[rating=3.50]
There’s a beautiful logic to Jerry Garcia’s rediscovery of his roots in these late 80’s recordings that belies Sandy Rothman’s casual tone in writing “The Definitive History” of The Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band. The initial recording Almost Acoustic hasn’t been available for over two decades, but now newly remastered, it’s easy to hear where Garcia learned the precision that informed his guitar (and pedal steel) work with the Dead and JGB. No sequel was ever released until recent archiving exhumed a collection of live tracks, Ragged But Right, that display the same collective joie de vivre as its predecessor.
But this isn’t just Jerry Garcia’s group: his role as a member of the band, rather than in any overt leadership role, was one of the prime attractions in working with Rothman et al. The nonchalance in the musicianship is deceptive as the group concentrates on traditional material, some of which like “Deep Elem Blues,“ found its way into the Grateful Dead repertoire.
The camaraderie extends beyond those members with history like David Nelson (almost a member of the Dead and founder of The New Riders of the Purple Sage) and on to new recruits like fiddler Kenny Kosek. “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” may sound too familiar at first, but like the sole original song here, Garcia and Robert Hunter’s “Ripple” (from American Beauty), the group matches an intuitive grasp of the style with the most precise instrumental interplay. And nothing sounds forced.
The inviting warmth permeates performances of tunes such as “Drifting Too Far From Shore” on “Oh, Babe, It Ain’t No Lie,” on each of these CDs leaving little wonder why audiences were almost as enraptured by these concerts as the musicians; whether in the hometown venues such as the Wiltern and The Warfield or their corollary on the East Coast – The Lunt-Fontanne on Broadway.
Following his survival from the near fatal coma in 1986 Jerry Garcia had to relearn how to play his instrument(s) and his reintroduction to this style was his entry back into the passion of his vocation. Little wonder there’s an undercurrent of redemption impossible to miss in hearing Almost Acoustic and Ragged But Right.
