If I Could Only Remember These Sessions (1-19)
PERRO Tapes - Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra (8)
CN&Y Waterbrothers 1972 (20)
CSN 67-71 Rarities (21)
00:00 1. Walking In The Mountains 1
01:43 2. Walking In The Mountains 2
07:08 3. The Wall Song 2
13:26 4. Loser 3 & 4
18:51 5. Tamalpais High (At About 3) Full Blown
27:53 6. Cowboy Movie (Rough)
36:02 7. Wild Turkey (Leather Winged Bat)
40:30 8. Anesthesia (false start)
41:28 9. Anesthesia
46:34 10. Slide Jam
54:05 11. Is It Really Monday
59:15 12. Over Jordan (Wayfaring Stranger)
1:02:47 13. Walking In The Mountains 3
1:06:28 14. Jorma & Jerry's Jam 1
1:20:49 15. Loser 1 & 2
1:24:07 16. The Wall Song 1
1:28:32 17. Rounds (EPP Hour)
1:33:22 18. Walking In The Mountains 4
1:41:40 19. Wooden Ships (Demo)
1:43:34 20. Page 43 (CN&Y Live '72)
1:47:52 21. Laughing (Demo)
David Crosby - guitar, vocals
Graham Nash - guitar, vocals
Neil Young - vocals, guitar
Paul Kantner - guitar, banjo, vocals
Grace Slick - piano, vocals
Joni Mitchell - vocals
Jorma Kaukonen - lead guitar
Jack Casady - bass
Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals
Phil Lesh - bass
Bill Kreutzmann - drums
Mickey Hart - percussion
David Freiberg - viola, vocals
Laura Allan - autoharp
Greg Rollie - keyboards
Michael Shrieve - drums
Stephen Barncard - producer, engineer, archivist
The roots of PERRO go back a lot further than 1971. It had its inception in the early years of the '60s when Kantner, Crosby and Freiberg used to hang out, play music, get high and rap together around Venice Beach. That was the initial bond, the start of it all.
Later, when they were in bands of their own, there were occasional points of interaction - like Garcia sitting in on the 'Surrealistic Pillow' sessions, like Crosby giving "Triad" to the Airplane, like Kantner, Crosby and Stills writing "Wooden Ships".
As the '60s drew to a close, two sets of circumstances combined to bring the Planet Earth Rock And Roll Dream a whole lot nearer. One was the opening of Wally Heider's studio in San Francisco - because now the local SF musicians (Airplane, Quicksilver, Dead) had a place on their doorstep where they could record. This gave them freedom from the corporate studios to record and produce as they saw fit, to come and go more as they pleased and to invite the musical neighborhood in if they chose. The other catalyst was the state of flux that a lot of bands were falling into by 1969/1970, for Crosby had left the Byrds, the Airplane was a less cohesive force with Dryden out and Hot Tuna splitting off, and Dino Valenti's arrival had unsettled QMS.
Things had come pretty much full circle by the end of the decade. Kantner was again hanging out with Crosby (quite often on the latter's yacht) and with David Freiberg - and, when Paul came to assemble musicians to record 'Blows Against The Empire', it wasn't just to his Airplane cohorts that he turned but also to Crosby and Garcia and even Graham Nash - who'd just bought a house in Frisco and ended up producing the whole second side of the 'Blows...' album at Heider's studio. 'Blows..." was the first album by that collection of musicians whom Paul liked to term the Planet Earth Rock And Roll Orchestra.
As Grace recalls, "These sessions were like 'Uh, do you wanna play guitar on this one?' 'No, man, I have to go to the bathroom.' 'Okay, David, you wanna play?' 'Sure'. Whoever felt like doing something did it. Parts interchanged, people interchanged."
Graham Nash says "They asked me my opinion and I just jumped right in. Grace, Paul, David - they let me do whatever I heard. I was searching for this kind of environment when I came to America and when I was mixing in the studio our imaginations were running rampant. We were creating virtual kingdoms with music."
The second such PERRO project was David Crosby's debut solo album, 'If I Could Only Remember My Name', which features all of the above-mentioned Planet Earthers plus the likes of Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Gregg Rolie and Mike Shrieve.
On to the tapes in question. They come from sessions at Wally Heider's San Francisco studios in 1971. Crosby had sailed his boat up to Sausalito Harbor. Nash was resident in the Haight. Kantner and Slick had moved out to Bolinas and the Dead were in Mill Valley but they would all head for Wally's of an evening to work on PERRO songs. Some of these things ended up on Crosby's solo, a couple on Garcia's solo, one on Paul's 1983 'Planet Earth' album... and some have never seen the light of day.
Speaking of never seeing the light of day, this rare PERRO track was shared with me by a kind viewer to post here! Many thanks. "Coast Road" was released not long ago, but in an edited version (as in half the song is missing.) Here is the breathtakingly beautiful full length version with David Crosby, Graham Nash and Laura Allan. • David Crosby - Coast R...
5 авг 2024
