James Booker joins the JERRY GARCIA BAND! - Palo Alto Jan 1976

James Booker joins the Jerry Garcia Band – January 1976

In January 1976, Jerry Garcia briefly recruited New Orleans piano genius James Carroll Booker III as keyboardist for the Jerry Garcia Band.
What followed was a glorious mess — a single rehearsal and two wild nights at Sophie’s in Palo Alto, where Booker’s unstoppable energy transformed Garcia’s band into his backing group.

Booker barked directions mid-song (“Hey Jerry, give me some chords!”), dropped Chopin’s Für Elise into the middle of the set, and turned the band inside out with his own repertoire. Garcia tried to steer things back, but after two nights he shrugged: “I’ve had enough of geniuses.”

One month later, Booker returned to New Orleans to record his masterpiece Junco Partner with producer Joe Boyd.
These tapes remain the only document of Garcia and Booker on stage together — chaotic, fascinating, and unforgettable.

🎶 The Band
• Jerry Garcia – guitar, vocals
• James Booker – piano, organ, vocals
• John Kahn – bass
• Ron Tutt – drums

🎹 Tracklist
Rehearsals – Club Front, Jan 7, 1976 (SBD)
00:00 Tico Tico (piano)
11:11 Tico Tico (organ)
16:32 Don’t Try To Be Your Brother’s Killer
32:25 Something You Got
37:47 Just A Closer Walk With Thee
41:47 Goodnight Irene
47:29 Goodnight Irene
49:12 Goodnight Irene
01:01:13 United Our Thing Will Stand
01:10:58 Classified
01:17:06 Right Place, Wrong Time
01:21:01 Slowly But Surely
Live at Sophie’s – Jan 9, 1976 (SBD)
01:33:03 All By Myself
01:41:43 Goodnight Irene
01:52:18 Für Elise
01:53:09 Slowly But Surely
02:04:50 Send Me Someone To Love
02:16:22 It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
02:20:54 Tore Up Over You
02:27:07 Neighbour Neighbour
02:30:32 United Our Thing Will Stand
02:42:13 Classified
02:50:48 Baby Won’t You Please Come Home
03:01:44 Tico Tico
03:08:30 Let It Rock
03:23:00 Roadrunner
Live at Sophie’s – Jan 10, 1976 (AUD)
03:34:31 All By Myself
03:42:34 Classified
03:45:35 Right Place, Wrong Time
03:47:24 Hound Dog
03:50:01 United Our Thing Will Stand
04:05:37 You Are My Sunshine
04:16:50 Junco Partner
04:21:40 Drown In My Own Tears
04:26:27 Tore Up Over You
04:37:23 It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
04:46:07 Goodnight Irene
04:55:58 Let It Rock
05:07:18 Slowly But Surely
05:24:46 Roadrunner

John Kahn, Garcia’s longtime bassist, gave a vivid account of the Booker experiment in an interview years later. “The shows were really cool,” Kahn recalled, “But [Booker] wouldn’t learn any of our songs. We tried to teach him songs and he refused. He was a little crazed, so we ended up doing mostly his songs.”

During the show, Booker was distractedly “watching cars go by…checking out license plates and talking about the CIA” – at one point he saw a Louisiana plate and the name John Kennedy, and “that freaked him out. He saw bad omens everywhere…getting really weird.” Kahn admitted, “I didn’t know he was that crazy, so I might have had delusions that we’d stay together longer.”

Fans who were in attendance corroborate this wild scene. An eyewitness on January 9 described it as “one of the wildest and weirdest Garcia shows I ever saw.” In his words, “Basically Booker took over and the rest of the band was doing their best to keep up with whatever poured out of his keyboard. ...Booker was clearly very lubricated…[spending] the break at the bar imbibing prodigiously. Jerry did get in a few tunes from his usual repertoire, but clearly with some difficulty.”

LOST LIVE DEAD Blog about the shows:-
http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012...