January 1976 : Those We Missed

Jerry Garcia: They Love Each Other

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   Reflections was supposed to be a solo album but Garcia needed the Grateful Dead to help him finish it. Same groove as Blues for Allah. Just not nearly as memorable.

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   Does the brilliance of "Silver, Blue and Gold" make up for the awfulness of the "Young Blood" cover? Discuss.

Grand Funk Railroad : Genevieve

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   A contractual obligation album from Flint, Michigan's finest which allowed the band to finally break up. The instrumental "Genevieve" is the stand out track to these ears.

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   Bette Midler's third album was a surprising flop even though it contains a rare duet with Bob Dylan --on his own "Buckets of Rain".

James Talley : Forty Hours

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   Talley's follow-up to the critically acclaimed Got No Bread, No Milk, No Money, But We Sure Got a Lot of Love would make a good soundtrack on the Bernie Sanders campaign buses. If you like the sound and leftist leanings of  "Forty Hours", you'll like the rest of the album.

40 Year Itch: Childhood Living

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     The Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia returned to his folky days playing the banjo on this bluegrass side project with David Grisman (mandolin/vocals), Peter Rowan (guitar/vocals) John Kahn on bass and Vassar Clements on fiddle.

     Rowan ( who also wrote "Panama Red") takes the lead vocals on the Rolling Stones cover, recorded live at the Boarding House club in San Francisco with Owsley Stanley manning the board. It would be just one of the outstanding tracks on one of the best selling bluegrass albums of all time. 

    Said Garcia: "It was such a great band and I flattered to be in such fast company. I was only sorry my banjo chops were never what they had been when I was playing continually, though they were smoothing out near the end".

40 Year Itch : Too Cool to Bluff

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   By the time they recorded their seventh album , From the Mars Hotel, released June 27, 1974, The Grateful Dead had become a well-oiled and even better rehearsed band capable of intricate arrangements. For me, the highlight is the concert staple "Scarlet Begonias". Everyone is in the percolating groove, Jerry sings with confidence, guitar lines are sweeping in and out and Donna Godchaux's wailing is kept short and buried in the mix. ( As opposed to the live performance at "the retirement concert" at San Francisco's Winterland that October.)

  Casual fans will recognize the single "U.S. Blues" even though it never charted. True deadheads can spend hours talking about "Unbroken Chain", written and sung by bass player Phil Lesh ( who had also written another of my favorites, "Box of Rain"). Three minutes in, the tune goes all free jazz on your ass and at times it sounds like you're hearing two songs at the same time. No wonder the Dead neglected to play it live much.

The album is named after a Mission District dive where Jack Kerouac once spent a few nights. Hold the cover upside down in the mirror and you'll be able to make out the words "Ugly Rumors" which became the name of  former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's band.

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Also, this month Jerry Garcia released his second solo album, Complements,  a curious affair full of uninspired covers. However, the album was reissued in 2005 with some real treats including the funky "I'll Forget You".

40 Years Ago: Blue Oyster Cult, Jackson Browne and Solo Jerry Garcia

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Long Island hard rockers Blue Oyster Cult made their debut in January of 1972 with what Rolling Stone critic Lester Bangs called an "authentic boogie beast".  To sell the record, BOC went on one tour that made sense: opening for Alice Cooper ...and another that didn't: with Mahavishnu Orchestra.




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Though he was still in his early twenties when this album was released, Jackson Browne had already written songs for The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Tom Rush and Linda Ronstadt and apparently had an affair with Nico, a woman ten years his senior. "Doctor My Eyes" was his highest charting single until 1982's "Somebody's Baby" from the Fast Times at Ridgemont High soundtrack.




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Deadheads did not have to settle for the Grateful Dead's mediocre Europe '72 album. The smart ones picked up Garcia ( released 40 years ago this month) featuring Jerry playing everything but drums. Garcia was a man who really knew how to play with himself. ( what?) This is a great record, with lyrics from Robert Hunter. No wonder several of the songs wound up in the Dead repertoire.

Six Degrees of Separation: James Brown to The Grateful Dead

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1. In 1973 James Brown records "Down and Out in New York City" among other funky tracks for the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Black Caesar. His backing vocalist, "funky soul siren" Lyn Collins, sings lead on another track, "Mama Soul".

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2. A year earlier, Lyn Collins --nicknamed "The Female Preacher"--had a Top 10 hit composed by James Brown called "Think ( About It)". The part where JB shrieks "Yeah!Woo! " (heard over and over again  in the 1988 Rob Base &  DJ E-Z Rock hip hop hit "It Takes Two" ) is probably the most sampled section.

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3. In fact De La Soul samples "Yeah!Woo" for "Jenifa Taught Me ( Derwin's Revenge)" for their 1989 debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising.

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4. Another track sampled on "Jenifa" is the "hoo hoo hoos" from "Take the Money and Run", a Top 20 Single by the Steve Miller Band in 1976. (You know, the one you can sing "Sweet Home Alabama" to.) Steve Miller wrote all of his biggest hits except for one.

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5. Steve Miller took this 1973 unreleased five minute jam from blind guitarist Paul Pena and condensed it into a Top Ten hit in 1977. One of music entrepreneur Albert Grossman's gross misdemeanors was preventing the release of Pena's brilliant second album New Train, which featured musical contributions from Steve Miller Band keyboardist Ben Sidran ( who turned Miller onto "Jet Airliner"), The Persuasions and Jerry Garcia.

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6. That same year, 1973, Garcia's band The Grateful Dead release the first Dead album on their own label. Wake of the Flood features 1001Songs's favorite Dead song "Eyes of the World".