HOME
*





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 Polytechnic High School in San Francisco. In his first band in high school was singer Johnny Mathis. He served in the U.S. Air Force from 1953 to 1957. He worked as musical director of the Billy Williams Revue and served in a similar capacity in Oscar Brown Jr.'s off-Broadway show, ''Big Time Buck White''. He gained notice in the 1970s when he began collaborating with Jerry Garcia, with whom he had begun playing in 1971 at a small Fillmore Street nightclub called The Matrix. He sat in with the Grateful Dead, and co-founded the Saunders/Garcia Band which produced three albums, and which became the Legion of Mary, with the addition of Martin Fierro (sax) in 1974. It disbanded the following year, but he and Garcia continued to collaborate in the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Jerry Garcia
Jerome John Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) was an American musician best known for being the principal songwriter, 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 1960s. Although he disavowed the role, Garcia was viewed by many as the leader of the band. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 as a member of the Grateful Dead. As one of its founders, Garcia performed with the Grateful Dead for the band's entire 30-year career (1965–1995). Garcia also founded and participated in a variety of side projects, including the Saunders–Garcia Band (with longtime friend Merl Saunders), the Jerry Garcia Band, Old & In the Way, the Garcia/ Grisman and Garcia/Kahn acoustic duos, Legion of Mary, and New Riders of the Purple Sage (which he co-founded with John Dawson and David Nelson). He also released several solo albums, and contributed to a number of ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Fillmore Street
Fillmore Street is a street in San Francisco, California which starts in the Lower Haight neighborhood and travels northward through the Fillmore District and Pacific Heights and ends in the Marina District. It serves as the main thoroughfare and namesake for the Fillmore District neighborhood. The street is named after American President Millard Fillmore. Culture The part of Fillmore Street that runs through the Fillmore neighborhood reflects the neighborhood's diversity: family-owned neighborhood-serving retail mixes with chain stores, jazz clubs, ethnic restaurants of many varieties, and empty storefronts. Some of the stores, restaurants, and clubs lost to redevelopment are memorialized by plaques on the sidewalk. Other ties to the neighborhood's past remain as well; for example, the building that once housed Jimbo's Bop City—a nightclub frequented by noted jazz musicians of the 1940s and 1950s—was moved during redevelopment to Fillmore Street, where it now houses an Afroc ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Vassar Clements
Vassar Carlton Clements (April 25, 1928 – August 16, 2005) was an American jazz, swing, and bluegrass fiddler. Clements has been dubbed the Father of Hillbilly Jazz, an improvisational style that blends and borrows from swing, hot jazz, and bluegrass along with roots also in country and other musical traditions. Biography Clements was born in Kinard, Florida and grew up in Kissimmee. He taught himself to play the fiddle at age 7, learning "There's an Old Spinning Wheel in the Parlor" as his first song. Soon, he joined with two first cousins, Red and Gerald, to form a local string band. In his early teens Clements met Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys when they came to Florida to visit Clements' stepfather, a friend of fiddler Chubby Wise. Clements was impressed with his playing. In late 1949, Wise left Monroe's group, and the 21 year-old Clements traveled by bus to ask for an audition. When told he would have to return the next day, Clements was crestfallen, lacking the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Tom Fogerty
Thomas Richard Fogerty (November 9, 1941 – September 6, 1990) was an American musician, best known as the rhythm guitarist for Creedence Clearwater Revival. He was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. Biography Tom Fogerty was born in Berkeley, California, United States. He began singing rock and roll in high school. He and his younger brother, John, had separate groups. Tom's band, Spider Webb and the Insects (which featured Jeremy Levine of the Seeds), signed a recording contract with Del-Fi Records but broke up in 1959 before releasing any records. The Blue Velvets—a group led by John—began backing Tom. Eventually Tom joined the band, and the group recorded three singles (with Tom on lead vocals) for Orchestra Records in 1961 and 1962. By the mid 1960s, the group had been renamed The Golliwogs and were recording with Fantasy Records, with Tom and John sharing lead vocal duties. In 1968, the band was again renamed—this time to ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Michael Hinton (guitarist)
Michael David Hinton (May 4, 1956 – August 1, 2013) was an American guitarist, residing in the San Francisco Bay Area. During his career, he played with numerous bands, including Norton Buffalo and the Knockouts, High Noon, Merl Saunders & the Rainforest Band, to name a few. He appeared on several albums with the Rainforest Band and other Merl Saunders projects, including ''It's In The Air'', ''Fiesta Amazonica'', ''Still Having Fun'', ''Merl Saunders With His Funky Friends - Live'', and ''Still Groovin' ''. Career Hinton played with Country Joe and Friends, and recorded with Rick Danko on ''A Tribute To Jerry Garcia: Deadhead Festival in Tokyo, Japan, 1997''. He was also on the Roky Erickson albums, '' Don't Slander Me'' and ''You're Gonna Miss Me: The Best Of Roky Erickson''. Among his other credits are his involvement in the Mickey Hart and Merl Saunders band, High Noon, and Freddie Roulette and Friends. He co-wrote the music for the films ''Stacy's Knights'' (1982) and ' ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

David Grisman
David 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 acoustic musicians. Biography Grisman grew up in a Conservative Jewish household in Passaic, New Jersey. His father was a professional trombonist who gave him piano lessons when he was seven years old. As a teenager, he played piano, mandolin, and saxophone. In the early 1960s, he attended New York University. He belonged to the Even Dozen Jug Band with Maria Muldaur and John Sebastian. He played in the bluegrass band the Kentuckians led by Red Allen, then in the psychedelic rock band Earth Opera with Peter Rowan. He moved to San Francisco, met Jerry Garcia, and appeared on the Grateful Dead album ''American Beauty''. He played in Garcia's bluegrass band Old & In the Way with Peter Rowan and Vassar Clements. When Grisman was 17 years old, he was in ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Mike Bloomfield
Michael Bernard Bloomfield (July 28, 1943 – February 15, 1981) was an American guitarist and composer, born in Chicago, Illinois, who became one of the first popular music superstars of the 1960s to earn his reputation almost entirely on his instrumental prowess, as he rarely sang before 1969. Respected for his guitar playing, Bloomfield knew and played with many of Chicago's blues musicians before achieving his own fame and was instrumental in popularizing blues music in the mid-1960s. In 1965, he played on Bob Dylan's ''Highway 61 Revisited'', including the single "Like a Rolling Stone", and performed with Dylan at that year's Newport Folk Festival. Bloomfield was ranked No. 22 on Rolling Stone's list of "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" in 2003 and No. 42 by the same magazine in 2011. He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2012 and, as a member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015. Early years Bloomfield ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


John Kahn
John Kahn (June 13, 1947 – May 30, 1996) was an American electric and acoustic 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 Hollywood talent agents, he grew up in Beverly Hills, California and was babysat by Marilyn Monroe, who was represented by his father in the early stages of her career. According to spouse Linda Kahn in a 2017 Reddit Ask Me Anything prompt, he began to take piano and music theory classes at 4 and 5, respectively. Following the death of his father at a young age, he was mentored by Mischa Elman, a cousin of his father. At Beverly Hills High School, he earned a reputation as a talented jazz guitarist. He also composed a symphonic piece, "Western Impressions," the first orchestral work by a student to be publicly performed by the school's orchestra (under the direction of Robert Holmes). In his junior year, Kahn switched ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Gaylord Birch
Gaylord G. Birch (March 10, 1946 – April 14, 1996) was a drummer for the bands Santana, Graham Central Station, Cold Blood, Pointer Sisters & Herbie Hancock. History Birch was the drummer for the Pointer Sisters during 1974 and performed many live performances with the group. Birch also appeared in the band Santana during 1976 and again in 1991, as well as playing the drums for a number of Herbie Hancock performances. In 1979, he joined Merl Saunders & Jerry Garcia in Reconstruction, a band which also included Ed Neumeister (trombone), Ron Stallings (tenor sax & vocals) and John Kahn (bass). This band existed for just a few months during 1979. The only traces remaining are live recordings made in Bay Area's clubs and small venues. Birch also played drums briefly with Cold Blood, and is on the recordings '' Thriller!'' (1973) and ''Live at the Record Plant Sausalito, CA JUL 2, 1974''. He played and recorded with Charles Brown in the 1980s. In the early 1970s Birc ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Ed Neumeister
Ed Neumeister (born 1952) is a composer and jazz trombonist. He was born in Topeka, Kansas. An early 2000s collaboration with Jay Clayton and Fritz Pauer was released as the album ''3 for the Road''. Around 2012, Neumeister took teaching posts at The New School, New York University, William Paterson University, Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ..., and City College of New York. Neumeister's solo trombone album, ''One and Only'', contained recordings from 1994 and 2016. In 2019, Neumeister was part of Joe Vano's Streams of Expressions band. References External links {{DEFAULTSORT:Neumeister, Ed 1952 births Living people American jazz composers American male jazz composers American jazz trombonists Male trombonists 21st-century trombo ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Reconstruction (band)
Reconstruction was a band formed in 1978 by John Kahn initially to occupy him while Jerry Garcia, his long-time musical collaborator, was busy with the Grateful Dead. The band's original guitar player was Jerry Miller, best known for performing with Moby Grape. In March 1979, Garcia took over guitar duties officially. The band performed while the Grateful Dead was on a brief hiatus, switching keyboard players from Keith Godchaux to Brent Mydland, and continued well into 1979. The band varied its styles from previous Garcia/Kahn/Saunders collaborations to more of a disco and jazz sound. Performances Reconstruction performed only for an eight-month period in 1979. The band's first performance was January 30, 1979 at the Keystone in Berkeley, California. Its last performance was on September 22, 1979, at the Keystone in Palo Alto, California. During that period, the band played 57 concerts, all of them in California and Colorado. Members The band's lineup consisted of: * ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Martin Fierro (saxophonist)
Martin Fierro (January 18, 1942 – March 13, 2008) was a saxophonist who played with the Sir Douglas Quintet, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Jerry Garcia, and Zero. He is the father of actor David Fierro. Music career Fierro was born in Mexico in 1942 and grew up in El Paso, Texas. He pronounced his name Mar-TEEN. He taught himself how to play saxophone and as a teenager participated in rock bands. He concentrated on jazz in his early 20s. He toured Mexico with a band, then moved to San Francisco and joined Mother Earth, a blues rock group led by Tracy Nelson. He became a member of the rock band the Sir Douglas Quintet in 1968. He also played with Quicksilver Messenger Service and James Cotton. In 1971, Fierro played saxophone and flute on ''Hooteroll?'', an instrumental, free-form album by guitarist Jerry Garcia and keyboard player Howard Wales. Three years later he joined another project by Garcia known as Legion of Mary. Like Garcia's Grateful Dead, Legion of Mary com ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]