MICKEY HART & FRIENDS

[Information posted to the CIPOLLINA list on 19 Aug 2003 by mutant_dan:]

** This is what I dredged up on the net. I did not tape this show**

Mickey Hart's barn, Novato, CA
8/21/71
AUD MC>D>CD

CD 1.
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]

CD 2.
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 the 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.

setlist and review by Adrian Johnson