This post first appeared on the Phish.net Forum on April 29, 2022.
When I think about a year these days, it's just a blur of school work and home chores and family activity punctuated by holidays and seasonal adventure. I'm on the middle age plateau where, if one is lucky, not much changes. It's difficult to remember the annual revolutions of youth where turbulent change was a skin-shedding rite. Still, though, when I think of my own, youthful incremental changes as compared to the evolutionary leaps made by the Grateful Dead early in their career, I feel positively stodgy. Each year in their early career finds sounds, songs, and structures on new footing.
Take their composition for one:1965 Quintet -> Fall 1967 Sextet -> Fall 1968 Septet -> Winter 1970 Sextet -> Winter 1971 Quintet -> Fall 1971 Sextet -> Winter 1972 Septet.
That's a lot of changes. The core quintet is what held the organization together. The April 1971 tour, a classic, finds the band having recently shed both Tom Constanten and Mickey. They are lean and mean. Pig's rave ups are classic, especially in Princeton's Dillon Gymnasium: " 'Are you in the refrigerator business? Do you sell dope?' 'Nah, man, I got myseff a Cadillac.' " Or something like that, the infamous "Brooklyn Bridge" rap.
4/29/71 typified the warm sounds that the Grateful Dead could bring to the Fillmores. "Second That Emotion," electric versions of "Dark Hollow" and "Ripple" surround a crushing "Hard to Handle." Pig is still in fine form, muscular, not quite wasting away, and his organ adds a taste of the classic carnival. And the show contains "THAT" jam between "Alligator" and "GDTRFB." This is primal, old school Grateful Dead, and since Pig is barely involved, for a moment, they're a quartet. It's slightly out of tune, and they're exhausted by the encore.
Fast forward one year to 04/29/72, and they're a new outfit touring Europe. Billy is looser, more comfortable finding the pocket after one year's practice on his own again. Keith Godchaux fills a space no one knew needed filling, and it allows Jerry to hang back a bit. He can then spit Fender Strat fire at moments of his own choosing. Phil is, well, Phil. He is simply joyous in the new sound of '72, blasting all over the place at every opportunity. Bobby seems more professional and practiced, too, offering new tunes like "Jack Straw" and Ace's "Black-Throated Wind." At 25, he's in peak vocal form, too.
Pig is the only light that's fading here. It is his sunset tour. While he may have been with the band at the Hollywood Bowl on June 17, 1972, the Europe tour was his swan song. He gave it all he had, but one can hear him fraying at the edges. The bottom has dropped out. When he is on the mic, though, the band still manages to wind into the old rave up sounds, and there are echoes of yore. It isn't nostalgia, it's just that Pig coaxed it out of everyone else. A little bit raunchy, a little bit greasy, all American.
The space of the "Dark Star" contains a "Tiger" passage, an arrow pointing to 1973. The "Sugaree" echoes Jerry's best solo efforts, the Hunter/Garcia machine in full swing. This is a tight band that evolved an entire lifetime in one year, shed a skin layer to become more nimble, even incorporating a female vocalist. The chauvinism of 1971's tour with NRPS suggests acid saloons and gun fights, slightly out of tune. 1972 is a posh performance, the Bakersfield sound has downed the punch, and they're performing in a symphonic hall, velvet seated audience instead of dancehall throw down.
It's very difficult to describe. By the time they arrived in Veneta the following August, Pig Pen left back home, "Playin' " had opened even wider, and "Bird Song" found the band evolving again, seeking ever higher. As Jerry opines to someone in the audience after "Greatest Story," "You know how it is, we can't do the same stuff forever." Well, you can say that again, Jerry.
Don't take my word for it, compare for yourselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment