The 2-CD set opens with a pair of classic Dead originals - “Sugaree” and “They Love Each Other” - but the majority of the release is filled with tasteful covers such as J.J. At the time of this performance, the Dead had been on an extended leave of absence from the road, and one can assume that Garcia was eager to stretch out and jam. Clearly, Don’t Let Go and Shining Star demonstrate that Jerry Garcia was about as well-rounded a musician as anyone could ever hope to be.ĭon’t Let Go captures a single night of Garcia and company at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco on May 21, 1976. To fully appreciate the extent of elasticity that the JGB implemented into their performances, Garcia’s estate has unveiled a pair of live releases that accurately depict two distinct and powerful editions of the band. While he explored folk, bluegrass, jazz and blues with several prolific musicians, the Jerry Garcia Band was a pet project that took on a life of its own, becoming a solid extracurricular activity of Garcia’s for two decades. Other highlights include a uniquely structured reading of Solomon Burke's "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love" and Bob Dylan's "Positively 4th Street.When he wasn’t touring the countryside with the Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia stayed busy with a number of different musical excursions.
Its drop-dead cadence blended with some truly psychedelic guitar playing more than compensates for the price of admission - and continues to upon every subsequent visitation. Garcia's longtime friend and occasional bandmate Peter Rowan contributes two compositions to this set, "Mississippi Moon" and "Midnight Moonlight," the former being among the finest works on this collection. What is more, Garcia and company are able to transform these pieces in a way that is unparalleled - yoking them stylistically with respectful abandon. While all of the material Garcia chose to cover with "the Jerry band" was at the very least unique, tracks such as Irving Berlin's "Russian Lullaby" and the Smokey Robinson-penned "When the Hunter Gets Captured By the Game" rate as diverse in any comparison of 20th century popular music. Also worthy of note is the sweet gospel blend provided by backing vocalists Jackie LaBranch and Gloria Jones. Especially tasty are the licks he trades with organist Melvin Seals. This inspiring four-way musical conversation allows Garcia the room to wield, as well as yield, his fluid fretwork in order to assemble an ideal congregational sound from the band. "Ain't No Bread in the Breadbox" is a textbook example. The late '80s and early '90s were sporadic in terms of performance consistency for the Grateful Dead however, "the Jerry band" - as Deadheads refer to this aggregate - proved to be vibrant, funky, and alarmingly agile.
Shining Star is a double-disc anthology featuring Garcia's other band, and is comprised entirely of cover tunes derived from concert recordings made between 19. While the Grateful Dead will always be considered Jerry Garcia's primary outlet, the Jerry Garcia Band often proved the most musically satisfying of the two.