Jerry Garcia & Merl Saunders Winterland Arena - Legal Aid Benefit

LN jg1973-10-02.jgms.all.sbd-alligator.83809.flac1644

 (Reprinted from jgmf.blogspot.com).

I am sure Blair and McNally and all the other sources go into the obscure story of the Legal Aid Benefit. I just re-read the one source I have at hand, John Wasserman's very suspicious-sounding piece in the Chronicle a few days later (1). Sounds like some Angels, facilitated by Sam Cutler and certainly abetted by Garcia, made a lot of dough with this gig, but it's not clear who, nor is it clear that the whole thing was correctly represented to, inter alia, Bill Graham himself. It sounds like an interesting story to dig more deeply into.


Of key interest from the GOTS perspective is the large number of guests. I work with a concept of the Shared Stage, which suggests that within the social networks of musicians, playing together is a deeply important form of linkage. These are "strong ties", as opposed to the "weak ties" represented by linkages such as joint billings and joint album credits. From my Garciacentric vantage, Shared Stage events can be broken down into a few categories, the most important of which are JG-host (Jerry hosting a guest) and JG-guest (Jerry taking a guest shot with someone else). Here we have a number of linkages to Jerry through the former channel in this gig:

• Another mystery trumpeter (see also 12/28/72, 7/5/73, 8/15/74, 9/1/74). Wolfgang's Vault identifies this as Bill Atwood, but that's apparently based on a conjecture by Corry, itself based on a mistaken assumption.
• Martin Fierro guests, for the second known time after 7/19/73.
• Sarah Fulcher sings on a song.
• Roger "Jellyroll" Troy plays bass at the end, and sings a couple of blues numbers.
• Matthew Kelly on harmonica.

I want to love this show. Things are good and reasonably interesting, but it just doesn't move me as much as I thought it should.

Jerry Garcia & Merl Saunders
Winterland Arena
corner of Post and Steiner
San Francisco, CA 94115
October 2, 1973 (Tuesday)
92 min Betty Cantor-Jackson sbd

--(8 tracks, 92:00, presumed complete)--
t01. [0:18] % /It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry [5:21] [1:39]
t02. Finders Keepers [9:35] [1:34]
t03. The Harder They Come [10:42] [1:37]
t04. My Funny Valentine [18:27] [1:09]
t05. That's Alright Mama [11:30] [1:00]
t06. I Second That Emotion [10:12] (1) [1:15]
t07. Sweet Little Angel [7:09] -> I've Got News For You [1:23] [0:16]
t08. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [8:56] (2) [0:13] %

Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
Merl Saunders - keyboards;
John Kahn - el-bass (t07-t08);
 Bill Vitt - drums;
Martin Fierro - saxophone (t02-t06, t08);
Bill Atwood?? - trumpet (t01-t04, t06, t08);
Matthew Kelly - harmonica (t05, t07, t08);
Roger "Jellyroll" Troy - el-bass (t07-t08), vocals (t07);Sara Fulcher - vocals (t05).

(Post submitted by Tim Lynch)