3/25/72: jerry garcia & friends, academy of music, new york, NY.

recently, i revisited the seven-night spring of 1972 run at the academy of music. the tapes—a mix of betty cantor-jackson soundboards and varying quality audience recordings—offer the listener a wealth of great performances, including a number of significant jams that demonstrate the band’s progression toward their europe ’72 style.

the most unusual and famous of the academy shows is the hell’s angels benefit gig on the 25th, where the dead backed bo diddley for the first set. the show kicks off with seventy-five minutes of blues tunes, medleys, and jams, highlighted by diddley’s syncopated guitar licks and signature vocals. garcia plays backseat to mr. diddley for a spell, but eventually joins in and ushers the band into some jamming that is crackling with energy. it’s clear, listening to this portion of the recording, that the dead were having a mighty fun time playing with the blues legend. pig graciously sat the first set out.

jerry opened the dead portion of the evening with "this is dedicated to the hell's angels and the united states of america.” the set started with two one-time-only jerry garcia band covers—how sweet it is, and are you lonely for me—that he’d been doing with merl saunders, before reverting to standard grateful dead fare. the early formative version of how sweet it is is something else. the second offering, the freddie scott 1967 r&b chartbuster, is even more of a treat. what a gas it is to hear jerry and donna belting out the chorus, not to mention garcia’s masterful soloing. next, pigpen returns us to the good old grateful dead with a rollicking next time you see me. the vibe is energetic throughout, highlighted by some fine solo work from jerome. after a fabulous country-picked brown-eyed women, the band launches into smokestack lightening. the last smokestack performed with mr. ron mckernan at the helm is excellent, and surely one of the finest versions committed to tape; it’s long, bluesy, and contains an amazing lead by garcia toward the end. a few other highlights of the set include: a sizzling sitting on top of the world, with jerry’s bakersfield-style guitar licks tearing up everything in sight; a beautiful looks like rain with pedal steel; particularly upbeat versions of bertha and mr. charlie; a powerful early take on black-throated wind; a deliberate and nuanced deal; and a fearlessly improvisational playing in the band, offering a few hints of what lay in store for the hunter-weir tune in the fall of the year. the band follows their beautiful take on playing in the band with a brief (22-minute) foray into turn on your lovelight, with sir pig’s exquisite rap leading the way. the show closes out with casey jones. phil introduces the tune with a nod to the angels “i think we’re gonna finish off with this one folks…this one is dedicated to all of us who are in jail.”

listening to the tapes of these march gigs one can’t fail to appreciate the new expansive direction that has taken hold of the band. on a bittersweet note, the academy shows and the upcoming european tour will become pigpen’s swansong, as he was dead within a year of the tour’s end. somehow, though, the combination of the old giving its final heave and the new looking ahead to fresh musical frontiers gave many of the ’72 shows an added spark. this night at the cozy run-down academy of music is no exception.

https://archive.org/details/gd1972-03-25.133592.sbd.miller.flac1644/gd72-03-25d3t05.flac