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Jerry Garcia Band

Jerry Garcia Band - Jerry Garcia Band Audio CD

A fair review of the Jerry Garcia Band "Jerry Garcia Band" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Jerry Garcia Band reviews here, or go back to the Jerry Garcia Band tabs.

Band: Jerry Garcia Band
Title: Jerry Garcia Band
Rating:

Release Date: 1991-08-27
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Way You Do the Things You Do 2: Waiting for a Miracle 3: Simple Twist of Fate 4: Get Out of My Life 5: My Sisters and Brothers 6: I Shall Be Released 7: Dear Prudence 8: Deal 9: Stop That Train 10: Se�or (Tales of Yankee Power) 11: Evangeline 12: Night They Drove Old Dixie Down 13: Don't Let Go 14: That Lucky Old Sun (Just Rolls Around Heaven All Day) 15: Tangled Up in Blue

this smokes
turns out it's not only the best garcia album i have, but one of the best albums i've heard period ever. i have plenty of jgb live, sufficient probably, but after reading some reviews here thought if it was good garcia, it would be worth having another, especially used for $20. one rocking song after another, reggae, country rock, thumping rockabilly, rocking blues, dylan, peter tosh, the band, the beatles: dear prudence for chrissake. and on "don't let go," a three-movement tour de force starting with lilting hand-jive-like groove that they just lock into, then a guitar solo that veers from duane allman to santana to charlie parker to, of course, garcia (yet all garcia), with graceful harmonies from jones and labranche, then smoothly back into the still pumping groove. finally, one rave-up to another: "tangled up in blue" (though no match for the rave achieved by dylan with larry campbell c. late 90s, but a credible effort in the same direction). who knew, this late in his career ('90) he was smoking like this? two discs, a two-set, all evening garcia party. what else do you need?.

hHow does a new set of disks get scratched?
but when it got to track 3 it started to skip. I love the music. I looked at the recording surface and it had at least one example of every kind of damage. It had thin deep scratches and two wear marks that are about a mm wide. There are about seven serious scratches. I haven't even looked at the second disk yet.
I had faith in the mail order system until now.

good stuff, but far from the best JGB recording
I loved going to see Jerry's band in many incarnations throughout the 1980s, but his voice and his energy gradually decreased into the 1990s. If you want primo Jerry Garcia live, buy Live at the KeyStone vol 1 or vol 2 and hear Jerry G and Merle Saunders in 1973 in their prime. Years of touring took their toll. His voice on much of this JGB release is very weak and rough compared to his earlier years, and these band members are no match for the great JG Bands of the mid 1970s. Really, skip this one and buy the KeyStone recordings. There is no comparison.

Some great tracks
It is 140 minutes and the sound quality is very good. This CD comes from a series of shows the "Jerry Garcia Band" did at the Warfield in Sam Francisco in 1990. The band consists of John Kahn on bass, Melvin Seals on organ, a drummer and two back up singers.

There are some great tracks on this CD. Garcia and the band are at the best when they do long, enegetic, flowing tunes, like Dear Prudence and Don't Let Go. Dear Prudence is the Beatles tune and is done in that long jam style of the late sizties. It just moves and flows in a marvelous way.

Don't Let Go is a 1950's R&B tune that Jerry Garcia has been playing since 1976 in the various incarnations of the Jerry Garcia Band. By the time this album was released, he had been playing the song for 15 years and has really fine tuned it into a 17 minute masterpiece.

The one Grateful Dead tune the band does in Deal. Even though the Dead has done this song much better, this version of Deal is still very good, with a blistering guitar solo.

As for the rest of the songs on the album, they are all covers of other peoples music. In most cases, the originals are better than Garcia's (except for the nice Garcia solo thrown in here and there).

For instance, Garcia's version of the Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, isn't as good at The Band's original version, or the two live versions the Band has out on record. Garcia's version of Los Lobos' Evangaline is especially weak. I would rather hear the Los Lobos version any day. It is played with much more energy and is much more interesting. And, I still prefer Peter Tosh's version of Stop That Train.

Dylan and Dead just don't go together. I don't know why, but 2 of the most important artists in rock history just do not meld. The Dylan and Dead live album is just a horrible mess. And here, Garcia does not do justice to the 4 Dylan songs he plays. The only one that comes off decent is Tangled Up In Blue. But that song from early in Dylan's career is so good, it is almost impossible to mess up.

I know people are going to be mad at me (at mark my review as "not helpful") for saying some derogatory things about Garcia. There are some excellent tracks on this set, but it shouldn't be ignored that there are some songs that aren't as good as the original versions by the original artists, and at times they can be a little boring and tedious.

This CD is currently out of print (in 2007), but I think a new "special edition" will be available soon. .

a big mix of nice songs
Jerry Garcia is playing the guitar solos on all these songs, with just drums, a bass guitar, organ or keyboards, and two backup singers to back up his lead vocals, but the skill with which the music just keeps coming, song after song, is impressive. I like Dylan so much that having four of his songs in a live performance is more than I need to be pickled pink. The vocals are geared to saying what he means with a bit of variation from tunes that I am familiar with, but his voice is something I've grown used to, the price I pay to find out what all these songs are about. The guitar is a great instrument when someone really knows how to play it, which Jerry did well. He added a lot to these songs. When you want a beautiful part to come along, just wait for it.

You can see a complete list of all Jerry Garcia Band discography, or go back to the Jerry Garcia Band tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.