Here is the latest news from David Gans, producer and host of the Grateful Dead Hour.
Grateful Dead Hour no. 1033
The Grateful Dead Hour is made possible in part this week by: Grateful Dead Productions, announcing release of Road Trips volume 1 number 3. Summer ’71 has a full CD of music from July 31 ’71 at the Yale Bowl and a full disc recorded August 23 of ’71 at the Auditorium Theater in Chicago, plus liner notes and rare photographs. There’s also a bonus disc with two more tracks from the Yale Bowl, and eight more songs from August 4 and 6, 1971. Information, cover art, reviews and message board are online at dead.net Roy Schneider and the Roadside Turtle Rescue. Friendly, funny, smart American songs in a down-home style. On CDBaby.com and royschneider.com
Recent listening
I loaded the iPod with stuff to study and stuff to check on on a five-day tour, and the results have been quite rewarding.
I grabbed a Sandy Bull album, Re-Inventions, at KPFA a couple of weeks ago – my first time really listening to him. Silly me, missing Sandy Bull from my musical consciousness all these years. “Blend” was the one that really nailed me.
Also: Mudcrutch! “Crystal River” really tickled me. The Byrds meet The Doors at Donovan’s house.
Sittin’ on a Gold Mine, the latest from Free Peoples. They’ve added a trombone player since their last CD, and the new one is a whole new level of cool. Three excellent songwriters; Johnny Downer is a killer guitarist; a sort of ’40s roadhouse feel, somehow. I love this band.
I’m editing an interview with Clay Eals, who wrote a biography of Steve Goodman, and multi-instrumentalist Jim Rothermel, who played with Goodman a lot. So I’m listening to a lot of my favorite Goodman CDs and some ones I had never heard before, issued after his death. The Easter Tapes is a radio show, Goodman and Rothermel and a delighted DJ; one of the great treats of this set is “Big Iron,” which Bob Weir covered with Kingfish. Goodman’s version is a whole nother brand of wonderful.
I wish I could remember who sent me “Donovan’s Reef Jam,” from a Country Joe and the Fish Live 1969 show that was released in the ’90s. It’s 38 minutes long, with Jerry Garcia, Mickey Hart, Jorma Kaukonen, and Steve Miller joining in. I need to listen again in a quieter environment, but it seems to me there’s a longish stretch of this jam during which there were multiple disagreements over the “one,” but some thrilling music anyway!
Roy Schneider and the Roadside Turtle Rescue. “Friendly, funny, smart American songs in a down-home style,” as I blurbed his last CD. “Old Friend of Mine” is the one that got me today – a tale of a long-term musical friendship.
Claudia Russell, Ready to Receive. I’ve shared a songwriter stage with Claudia and her partner; this is a full-band CD. The title song and “Just Like You,” an intense song about breast cancer, in particular.
And The Missing Moonlighters, one disc of live and one disc of studio. “Let It Rock” and “Sittin’ on Top of the World” are two songs the GD also covered, which gives me an excuse to play some of this kickass band on the radio soon. Bill Kirchen is a guitar god!
Alex Allan update
Update on Alex’s condition from The Independent:
Spy chief in coma as doctors battle mystery illness
By Kim Sengupta
Saturday, 5 July 2008Britain’s most senior intelligence officer is said to be showing no sign of recovery after being in a coma for five days with a mysterious illness which doctors have so far failed to diagnose.
The police and the security service have ruled out any possibility that Alex Allan, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), was poisoned. Toxicological tests are being carried out, however, to ascertain whether there is anything in his bloodstream which would explain his collapse.
Mr Allan, who briefs the Prime Minister and the Cabinet on security matters, was appointed to his post by Gordon Brown last autumn. He did not come from a security background and was remarkably open about his personal details, posting his address and telephone number in his Facebook-style website. But Scotland Yard said there was nothing to suggest he was the victim of an assassination attempt.
Interview with Steve Goodman biographer
I happened upon this by accident in Chicago.
I am in the process of editing an interview with Clay Eals, author of Steve Goodman: Facing the Music. The program will air on KPFA (94.1 Berkeley CA and on the web) Wednesday, July 16, 8:00pm Pacific time. Clay brought multi-instrumentalist and longtime Goodman collaborator Jim Rothermel with him. We’ll have some rare musical treats as well.
Here’s an online interview with Eals that might make you want to read his book. Goodman was an incandescent musician and a great American who died way too young.