I was so exhausted that I didn’t have the energy to resist. I turned back and ended up falling asleep during a really fantastic massage. I woke up feeling great. We put our robes back on, went upstairs, and got down on the cots, where they brought us ice-cold shots of vodka. Very Russian.
During all of this, some men came in that looked like heavies. Gangsters of old New York. Their eyes were cold and tough—you immediately knew not to fuck with them—and they all wore really expensive, Italian suits. When they went to hang their jackets, you could hear the audible clunk of a heavy object slam against the side of the lockers. They were packing heat. Belushi just glanced at me and said quietly, “You didn’t hear that. Don’t look up at them. Don’t make eye contact.” We were surrounded by mobsters.
I went back to the hotel and took a nap and somehow made it to soundcheck on time. Belushi was already there at the venue. “I feel great!” he said. “Don’t you?” I did, actually. It was almost showtime.
Belushi loved music and he loved the Grateful Dead. His comedic partner, Dan Aykroyd, turned him on to the blues and he dove into it and became a scholar of the genre. He had a great singing voice and the same knack for perfect phrasing and delivery that he had with comedy. So he and Aykroyd put together a band, which they jokingly named the Blues Brothers. Originally the group was assembled just for a comedy sketch on SNL, but they knew they were onto something bigger. The band became real and they cut an album and then made a movie and went on tour. Belushi and Aykroyd created characters for the band—Jake E. Blues and Elwood J. Blues, respectively—but they took the music seriously. They recruited a fantastic lineup of players for it, too. Members of Booker T. and the M.G.s and backing musicians for Isaac Hayes and Howlin’ Wolf were in the band, along with a bunch of monster musicians from the SNL Band. Among other things, the Blues Brothers opened for the Grateful Dead on New Year’s Eve at the Winterland in 1978.
Well, two years later, backstage at the Capitol Theater after our bath house escapade, Belushi got it into his head that he wanted to sing backup on “U.S. Blues” with us that night. I thought it would be really cool to get Belushi out there with us, of course, so I went and told the band, but Phil was opposed to the idea. He vetoed it. I had to go back to my friend and tell him, “Sorry, buddy, but Phil said no.” There were no hard feelings or anything like that; it was what it was.
Why did Phil say no? I can’t say for sure, but I know he didn’t like my friendship with Belushi. He didn’t approve of it. I have no idea why—the two of us just had a grand old time together. But I didn’t want to rock the boat, so I respected my bandmate’s decision.
I had a really good show that night, and the entire band played well. We encored with “U.S. Blues” as planned and, right before the chorus, Belushi took everyone by surprise by cartwheeling onto the stage. It was a comedic ambush. He had on a sport coat with small American flags stuffed into both of his breast pockets and he landed his last cartwheel just in time to grab a microphone and join in on the chorus. The audience and everyone in the band—except for Phil—ate it up. It couldn’t have been rehearsed better. Belushi had impeccable comedic timing, musicality, balls, the works. And, apparently, he didn’t take no for an answer.
I really loved my friendship with Belushi and it was especially cool for me because I was such a fan of his work, long before I ever met him. In fact, right before we began rehearsals for our first Saturday Night Live appearance, I got his phone number from the producer, Lorne Michaels, and called him up just to tell him how much of a fan I was. I’ve never done anything like that before, but I couldn’t help myself.
After that first SNL performance—November 11, 1978—the band joined the cast for a wrap-up party at the Holland Tunnel Blues Bar. It was really just a party space that Belushi and Aykroyd rented, which may or may not have been officially licensed. They put in a jukebox and filled it with blues classics, and they brought in a primitive PA system and some house instruments, to encourage impromptu jams after SNL tapings—or any other time that was clever. The bar itself was largely unfinished and certainly unrefined. Belushi kept summoning me down to a shady spot in the basement to snort coke and rave about whatever. We had an audience of rats down there; we didn’t care. It was a real fun, loose time.
The night that John Belushi crashed the stage. March 30, 1980. (Jay Blakesberg)
One of Belushi’s famous impersonations was of Joe Cocker. We played with Cocker at Woodstock and also shared a bill with him a month prior to that at Flushing Meadows Park in New York—the site of two World’s Fairs. Anybody who has seen the Woodstock movie, where Cocker performs “With a Little Help from my Friends,” knows that he gets a little crazy with gesticulations and facial expressions when he sings. He really feels it and he used to be able to let go and flail about without any self-consciousness. It was admirable, on a level. But then Belushi imitated him on SNL and suddenly Cocker got pretty embarrassed by the whole thing and he took offense and it changed the way he performed—he toned everything down. He became more self-aware.
One night in 1976, Cocker was the musical guest on SNL. Belushi came out onstage during his rendition of “Feeling Alright.” The two were dressed exactly alike and Belushi duplicated every movement, every expression, even the vocals. He nailed it. He didn’t exaggerate because he didn’t need to; Cocker’s stage presence was ripe for parody. Belushi didn’t mean any harm by it, of course, and even though Cocker was mortified at first—if you watch the footage, you can see he’s a bit thrown off—he was a good sport about it, in the end. At the time, though, I don’t think he was too thrilled.
Well, when Belushi and I were hanging out in my hotel room one night, I asked him to do his Cocker impersonation. He left the room and when he came back in, just seconds later, I swear Joe Cocker himself entered the room. Belushi was even funnier in real life than on the screen. If that’s possible.
Weir and I hung out with him a couple weeks before he died. On February 21, 1982, we were playing at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion—the same building where Bill Walton rose to fame as a college basketball player—and I was struggling just to stay awake because, once again, I hadn’t slept the night before. One of our roadies said, “Billy, look behind you,” and lo and behold, there was Belushi, making all kinds of funny faces at me. I cracked up and my energy returned and we partied with him after the show.
He died just twelve days later. Of an overdose. A speedball, which is a dangerous combination of coke and heroin, is what did it. I sort of want to say that L.A. killed him, but it could’ve happened anywhere. He moved to L.A. for film work, but they didn’t love him there as much as they did in New York.
Hearing the news of his death almost killed me, too. I’m not making a metaphor here. I was living in Novato with Shelley and I was driving home, listening to a Bay Area radio station, when they interrupted the broadcast: “John Belushi was found dead…” My heart nearly stopped and I almost got into a horrible car wreck. He was one of those irreplaceable ones. Time has proven that to be true.
If there’s one thing I learned from Belushi, it’s that humor saves the fucking day. True humor only knows and adheres to itself. It’s not about putting someone down or making fun of race or gender. Watching Belushi perform was like going to a little Burning Man of the mind; it was wild, free, full of abandon, reckless, daring, artistic and it spun reality into all sorts of twisted and contorted dimensions. He didn’t tell jokes with punch lines; he was both the joke and the punch line. He was an artist and his canvas was humor. And humor saves the day, every time.
16
A couple days after our first Saturday Night Live appearance, we released an album called Shakedown Street. It was notable for a few reasons. It was the first album we recorded at Front Street. We didn’t want to work with Keith Olsen again, but we had to keep our promise to Clive Davis and have someone in the producer’s chair—so we hired Little Feat’s Lowell George.
I’m a big fan of Little Feat. So I enjoyed having Ge
orge produce the record. He had a wonderful way about him; he was always really relaxed, which is a great quality to have in the recording environment, and he was a real soulful guy. If he wanted us to work on a song during the session, he wouldn’t just talk the talk—he’d put on his guitar and come out and work on it with us. I loved that. He was a musician first and foremost. Maybe that’s why he was my favorite producer to work with. He also was the most fun to be around.
Working with him was the easy part of recording that record. The hard part was that the recording studio wasn’t a studio—it was Front Street. On the one hand, it was nice being in our own space. It felt like home because it was our home. But it was never really intended to be a studio and, therefore, was never fully equipped as one. It was a raw practice space. There wasn’t much in terms of sound isolation or separate booths or a control room or anything like that, so it ended up being more like a really awkward live recording.
As for the songs, a lot of that material just didn’t work out so well for us in the studio. Have you picked up on the pattern, yet? The songs were fucking fantastic when we nailed them live: “Shakedown Street,” “Fire on the Mountain,” “Stagger Lee,” and covers of “Dancing in the Streets” and “Good Loving,” among other oddities. Mickey and I had an instrumental on there called “Serengeti.” It was just an experiment. I don’t even think we tried to bring that one to the stage. Some of the other songs on that album are long forgotten, but the ones I mentioned above turned out to be standards and fan favorites. Deadheads refer to this album, and even this era, as Disco Dead. I can see why. The title track has a real upbeat feeling to it and, actually, would make a dynamite disco tune.
As for our cover of Martha & the Vandallas’ “Dancing in the Streets,” I’ve heard young bands do that today and they tend to screw it up. It’s like they didn’t listen to the bass and they don’t get the bass drum right. It’s supposed to be syncopated, and some of these kids just don’t get that. Not all of them, of course, but I heard a band attempt it recently and all I could think was “Oops…”
The album cover art, by Gilbert Shelton, depicted the scene outside 20 Front Street, at just about any given time. The song “Shakedown Street” might be about San Rafael at large, although I think it’s more about Front Street in particular. You’d have to ask Robert Hunter about that one. Pretty soon the phrase was co-opted by Deadheads to refer to the busiest part of our thriving parking lot scene, where unlicensed vendors sold everything from veggie burritos to ganja goo balls to handmade tie-dyes and bootleg merchandise. You could get anything you wanted before or after our shows on Shakedown, by fans trying to get themselves from show to show.
I went out there a couple times; I liked to see what people made and what they were up to. The scene in Philadelphia, in particular, was always outrageous. I still like to poke around Shakedown and look at all the glass pipes and take one home with me. It was just a really colorful place. You always want your marketplaces to be like that, whether it’s in Deadhead-land or a foreign country.
As for the album, given the material and the producer, Shakedown Street just wasn’t as good as it should have been. But once it was released, it was business as usual for us—which meant, among other things, preparing for our annual New Year’s Eve show. Of all of the ones we did over the years, New Year’s Eve in 1978 was particularly special. It was on the corner of Post and Steiner in San Francisco—the Winterland Arena.
Our New Year’s Eve shows weren’t normal concerts. They were a chance for Bill Graham to really have fun with his background in theater. He loved spectacle. Anybody that ever played a show produced by Bill Graham will tell you that, on those nights, they worked for Graham and not the other way around. But on New Year’s Eve, particularly, we were Bill Graham’s band. He had all sorts of festive things going on that were totally distracting and I loved it. It was a good show. Good theater. Graham was really a showman, even in the way he did business. He’d put on the tough guy act or else pull out the “buddy-buddy” routine.
Since New Year’s Eve were three-set affairs, I’d pace myself and try not to drink or party too early. I’d do my best to wait until after the first set, at least. Then, at midnight, we’d do the balloon drop and Bill Graham would always be a physical part of it. He used to get dressed up as Father Time and come onstage to officiate at the start of the New Year. To give it his blessing. One year he came onstage, in his Father Time getup, riding in a giant, lit joint (“the SS Columbian”). It was just a prop, of course. Another time, he came out riding a giant mushroom. It was always something different, always a spectacle, and always a fun time.
Well, for the Winterland ’78 New Year’s Eve gig, the show was a celebration for another reason, in a jazz funeral kind of way—it was our collective wave good-bye to the Winterland. The old ice-skating rink was being put to rest. The Band held their Last Waltz there and now we were playing the Winterland’s last waltz. We gave that building its last rites. It served us well during our time there. We played sixty shows at the Winterland, beginning in 1966. It was our traditional New Year’s Eve venue, so the farewell concert was bittersweet. But it was an old building and Graham decided to close it. I think there are condos or some such crap there now.
That New Year’s Eve show also featured the Blues Brothers and New Riders of the Purple Sage. At midnight, Dan Aykroyd did the countdown. We played for maybe five or six hours. Then breakfast was served.
I remember the Winterland fondly. Musicians would enter through the back door and it was all rundown and old but then you’d enter the proverbial fountain of youth in the backstage area—there were pool tables on one end, lots of couches on the other, and every drug and other unspeakable thing in between. Romances. Cavorting. Shit-talking. Deals and treaties. Laughs and follies.
It was another one of those places where all these amazing souls gathered, like the kitchen area at 710 Ashbury. It had bathrooms that barely offered any privacy—there was always some kind of action going on in there.
Another great memory I have of us playing the Winterland was this one time, not sure when but I think maybe during a first set, I somehow got Graham’s attention because I was worried that the roof was about to cave in. It was raining dirt and plaster and cement. Shit was falling right onto my drum set. I looked up and saw one of our fans trying to sneak into the sold-out show through the roof. It wasn’t safe and it wasn’t going to work. Graham got the band to stop, shushed everyone in the audience, and then started screaming through Jerry’s vocal mic at the kid. Graham’s team eventually got him down using rope. It was a whole thing. I was always amazed at the ingenuity of Deadheads but that was just a little too risky. I think he would’ve stayed up there and watched from there if I hadn’t noticed, but there were silver dollar–sized pieces of cement dropping; it was just too disconcerting.
I usually rooted for the gate crashers, though. Not always. Not when they were stupid or when they destroyed property or put people in harm’s way or anything like that. But I always had a thing against authority. So, even if we had become the authority, I liked knowing that they got in. A couple at a time, anyway. A trickle not a cascade.
Our final song at the Winterland was “And We Bid You Goodnight.” And with that, Father Time ushered in 1979. The beginning of the end of the ’70s.
The beginning of 1979 saw us launching into a heavy touring year—the only month that we didn’t tour was March and we had a major internal change to deal with, which we’ll get to. Right from the get-go, in January, we played Madison Square Garden in New York City for the first time. That’s something. You never forget your first. We ended up playing the Garden a total of fifty-two times over the next fifteen years, including two nine-night runs.
The ’70s were coming to a close, but before the decade closed up shop, Grateful Dead shows would get a new addition that would take us into the next decade and, in fact, remain a hallmark right through our very last set, as a band. I had played drum solos from the very b
eginning and they were fun. But with Mickey around, we could bounce sounds and rhythms and ideas off of each other and really transform into the eight-limbed octo-beast. And since “beast” was a good way to describe us, Mickey—always the adventurer—came up with the idea of encasing both of us with a circular metal bar, about twelve feet in diameter, where we could hang an ever-changing arsenal of drums. He called the contraption “the Beast” and it united the two of us inside one big drum ecosystem. It was like we were in our own command center or drum universe. However you want to describe the Beast, it brought forth the age of “Drums->Space”—the only thing that appeared night after night, even though it was also the part of the show that was the most reliably different every single time. Total improvisation.
Different drums would get hung up on the Beast, leading us to explore different tones, textures, and ideas. We would stand up and beat them with mallets, walking around in a big circle. Also: I would get different hand drums and switch them up to keep it fresh. I had an octoban, which is a set of eight drums of all different sizes that you can spin while playing, making them change pitch just as fast as you cared to spin them. I had a little piccolo at the top all the way down to a bass drum at the bottom. The octoban really opened up a lot of tonal and melodic possibilities, so I played a lot of solos on it. I also used long tubes, anything I could think of, really. Mickey, too. He’s a musicologist, so he would bring all kinds of percussive instruments into the mix, from all around the world. We both experimented, constantly. It was always fun for us and fresh for everyone.
Deal: My Three Decades of Drumming, Dreams, and Drugs with the Grateful Dead Page 27