''Live at Keystone'' is an album by

Merl Saunders Merl Saunders (February 14, 1934 – October 24, 2008) was an American multi-genre musician who played piano and keyboards, favoring the Hammond B-3 console organ. Biography Born in San Mateo, California, United States, Saunders attended Poly ...

Jerry Garcia Jerome John Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) was an American musician who was the lead guitarist and a vocalist with the rock band Grateful Dead, which he co-founded and which came to prominence during the counterculture of the 196 ...

John Kahn John Kahn (June 13, 1947 – May 30, 1996) was an American bassist. From 1970 to 1995, Kahn was Jerry Garcia's principal musical collaborator outside of the Grateful Dead. Biography John Kahn was born in Memphis, Tennessee. Adopted at birth by ...

, and

Bill Vitt Bill Vitt (May 6, 1943 - July 16, 2019, aged 76) was an American drummer and keyboardist. He worked extensively as a live performer and as a session musician. In the 1970s he played with Brewer & Shipley, Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders, and the S ...

. It was recorded live at the Keystone in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...

on July 10 and 11, 1973, and released later that year as a two-disc vinyl LP. It was re-released in 1988, with additional tracks, as two separate CDs, called ''Live at Keystone Volume I'' and ''Live at Keystone Volume II''. From February 1971 to July 1975, Merl Saunders and Jerry Garcia often played live shows together when the

Grateful Dead The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in Palo Alto, California, in 1965. Known for their eclectic style that fused elements of rock, blues, jazz, Folk music, folk, country music, country, bluegrass music, bluegrass, roc ...

were not on tour. For many of those concerts, their band had the lineup featured on this album – Saunders on keyboards, Garcia on guitar and vocals, John Kahn on bass, and Bill Vitt on drums. One track of ''Live at Keystone'', "

Positively 4th Street "Positively 4th Street" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan, first recorded in New York City on July 29, 1965. It was released as a single by Columbia Records on September 7, 1965, reaching on Canada's ''RPM'' chart, on the U.S. ''Bi ...

", also includes

David Grisman David Jay Grisman (born March 23, 1945) is an American mandolinist. His music combines bluegrass, folk, and jazz in a genre he calls "Dawg music". He founded the record label Acoustic Disc, which issues his recordings and those of other acousti ...

mandolin A mandolin (, ; literally "small mandola") is a Chordophone, stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally Plucked string instrument, plucked with a plectrum, pick. It most commonly has four Course (music), courses of doubled St ...

Critical reception

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

, Lindsay Planer wrote, "... let the music speak for itself as ''Live at Keystone'' is chocked with inspired covers, each respectively extended and collectively improvised by co-instrumental leads Jerry Garcia (guitar/vocals) and Merl Saunders (organ) with Bill Vitt (drums) and John Kahn (bass). This was an ad-hoc configuration, as opposed to the organized touring unit that Garcia developed as the

Jerry Garcia Band The Jerry Garcia Band was a San Francisco Bay Area rock band led by Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead. Garcia founded the band in 1975; it remained the most important of his various side projects until his death in 1995. The band regularly tour ...

. From December of 1970 until the spring of 1974 — prior to the combo evolving into the

Legion of Mary The Legion of Mary (, post-nominal letters, postnominal abbreviation L.O.M.) is an international association of members of the Catholic Church who serve on a Voluntary association, voluntary basis. It was founded in Dublin, as a Roman Catholic ...

— the guitarist could often be found performing sporadically in and around San Francisco between engagements with the

. The quartet ably fuse rock with

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

in their spacy unfettered jams. These emerge from an eclectic composite of R&B and

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

to seminal rock oldies and even popular standards."

More Keystone albums

In 1988, Fantasy Records released two single-disc LPs with more music recorded at the shows of July 10 and 11, 1973 — ''Keystone Encores Volume I'' and ''Keystone Encores Volume II''. They also released a single-disc CD, '' Keystone Encores'', containing six of the eight tracks from the LPs. In 2012, the label released a four-CD album called '' Keystone Companions: The Complete 1973 Fantasy Recordings''. This contains remastered versions of all the tracks from the ''Live at Keystone'' and ''Keystone Encores'' albums (except for the track titled "Space"), plus seven previously unreleased tracks from the same dates. The songs on ''Keystone Companions'' are presented in the order they were performed in concert.

Track listing

''Live at Keystone'' LP

Side 1 #"Keepers" (

) – 6:38 #"

" (

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan; born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Described as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his nearly 70-year ...

) – 7:45 #" The Harder They Come" (

Jimmy Cliff James Chambers, Jamaican Order of Merit, OM (born 30 July 1944), known professionally as Jimmy Cliff, is a Jamaican ska, rocksteady, reggae and soul musician, multi-instrumentalist, singer, and actor. He is the only living reggae musician to hol ...

) – 6:20 Side 2 #"

It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" is a song written by Bob Dylan, that was originally released on his album ''Highway 61 Revisited''. It was recorded on July 29, 1965. The song was also included on an early, European Dylan compilat ...

" (Dylan) – 7:03 #"Space" (Saunders,

, Kahn,

) – 3:53 #"It's No Use" ( Jerry Williams, Gary Bonds, Don Hollinger) – 9:34 * Side 3 #" That's All Right, Mama" (

Arthur Crudup Arthur William "Big Boy" Crudup (August 24, 1905 – March 28, 1974) was an American Delta blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is best known, outside blues circles, for his songs " That's All Right" (1946), " My Baby Left Me" and "So ...

) – 4:18 #"

My Funny Valentine "My Funny Valentine" is a show tune from the 1937 Rodgers and Hart coming of age musical ''Babes in Arms'' in which it was introduced by teenaged star Mitzi Green. The song became a popular jazz standard, appearing on over 1300 albums performed ...

" (

Richard Rodgers Richard Charles Rodgers (June 28, 1902 – December 30, 1979) was an American Musical composition, composer who worked primarily in musical theater. With 43 Broadway theatre, Broadway musicals and over 900 songs to his credit, Rodgers wa ...

Lorenz Hart Lorenz Milton Hart (May 2, 1895 – November 22, 1943) was an American lyricist and half of the Broadway songwriting team Rodgers and Hart. Some of his more famous lyrics include "Blue Moon"; " The Lady Is a Tramp"; "Manhattan"; " Bewitched, Bo ...

) – 18:06 Side 4 #"Someday Baby" ( Sam Hopkins) – 10:13 #"Like a Road Leading Home" (

Don Nix William Donald Nix (September 27, 1941 – December 31, 2024) was an American musician, songwriter, and producer. Nix, who was best known for his song "Going Down," was described by AllMusic as "one of the more obscure figures in Southern soul ...

Dan Penn Dan Penn (born Wallace Daniel Pennington, November 16, 1941) is an American songwriter, singer, musician, and record producer, who co-wrote many soul hits of the 1960s, including " The Dark End of the Street" and " Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" ...

) – 10:58 * In the album liner notes the song is credited to

Gene Clark Harold Eugene Clark (November 17, 1944 – May 24, 1991) was an American singer-songwriter and founding member of the folk rock band the Byrds. He was the Byrds' principal songwriter between 1964 and early 1966, writing most of the band's best ...

and

Roger McGuinn James Roger McGuinn (; born James Joseph McGuinn III; July 13, 1942) is an American musician, best known for being the frontman and leader of the Byrds. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 as a member of the band. As a so ...

, but they wrote a different song of the same name, which appears on

the Byrds The Byrds () were an American Rock music, rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1964. The band underwent multiple lineup changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn (known as Jim McGuinn until mid-1967) being the so ...

album '' Mr. Tambourine Man''."It Ain't No Use"
''Grateful Dead Family Discography''. Retrieved October 17, 2016.

''Live at Keystone Volume I'' CD

#"Keepers" (Saunders, Kahn) – 6:38 #"Positively 4th Street" (Dylan) – 7:45 #"The Harder They Come" (Cliff) – 6:20 #"It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" (Dylan) – 7:03 #"Space" (Saunders, Garcia, Kahn, Vitt) – 3:53 #"It's No Use" (Williams, Bonds, Hollinger) – 9:34 #"Merl's Tune" (Saunders, White) – 13:35 – CD bonus track

''Live at Keystone Volume II'' CD

#"That's All Right, Mama" (Crudup) – 4:18 #"My Funny Valentine" (Rodgers, Hart) – 18:06 #"Someday Baby" (Hopkins) – 10:13 #"Like a Road Leading Home" (Nix, Penn) – 10:58 #"

Mystery Train "Mystery Train" is a song written and recorded by American blues musician Junior Parker in 1953. Originally performed in the style of a Memphis blues or rhythm and blues tune, it was inspired by earlier songs and later became a popular rockabil ...

" (

Sam Phillips Samuel Cornelius Phillips (January 5, 1923 – July 30, 2003) was an American disc jockey, songwriter and record producer. He was the founder of Sun Records and Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, where he produced recordings by Elvis Presley, R ...

Junior Parker Herman "Junior" Parker (March 27, 1932November 18, 1971), ...

) – 11:32 – CD bonus track

Personnel

Musicians

– keyboards *

– guitar, vocals *

– bass *

– drums *

–

on "Positively 4th Street"

Production

*Produced by Merl Saunders, Jerry Garcia, John Kahn, Bill Vitt *CD bonus tracks produced by Merl Saunders, John Kahn *Recording: Betty Cantor, Rex Jackson *Engineering: Danny Kopelson *Mastering: George Horn *Photography:

Annie Leibovitz Anna-Lou Leibovitz ( ; born October 2, 1949) is an American Portrait photography, portrait photographer best known for her portraits, particularly of celebrities, which often feature subjects in intimate settings and poses. Leibovitz's Polaroid ...

*Design: Tony Lane

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Live at Keystone Merl Saunders albums Jerry Garcia albums 1973 live albums