Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Jerry and Sandy's Adventure, May, 1964

There are holes in the timeline still to be figured out but so far this is what we know happened.

Palo Alto, California-May 1964-The starting point in a 1961 white Corvair owned by Jerry.
Los Angeles, California-“No gigs in L.A. We played all the time, at Hunter and Nelson's, and probably with them, and Willy Legate was also there as I recall.”[1]
They leave Los Angeles with the Kentucky Colonels, who are in another car (standup bass on roof), driving through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma. There were no gigs in any of those states but they did park and pick at rest stops.

Southern Missouri
Jerry, Sandy and the Kentucky Colonels visit Slim Harrell, "a music lover but not a musician who passed away many years ago"[5], at a trailer park in an unknown town in Southern Missouri. There's an all night jam and Cajun food around a bonfire.

Bloomington, Indiana
5/24/64-Jerry and Sandy go to Bean Blossom to watch Bill Monroe perform.
5/24-Neil Rosenberg takes Jerry and Sandy to visit Marvin Hedrick, Mr. Tapes of Bloomington.

5/28/64-hang out and picks with Neil Rosenberg. They meet at Ruby's White Sands outside Dayton, OH to hear the Osborne Brothers with Benny Birchfield. They tape record the show with Jerry's Wollensak T-1500 reel to reel.
Jorma Kaukonen attended school at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, OH in 1959-1960; it’s 26 minutes from Dayton, OH. He also opened for the Black Mountain Boy two months before on 3/6/64 at The Tangent, Palo Alto as seen in the Stanford Daily.[6]

"Jerry and I played at Neil Rosenberg's house and on the front porch and early-psychedelic living room of a guy named Ron Kurtz (later to become a well-known bodywork author)."[7]
"There was another porch in Bloomington where Jerry and I spent most of our time playing, a few blocks from Neil & Ann's house...the porch of Ron Kurtz, a guy who later moved to Boulder. The inside was dark and lighted with colored lights and other psychedelic things...plenty of drugs around, though I don't think we got into that with the folks there. Ron liked the music and we picked out there for hours, usually while Neil was away at classes during the days. Then we'd go back over to Neil's and play more music with him."[2]
  
Columbus, Ohio-5/29/64[[3]-Jerry and Sandy sit in with Robby Robinson’s band with Sid Campbell at Chet's’s in Columbus, OH. Afterwards they go to Frontier Ranch (a country music park east of Columbus near Reynoldsburg) where Don Reno and Red Smiley were doing a Saturday afternoon show.[2] Three years later Robinson would die in a plane crash.[4]

"I remember when Jerry Garcia and Sandy Rothman were in Columbus. Roger Johnson, at the Columbus Folk Music Center, for a couple of weeks had been telling a bunch of us that jammed at his store on Saturdays that some bluegrass pickers from California were gonna be coming through.  Back in those days I kept a list of the music stuff that was going on... On Saturday, May 30, 1964, I headed for Roger's for the usual Saturday stuff.  I parked my car & I noticed as I crossed the street a Corvair with a couple of guys asleep inside.  I didn't think much about it and went on to the store.
After a little while the two guys from the Corvair came in & there were introductions & hand-shakes all around.  I don't think Rothman played but Garcia joined in the jamming on banjo and, of course, the first thing we noticed was his missing finger.  In between songs Garcia told Roger and me and whoever else was there about the night before, Friday, 5/29/64, at Chet's (or Irv-Nell's, I forget when the name changed; would have been way before it became Bob & Mable's)  and how Robby Robinson had switched to mandolin so he (Garcia) could play banjo and how much fun it had been.   Unfortunately Marty and I did not go to Chet's that night, so we missed all that.  But I sure understood & related to Garcia's enthusiasm!"[3]

5/30/64[3]-Jerry and Sandy met Steve Gibbs via Neil Rosenberg in Columbus in 1964.  "He's the one who took us to the Folk Center (must've showed us the place, then left to leave us sleeping in the car?) and introduced us to Robby and Irv-Nell's bar (sic Chet's). Says we stayed at his place a day or two."[2] Jerry and Sandy jam at the Columbus Folk Center.

"I don't remember how long we played at Roger's, but it couldn't have been too long as we all left to go to Frontier Ranch (a country music park east of Columbus near Reynoldsburg) where Don Reno and Red Smiley were doing a show... it wasn't the regular Sunday show... it was some kind of Saturday bluegrass special day and there were other pickers on as well... But that's where we all went.  First I headed home and picked up my sister, Margaret, and Marty and then we took off for Frontier Ranch.
When Don & Red weren't on stage we went up to the parking lot on the hill & some picking got started with Ross Branham, Leslie Wilson, Robby, Don VanLoon, Sid Campbell and others whose names I don't remember.  Garcia was there, maybe Rothman too, but they didn't pick... I remember Garcia especially was taking it all in and clearly having a wonderful time just listening and observing. After the show we went home and I have no idea what Sandy and Jerry did, but I think I heard somewhere, maybe later from Sandy, that they went on to Nashville. The next time I saw Sandy was several months later and he was at Frontier Ranch playing banjo with Bill Monroe."[3]

Panama City, Florida-Early June 1964-Jerry and Sandy play a gig with Scott Hambly, who was in the air force, on Tyndall Air Force Base.
 "Jerry and I also drove down to Florida to visit Berkeley mandolinist Scott Hambly (another highly original and accomplished instrumentalist like Jerry, and a one-gig replacement for David Nelson in the Black Mountain Boys) while he was stationed at Panama City's Tyndall Air Force Base. I listened to the two of them picking as we played an impromptu show that Scott had arranged at the NCO club and thought that it would be hard to find two city-based bluegrass musicians better matched for sheer profusion of notes and ornamentation. A flock of notes flew with the airplanes over the warm Florida sands that night."[8]

Dothan, Alabama
"The vicious insect life of Florida drove Jerry and Sandy to Dothan, Alabama (1.5 hour drive) to hear the well-known players Jim and Jesse McReynolds.
"Jerry loved bluegrass and bluegrass legend Jesse to the extent that he stopped on a cross country drive to watch the Dothan TV show in a Dothan, AL motel room and record the McReynolds Brothers on his trusty Wollensak reel-to-reel."[9]
"Garcia is driving. It's springtime of 1964, a Friday evening somewhere down South. We've been rambling around the Midwest and South for weeks, a couple of California would-be pickers in search of bluegrass. The Corvair's radio is crackling as I scan the dial. The unmistakable sound of Allen Shelton's banjo comes on, dimly. It's "Lady Of Spain."

"Hey," says Jerry, "that's Shelton!"
"Hey, yeah! Wow...Friday night...Jim and Jesse must be on the Opry."
"Can you tune that in any better?"

Now we hear Jesse's voice. He's giving the upcoming show dates.
"Write that down," Jerry says excitedly, tossing me the black spiral notebook he keeps in his shirt pocket. (We did make it to a few of the shows Jesse announced...but were too shy to do more than ask for their autographs on a songbook we bought.) I write: "Sponsor, Crestview Mobile Homes," and the call letters of some TV and radio stations, with various dates and times. "They're on TV tonight!" "We're not that far from Alabama," Garcia says. "We need some sleep anyway. Let's go there, get a motel room, and see if we can watch the show!" Not only watch the show - we lug Jer's trusty old Wollensak out of the car and into the room. We're gonna tape it if we can.
So we're sitting on the edge of a bed in a small motel near Dothan, Alabama, a place we don't know anything about, staring at the TV set, having determined that this very band, with Shelton, is going to be on in a few minutes. The Wollensak's microphone is as close as we can get it to the television's speaker. Food? Coffee? No, we weren't thinking about things like that. We were just waiting.

"Hey, listen-isn't that their live theme playing behind the announcer?"
"Yeah-it's them. Turn on the machine!"
"...And now, from WTVY, Dothan, Alabama...let's make welcome Jim and Jesse and all the Virginia boys!"

It was all there, of course: "Sunny Mountain Chimes," "Childish Love," "Las Cassas, Tennessee," "More Pretty Girls Than One," "Carroll County Blues," "Gone Home," "Nine Pound Hammer," "Love's Gonna Live Here," "Where the Soul of Man Never Dies," and a host of others, featuring the impeccable harmony vocals of the McReynolds brothers with Don McHan, Shelton's amazing banjo, Jim Buchanan's elegant fiddling, Jim's smooth rhythm guitar, and the singular mandolin creations of Jesse McReynolds.
On the surviving low-fidelity 7" reel tape you can hear us gasping and talking over the music, unable to contain our excitement at seeing this stuff right in front of us on local television."[9]
The McReynolds brothers are from Dothan, AL.

Sunset Park, Pennsylvania-Early June 1964 “We stopped at Sunset Park and caught a Monroe show. I introduced JG to Grisman there. (I had met him the previous year in NYC.).”[1]
They drive through New York City late at night.

Beverly, Massachusetts-Jerry and Sandy and The Colonels stay at Roland White's first wife's place.

New Haven, Connecticut-June 1964-Jerry drives alone from Beverly, MA and performs at The Exit, New Haven, CT solo, and with Marshall Leicester and some locals.

Jerry drives 2.5 hours back to Beverly, MA to get Sandy and they drive back to Bloomington, IN.
Sandy stays in Bloomington, IN and Jerry returns to the Bay Area alone, by July.
I would love to talk to any hitchhikers Jerry may have picked up on his way home!
About three weeks later Sandy Rothman joins Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys.



1.)^Rothman, Sandy, 2015-10-26, email to author.
2.)^transcribed from recorded Band introduction, and Grushkin, Paul, Grateful Dead:The Book Of The Deadheads, pg. 194.
3.)^Godbey, rank, 2015-10-23, email to author.
4.)^Hobbs, Marlene, wife of Robby Robinson, 2015-10-13, email to author.
5.)^White, Roland, 2015-11-03, conversation with author.
6.)^Rothman, Sandy, 2015-01-17, email to author.
7.)^Rothman, Sandy, 2012-03-18, email to author.
8.)^http://www.thebestofwebsite.com/Bands/Jerry_Garcia/Misc/Rothman/3_Jerrys_Banjo_Years.htm
9.)^Rothman, Sandy, Jerry Garcia & Sandy Rothman travel down south - Background for new Jesse McReynolds CD, 2010-08-27, http://woodstockrecords.com/woodstock122.shtml

Jerry and Sandy's Adventure, May, 1964

There are holes in the timeline still to be figured out but so far this is what we know happened.

Palo Alto, California-May 1964-The starting point in a 1961 white Corvair owned by Jerry.
Los Angeles, California-“No gigs in L.A. We played all the time, at Hunter and Nelson's, and probably with them, and Willy Legate was also there as I recall.”[1]
They leave Los Angeles with the Kentucky Colonels, who are in another car (standup bass on roof), driving through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma. There were no gigs in any of those states but they did park and pick at rest stops.

Southern Missouri
Jerry, Sandy and the Kentucky Colonels visit Slim Harrell, "a music lover but not a musician who passed away many years ago"[5], at a trailer park in an unknown town in Southern Missouri. There's an all night jam and Cajun food around a bonfire.

Bloomington, Indiana
5/24/64-Jerry and Sandy go to Bean Blossom to watch Bill Monroe perform.
5/24-Neil Rosenberg takes Jerry and Sandy to visit Marvin Hedrick, Mr. Tapes of Bloomington.

5/28/64-hang out and picks with Neil Rosenberg. They meet at Ruby's White Sands outside Dayton, OH to hear the Osborne Brothers with Benny Birchfield. They tape record the show with Jerry's Wollensak T-1500 reel to reel.
Jorma Kaukonen attended school at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, OH in 1959-1960; it’s 26 minutes from Dayton, OH. He also opened for the Black Mountain Boy two months before on 3/6/64 at The Tangent, Palo Alto as seen in the Stanford Daily.[6]

"Jerry and I played at Neil Rosenberg's house and on the front porch and early-psychedelic living room of a guy named Ron Kurtz (later to become a well-known bodywork author)."[7]
"There was another porch in Bloomington where Jerry and I spent most of our time playing, a few blocks from Neil & Ann's house...the porch of Ron Kurtz, a guy who later moved to Boulder. The inside was dark and lighted with colored lights and other psychedelic things...plenty of drugs around, though I don't think we got into that with the folks there. Ron liked the music and we picked out there for hours, usually while Neil was away at classes during the days. Then we'd go back over to Neil's and play more music with him."[2]
  
Columbus, Ohio-5/29/64[[3]-Jerry and Sandy sit in with Robby Robinson’s band with Sid Campbell at Chet's’s in Columbus, OH. Afterwards they go to Frontier Ranch (a country music park east of Columbus near Reynoldsburg) where Don Reno and Red Smiley were doing a Saturday afternoon show.[2] Three years later Robinson would die in a plane crash.[4]

"I remember when Jerry Garcia and Sandy Rothman were in Columbus. Roger Johnson, at the Columbus Folk Music Center, for a couple of weeks had been telling a bunch of us that jammed at his store on Saturdays that some bluegrass pickers from California were gonna be coming through.  Back in those days I kept a list of the music stuff that was going on... On Saturday, May 30, 1964, I headed for Roger's for the usual Saturday stuff.  I parked my car & I noticed as I crossed the street a Corvair with a couple of guys asleep inside.  I didn't think much about it and went on to the store.
After a little while the two guys from the Corvair came in & there were introductions & hand-shakes all around.  I don't think Rothman played but Garcia joined in the jamming on banjo and, of course, the first thing we noticed was his missing finger.  In between songs Garcia told Roger and me and whoever else was there about the night before, Friday, 5/29/64, at Chet's (or Irv-Nell's, I forget when the name changed; would have been way before it became Bob & Mable's)  and how Robby Robinson had switched to mandolin so he (Garcia) could play banjo and how much fun it had been.   Unfortunately Marty and I did not go to Chet's that night, so we missed all that.  But I sure understood & related to Garcia's enthusiasm!"[3]

5/30/64[3]-Jerry and Sandy met Steve Gibbs via Neil Rosenberg in Columbus in 1964.  "He's the one who took us to the Folk Center (must've showed us the place, then left to leave us sleeping in the car?) and introduced us to Robby and Irv-Nell's bar (sic Chet's). Says we stayed at his place a day or two."[2] Jerry and Sandy jam at the Columbus Folk Center.

"I don't remember how long we played at Roger's, but it couldn't have been too long as we all left to go to Frontier Ranch (a country music park east of Columbus near Reynoldsburg) where Don Reno and Red Smiley were doing a show... it wasn't the regular Sunday show... it was some kind of Saturday bluegrass special day and there were other pickers on as well... But that's where we all went.  First I headed home and picked up my sister, Margaret, and Marty and then we took off for Frontier Ranch.
When Don & Red weren't on stage we went up to the parking lot on the hill & some picking got started with Ross Branham, Leslie Wilson, Robby, Don VanLoon, Sid Campbell and others whose names I don't remember.  Garcia was there, maybe Rothman too, but they didn't pick... I remember Garcia especially was taking it all in and clearly having a wonderful time just listening and observing. After the show we went home and I have no idea what Sandy and Jerry did, but I think I heard somewhere, maybe later from Sandy, that they went on to Nashville. The next time I saw Sandy was several months later and he was at Frontier Ranch playing banjo with Bill Monroe."[3]

Panama City, Florida-Early June 1964-Jerry and Sandy play a gig with Scott Hambly, who was in the air force, on Tyndall Air Force Base.
 "Jerry and I also drove down to Florida to visit Berkeley mandolinist Scott Hambly (another highly original and accomplished instrumentalist like Jerry, and a one-gig replacement for David Nelson in the Black Mountain Boys) while he was stationed at Panama City's Tyndall Air Force Base. I listened to the two of them picking as we played an impromptu show that Scott had arranged at the NCO club and thought that it would be hard to find two city-based bluegrass musicians better matched for sheer profusion of notes and ornamentation. A flock of notes flew with the airplanes over the warm Florida sands that night."[8]

Dothan, Alabama
"The vicious insect life of Florida drove Jerry and Sandy to Dothan, Alabama (1.5 hour drive) to hear the well-known players Jim and Jesse McReynolds.
"Jerry loved bluegrass and bluegrass legend Jesse to the extent that he stopped on a cross country drive to watch the Grand Ol Opry TV show in a Dothan, AL motel room and record the McReynolds Brothers on his trusty Wollensak reel-to-reel."[9]
"Garcia is driving. It's springtime of 1964, a Friday evening somewhere down South. We've been rambling around the Midwest and South for weeks, a couple of California would-be pickers in search of bluegrass. The Corvair's radio is crackling as I scan the dial. The unmistakable sound of Allen Shelton's banjo comes on, dimly. It's "Lady Of Spain."

"Hey," says Jerry, "that's Shelton!"
"Hey, yeah! Wow...Friday night...Jim and Jesse must be on the Opry."
"Can you tune that in any better?"

Now we hear Jesse's voice. He's giving the upcoming show dates.
"Write that down," Jerry says excitedly, tossing me the black spiral notebook he keeps in his shirt pocket. (We did make it to a few of the shows Jesse announced...but were too shy to do more than ask for their autographs on a songbook we bought.) I write: "Sponsor, Crestview Mobile Homes," and the call letters of some TV and radio stations, with various dates and times. "They're on TV tonight!" "We're not that far from Alabama," Garcia says. "We need some sleep anyway. Let's go there, get a motel room, and see if we can watch the show!" Not only watch the show - we lug Jer's trusty old Wollensak out of the car and into the room. We're gonna tape it if we can.
So we're sitting on the edge of a bed in a small motel near Dothan, Alabama, a place we don't know anything about, staring at the TV set, having determined that this very band, with Shelton, is going to be on in a few minutes. The Wollensak's microphone is as close as we can get it to the television's speaker. Food? Coffee? No, we weren't thinking about things like that. We were just waiting.

"Hey, listen-isn't that their live theme playing behind the announcer?"
"Yeah-it's them. Turn on the machine!"
"...And now, from WTVY, Dothan, Alabama...let's make welcome Jim and Jesse and all the Virginia boys!"

It was all there, of course: "Sunny Mountain Chimes," "Childish Love," "Las Cassas, Tennessee," "More Pretty Girls Than One," "Carroll County Blues," "Gone Home," "Nine Pound Hammer," "Love's Gonna Live Here," "Where the Soul of Man Never Dies," and a host of others, featuring the impeccable harmony vocals of the McReynolds brothers with Don McHan, Shelton's amazing banjo, Jim Buchanan's elegant fiddling, Jim's smooth rhythm guitar, and the singular mandolin creations of Jesse McReynolds.
On the surviving low-fidelity 7" reel tape you can hear us gasping and talking over the music, unable to contain our excitement at seeing this stuff right in front of us on local television."[9]
The McReynolds brothers are from Dothan, AL.

Sunset Park, Pennsylvania-Early June 1964 “We stopped at Sunset Park and caught a Monroe show. I introduced JG to Grisman there. (I had met him the previous year in NYC.).”[1]
They drive through New York City late at night.

Beverly, Massachusetts-Jerry and Sandy and The Colonels stay at Roland White's first wife's place.

New Haven, Connecticut-June 1964-Jerry drives alone from Beverly, MA and performs at The Exit, New Haven, CT solo, and with Marshall Leicester and some locals.

Jerry drives 2.5 hours back to Beverly, MA to get Sandy and they drive back to Bloomington, IN.
Sandy stays in Bloomington, IN and Jerry returns to the Bay Area alone, by July.
I would love to talk to any hitchhikers Jerry may have picked up on his way home!
About three weeks later Sandy Rothman joins Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys.



1.)^Rothman, Sandy, 2015-10-26, email to author.
2.)^transcribed from recorded Band introduction, and Grushkin, Paul, Grateful Dead:The Book Of The Deadheads, pg. 194.
3.)^Godbey, rank, 2015-10-23, email to author.
4.)^Hobbs, Marlene, wife of Robby Robinson, 2015-10-13, email to author.
5.)^White, Roland, 2015-11-03, conversation with author.
6.)^Rothman, Sandy, 2015-01-17, email to author.
7.)^Rothman, Sandy, 2012-03-18, email to author.
8.)^http://www.thebestofwebsite.com/Bands/Jerry_Garcia/Misc/Rothman/3_Jerrys_Banjo_Years.htm
9.)^Rothman, Sandy, Jerry Garcia & Sandy Rothman travel down south - Background for new Jesse McReynolds CD, 2010-08-27, http://woodstockrecords.com/woodstock122.shtml

Sunday, October 4, 2015

Unknown Locations

 Anyone have any clues for the locations below?


Unknown location #1
San Francisco, California
 
Jerry performed here in
1969-1970
Bob Weir
Jerry plays a banjo.
"I do also remember one or two gigs/jams that were strictly acoustic were Bob played guitar and Jerry played banjo with one or two other guys, at a couple of very small venues, though for the life of me I can't remember where they were."[1]

Unknown location #1, San Francisco, CA
1.)^Terry Nails, comments, 2012-01-27, "Hartbeats" Family Dog On The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA August 28, 1969, 2010-04-10, http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2010/04/hartbeats-family-dog-on-great-highway.html

 Unknown location #2 
Jerry recorded here in
June 1969
Solo
Jerry plays an acoustic bottleneck guitar.

Location unknown #3
Jerry rehearsed here in
July 1967
Grateful Dead
Lovelight rehearsal session, multiple takes, 45 minutes.

Unknown location #4
Unknown City, State
Jerry performed here in
????

Story of a tripper with a big knife threatening Garcia on stage at a ballroom.[1]

Unknown location #4, Unknown City, State
1.)^Abbott, Lee. 1979. The Jerry Garcia Feature: Dead Reckoning and Hamburger Metaphysics. Feature (March): 32, 34-37. Also reprinted in Dodd and Spaulding 2000.

Unknown Location #5 1963
Palo Alto, California
Jerry performed here in
1963
Elves, Gnomes, Leprechauns and Little People’s Chowder and Marching Society Volunteer Fire Brigade and Ladies Auxiliary String Band (Garcia on banjo. Hunter on guitar. NB NRPS parallel: “Hunter was the first victim [of Garcia’s expectation of virtuosity]: he was thanked and thrown out of the group ... An enthusiastic player but with little talent, he gave way to Eric Thompson.” Also Pigpen, Kreutzmann... they became the Black Mountain Boys.[1]

Autumn 1963 (prior to 11/22/63) Badwater Valley Boys (Robert Hunter and others)[1]
"They meet Bill Monroe at the Ash Grove in Los Angeles.[1]

Unknown Location #5 1963, Palo Alto, CA
1.)^Dister, Alain. 2007. Grateful Dead: Une légende californienne. Paris: Le Castor Astral. ISBN 9782859207298, pg. 44, Elves, Gnomes, Leprechauns and Little People’s Chowder and Marching Society Volunteer Fire Brigade and Ladies Auxiliary String Band, 2014-01-26, http://jgmf.blogspot.com/

Unknown location #6
San Francisco, California

Jerry recorded here in
Early 1970
Brett Champlin and Robbie Stokes of Devil's Kitchen
"Robbie says he just remembers that it was the two of us but not a whole lot about it. All I remember from that was that it was cold and kind of early in the day (probably early afternoon) so I had a big styrofoam cup of coffee that I spilled all over the amplifier I was playing through when I bumped it with the head of my guitar… and Garcia was very gracious about it saying, “don’t worry about it, we have lots of amplifiers”… and that he said the music was for background music for a play that a friend of his was producing about the Tarot. For different pieces he would say this is about such and such card and the image is blah-blah so it should kind of feel like this n that… and we’d just noodle around for a while until something started to come together…"[1]

Unknown location #6, San Francisco, California
1.)^Champlin, Brett, bandmember of Devil's Kitchen, 2014-11-01, email to author.

Unknown location #7
Los Angeles, California
Jerry performed here on

4/6/66 Grateful Dead
4/7/66 Grateful Dead
4/8/66 Grateful Dead
4/9/66 Grateful Dead
"According to the 3/25/66 tape: After You Don't Have to Ask, Garcia says: "Okay, we'll be back in just a few scant minutes." And Lesh: "We're gonna take a little break now. Don't forget: on the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th…"(cut)."[1]

Unknown location #7, Los Angeles, CA
1.)^The Deadlists Project, 1966-04-06, http://www.deadlists.com/default.asp

Unknown location #8
Resort
Northern California
Jerry performed here on
Early June 1969
John "Marmaduke" Dawson
Gene Sculati, from Napa, in a very insightful little piece written ca. mid-June 1969 [1]: Recently “a local resort featured Dead accomplice Marmaduke singing country (and playing guitar) to the accompaniment of Jerry Garcia on pedal steel guitar.”[10]

Unknown location #8, Resort Northern California, CA
1.)^ Sculati, Gene. 1969. What’s Become of the Grateful Dead? Jazz & Pop 8.9 (September): 22-24.

Unknown Location #9
Unknown City, State

Jerry performed here in
1963 or 1964
Pine Valley Boys, Richard Greene
Jerry plays a banjo.
Richard Greene first met Garcia in the early 1960's, before Garcia was a member of the Grateful Dead. Greene believes it was around 1963 or 1964 when Garcia was playing with the Pine Valley Boys. Greene remembers, “Jerry was only at that time a banjo player. He would come around, and we would start jamming. He was quite a nice guy and I liked him.”[1]

Unknown Location #9, Unknown City, State
1.)^Sforzini, Hank, Five Musicians Remember Jerry Garcia, 2012-08-20, http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/lists/2012/08/five-musicians-remember-jerry-garcia.html

Unknown location #10
Nightmares and Dreamscapes
Studio
Jerry recorded here in
1993
My Pretty Pony
Jerry is the narrator of the story. He does not play guitar.
Nightmares and Dreamscapes-Stephen King
Plot Summary
An elderly man, his death rapidly approaching, takes his young grandson up onto a hill behind his house and gives the boy his pocket watch. Then, standing among falling apple blossoms, the man also "gives instruction" on the nature of time: how when you grow up, it begins to move faster and faster, slipping away from you in great chunks if you don't hold tightly onto it. Time is a pretty pony, with a wicked heart.

"I heard this from Dennis McNally who interviewed Jerry, from what I understand 1,000's of times. He is writing a book currently about his interviews with Jerry. From what I understand he is the one who recorded the Stephen King reading. The publishers asked if Jerry would read it and jerry didn't really want to do it, but his buddy Dennis McNally convinced him to do it, and they recorded it in Jerry's home studio. It was a pretty bad read and lots of page turning and noises etc. The publisher asked Jerry to re-read it and he said no. They weren't going to put it out, but Jerry and Dennis insisted they send it to Stephen King and let him make up his mind whether he liked it or not. They never heard back from the publishers, and it got released. So Stephen must of liked it."[1]

Unknown location #10, Nightmares and Dreamscapes
1.)^NoiseDrop, message, 2015-07-15, youtube.com

Unknown Studio #11
San Francisco, California
Jerry recorded here in
Late 1965
Neal Cassady, Warlocks
Speed Limit
Jerry plays an early 1960's Guild Starfire III guitar if he plays at all.
Prankster production tape.
"The Dead may be the anonymous band playing the generic surf instrumental behind the Prankster chatter. The recording is repeated a few times and can be heard most clearly without the Prankster overdubs in the last few minutes. It's not too dissimilar from other things the early Dead did, like Heads Up on 3/19/66 or the instrumental on 3/25/66. Then again, it could be a random, unidentified surf-band record. Recording date unknown.
A bit of this instrumental was used on the Capitol LP “LSD: A Documentary Report,” released in 1966."[1]

Unknown Studio #11, San Francisco, CA
1.)^http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2013/07/studio-outtakes-1965-1974.html



Unknown location #12
Jerry was scheduled to perform here on
10/17/73
Grateful Dead
Doug Sahm And Band would have opened.

Unknown Location #13 Golden Gate Park
San Francisco, California
Jerry performed here on
5/8/69
Grateful Dead
The Book Of The Deadheads lists a show in Golden Gate Park on this date;this must be the show DeadBase IX lists on 5/7/69. DeadBase IX notes a show at an "Unknown Location" on 5/8/69.

Unknown studio #14
Jerry was scheduled to record here in
Spring 1995
Ralph Stanley
"Jerry was suppose to go record with Ralph prior to his death (for the Clinch Mountain Country CD, release date May 19, 1998, the one Bob Dylan is on)...that was until Jerry's people got into it with Dick Freeland (who owned Rebel Records at the time). What Ralph told me..that it was all set up..and Jerry's people said well we also want to send "someones whose name I can't remember)..to make sure it was recorded correctly etc..and Dick Freeland said no and he (Jerry) can't come either. Ralph was not pleased at the time because he knew that would have added to the sales of the CD. I believe this was supposed to occur in the spring of '95.
Ralph wanted to have Jerry play on the next CD he did (with a lot of other singers/musicians…the one he did after he stopped recording with Rebel and Dick Freeland...Ralph at some point had a law suit going against Dick Freeland). The reason why I know all this..is because I'm good friends with Ralph...started seeing a lot of Ralph shows in the early 90's"[1]

Unknown studio #14
1.)^MacMillan, Vickie, comments, 2014-11-07, email to author.

Deathsport soundtrack
Unknown Location #15, State

Jerry recorded here in
1978

The movie-review book Claws & Saucers notes that director Allan Arkush “knew Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead’s Fillmore shows, and he got Garcia to contribute guitar licks for the soundtrack that were later run through a synthesizer.”[1]
Deathsport, in 1978, was one of the first movies Arkush directed. Garcia was keen on sci-fi, and was probably tickled at the opportunity to help with the soundtrack.

Unknown Location #21, Deathsport soundtrack
1.)^David Goldweber, Claws & Saucers

Heartbeeps soundtrack
Unknown Location #16
Jerry recorded here in
1981

He provided the voice, via his guitar, for a robot child in a movie, Heartbeeps (starring Andy Kauffman and Bernadette Peters).
Directed by Allan Arkush.

Big Bad Mama soundtrack
Unknown Location #17

Jerry recorded here in
1974

David Grisman worked on the soundtracks for a few Roger Corman movies in the mid-‘70s, including the gangster films Big Bad Mama and Capone. My guess is he called in Garcia to help him with these – this was shortly after they played together in Old & In The Way. Garcia is said to play banjo and guitar in these film scores, but isn’t credited.[1]
Big Bad Mama was released in September 1974 - Grisman played with the Great American Music Band (recorded by Bill Wolf), perhaps one of the same configurations that played live in mid-'74.[1]

Unknown Location #17
1.)^Jerry Garcia's Film Soundtracks, 2015-05-28, http://deadessays.blogspot.com/

Capone soundtrack
Unknown Location #18
Jerry recorded here in
1975

Garcia is said to play banjo and guitar in these film scores, but isn’t credited.

For Capone in 1975, Grisman collaborated with mandolinist Rudy Cipolla.

Invasion Of The Body Snatchers soundtrack
Unknown Location #19, State
Jerry recorded here in
1978

Garcia was listed in the film credits this time as one of the musicians. He had a small part playing the banjo music for Harry, a park beggar with a banjo who is later turned into a mutant dog.
Garcia even joined the Screen Actors Guild in December ‘77, though I don’t think he actually appears in the film. Maybe he initially planned to work as an extra, but the beggar with the banjo was played by another actor, Joe Bellan; Garcia just provided the music track, which was recorded separately.
The banjo music only appears very briefly in a couple scenes, but Dead fans will quickly recognize that the song is ‘Goin’ Down the Road.’ I can’t tell who is singing it, though – it doesn’t sound like Garcia.
I don’t know who invited Garcia into the production, but no doubt he jumped at the chance to be involved with a sci-fi film being made in San Francisco.
Engineer Phil Sawyer, who’d worked briefly on the Aoxomoxoa mixes back in ’69, bumped into Garcia again: “Jerry reminded me of [the Aoxomoxoa sessions] around 1978 during the making of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." (I was the Music Production Coordinator and he played the banjo "source" music for the character that eventually turns into the hideous half-man-half-dog.)”[1]
Directed by Philip Kaufman. Released December 20, 1978.

Unknown Location #20, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers soundtrack, State
1.)^http://precambrianmusic.com/gratefuldeadranch1.htm







































Saturday, August 1, 2015

Rutgers Athletic Center (Busch Campus, Rutgers University), 83 Rockafeller Road, Piscataway, New Jersey

Capacity 8000
The Louis Brown Athletic Center, or The RAC as it’s often called, is home to the Rutgers men’s and women’s basketball programs.
"What used to be called Livingston College Campus or what we that were students in 1981 called the "Rock"."[3]
Opened in 1977, the Louis Brown Athletic Center is one of the great arenas in the nation to watch exciting college basketball. The reasons for this are numerous - Excellent sightlines! Outstanding lighting! Incredible acoustics! The fans are right on top of the action. It's also the perfect-sized venue to see a basketball game. This arena has been dubbed, “louder than a 757 from nearby Newark.” The RAC is definitely one of the toughest college basketball arenas in the nation for visiting opponents.
Most fans and students still refer to this truncated pyramid, which lies on the northern end of the Livingston campus, as "The RAC," which is short for Rutgers Athletic Center, the original name of the facility.
The arena opened on November 30, 1977 with a win against rival Seton Hall.
The arena was known as the Rutgers Athletic Center until 1986, when it was renamed for Louis Brown, a Rutgers graduate and former member of the varsity golf team, who made a large bequest to the University in his will. Despite the name change, the building is still largely referred to as "The RAC" (pronounced "rack") by students, alumni, fans, and players.
The building is shaped like a truncated tent with trapezoidal sides on the north and south ends. It is home to the men's and women's Rutgers Scarlet Knights basketball teams. Previously, the University used the 3,200-seat College Avenue Gym from 1931 to 1977.
The RAC was named the second-loudest arena in the nation by cbsportsbeat.com.

5/15/81 Grateful Dead[2]
I:Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo>Franklin's Tower>New Minglewood Blues;Dire Wolf;Cassidy;Candyman>Little Red Rooster;Jack-A-Roe;El Paso;Ramble On Rose>Looks Like Rain>Don't Ease Me In
II:Scarlet Begonias>Fire On The Mountain>Estimated Prophet>Eyes Of The World>Drums>Space>Not Fade Away>Black Peter>Sugar Magnolia. Encore:U.S. Blues
Promoter John Scher Presents.
"I vividly remember the lightning flashes through the skylight during Looks Like Rain! There was almost a dialogue between the band, audience, and electrical storm that really upped the energy. Right around Black Peter time, I worked my way up front stage left...really, really close to Garcia. I was basically touching the stage about 10 ft from Jer...and feeling slightly overwhelmed and almost unnerved.
You see it was really loud, and those notes Ol' Jer was hitting were more than just notes, well they were waves."[4]
"A major thunder/lightning storm outside & interplay with the band...a glass dome inside the auditorium so you could see/hear the storm during the show."[5]

Rutgers Athletic Center (Busch Campus, Rutgers University), Piscataway, NJ 
1.)^The "RAC", http://www.scarletknights.com/facilities/rac.asp
2.)^http://www.deadlists.com/default.asp
3.)^cmitchell10, comments, 2010-02-27, https://archive.org/details/gd1981-05-15.sbd.miller.86783.sbeok.flac16
4.)^Mountain High, comments, 2008-04-03, https://archive.org/details/gd1981-05-15.sbd.miller.86783.sbeok.flac16
5.)^wheelman, comments, 2014-05-09, http://ratdog.org/community/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=318779

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Boar's Head #1, 1101 or 1107 San Carlos Avenue, San Carlos, CA

Capacity 40
The term, The Boar's Head Tavern, on Eastcheap, featured in historical plays of Shakespeare as a favorite of the fictional character Falstaff and his friends. It was the subject of essays by Oliver Goldsmith and Washington Irving. The Boar's Head Inn, at Whitechapel, the courtyard of which was used to stage plays from 1557 onwards. It was refurbished in 1598-99. Established before 1537, but destroyed in 1666 in the Great Fire of London, it was soon rebuilt, and continued operation until some point in the late 18th Century. What remained of the building was demolished in 1831.
Surely Rodney Albin was aware of these things when he named his loft The Boar's Head.

There were two Boar's Head in the early days of Jerry.
The original Boar’s Head (#1) was a room upstairs at Mr. Hutchins’ bookstore that was used for music from 9-11pm a few nights a week. It was located in San Carlos.[3]
"Spanish Colonial style storefronts. You went through the front door and there was a staircase immediate to the right which went up to a loft - and that's where the happening happened."[9]Early in the summer of 1961 a pair of folk music enthusiasts, Rodney Albin and George "The Beast"Howell, launched a small coffeehouse called the Boar's Head in a loft above a bookstore called the Carlos Bookstall in San Carlos (north of Menlo Park). Peter Albin, Rodney's younger brother, later became a founding member of Big Brother and the Holding Company.[1]
"Peter says of it, "Rodney ran it with a guy called George Howell. They were both students at San Mateo. I helped them out a little bit running the club. It only operated on weekends, and we served hardly anything, just coffee, hot chocolate and crackers.
The building sold in 1979 for $179,000 and again in 1983 for $118,000.[11]
Boar's Head moved to the Jewish Community Center in 1962.
(see Boar's Head, Jewish Community Center, San Carlos, CA)

1961
"Come Thursday, I went to the Boar’s Head early to help Rod and Pete set things up. It was looking pretty ridiculous. Broken chairs, makeshift tables here and there, a tiny little stage made from a shelf unit cut in half, and an old RCA “hand grenade” microphone plugged into a 12-watt Bogen amplifier. Pathetic, but we didn’t care, nor did we know any better.
None of us had any idea if the Kepler’s crowd or Garcia would show up. By 8 or so there were a few familiar faces, so Rodney kicked things off with some finger-pickin’ songs, then Pete and I got up and played Woody’s Rag with me on mandolin, Pete on guitar. A while later we heard a motorcycle pull up outside and that was a sure sign. Those colorful beatniks were starting to filter in. Hipsters, chicksters, all manner of eccentric individuals were coming up the stairs to check out the scene. In no time the place was buzzin’. Nobody took the stage just yet, it seemed as if we all were waiting for something as the party rolled on. Some time later a friend nudges me to look around and there’s Garcia, guitar in hand, heading for the stage. In a brief shuffle I grabbed a seat as everyone settled down to listen.
Quietly and matter of factly he started strumming. And with that soulful, dark-eyed gaze, he began singing, “When first unto this country, a stranger I came …” a great song that tells the story of an early settler’s hardships and love. Then he did some finger picking – I think it was Wilson Rag – then more songs: Peggy-O, Oh Babe It Ain’t No Lie, Whiskey in the Jar and others. The audience was spellbound, myself included. As we listened on, excitement grew. An invisible fire had been sparked. Everyone felt connected in some way, a feeling of kindred spirit, a “cause” with gusto.
It was decided we should do this more, and Rodney got Mr. Houchen’s okay for every Tuesday and Thursday night. These little wingdings gathered momentum in the weeks that followed. Jerry brought friends, he must’ve told everybody, because suddenly the place was crawlin’ with performers of all kinds. One friend was Bob Hunter, who had been playing as a duet with Jerry at a couple of private gigs. They did Saro Jane and other folk songs. There was Marshall Liescester, who played amazing five-string banjo and guitar and knew all these really cool Appalachian tunes and blues – everything from Rabbit Chase to Keep On Truckin’ Mama. Also from the Kepler’s crowd was Sherry Huddleston, who sang Milk Cow Blues, with Garcia adding guitar. A big hit was Dave McQueen, a black guy from East Palo Alto nicknamed “David X” who didn’t play an instrument, but had this wonderful velvety voice that could sing you off into a cloud: “Trouble in mind, I’m blue …” Warm, funny and personable, David X hosted many after-gig parties at his house.
Most remarkable of those who found their way to the Boar’s Head was a 14-year-old kid named Ron McKernen. He had intelligent eyes on a face that had been roughed up by severe acne, and the ultimate rock ‘n’ roll greasy-hoodlum jelly-roll hairdo. His outrageous appearance belied a shy and reserved demeanor. He showed up one night and to our astonishment delivered a set of country blues with electrifying authenticity. He played harp and guitar and sang totally naturally in his own way, yet sounded like one of the classic blues greats, the real thing. It blew our minds.'[13]

07/??/61 Robert Hunter, Marshall Leicester
Jerry plays a banjo and an acoustic 12 string guitar.
Garcia provides patter before a next song, calling it an "old chestnut", and adding that, "here's this twelve string. And I don't know if I can do it on a twelve-string, but it'll be fun to find out." Railroad Bill comes off well, Garcia needling the audience to join in the chorus: "It's only one word three times, think you can do it?" They do, and the full flavor and charm of a coffeehouse folk sing comes through plainly." Garcia sings acapella on Wagoneers West. One of Garcia's between song quips mentions that this is the "sixth or seventh " time they've played there.[5]

In July of '61, Garcia and Marshall Leicester played a show at the Boar's Head that was taped on a reel-to-reel recorder by Rodney Albin; it's one of just a handful from the pre-Dead days that has survived. (Years ago Willy Legate organized that performance and a few others from '61-'64 onto a series of six cassettes that were dubbed "Primordial Writhing, Vols. 1-12.") On the tape, Garcia plays guitar and Leicester plays banjo on a handful of folk standards, including Darling Corey, Wildwood Flower and Jesse James. It was all very relaxed and informal; really just a hint of what was to come from them over the next couple of years as they developed as players. Jerry also spent hours studying and learning how to play Child ballads (songs collected by the 19th century British folklorist John Child), which his friend Danya Veltfort used to copy out of books in the library for him. [12]

1961 Solo, Robert Hunter, David McQueen, Sherry Huddleston
"As Dave Nelson says alongside Rodney Albin, referring to his first meeting with Garcia, "So we asked him to come play at the Boar's Head. That night at the Boar's Head it was Garcia, who played some songs on guitar, and then Bob Hunter came on wearing his army boots, as he always did in those days, and he sang a couple of songs. And there was also David X (David McQueen, a black man in his forties who was part of the Chateau scene) and Sherry Huddleston, who's the one who gave Pigpen his name (the next year). It was very low-key. The Boar's Head always seemed more like a party than a real gig."[2]
1961 Ron McKernan
When he was 16, Ron McKernan met Jerry Garcia at the Boar's Head, a loft over the San Carlos Bookstore .[4]

1962 Worth Hanley, Brooks Otis, Eric Thompson
Jerry plays an acoustic Guild with maple body and heavy white binding, possibly an F-50.[14]

1962 David Nelson, Robert Hunter
1962 David Nelson, Robert Hunter, unknown fiddle player
With the audience attuned and attentive, Jerry's patter is relaxed and good-natured, and provides a tantalizing bit of information about the set, when he notes, to great laughter, that"last night, just about this time, we were gonna do a song. We finally did do it, called Ellen Smith. And ah,-but the trouble was last night, a banjo string broke. A very key one: the fifth one, the one that distinguishes it from a cigar box."
Jerry announces the encore by saying, “For those of you that are interested, we’re gonna do one more. Not because any of you asked or anything, but just because we felt like it.” And the communal feeling continues without a lapse, band and audience launching into “Darling Corey” as if on cue. And here, everyone sounds almost in tune with each other, with the applause at the end as much a celebration of the audience as the musicians. What it lacks in polish, it more than makes up for in spirit. This is what a hootenanny must have sounded like at its peak. [6]

Unknown 1962 David X (McQueen)
"A black blues musician who was occasionally backed by Garcia."[7]

It's likely there were other performances here.

"The club ran into problems with the authorities and only lasted in it's original location for about 6 months. "We had problems in keeping the club at that location, we had lots of complaints from the City Fathers. At that time there were only two black families living in San Carlos, also there were ordinances banning fortune tellers, palm readers-a very hostile atmosphere. Anyway, we were brought in the City Council chambers on charges of having a black man on our balcony with white girls. It wasn't quite that blatant, they said he was an undesirable character or something. So we had to move to another location, which was a Jewish Community Center on Holly Street. [8]

Boar's Head #1 (upstairs of Carlos Bookstall), San Carlos, CA
1.)^Jackson, Blair, Garcia, An American Life, pg. 39-40
2.)^Jackson, Blair, Garcia, An American Life, pg. 40
3.)^ Mahan, Rich, Grateful Dead Hour, 2010-11, http://cloudsurfing.gdhour.com/archives/3983
4.)^Mullen, Shaun, Kiko's House, 2008-03-08, Ron 'Pigpen' McKernan: An Appreciatio, http://kikoshouse.blogspot.com/2008/03/ron-pigpen-mckernan-appreciation.html
5.)^Getz, Michael M. and Dwork, John R., The Deadhead's Taping Compendium, pg. 66.
6.)^Garcia, Jerry, Getz, Michael M. and Dwork, John R., The Deadhead's Taping Compendium, pg. 68.
7.)^Platt, John, Pete Albin:Be A Brother, Comstock Lode 3.
8.)^Albin, Peter, Platt, John, Pete Albin:Be A Brother, Comstock Lode 3.
9.)^Newton, Chris, 2014-06-20, email to author
10.)^San Mateo Pacific Yellow Pages, 1965, pg. 134.
11.)^http://commercial-properties.findthebest.com/l/792327/1035-El-Camino-Real-Menlo-Park-CA-94025
12.)^Jackson, Blair, Garcia,:An American Life, pg. 30, 31, 32, 36, 40.
13.)^Nelson, David, Jerry Garcia: The Early Days (David Nelson Looks Back), 2012=08-06, http://www.relix.com/articles/detail/jerry-garcia-the-early-days-david-nelson-looks-back
14.)^Wright, Tom, 2015-01-04, email to author.

Saturday, January 31, 2015

NBC Studios, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY

The historic GE Building houses the headquarters of the NBC television network. The GE Building is an Art Deco skyscraper that forms the centerpiece of Rockefeller Center in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, USA.
The building was completed in 1933 as part of the Rockefeller Center. The noted Art Deco architect Raymond Hood led a team of Rockefeller architects. It was named the RCA Building for its main tenant, the Radio Corporation of America, formed in 1919 by General Electric. It was the first building constructed with the elevators grouped in the central core. During construction, photographer Charles Clyde Ebbets took the famous photograph Lunchtime atop a Skyscraper on the 69th floor. National Broadcasting Company, also owned by General Electric, leased space in the building.
Studio 3H was the first studio in the building to be converted for Television production, being converted in 1935 and served as NBC Television's lone studio[13] until the conversion of Studio 8G in 1948. 3H was adjacent to Studio 3C. This studio has been decommissioned since the early 1960s and served as scenery storage[14] for a number of decades. Small portions of Studio 3C have been expanded into this area..
The office of the Rockefeller family occupied Room 5600 on the 56th floor. This space is now occupied by Rockefeller Family & Associates, spanning between the 54th floor and the 56th floor of the building. In 1985, the building acquired official landmark status. The RCA Building was renamed as the GE Building in 1988, two years after General Electric re-acquired the RCA Corporation.
The GE Building is one of the most famous and recognized skyscrapers in New York. The frieze located above the main entrance was produced by Lee Lawrie and depicts "Wisdom",[5] along with a slogan that reads "Wisdom and Knowledge shall be the stability of thy times", from Isaiah 33:6 (KJV). The vertical detailing of the building's austere Art Deco facade is integrated with a slim, functionally expressive form. The present exterior is recognized for the large GE letters at the building's top. Unlike most other tall Art Deco buildings constructed in the 1930s, the GE Building has no spire on its roof.
At 850 feet (259 m) tall, the 70-story building is the 10th tallest building in New York City and the 33rd tallest in the United States. Some of the building's nicknames include The Slab and 30 Rock. The latter is derived from its address which is at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
The observation deck atop the skyscraper, dubbed "Top of the Rock", reopened to the public on November 1, 2005, after undergoing a $75 million renovation. It had been closed since 1986 to accommodate the renovation of the Rainbow Room. The deck, which is built to resemble the deck of an ocean liner, offers sightseers a bird's eye view of the city, competing with the 86th floor observatory of the Empire State Building.[24] It is often considered the best panoramic city view,[10] if only because it offers a view of the aforementioned Empire State Building, which obviously cannot be seen from its own observation deck.[11]
KWO35, the NOAA Weather Radio station for the majority of the Tri-State area, transmits from atop the GE Building at 162.55 MHz.
Below the building is a shopping concourse, connected to the lobby via an escalator. The open lobby's rich materials and reduced black and beige ornamental scheme is enhanced by dramatic lighting. Granite covers the building base to a height of 4 feet (1.2 m), and the shaft has a refined facade of Indiana Limestone with aluminum spandrel panels.
The 65th floor of the GE Building was an event room and restaurant named the Rainbow Room. It was revamped and reopened to the public with new operators until it closed in 2009 due to the economic downturn.
Saturday Night Live is telecast live from the building (Studio 8H).
NBC owns floors 1-30 & 50-59. The office of Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric, is located on the 51st floor of the GE Building.

The Tonight Show was also taped at the GE Building in Studio 6-B from the early Jack Paar years until 1972, when the show moved to Burbank, California. Late Night with Jimmy Fallon now occupies the former Tonight Show space. During its run, Rosie O'Donnell broadcast her syndicated talk show from the building.

Tomorrow Coast To Coast
Established as more of an intimate talk show, Tomorrow differed from the usual late-night fare, with host Tom Snyder conducting one-on-one interviews sans audience, cigarette in hand, alternating between asking hard-hitting questions and offering personal observations that made the interview closer to a genuine conversation.
On April 28, 1975, Tomorrow aired what eventually became its most talked about and enduring moment: John Lennon appeared in what would turn out to be his final televised interview. Since Lennon faced deportation proceedings from America at the time over his 1968 misdemeanor conviction for cannabis possession in London, after the first part of the interview during which Snyder covered the regular topics, Lennon's legal representative - immigration attorney Leon Wildes - joined him on the panel to discuss the details of the case, as the famous musician directed his message at the American public in an appeal of sorts to be allowed to remain in the United States.
NBC occasionally used Tomorrow to plug various holes in its late-night schedule. Snyder did a special Saturday show with Jerry Lewis as the only guest in October 1975 because the originally scheduled program (new sketch show called Saturday Night Live), which was supposed to premiere that night was not ready to air. Lewis was interviewed for one hour and fifteen minutes, before Snyder brought out then unknown youngsters Gilda Radner, Laraine Newman, Jane Curtin, Billy Crystal, Chevy Chase, Garrett Morris, and John Belushi for the last fifteen minutes of the show so that the national audience can meet them for the first time.
On September 8, 1980, the name was changed to "Tomorrow Coast To Coast".


Jerry was interviewed and performed here on
11/11/78 Grateful Dead (Saturday Night Live)
3/12/81 Gene Shalit (interviewer)[13]
The Grateful Dead also performed at the Boston Garden, Boston, MA on this date.

12/10/81 Geraldo Rivera
NBC's 20-20.
Jerry tells Geraldo, "Our audience is like people who like licorice.  Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice."

5/7/81 Bob Weir  Ken Kesey  Bill Kreutzmann  Mickey Hart  Bob Weir (Tomorrow Coast To Coast)
They perform Cassidy and Dire Wolf.

4/13/82 Bob Weir (Late Night with David Letterman)
Jerry plays a Takamine guitar.
Jerry and Bob played "Freddie King's "Hideaway", with Paul Schaffer and the NBC band.
"Jerry doing a little schtick with David Letterman. He was on the show that night and was always up for a little comedy. David teaches Jerry how to play Proud Mary."[10]
"Dave tells Jerry which fingers to put where and Jerry says, "that hurts." and Dave says, "well, you have to build callouses like me."[6]

7/7/87 Mickey Hart (The Today Show)[1]
I must say, I haven't seen Jerry appear so happy and animated (ding ding ding!) for a long time.[1]

9/17/87 Bob Weir (Late Night with David Letterman)
Jerry plays the guitar Tiger.
"They play "When I Paint My Masterpiece"... afterwards, they spoke about their new album "In The Dark" and video "So Far", the MSG shows, Woodstock, Egypt."[11]

The band's night-off during a five night stand at Madison Square Garden. In the midst of all this was Bobby's "parlour trick" with the gang and crew lifting Jerry each with two fingers. The sight of an unwitting Jerry is one of the most hilarious images of the band.

"I also recall one of Jerry's appearances they opened with Dave and Jerry playing Scrabble and Dave protested Jerry adding "in" to "truck" to make the word "trucking".[2]

The Dead came on and did "Sugar Magnolia" in a made-for-TV version.(9)

10/13/89 Grateful Dead (Late Night with David Letterman)
They perform I Second That Emotion and play with Late Night Band (theme song, Another Brick In The Wall, I Can't Turn You Loose, Mighty Quinn, Hideaway and Good Lovin' during the commercial breaks.[7]

Friday night October 13 --- Woody Harrelson was also on the show. As Julia Child cooks the duck Dave says that he used to pound his duck during college homecoming. Julia was tanked![8]

10/31/89 Bob Weir, Rona Elliot (interviewer)
Today on NBC[7][12]

1992 David Grisman (Tomorrow Coast To Coast)
Sitting Here in Limbo

NBC Studios, New York, NY
1.)^Unbroken Chain, Vol. 2, No. 6, 1987-08, http://www.gdao.org/zoom?ark=ark%3A%2F38305%2Fg4j966dh%2Fis%2F1&id=825878&c=8
2.)^briandavisradio, comments, 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58HSRyNH5iA
3.)^"National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
4.)^"Rockefeller Center". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service.
5.)^http://www.worldofstock.com/closeups/TNY2205.php
6.)^david bonan, comments, 2010, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58HSRyNH5iA
7.)^Slabicky, Ihor, The Complete Grateful Dead Discography (12th revision), Joseph Jupille Archives.
8.)^sigehead, comments, 2009-07-06, http://www.dead.net/features/news/general-news/dead-letterman
9.)^Allah1975, comments, 2009-04-27, http://www.dead.net/features/news/general-news/dead-letterman
10.)^"Top of the Rock Observation Deck at Rockefeller Center - Tickets and Discounts for Tours, Attractions and Museums
11.)^Uden, Tim, 2010-02-05, Empire State Building vs Top of the Rock, http://www.bug.co.uk/blog/2010/02/05/empire-state-building-vs-top-of-the-rock/
12.)^Slabicky, Ihor, The Compleat Grateful Dead Discographt, 2014-04-28, http://tcgdd.freeyellow.com/tcgdd.txt
13.)^Jackson, Blair; McNally, Dennis; Peters, Stephen; Wills, Chuck, Grateful Dead - The Illustrated Trip, pg. 260.