Happy New Year!

Well, like the last two weeks, we’re going to focus on one year this week, specifically 1969.

Our first piece of music this week is from Winterland on 10/25/69. The Grateful Dead shared the bill at these three shows with the Sons of Champlin, the Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna. What is little unknown about this shows was that on 10/25/69, Bill Graham approached the mic with an announcement that a couple of friends had stopped by and wanted to play a few tunes between sets by the headliners. So, on come Stephen Stills and Graham Nash for a short set of acoustic tunes, including a very early Teach Your Children and a raunchy Black Queen. The tape of this impromptu performance was found deep inside the Grateful Dead’s vault. But, I digress. From 10/25/69, we have the big jam of the night, Dark Star>St. Stephen>The Eleven>Lovelight. There is a big old nasty tape cut at the head of The Eleven, but overall we figured you’d dig hearing the other 60 minutes of the jam that DO exist.

From the next night, 10/26/69 also at Winterland, we have the show opening sequence of JJam, Hard To Handle, Cold Rain and Snow. The opening jam was played while the crew sorted out technical problems, and is reminiscent of the Green Onions played 6/30/88 in Rochester, NY, for the same reason.

Next up is a special piece of music from 12/20/69 at the Fillmore Auditorium (not to be confused with the Fillmore West). Unfortunately, the head of the big jam (Dark Star>St. Stephen) is missing from the vault, but what comes next is very cool indeed, The Eleven>New Speedway Boogie>Lovelight. Toward the end of The Eleven, the band veers into the bluesy familiar sound of New Speedway. This, of course, is the first-ever live performance of New Speedway Boogie, the band’s commentary on the aftermath of the Altamont fiasco, which went down on 12/6/69. You’ll hear some very different background work by Phil and Bobby, which would also be reproduced in the studio for the Workingman’s Dead version, although the final mix of the song omitted these high harmonies. As Hunter said, New Speedway on the album was the band’s statement about a tragic event, not Bobby’s platform on which to practice his high harmonies.

Finally this week, we’re going to check in to the only Grateful Dead New Year’s Eve show that took place outside of California, specifically at the Boston Tea Party on 12/31/69. From that very interesting show, we have this exceptionally funky Big Boy Pete, Not Fade Away dynamic duo of songs. The band would stay east for a couple more days and play the excellent shows at the Fillmore East on January 2&3, 1970, followed by the January shows in San Diego, Portland and Corvalis, Honolulu and New Orleans.

Thanks for stopping in. We’ll have more cool stuff next Monday, so check in then. As always, you’re encouraged to write the email address below with questions or comments, suggestions or requests.

David Lemieux
vault [at] dead.net