Grateful Dead Hour no. 361
by David Gans
Week of August 21, 1995
Since this feature was inaugurated a little over a year ago, I have been getting requests to post the series of programs I produced in 1995 following Jerry Garcia's untimely passing.
Here is the first of those shows, which includes the memorial ceremony that was held at the Polo Field in Golden Gate Park on August 13, four days after Jerry died.
The 2/18/71 "Dark Star Jam" became known as "Beautiful Jam" when it was included in the boxed set So Many Roads (1965-1995). It takes the band from the first-ever live performance of "Wharf Rat" into the second verse of "Dark Star," and it remains to this day one of the most beautiful passages of Grateful Dead improvisation I have ever heard.
- DG
P.S. A reader did the research about the poem Paul Kantner read and posted the information below. It's "For The Good Of All" by Otto Rene Castillo. Paul confirmed this in email today, too.
8/13/95 Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
MEMORIAL CEREMONY for Jerry Garcia
Grateful Dead 3/18/95 Spectrum, Philadelphia
IT'S ALL TOO MUCH->
IKO IKO
Grateful Dead 2/18/71 Capitol Theatre, Portchester NY
DARK STAR JAM
You can browse or search the Grateful Dead Hour program logs on the GD Hour web site. Let me know if there's a particular program you'd like to hear, and feel free to post requests and comments here or by email to gdhour@dead.net
Thanks for listening!
David Gans
gdhour@dead.net
Well, I listened to this 3 times today...brings back alot of memories..
so i dug around some more and found the poem, of all places on the Jefferson Airplane website
read it here if you like...I loved it when he read it for Bill, and then for Jerry as well.
http://www.jeffersonstarshipsf.com/poetry5.htm
its written by a Guatemalan revolutionary named Otto-Rene Castillo who was run out of Guatemala in the 50's by the CIA's dictator, Jacobo Arbenz.
The Jeff Airplane lifted some of the lines to this poem and included it in "The Wheel (For Nora and Nicaragua)" a tune on album they put out in 89 that im not familiar with.
Thank you so much for posting this David. Ill never forget danicing and spinning to all the music played at the end of the memorial and thinking I will never dance with these people again. Some dancers who were my friends, and some who I had danced with so many times sharing this intimate experience without ever sharing a word. There are many who I still see to this day here and there, but many, many faces from tour that I never saw again.
Does God look down on the boys in the barroom
Mainly forsaken but surely not judged?
Jacks, kings, and aces, their faces in wine
Do Lord deliver our kind
This is great antidote to the caustic drivel from Sarah Palin and others in St. Paul this evening. At least now my tears have some joy and hope in them. Thanks David, this was moving.
GG Park was so beautiful and difficult that day. Bob's speech moved me because of all the members of the band, he seemed to be the least resigned at the moment he spoke. It was so hard to leave the Polo Fields that day, fearing I would never be at a gathering like that again...but the wheel has kept turning, not least and not only through the music.
For sharing this show
Our Box of Rain runneth over
I remember hearing this show for the first time August 1995, not too long after the event. I was listening to 88.5 WXPN Philadelphia on a Sunday night, driving in my car and I had to pull into a parking lot of a mall, and I just cried and cried. The hurt was so intense to know that a musician who I never met in person, but knew on a very deep intense musical level and rather personal, had ceased life as I know it. He lives on in his music, both as a member of Grateful Dead or as a solo artist, and as an visual artist too. I love his painting styles too. When WXPN had their next pledge drive, I began to support 'XPN. Later, a friend gave me noisy cassettes of this program and a later Grateful Dead Hour program. It was after listening again several time I was able to heal from the pain of loss.
Again, David,
Thank you!
If I know Paul, it's by a Latin American poet, translated from Spanish. Let me see if I can get the info from him.
I certainly am grateful to hear this show.
THANK YOU David for sharing it ...
Jerry was one of the most important american artist.
The world is not the same since august 9th 1995.
let his memory shine !
peace on earth
Thanks so much David for posting this. I have been wanting to hear Paul Kantner read that poem again for many years. Just this week I went looking for it online, but could not find the actual poem anywhere. I did find out however that a few lines from that poem are lifted and put in a Jefferson Airplane tune (couldnt tell ya the tune) . Do you happen to know the name of the author of that poem?
Does God look down on the boys in the barroom
Mainly forsaken but surely not judged?
Jacks, kings, and aces, their faces in wine
Do Lord deliver our kind
and beautiful show. Thanks for always being there for us, David Gans.
"The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer." - Ken Kesey
Locations
OK... I was moved (in the wrong direction) after that speech tonight: I sat there and was pretty bummed at what could be the ignorance of what might come to be. So I took a little drive around the neighborhood and threw on "Eyes" from Fall of 73... And I began to feel a whole lot better. The beauty, that BASS, that guitar and the movement. Total hand movement twirling in the car (yeah, we've all done it)... I thought, "it will be OK, you're just being too dramatic about it all..." Which is not my style.
I come home and my 16-year old son walks up and says, "Dad, you must be bummed about something because you had 'Mags' blasting out of your speakers when you drove up." Um, yes... "Eyes" had ended and after a few great interludes... "Mags" was indeed on.
I explained that it was kind of a weird night, watching the RNC and "I had to float off for a while, get in touch with my own reality and now I feel much better."
Then I come across the post by Antidote and I'm thinking... "Wow, someone else was dealing with this same thing tonight... In the same way... AWESOME!"
I'm part of a Dead-Thread that has people on it from across the country. We talk about politics, Dead, life, current events, etc... Tonight was no different... Our thread was lit with comments... Glad I took the drive, glad I came here and found someone else a little disturbed by what we saw tonight.
So thanks Antidote... Yes, we are everywhere...
Thanks all, luv ya and goodnight from the West Coast!
^}
It can ring - turn night to day
It can ring like fire when you lose your way