Next on my list is the Viola Lee rehearsals, conducted sometime in January or February of 1966. The exact date and location of the rehearsals are unknown, though the recording reveals a hint. Phil mentions, "as long as we get to LA in time to set up and do the thing. Saturday Night." This almost definitely points to the Watts Acid Test in LA where the Dead played on Saturday, February 12. The loose term "Saturday Night," leads me to believe that the recording was done within a week of the band leaving for Los Angeles.
Regardless of the actual location and date, this recording has both historic and musical value. It's amazing to hear the band working out the parts of what will become a heavily jammed staple. Throughout, the band is working on the opening, the singing, and the arrangement of the verses. You can hear Jerry telling his bandmates how he envisions the song. Pigpen even bails towards the end being too drunk to fully participate, which draws criticism from Lesh. "Pigpen is a conspiracy!" yells Weir.
If you're not into the frequent stops, breaks, and banter of the band, the final track is your reason to listen. The 15 minute jam before the tape stops is pretty cool. If one pays attention you can hear a clear "Truckin'" jam - a full four years before the song was written!! I played it loud, and asked my fiance what song she thought it was. Her immediate response was, "Truckin'?" Just listen!
Finally, before I provide the track list and a link to the recording, I wanted to include two quotes that I found particularly interesting to the recording. First, you can hear Jerry on track #16 saying about the song, "We'll just see what happens. We'll let it do what it wants to do." I find that interesting because he expresses, in those two sentences, the sentiments of the Grateful Dead's whole philosophy on live music.
Phil Lesh also provides his thoughts on "Viola Lee Blues" in Searching for the Sound.
"... the longer the solo, the less interesting it became to play the same material as background, so those of us who weren't soloing began to vary and differentiate our background material, almost as if we were also soloists, in a manner similar to jazz musicians. A good example of this technique is our version of the old Noah Lewis jug band tune "Viola Lee Blues," a traditional prison song. We electrified the song with a boogaloo beat and an intro lick borrowed from R & B artist Lee Dorsey's "Get Out of My Life Woman," and after each of the three verses, we tried to take the music out further - first expanding on the groove, then on the tonality, and then both, finally pulling out all the stops in a giant accelerando, culminating in a whirlwind of dissonance that, out of nowhere, would slam back into the original groove for a repetition of the final verse. It was after a run-through of this song that I turned to Jerry and remarked ingenuously, "Man - this could be art! (Lesh, 59)"So without further ado, here it is.
Track List:
01. talk & tunings "It's just Weir and his ass-holed guitar" (2:31)
02. Viola Lee Blues #1 verse 1 - aborted (0:52)
03. Viola Lee Blues #2 verses 1 & 2 - aborted - "watch it pig! b, man, b" (1:33)
04. talk & tunings (1:09)
05. Viola Lee Blues #3 with harmonica - aborted (0:14)
06. discussions (1:26)
07. Viola Lee Blues #4 with organ verse 1 & harmonica - aborted (1:28)
08. tape playback? more talk (1:44)
09. Viola Lee Blues #5 verse 1 - "same verse again" - verse 1 - aborted (1:48)
10. Phil comments (0:34)
11. Viola Lee Blues #6 verses 1 & 2 - aborted (1:29)
12. more discussions (0:25)
13. Viola Lee Blues #7 verses 1 & 2 & 3 - then stopped (2:44)
14. talk & tunings - "that's tasty" - "let's just play" (2:06)
15. Viola Lee Blues #8 verse 1 - aborted (0:16)
16. talk & wild comments & confusion (2:53)
17. Viola Lee Blues #9 verses 2 & 3 - aborted (0:27)
18. more talk - "I think you're against us" - "Pigpen's a conspiracy" (3:57)
19. "You may know by ..." passage repeated (3:39)
20. Viola Lee Blues #10 verses 1 & 2 & 3 ; jam ; tape cuts (15:37)
Listen to this recording here:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd66-01-xx.sbd.hanno-uli.18846.sbeok.shnf
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