from Rick via Easy Ed that he doesn't remember Barry Melton
being there (I've heard Melton rumoured as a possible participant; he
was on Mickey's Rolling Thunder album recorded around that time), and
that he thinks the rock drummer from Shanti (Frank Lupica, I believe)
played on one of the tracks early in the session.
 
So there we go, a bit of a mystery, but nothing that takes away from the
performance. I think it's a pleasant and mighty fine collection of
spontaneous music luckily captured. Anybody who enjoys the jamming on
the PERRO tapes will appreciate this, I think, as will any Cipollina
fans. It's definitely one for the Phil fans and the Crosby completists,
and it's a nice example of Garcia's work on one of those not-so-common
occasions when he wasn't expected to be the driver.
 
 
 
Rick shared these words about this recording:
 
"The New Riders of the Purple Sage were going to be taped by KQED (PBS) at
Mickey Hart's Ranch in Novato and a friend asked me if I wanted to go
(thanks Michael!). When we arrived, a stage was setup outside and there
were lots of familiar San Francisco music scene people and their families
present. The vibes were hip, and good, to say the least. The opening group
was Shanti, followed by the New Riders. When the taping was finished some
musicians meandered into Mickey's barn where he had a modest recording
studio set up. When I walked in Jerry Garcia and David Crosby were trying
some things out (Fresh Green Grass). I turned on my cassette recorder,
lashed my mic to an open mic stand, and sat down to enjoy a remarkable
early evening of music. Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, Bob Weir, John Cipollina
and others floated in and out of the lineup. At some point Crosby left,
then Garcia. John had come in and had picked up a Rickenbacker slide
guitar* that he detailed with his characteristic Quicksilver sound. He
went to his car for his ax and came back to do his part in this recipe for
jam. I taped until they all stopped, we all said good-bye and left..
Enjoy this recording of a spontaneous day. Recorded on a Sony TC-24 with
supplied Sony stereo mic**. Not a bad unit for the day."
 
* Rick adds "It probably was a Rickenbacker. It was the small grey kind
you could put on your lap and play."
** it was the mike that came with the recorder- don't remember the
microphone model #
 
Easy Ed adds: the master analog cassettes were played back with no Dolby
in a Nakamichi Dragon to transfer to a Sony D7 DAT, which was then
transferred to PC via optical digital cable (DTC-700 was the playback
unit) through a Zefiro ZA2 soundcard, tracked and normalized in Sound
Forge and burned to 2 cdrs (61:47 and 42:41) using CD Architect.
Nothing from the original tapes was omitted; one or two quick fades were done
to make cuts less abrupt.
 
As far as song titles are concerned, we're hurting.  possibly appearing
(but not in this order) are: Fresh Green Grass, Ghost Riders in the Sky,
Winin' Boy, I'm Down and maybe Stars and Stripes Forever and Carousel
Song.
 
As you can hear, Rick paused his recorder in-between 'songs' or 'jams'
that day.  Rick adds, "My tape has some bits of me asking a guy near me
to be quiet. I go shhhhhhh and say something"
 
Easy Ed adds: that is a beautiful thing, Rick asking that person not to
play tambourine right near his microphone, which tapers all over the world
should be thankful for and take lesson from.  Even if they could keep a
beat, which this person couldn't quite do.
 
Copies of this recording have been made for a few folks over the years,
but only analog copies. This is the first time a digital transfer has been
made directly from the master tapes.
 
    length     expanded size   cdr  WAVE  probs   filename
    12:24.11     131267516     ---   --    -xx    hartjam71-21-08d1t01.shn
    29:27.43     311799980     ---   --    -xx    hartjam71-21-08d1t02.shn
    18:59.26     200980796     ---   --    -xx    hartjam71-21-08d1t03.shn
     0:24.35       4315964     ---   --    -xx    hartjam71-21-08d1t04.shn
    61:15.40     648364256 B                      (totals for 4 files, 0.5728 overall compression ratio)
 
    length     expanded size   cdr  WAVE  probs   filename
     1:15.73      13401740     ---   --    -xx    hartjam71-21-08d2t01.shn
    11:17.07     119439308     ---   --    -xx    hartjam71-21-08d2t02.shn
    14:29.05     153303404     ---   --    -xx    hartjam71-21-08d2t03.shn
     0:44.22       7813388     ---   --    -xx    hartjam71-21-08d2t04.shn
     3:23.43      35910380     ---   --    -xx    hartjam71-21-08d2t05.shn
     3:40.36      38892716     ---   --    -xx    hartjam71-21-08d2t06.shn
     0:57.63      10203020     ---   --    -xx    hartjam71-21-08d2t07.shn
     6:50.70      72488684     ---   --    -xx    hartjam71-21-08d2t08.shn
   42:39.19     451452640 B                      (totals for 8 files, 0.5710 overall compression ratio)