Grateful Dead

by Jesse Jarnow

We take a rare side trip into Jerry Garcia’s very busy extracurricular year of music-making in 1973, because it’s impossible to fully understand the Dead’s own very busy 1973 without it. Alongside the Dead’s nearly full-time schedule and launch of their record company, Garcia played in two other nearly full-time bands – his three-year running bar band with organist Merl Saunders, bassist John Kahn, and drummer Bill Vitt, and brand new bluegrass supergroup Old & In the Way with Kahn, mandolinist David Grisman, guitarist Peter Roman, and fiddler Vassar Clements.

Richard Loren began to manage Jerry Garcia’s career outside the Dead in late 1972 and would take on managerial responsibilities with the Dead themselves starting a few years later, working with them through the early 1980s. He is the author of the delightful memoir, High Notes.

Jerry Garcia’s adventures in bluegrass in the early 1960s can be heard on the Before The Dead box set. 
Old and in the Way can be heard on their self-titled debut, as well as the expanded version of Owsley Stanley’s tapes, The Boarding House: The Complete Recordings, from October 1st and 8th, 1973, available from Acoustic Disc. The Owsley Stanley Foundation recently released The Chieftains in San Francisco, featuring Owsley’s recordings of capturing Irish folk heroes the Chieftains opening for Old & in the Way in October 1973, and a return to San Francisco in 1976.

We spoke with David Grisman for our American Beauty season, but ended up talking a bunch about Old & In the Way, too. More recently, Dawg has launched his own podcast, via his durable Acoustic Disc label, which has included episodes about his work with Jerry Garcia and others. 

The great Peter Rowan continues to tour and record as well, most recently 2022’s Calling You From My Mountain.

Jerry Garcia’s 1973 work with Merl Saunders can be heard on a variety of official releases, including the original Live at Keystone and its sequels, as well as GarciaLive Volume 12 (at the Boarding House in January with Sarah Fulcher), and GarciaLive Volume 6 (at the Lion’s Share in July). I interviewed Sarah several years ago for the GarciaLive Volume 12 liner notes and published an expanded version in Aquarium Drunkard. Joe Jupille has written about Garcia’s relationship with Keystone owner Freddie Herrera and many other topics, and is the proprietor of JerryBase.com.