Band Grateful Dead
Venue KPIX-TV Studios
Location San Francisco, CA
Date 4/8/1967 - Saturday posters tickets, passes & laminates
One Cream Puff War [4#:36]
Comments Walkin' Blues may not be from same event. Other artist(s): the Wildflower and QMS. Bart Wise: (The cut in Cream Puff War is a VERY minor dropout and occurs in the first couple of seconds of the song.) Now I am no longer sure whether "Walkin' Blues" should be included in the database. It is clearly a faked-up piece where someone has spliced segments of Quicksilver playing the song together with segments of the Grateful Dead playing the song: Jim Murray singing, Cipollina playing Pigpen singing, Garcia playing Jim Murray singing, Cipollina guitar solo Pigpen harp solo, Garcia guitar solo Quicksilver finish the song. The cuts are carefully done, and this might be how KPIX-TV broadcast the piece. The sound quality is similar to the version of Cream Puff War. I couldn't find the other version of Grateful Dead doing "Walkin' Blues" (from 1966) to compare with this one, if I even have it. Finally, if it helps with dating the tape, the Quicksilver web site lists October 1967 as the month Jim Murray left the band. David Sorochty: there is an interview already in progress that the tape cuts in on. Jerry is talking about Cream Puff War and says that it is the only song for which he has completely written the whole thing himself. There is some indecipherable talk about "the words", so maybe he means that he only wrote all the lyrics himself. Phil pipes up and is heard briefly and others are heard giggling in the background. The interview lasts only 24 seconds and then they go to play the song. The Cream Puff War that follows is 3 minutes and 44 seconds long. Yeah - I know what you're thinking. There are some stories about them going on the Maze show and lip synching a song. I've even seen a picture from that tV appearance where Phil I believe, was holding a broom instead of his bass to mock out the whole lip synch thing. So I thought that even though this didn't sound like the version on the 1st album at all, it would be worth a check since if it is kind of grungy, and as it turns out this is a much longer version than the one on the LP and they *definitely* are not the same. So - if this was from that tV show, maybe they recorded the audio there for the tV show and they just lip synched it later? Is it possible that this is from another tV appearance where they didn't lip synch or maybe from a radio program? Who knows? I guess I always just presumed that when they lip synched on the Maze show it was to a song off the 1st LP. David Sorochty continues: Walkin' Blues which I called 1966 and we now are saying might be from 1967 "Maze tV" show. Well the version I call ??/??/66 on my web site is indeed the same version of this song which switches back and forth between the Dead and QMS. Here is what I have come up with: it starts out with QMS playing the song, at 27 seconds it switches to the Dead playing it, at 50 seconds it switches to QMS, at 1 minute and 27 seconds it switches to the Dead, at 1 minute and 59 seconds it switches QMS, who finish it out to a total time of 2 minutes and 14 seconds. If this is from a tV broadcast it would be really cool to see a video of this since the picture would have been switching back and forth in sync with the audio! Jim Powell: the interview cuts in on Garcia laughing with announcer talking about Ralph J. Gleason. Interview tape with Gleason following, who introduces Jerry & asks him "what kind of music does the Grateful Dead play. Jerry answers "loud," and continues by saying that they play "dance music." in response to a question about their sources Jerry says that they are "clever thieves." Later Jerry talks about playing feedback: "If you ignore it it just gets louder and louder." The interview concludes with Jerry introducing Cream Puff War and saying that he wrote it. Here's a listing of my copy of this tape, which is certainly lo gen though perhaps still not entirely complete (see below). The Maze tV Show, KPIX-TV, San Francisco 4/8/67. Total time [19:06 +]. The Wildflowers: "Crying in the Background" [3:40; title is a guess] Interviews with Ralph Gleason and with Garcia, Weir & Lesh [4:55]. This is the interview snippet where Jerry identifies the Dead as "clever thieves." Grateful Dead: Cream Puff War [3:51] the tape here contains a scrap of the announcer's voice left from a cut. Perhaps it's only commercials that were cut, together with the announcer's 'and now let's return ...'. See below, however. Quicksilver Messenger Service: Pride of Man [3:42] Quicksilver Messenger Service: Walkin' Blues [2:23] Announcer: concluding remarks [fade down at 0:23] Somewhere I've seen or heard Ralph Gleason quoted during this period remarking that even when San Francisco bands perform the same song, they play it differently; he gives as his example the Dead's and Quicksilver's different handling of Robert Johnson's Walkin' Blues. During his concluding remarks the announcer seems to refer to this comment. Perhaps it appeared in a passage of the show cut between Cream Puff and Pride of Man, or between Pride and Walkin' Blues. It seems less likely that the show also included a performance of the tune by the Dead.
Recordings (?) SB, 'The Maze' (television broadcast) - Unknown generation source. Sometimes circulate as filler On 11/19/66.
Download Sources
Contributors Jeff Tiedrich , Bart Wise , Jim Powell , David Sorochty , Teddy GoodBear
Caretaker Send an email with updates