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Topic: I SEE the MCI, does he PLAY it? |
Lane Gray
From:
Topeka, KS
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Posted 3 Apr 2014 4:40 pm |
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Okay, I've not had the opportunity to see all of this, and I'm likely to walk around when a two hour music video plays, so does anyone know if this July 1987 Dead show features Jerry PLAYING the steel?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFpSbAzhgdg
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2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects |
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Barry Blackwood
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Posted 3 Apr 2014 4:53 pm
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| Would you like all of us to check it for you now, or maybe later? |
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Lane Gray
From:
Topeka, KS
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Posted 3 Apr 2014 5:38 pm
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I know that several songs are missing from the video (including the entire Dylan set), and I know that several on here are Dead fans. Thought I'd see if the intersection of interest would have insight.
_________________
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects |
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Pete Burak
From:
Portland, OR USA
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Posted 3 Apr 2014 5:48 pm
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He plays it on a coupla Dylan tunes, or, at least one, as I recall.
There is a pic of him playing the MCI in the "Garcia playing an Emmons" thread.
The vid is online somewhere, but not one of his better days on Steel. He was near death in a coma less than a year before that gig. |
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Bud Angelotti
From:
Larryville, NJ, USA
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David Mason
From:
Cambridge, MD, USA
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Posted 4 Apr 2014 6:37 pm
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I be one of those callous, cruel people who feel that Jerry was never the same after he died the first time. in fact, I don't think that well of his playing after the "opium" took over, 1978->->->
For some obvious reasons, it took an immeasurable bit of "nuancing" for anybody to even try to teach Jerry Garcia that "getting high is bad for you." I hold (some of) the 1972-74 "Dark Stars" to be a pinnacle of collective improvisation and I really prefer to keep them walled-off from yet another sloppy "Sugar Magnolia" et alia. And I won't go see the Rolling Stones or skinnydip no more, neither.  I'm still tiptoeing around the notion that old musicians usually, eventually, begin to play worse - no amount of gravitas or maturity can ever truly compensate for a fundamentally limp noodle. |
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Riley Hart
From:
South Carolina, USA
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Posted 5 Apr 2014 6:55 am
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| Bud's link is great. Played it in the background yesterday. Managed to get a couple of hours recorded, but even though the sound is wonderful, it's already been compressed to mp3, so careful how you deal with it. |
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Lane Gray
From:
Topeka, KS
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Posted 7 Apr 2014 9:16 am
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| David Mason wrote: |
I be one of those callous, cruel people who feel that Jerry was never the same after he died the first time. in fact, I don't think that well of his playing after the "opium" took over, 1978->->->
For some obvious reasons, it took an immeasurable bit of "nuancing" for anybody to even try to teach Jerry Garcia that "getting high is bad for you." I hold (some of) the 1972-74 "Dark Stars" to be a pinnacle of collective improvisation and I really prefer to keep them walled-off from yet another sloppy "Sugar Magnolia" et alia. And I won't go see the Rolling Stones or skinnydip no more, neither. I'm still tiptoeing around the notion that old musicians usually, eventually, begin to play worse - no amount of gravitas or maturity can ever truly compensate for a fundamentally limp noodle. |
David, I think there's something to be said for the truth lying somewhere in the middle, or at least varying with the individual.
Tom will never play Grandfather's Clock like he did on Folkways with the Gents, nor even like on Cellar Door with the Scene. But over the years as he's listened to other people (at one point he was a Ron Carter fan, dunno if he still is, probably) and taken influences where they've come, and paid attention to melodic outcomes, I'd say as a musician he hasn't lost much if anything (we're gonna jam at my wedding, we'll see what the recent years have done).
BUT, Eddie Adcock had his picking hand randomized by Parkinson's (at least partially remediated by surgically implanted electrodes), and either a mild stroke or just arthritis led Sonny to quit playing banjo (My fingers couldn't bring my thoughts to the strings anymore, so I quit rather than fight the frustration).
I've watched/heard other musicians slowed by father time develop greater insight and effectiveness that made up completely for the slowing of the hands. I've also seen some unable to play.
_________________
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects |
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Herb Steiner
From:
Spicewood TX 78669
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Posted 7 Apr 2014 11:00 am
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| Lane Gray wrote: |
I've watched/heard other musicians slowed by father time develop greater insight and effectiveness that made up completely for the slowing of the hands. I've also seen some unable to play. |
I can vouch for that. I recently listened to tapes of some live shows my band did in the 1980's and I can't even conceive of some of the stuff I played then, much less recreate it. The synapses and muscular response simply don't fire as fast as they used to.
I make up for the loss of speed and blaze by playing in a more vocal and, for want of a better word, introspectively melodic style. I'm almost 67 years of age now, and I predominantly play what I feel is appropriate for "grown ups," with kids my own age.
Sorry to hear about Eddie and Sonny. As a bluegrasser in the early 60's, I had all the Gents albums and all the Osbornes as well, collected live show tapes with Rick Shubb, still have my 'grass vinyl, etc. I was on a package tour with Eddie and Martha back in 1980 and loved meeting and getting to know him a little. Lots of 'grass chat on that trip.
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My rig: Infinity and Telonics.
Son, we live in a world with walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with steel guitars. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? |
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Lane Gray
From:
Topeka, KS
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Posted 7 Apr 2014 1:22 pm
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Herb, Eddie has regained MOST of the speed in his picking hand (I doubt he can do that double-time stuff he and Reno did in the 60s and 70s). Dad has confirmed this, and Eddie, Tom and Martha perform regularly. In fact, they're gigging this week in Ashland Va.
_________________
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects |
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Don Griffiths
From:
Steelville, MO
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Posted 9 Apr 2014 12:59 pm
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I don't know about that show Lane. I knew I had seen some video of him playing a New York show with Dylan. He really doesn't spend enough time playing pedal steel to get warmed up or fluid at that point in time. After the 7:00 min mark on the 7/12/87 show there is a short clip of him playing. The audio is lousy and it looks like the VHS it was copied from was a 27th generation copy.
http://youtu.be/C-urE01k0Xw
I disagree with David Mason. I saw Jerry play 6 string with his band quite a few times in the early nineties. Some of those shows he was on his game and sounded better than early recordings. I believe he was clean then and so was I. I read in an interview that he quit playing Pedal Steel simply because it was too much stress on the hands to switch back and forth from 6 string to pedal steel.
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Shobud Pro1,BMI U12, Santa Cruz F, PRS Standard, Fender Twin Reverb, ‘53 000-28 |
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Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 9 Apr 2014 2:54 pm
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| Lane Gray wrote: |
| I SEE the MCI, does he PLAY it? |
I dunno? Is the brand really that important?  |
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