1971-04-26 | New Riders of the Purple Sage

1:16:02
SBD
Transferrer:
Bill Gadsden
SHNID:
nrps1971-04-26.sbd.unk.murphy.gadsden.quimbo.004991.shnf
Source:
SBD > MR
Lineage:
MR > C > CDRx? > PlexWriter 8/2/20 > Exact Audio Copy > SHN
Taper Notes:
View NotesJohn "Marmaduke" Dawson (John Collins Dawson IV) - acoustic guitar, electric guitar, vox
David Nelson (David Brian Nelson) - electric guitar, acoustic guitar, mandolin, vox
Jerry "Captain Trips" Garcia (Jerome John Garcia) - pedal steel guitar, banjo
Dave Torbert (David Edwin Torbert) - bass guitar, acoustic guitar, b.vox
Spencer Dryden (Spencer Charles Dryden) - drums, percussion  

Bill Gadsden Notes (2000-11-23):  
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- The Story of the Tapes *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
--"Who's the Dead freak?"  With that innocuous question the story of these tapes begins.  It was the summer of 1973, between attending 6/10/73 at R.F.K.Stadium and the Watkins Glen soundcheck.  A friend of mine was listening to "Live/Dead" at his parent's house.  A local cabinetmaker was working at the house and asked the question.  He mentioned that he had a bunch of Dead tapes from the Fillmore East back at his house.  For about a year, three 90 minute composites of the 4/71 shows had made their way around taping circles in the Princeton, N.J. area, but not the complete shows.  Within hours, Peter Kafer and I were at the cabinet shop with our reel to reel decks.  What we found when we got there were 11 master reels of the 4/71 shows, along with a host of other 1st and 2nd generation tapes from the Fillmore East of other bands, but also including 9/20/70.  Also, there were the 1st generation reels from 11/23/70 at the Anderson Theater.
--The 4/26-29/71 master reels were recorded by an individual named Buddy Miller, a local N.J. area musician.  Buddy has become a very well respected, and recorded, Nashville guitarist.  He is currently touring with Emmylou Harris, and can be heard on her current CD, "Red Dirt Girl."  Buddy was a friend of the cabinetmaker and, since he traveled a great deal, the tapes resided at the cabinet shop.  Buddy was set up to record these shows by a friend who was a member of the Fillmore East soundcrew.  
--These shows were NOT recorded in the same manner as the February '70, the May 15, '70 show, and the material from the September 18, 19, and 20, '70 shows.  For the April '71 shows, a feed was run off the soundboard, which was upstairs in a balcony box, stageleft.  There is a good picture of the soundbooth in Amalie Rothchild's book, "Live at the Fillmore East."  The feed went from the soundboard into a broom closet nearby, literally a broom closet.  Buddy remembers a bucket and mop!  The feed was mixed down on two little Shure line mixers and recorded on a middle of the line Sony deck onto BASF 90 minute reels at 7 1/2 ips.  There was also a little consumer Dolby B unit used, which is why these recordings seem so 'bright'.
--We taped everything that summer of 1973 onto BASF reels.  The following fall, Peter took his reels with him to California to begin his freshman year at U.C.Berkeley.  From here he met various West coast tapers such as Bob Menke and Rob Bertrando, and the tapes began their circulation on the West coast.  I took mine to Trinity College in Connecticut and began to circulate them out East.  
--Two years later, we wanted to retape the original masters, since we now had somewhat better decks and Maxell reel to reel tape had come on the market.  We recopied everything.  At this time, Buddy Miller simply gave us many of the Fillmore and Anderson Theater reels for essentially the cost of blank tape.  His own musical interests had moved on.  Of the 4/71 masters, we were given 6 of the 11 reels and Buddy retained the other 5.  I've had these reels in my possession since then.  
--Why has it taken so long for these reels to enter the digital world?  
--Basically because I dropped out of the whole tape collecting scene about 1980 due to family, career, etc.  
--However, two of my old taping buddies, Bernie Tenenbaum and Chris Zingg, implored me to get my reels digitized before the analog reels degraded.  Fortunately they had been safely stored in cardboard boxes, away from heat and light, in the back of a closet.  I knew nothing of the digital world, didn't have a DAT or CD machine, had no idea what a tree nor a 'B and P' was, and was absolutely amazed at how big the community of collectors had become.  When I effectively left it at the end of the '70s, it was really only a handful of people.  
--This past Spring I reconnected with Buddy Miller for the first time in over 20 years.  He actually was able to dig up 2 of the 5 original BASF masters that he had hung onto, and mailed them up to me.  With 8 of the original 11 now in hand, and my complete set of Maxell 1st gen. copies to fill in the blanks for the still missing 3 masters, I digitized the shows.  The missing reels, #'s 4, 5, and 6, run from 4/27 "Hard To Handle" through the pre-break portion of "Bird Song" on 4/28.  For this I used the Maxells.  Along the way, I was directed to Jim Wise for advice and assistance in digitizing and getting the shows out into the community.  
--I transferred the shows to CD incorporating the New Riders sets, instead of treating them discreetly.  I really believe that the performances should be considered in their entirety.  Back in the '70s when these shows got circulated, the Riders sets got ignored after awhile, which was a shame.  They are a lot of fun to listen to, and a great warmup for the Dead show to follow.  
--The reels were played on a Revox A77 and digitized directly onto an Alesis Masterlink ML9600, sampling at 16 bit, 44.1 k.  The Alesis was a wonderful solution for someone in my position, sitting on a bunch of reels.  It removed the intermediate step of re-recording everything onto DAT.  For those who are curious about the Masterlink, check it out at www.alesis.com.  
--One final bit of information that makes this whole 27 year story all the more fascinating is that these 2 track masters were used for the recent 16 track release, "Ladies and Gentlemen....The Grateful Dead." While the 16 track recordings had Bill Graham's introduction and his tribute/tirade speech before In the Midnight Hour on 4/29, it was not nearly as strong and present as it was on the 2 tracks for some reason.  Through an introduction facilitated by Jim Wise, Jeffrey Norman and David Lemieux asked if I could send out the 2 tracks to be used on the release.  With 5 days to go before the production CDs were due at the printing plant, I FedEx'ed them out and they were used for those two Bill Graham pieces.  A wonderful chapter after all these years.  
--There has always been a question about 4/25/71.  The BASF master labelled #1 begins with "Big Boss Man" from 4/26.  Back in 1973 we saw nothing of any taping of 4/25's show.  I have asked Buddy about it and, after 29 years, he doesn't believe he recorded it, which would be consistent with 4/26 being #1.  Just a guess: since the record company was there to record the run, our surreptitious broom closet tapers just lay low the first night to make sure it was clear to try to tape.  I know there has been a high-gen fragment of 4/25 that has circulated for years that supposedly came from cassette masters that were also made of these shows.  While anything is possible, if this were true, one would have to wonder why no material from cassette has ever surfaced of any of the other 4 nights.  The mystery remains, but one day I am gonna have to put this mystery to rest.  
--I hope everyone enjoys these new and improved versions of the 4/71 Fillmore East shows.  They have always been the heart of my Dead collection and many others as well, I suspect.  
--Bill Gadsden, 11/23/00

Bill Gadsden Notes (2001-02-20):  
--About three months ago I discovered that the New Riders' sets, just the Riders, from all five nights had been taped on a reel to reel, separately and distinctly from Buddy Miller's taping effort.  With this alternative source I can now supply the missing first half of the NRPS set from 4/27, and the complete sets from 4/25 and 4/26.  
--Bill Gadsden, 2/20/01  

vg NOTES (2026-03-27):  
--Mega Thanks to Murphy, Buddy Miller, Bill Gadsden, Jim Wise & anyone else who had a hand in recording, transferring, procuring & sharing out this New Riders Of the Purple Sage 1971 show.  Absolutely Appreciated!!  
--this New Riders Of the Purple Sage from this show was separated from shnid=4991 so that it could live in the New Riders Of the Purple Sage collection on LMA by itself (& not be subject to 'stream only' when it was paired with the GD sets from the evening, etc.)
--corrected some song titles toward how they appear on the original albums...in the case of any covers of other artists' tunes, I deferred to how New Riders Of the Purple Sage first listed them on their release, etc.  
--this venue sadly no longer exists...it opened as the "Fillmore East" on 1968-03-08 & closed its doors on 1971-06-27...its history was that it was designed by Harrison Wiseman in the Medieval Revival style & built in 1925 as a Yiddish theater named the "Commodore Theater" (1925 thru 1927-08-31);  then became a movie theatre named "Loew's Commodore Theater" (1927-09-01 thru mid-1960s);  then "Village Theater" (aka "Village Theatre") (mid-1960s thru 1969-03-07);  then "Fillmore East" (1968-03-08 thru 1971-06-27);  then "Villageast" (1972-11-17 thru 1974-12-06);  then "NFE Theatre ("New Fillmore East")", but was renamed "Village East" at some point supposedly due to objections from Bill Graham over the use of the Fillmore name (1974-12-07 thru 1975);  then it was closed 1975-1980;  then "The Saint" (Fall 1980 thru 1988-05-02), an early gay superclub;  then it was closed down again & was used sporadically for a couple of years for live events;  then it stood empty for a few years until the auditorium was demolished in around 1996;  then became an Emigrant Savings Bank at some point (certainly by 2006 thru 2013-04-21);  then, as of 2013-04-22, the former lobby building is owned by Apple Bank, which has a branch at street level, & the rest of the interior of the auditorium has been demolished & replaced with an apartment complex, Hudson East, with its entrance at 225 East 6th Street.  The building at 105 Second Avenue is now part of the East Village/Lower East Side Historic District, created in October 2012
--https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fillmore_East
--https://cinematreasures.org/theaters/527
--https://cinematreasures.org/theaters/527/photos
--https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2021/03/22/the-short-life-of-a-1960s-east-village-rock-venue/?fbclid=IwAR2bdPokXJGXnFlm3umr2_DpPPegIxzKlXjxd7wSd7AHIK81bsFF5YA2C6Q
--added pics of the venue & the building in its other incarnations