In Grateful Music's 30 Dead Shows in 30 Days We Have Yet to Tackle the 90's. 9-20-90 MSG NY,NY

By far the most divisive, yet agreed upon, topic in GD history is the quality of the shows in the 90's. Well, let's start out with one of the first that featured Bruce and Vince and some consider it one of the band's swan song. Let's take a listen to 9-20-90, the last of a six-night stand at MSG before their final trip across the pond.

The 90's were a complicated era for the Dead, to say the least. Still reeling from the coma years and the mass influx of fans with the massive success of "Touch of Grey", the band lost their longest-sitting keys player and his amazing vocal skills and growing songwriting talents. The boys responded to this in typical fashion, instead of taking time off and regrouping, the bus kept on rolling. Some say to the detriment and others say to the inevitable end of the Grateful Dead.

There are things you can replace and others you can not, time has come to weigh those things, this space is getting hot 9-20-90 MSG NY,NY  

This show is the end of a six-night run at MSG before the boys went to Europe for what was to be the final time. Vince had been broken in, with miniscule preparation, for the huge weight he had taken on. Some say he didn't have the talent to start with but was "good enough" and could handle the high harmonies. Others say with a little more practice before getting thrown in the fire, he would've come out of the other side looking better. Regardless, not to speak ill of the dead, Brent's shoes were huge and Vince did the best he could to fill them with little notice and even less practice. So this run featured Bruce Hornsby, whose grand piano filled out the sound but you can tell at this early date, even he wasn't completely road-ready. Even with chaos on the keys, this show is a gem. And both keys and piano throw down some heavy shit at this show. Listen for Vince during the tremendous "China>Rider" and he's not afraid to jump in, he's going for it. It's just sometimes he couldn't get there. Bruce, who has long been seen as a saving hero, was still getting his feet wet too. He throws down some tremendous solos and his fills were timely and original but you can tell some of the songs he wasn't exactly dead set on. The Grateful Dead may be the most empathic set of players to ever play together and that is why so many guest artists played with them successfully. This is where the jazz comparison comes in because they let everyone solo. Listen for this during "Althea" when Bobby's guitar is growling like a wild cat and during "It's All Over Now" when the whole band round robin's solos and everyone gets a shot and it plays admirably. This is one of those sets that looks bland on paper but the playing is top-notch all through the first set. There were some vocal, ahem, "issues" but hey, everyone can be forgetful. But onto the heat, the second set.

After a fun first set, the band comes charging out of the gate for the last set of the six nights before they left for Europe and the lucky ones who were there won't ever forget it. They kick off the set with a "Truckin'" that has Vince's calliope organ playing a great little spray of notes that give the whole song a little carnival party time feel to the song. It turns it from a road-weary diary back to the anthemic," let's keep this bus rolling" sing-a-long that we all know it can be sometimes. It goes into probably one of the hottest "China>Rider"'s of the nineties and up there in any real discussion of the pairing. After the three song run of virtuosity, Bobby calls "Man Smart, Women Smarter" and while this was never my favorite song, it's a good pre-drums song because it's basically a tight little groove with some words on top that makes it fun. Not a lot of fire is expected and that's why this band is great. It takes this little Harry Bellafonte ditty and puts some grit on it and serves it up to the drummers. 

After the "Drums>Space", the fireworks start for real. The opening of the set was no fluke, the band came out of Space with that theme that makes the crowd explode to this day. This is one of the top nineties' "Dark Star"s that the band played and the second half of this set never slowed down. They went back and reprised the "Playin' in the Band" from the night before and then went back to finish the almost eighteen minute silky smooth "Dark Star". The first half clocks in around twelve minutes, then the reprise, then another fifteen minutes of a dark, angular, silky journey that Phil was wrapping his tentacles all over as he and Jerry chased each other through the stratosphere. The keys, collectively, all shone during this version, adding a nice cushion and a leading spacey vibe that makes the best versions so hot. At a time when the band almost drifted back into space as Jerry and Vince played off each other, it sounds like a "Stella Blue" might be in the cards but Bobby deals from the bottom and pulls out an ace. "Throwing Stones" comes roaring out of the ethos and this version slays like only the best versions do. After a ten minute rendition, Jerry calls for a "Touch of Grey" that lasts about eleven minutes. The boys came to play that night. All through the second set, tunes were expanded and explored and everyone was given room to play. After a rare-ish closing "Touch of Grey" the boys come back for a "Lovelight" encore.  This show is one of the best of the bands catalog, not just the nineties. It shows that when they were listening and gave themselves up to the groove they could throw down at any old time. Hearing Bruce's leading tone during "Throwing Stones" would've been a reason to feel nothing but joy that night after a tremendously successful run that set that them up for a successful tour of Europe and this show is a must for any real collection.

Greg Heffelfinger

*This show was released as Road Trips 2 Vol.1

Grateful Dead

MSG NY,NY

9-20-90

First Set:

1.  Feel Like a Stranger

2.  Althea

3.  It's All Over,Now

4.  Ramble on Rose

5.  El Paso

6.  Brown-Eyed Women

7.  Greatest Story Ever Told

8.  U.S. Blues

Set Two:

1.  Truckin'>

2.  China Cat Sunflower>

3.  I Know You Rider>

4.  Man Smart, Women Smarter>

5.  Drums>

6.  Space>

7.  Dark Star>

8.  Playin' Reprise>

9.  Dark Star>

10.Throwing Stones>

 11.Touch of Grey

Encore:

12. Turn on Your Lovelight

  
© 2016 Grateful Music LLC

The Hot Seat: The Grateful Dead's most dangerous gig and the cast of characters who occupied it.

 The Hot Seat: The Grateful Dead's most dangerous gig and the cast of characters who occupied it. 

The first and most influential, though not the longest, serving keyboard player didn't start playing with the Grateful Dead. He started with Mother McRee's Uptown Jug Champions.

Ron"Pigpen"McKernan, was one of the original members of the core group. He was friend's with Jerry and worked at Dana Morgan's Music Store. Bob Weir and Billy Kreutzmann joined in and shortly after, Phil Lesh rounded out what became the Warlocks. "Blue Ron", his nickname before Pigpen was the son of a Bay Area DJ therefore had access to tons of blues records and was considered to be the leader,frontman and singer of the nascent Grateful Dead. Pigpen was an early proponent of the switch to electric instruments and was already a hard drinker. His drug of choice was alcohol which didn't fit in with the rest of the group. He didn't partake in psychedelics and by 1966, Jerry was asserting himself more and the material was quickly advancing beyond Pigpen's skill level. Through the late sixties, he played Vox organ and contributed songs such as"Midnight Hour" show stopping "Lovelight" He came down with biliary cirrhosis of the liver (which was congenital and not related to his drinking) which kept him off tour in 71' and his last show with the band was June 17,1972. He passed away from a gastrointestinal hemorrhage on March 8,1973. At the funeral, Garcia said," After Pigpen's death, we all knew this was the end of the original Grateful Dead".

Tom Constenten has always been a kind of enigmatic genius.  He joined the Air Force because the draft was in full swing and used his leave passes to come play with the band. He played prepared piano, keyboards, and most notably harpsichord. To hear his magic, listen "Mountains of the Moon" on Aoxomoxoa. He was never given a security clearance because of his communist leanings and used that time to eat LSD. He basically stepped off an air base and onto the stage. He played on Anthem of the Sun and knew what Weir meant when he said, he needed the sound of "heavy air" but T.C. had stopped doing drugs and joined a burgeoning movement called Scientology that he wanted to tell people about. The reason he never made a huge footprint, in his eyes, was that tonally, the keys just couldn't stand up to the amplified string instruments. He would go on to say a piano would've done wonders because that's what he learned to play and all those other instruments each had their own actions. Pigpen and him became good friends because they both eschewed drug use. He was also well-liked by Billy the K but Billy also said in his memoir "he had this thing where, for whatever reason, he would perform at rehearsals pretty darn well, but then, when we'd be in front of an audience, it was like he froze or something. He couldn't let go.  His first show was Nov. 23, 1968 but left when the band started to explore their folk and country roots in the seventies. He is also the only keys player still alive besides Bruce Hornsby.

Everyone knows the story of how the band put out the call for a new pianist(which included Merle Saunders and Ned Lagin) but Keith was too shy to ask so Donna marched up and said, "Here's your new keyboard player" His first show was Oct. 19, 1971. Keith was well-versed in jazz and boogie woogie piano and at his audition the band threw every curveball they could at him and he knocked them out of the park. Onstage he used a Steinway grand from 72-74 to which he added a Fender Rhodes electric piano in 1973. That was the sound of Wake of the Flood. He used this setup until mid-77, then switched models but always stuck to the acoustic piano. This was part of the reason he was beginning to get pushed out of the band. Keeping his piano tuned was a full-time job and his piano was the reason the Giza Pyramid shows were shelved for so long.  Exacerbated by a growing heroin addiction and epic fights with his wife. The most famous of these was the time they had a demolition derby, driving into each other at Club Front. This was annoying but tolerable but by 78, he committed the one unpardonable sin and that was mimicking Jerry's lead lines instead of playing his own melodies. No matter how well he fit, he couldn't stay. It didn't help that his wife Donna, was wailing all over the songs. Shortly after he left, he cleaned up and after playing some JGB gigs he started the Heart of Gold band. He passed away in an automobile accident in 1980.

 Brent Mydland was aiming to be a band teacher when he started playing in rock and roll bands. Ironically, he covered "Morning Dew" and "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" with his early bands. He played his first gig with the Grateful Dead on April 22,1979 after two weeks of rehearsal. He was the longest-tenured keys player in the band's history. Unlike Godchaux, Mydland was all about finding new sounds. He played many different instruments but the one he was most famous for was the Hammond organ. He played the B-3 with ten rotating Leslie speakers and his instrument was played at the Fare Thee Well shows by Jeff Chimenti. The main thing about Brent was he never got over the "new guy" phase and Weir would tease him mercilessly. For a sensitive soul it was a little too much. What is less known about Brent was his songwriting contributions. He wrote or co-wrote songs such as "Far From Me", and "Easy to Love You" on Alabama Getaway. On In the Dark, he co-wrote "Hell in a Bucket" along with "Tons of Steel".  The next album saw more mature themes such as on "I Will Take You Home". He penned the environmental song,"We Can Run" and "Just a Little Light". He also had songs that were never recorded but he firmly made his presence felt with," Never Trust a Woman" and co-wrote the song"Revolutionary Hamstrung Blues" with Phil and his childhood friend Bobby Peterson.  Mydland's high, gravelly voice fit in perfectly with the other vocalists to create three-part harmonies and his voice added gravitas to "Let the Good Times Roll". He would make up new verses during"Little Red Rooster" and sang lead on covers such as "Hey Pocky Way", "Dear Mr. Fantasy, "Hey Jude" and most famously,"The Weight". Creepily, the last time he ever sung with the band his last line was "I gotta go but my friends can stick around".  He was known mainly as a drinker but began turning to harder drugs due to severe depression. He had a court date for a DUI coming up and was afraid of going to jail but he died of a speedball on July 26,1990.

"... He rode hard, he drank hard, he played with the Dead. He also played with death and lost. He will be conspicuous in his absence."-Robert Hunter

After Brent's death, the band was in dire straits. After auditioning several other players, they picked Welnick. Mostly because of his ability to sing high harmonies. The first show he played he almost locked up until fans put him at ease with signs like,"Yo, Vinnie" which he named his publishing company after. His had some good songs and he had some bad songs, whichever you floats your boat. Bathrooms did start overflowing during "Samba in the Rain" but I thought "Way to Go Home" could rock, if Jerry got behind it. He was joined by Bruce Hornsby for about one hundred shows before he got the hang of it by himself, which some would say he never did. He was diagnosed with cancer and emphysema right before the 1995 tour but decided to do the tour then get surgery. After Jerry died, Vince toured with RatDog and tried to commit suicide on the tour bus on the road to Monterey,CA. After treatment and therapy, he joined Second Sight with Bob Bralove and Missing Man Formation. He was also in one of the first iterations of Phil & Friends in 1998 and the Mickey Hart Band. After the Grateful Dead Family Reunion, to which he was not invited, he went into a tailspin. It was billed as "all the surviving members of the Grateful Dead". He couldn't come to terms with getting no invitation and after battling depression he killed himself by cutting his own throat( very symbolic to me) on June 2, 2006.

Needless to say, each member had their strengths and weaknesses. They all brought different things to the table and together these men, all fell in the line of duty serving the music. The Grateful Dead was a demanding mistress that would claim Jerry too. And for the record there were some people who played keys that are still alive. Namely T.C. and Ned Lagin but those are the exception to the curse of the "hot seat".  Many people, including the band, felt like it was never the same without Pigpen. Those were their golden years. Some claim Keith and others who got on the bus in the Eighties will stand behind Brent forever. It's all subjective. The one thing that isn't is that  there would be no band without Ron"Pigpen"McKernan and he was the band's contribution to the "27 club" Well, whoever you love, "if you get confused listen to the music play."

Written by:Greg Heffelfinger

© 2016 Grateful Music LLC