Cornell '77

Peter Conners

Description

On May 8, 1977, at Barton Hall, on the Cornell University campus, in front of 8,500 eager fans, the Grateful Dead played a show so significant that the Library of Congress inducted it into the National Recording Registry. The band had just released Terrapin Station and was still finding its feet after an extended hiatus. In 1977, the Grateful Dead reached a musical peak, and their East Coast spring tour featured an exceptional string of performances, including the one at Cornell.Many Deadheads claim that the quality of the live recording of the show made by Betty Cantor-Jackson (a member of the crew) elevated its importance. Once those recordings—referred to as "Betty Boards"—began to circulate among Deadheads, the reputation of the Cornell ''77 show grew exponentially.With time the show at Barton Hall acquired legendary status in the community of Deadheads and audiophiles.Rooted in dozens of interviews—including a conversation with Betty Cantor-Jackson about her recording—and accompanied by a dazzling selection of never-before-seen concert photographs, Cornell ''77 is about far more than just a single Grateful Dead concert. It is a social and cultural history of one of America''s most enduring and iconic musical acts, their devoted fans, and a group of Cornell students whose passion for music drove them to bring the Dead to Barton Hall. Peter Conners has intimate knowledge of the fan culture surrounding the Dead, and his expertise brings the show to life. He leads readers through a song-by-song analysis of the performance, from "New Minglewood Blues" to "One More Saturday Night," and conveys why, forty years later, Cornell ''77 is still considered a touchstone in the history of the band.As Conners notes in his Prologue: "You will hear from Deadheads who went to the show. You will hear from non-Deadhead Cornell graduates who were responsible for putting on the show in the first place. You will hear from record executives, academics, scholars, Dead family members, tapers, traders, and trolls. You will hear from those who still live the Grateful Dead every day. You will hear from those who would rather keep their Grateful Dead passions private for reasons both personal and professional. You will hear stories about the early days of being a Deadhead and what it was like to attend, and perhaps record, those early shows, including Cornell ''77."

Sujets

• Nueva York
• Popular music
• Musician
• History of the Americas
• New York

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 11 avril 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781501712579
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 105 Mo

Extrait

Cornell’77

AlsobyPeterConners

NONFICTION JAMerica: The Oral History of the Jam Band and Festival Scene

White Hand Society: The Psychedelic Partnership of Timothy Leary and Allen Ginsberg

Growing Up Dead: The Hallucinated Confessions of a Teenage Deadhead

POETRY The Crows Were Laughing in their Trees

Of Whiskey and Winter

FICTION Emily Ate the Wind

EDITOR PP/FF: An Anthology

Cornell’77

TheMusic,theMyth,andtheMagnificenceof the Grateful Dead’s Concert at Barton Hall

PeterConners

CornellUniversityPress IthacaandLondon

Copyright © 2017 by Peter Conners

Additional copyright information pertaining to song lyrics can be found at the back of this book.

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2017 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of America

Design by Scott Levine

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Names: Conners, Peter H., author. Title: Cornell ’77 : the music, the myth, and the magnificence of the Grateful Dead’s concert at Barton Hall / Peter Conners. Description: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016052331 (print) | LCCN 2016053083 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501704321 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781501708565 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781501712562 (ret) | ISBN 9781501712579 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Grateful Dead (Musical group)—Performances—New York (State)—Ithaca. | Deadheads (Music fans) | Cornell University. Classification: LCC ML421.G72 C64 2017 (print) | LCC ML421.G72 (ebook) | DDC 782.42166092/2—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016052331 Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetablebased, lowVOC inks and acidfree papers that are recycled, totally chlorinefree, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

Cover photographs: “Stealie”: ™Grateful Dead Productions. Used with permission. All rights reserved. Grateful Dead band members performing at Barton Hall, May 8, 1977 (clockwise from top left): Donna Godchaux, Phil Lesh, Jerry Garcia, and Bob Weir. Photos © Jon Reis Photography.

Cover design and illustration by Phil Pascuzzo.

For Aimée

Contents

Prologue:GrownUpDead

TheSexPistols,Disco,andtheDead

ColdRainandSnow

SonicExperiments JusttheRightNight First Set Second Set BettyBoards TheShowThatNeverHappened Epilogue:ABandOutofTime

ListeningandReading Acknowledgments Notes Index Inserts

1 11 23 35 61 81 105 129 147 173

181 197 203 215 224

P R O LO G U E

GrownUpDead

ThebuscamebyandIgoton,that’swhenitallbegan. —BobWeir,“TheOtherOne”

ollowing the Grateful Dead as a teenager in the mid’80s it was F easy to feel like I’d already missed too much. Even as the Dead were pumping out stellar shows there was always the sense that “in another time’s forgotten space”—as Jerry sings in “Franklin’s Tower”—things had been better, looser, freer . . . in ’67, in ’72, in ’77, in ’78, . . . in Egypt, at the Fillmore West, at the Matrix in San Francisco, at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, and at Barton Hall in Ithaca. Partofthatfeelingcamefromlisteningtobootlegsandhearing how far out on the sonic ledge the Dead had gone over the years. In a twist on Ram Dass’s term “spiritual materialism,” rather than jonesing for spiritually charged items that bring one closer to the source of one’s devotion, it was easy to crave those transcen dent musical moments that I’d never gotten to experience, despite the fact that I was experiencing plenty of my own. But another