Let It Rock: The Jerry Garcia Collection, Vol. 2 | ||||
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Live album by | ||||
Released | November 10, 2009 | |||
Recorded | November 17 – 18, 1975 The Keystone Berkeley, California | |||
Genre | Rock | |||
Label | Rhino | |||
Jerry Garcia Band chronology | ||||
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Jerry Garcia chronology | ||||
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Let It Rock: The Jerry Garcia Collection, Vol. 2 is an album by the Jerry Garcia Band. It was recorded live at the Keystone in Berkeley, California, on November 17 and 18, 1975. [1] [2] It was released by Rhino Records as a two-disc CD on November 10, 2009. [3]
From 1975 to 1995, the Jerry Garcia Band was the main musical side project of Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead. The band underwent many personnel changes over the years. Let It Rock features the original lineup of the Jerry Garcia Band, which lasted from August through December 1975 — Garcia on guitar and vocals, Nicky Hopkins on piano, John Kahn on bass, and Ron Tutt on drums. [4] [5] [6] Kahn and Tutt had also been members of Garcia's previous band, Legion of Mary. Hopkins was a highly regarded session musician who had played with the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, the Kinks, Jefferson Airplane, and Quicksilver Messenger Service. [7]
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
Allmusic | [3] |
The Music Box | [7] |
In The Music Box, John Metzger wrote, "Throughout Let It Rock, each song is pushed, pulled, and stretched in all sorts of ways.... The trio of Hopkins-penned tunes... merely extends the sense that Garcia’s visits to Keystone Berkeley primarily provided an excuse for the musicians to get together and improvise on a theme. Yet, like many of his concerts, none of the tunes that Garcia tackled during these shows was ever burdened with mindlessly rambling sojourns. Instead, every note served a purpose, and each musician — Garcia and Hopkins in particular — fed ideas into the fray in order to see what his collaborators could do with them.... Let It Rock is densely packed with superb examples of the utmost musicianship, and it raises the possibilities of the places that this rendition of the Jerry Garcia Band could have gone, if only Hopkins hadn't been facing so many outside pressures." [7]
In Relix , Rob Turner said, "The most recent chestnut from the Garcia archive is a spectacular recording from the very first configuration of the Jerry Garcia Band.... Hopkins' continuously restrained-yet-compelling piano embellishments seem to inspire Garcia to take a jazzier approach than he would with later incarnations of his band. He and Hopkins intermingle elegantly, letting the music waft to a gorgeous whisper during "Sitting in Limbo", and spurring each other to masterful improvisation at the back end of a soulful reading of "Let's Spend the Night Together". [5]
JamBase wrote, "While it is not strictly speaking a complete show, The Jerry Garcia Collection, Vol 2 is sequenced to approximate a two-set club gig, highlighting performances recorded November 17 and 18, 1975, during a pair of intimate gigs at Keystone Berkeley in front of a hometown crowd. The shows demonstrate that this lineup was capable of collective improvisation on the same level as the Grateful Dead, says David Gans, host of The Grateful Dead Hour. 'Everybody could play melody or rhythm, or both, at any time, flying in and out of formation and always in intimate relation to what the others were playing,' he writes in the collection's liner notes." [2]
Recording dates:
Merl Saunders was an American multi-genre musician who played piano and keyboards, favoring the Hammond B-3 console organ.
The Jerry Garcia Band was a San Francisco Bay Area rock band led by Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead. Garcia founded the band in 1975; it remained the most important of his various side projects until his death in 1995. The band regularly toured and recorded sporadically throughout its twenty-year existence, generally, but not always, during breaks in the Grateful Dead's schedule.
Legion of Mary was an American rock band, formed by Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead and his friend and musical collaborator Merl Saunders. The band existed from July 1974 to July 1975, and played about 60 live shows. Its members were Garcia, Saunders, John Kahn, Martin Fierro and Ron Tutt (drums). The previous lineup of the band, with Paul Humphrey on drums, is sometimes also referred to as Legion of Mary, but later research has shown that they did not use the Legion of Mary name.
Garcia Plays Dylan is an album composed of various live performances featuring Jerry Garcia playing covers of Bob Dylan songs. It is culled from performances from 1973–1995, and features Garcia playing with Grateful Dead, Legion of Mary, Jerry Garcia Band, and Garcia-Saunders. Garcia takes lead vocals on all tracks.
Legion of Mary: The Jerry Garcia Collection, Vol. 1 is an album by Legion of Mary, a jazz influenced rock band led by Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead. It was recorded live on various dates from December 1974 to July 1975, at the Keystone in Berkeley, California, the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, California, and the Paramount Theatre in Portland, Oregon. It was released on August 23, 2005.
Reflections is Jerry Garcia's third solo album, released in 1976. Partway through production, Garcia stopped recording with his solo band and brought in the members of the Grateful Dead, who performed on four songs, plus a bonus jam from 2004 release. Three of the four Grateful Dead-performed songs had earlier live debuts: "Comes a Time" (1971), "They Love Each Other" (1973) and "It Must Have Been the Roses" (1974); "Might as Well" entered their rotation in 1976, and "Mission in the Rain" received a select few performances that same year. Most of the songs entered the live rotation of the new Jerry Garcia Band as well.
Don't Let Go is the third live album, and fourth album overall, by the Jerry Garcia Band. It includes the complete May 21, 1976 performance at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco, with a bonus track recorded on September 11, 1976 at the Keystone in Berkeley. It was released on January 23, 2001.
Pure Jerry: Theatre 1839, San Francisco, July 29 & 30, 1977 is an album by the Jerry Garcia Band. It was the first release in the Pure Jerry series of live recordings by Jerry Garcia and his various solo bands. As the title suggests, it was recorded on July 29 and 30, 1977, at Theatre 1839 in San Francisco, California. It was released on June 1, 2004.
Live at Keystone is an album by Merl Saunders, Jerry Garcia, John Kahn, and Bill Vitt. It was recorded live at the Keystone in Berkeley, California on July 10 and 11, 1973, and released later that year as a two-disc vinyl LP. It was re-released in 1988, with additional tracks, as two separate CDs, called Live at Keystone Volume I and Live at Keystone Volume II.
Keystone Companions: The Complete 1973 Fantasy Recordings is a four-CD album by Merl Saunders and Jerry Garcia. It was recorded live at the Keystone in Berkeley, California on July 10 and 11, 1973, and released by Fantasy Records on September 25, 2012.
Pure Jerry: Keystone Berkeley, September 1, 1974 is a three-CD live album by the Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders Band. It contains the complete concert performed at the Keystone in Berkeley, California, on September 1, 1974. The fourth in the Pure Jerry series of archival concert albums, it was released on December 28, 2004.
All Good Things: Jerry Garcia Studio Sessions is a six-CD box set by Jerry Garcia. It contains Garcia's five solo studio albums, and an additional disc with previously unreleased studio recordings. The albums are remastered for the box set, and include bonus tracks such as alternate versions and outtakes from the album recording sessions. The box set also includes a 128-page book. It was released by Rhino Records on April 20, 2004. A bonus disc, All Good Things Redux, was also included with pre-orders from jerrygarcia.com.
Pure Jerry: Bay Area 1978 is a two-CD live album by the Jerry Garcia Band. It contains selections from four concerts performed in the San Francisco Bay Area in February and June 1978. The ninth and last entry in the Pure Jerry series of archival concert albums, it was released on August 31, 2009.
Garcia Live Volume Five is a two-CD live album by the Jerry Garcia Band. It contains the complete concert recorded at the Keystone in Berkeley, California on December 31, 1975. It was released by ATO Records on October 21, 2014.
Garcia Live Volume Six is a three-CD live album by Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders. It was recorded on July 5, 1973, at the Lion's Share in San Anselmo, California. It was released on June 24, 2016.
GarciaLive Volume Seven is a two-disc live album by the Jerry Garcia Band. It contains the complete concert recorded on November 8, 1976 at Sophie's in Palo Alto, California. It was released on August 19, 2016.
Garcia Live Volume Nine is a two-CD live album by Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders. It contains the complete concert recorded on August 11, 1974 at the Keystone in Berkeley, California. It was released on July 28, 2017.
Jerry Garcia was an American musician. A guitarist, singer, and songwriter, he became famous as a member of the rock band the Grateful Dead, from 1965 to 1995. When not touring or recording with the Dead, Garcia was often playing music in other bands and with other musicians.
Garcia Live Volume 17 is a three-CD live album by the Jerry Garcia Band. It was recorded in November 1976 at several venues in northern California. It was released on November 12, 2021.
Garcia Live Volume 21 is a two-CD live album by the Jerry Garcia Band. It was recorded on February 13, 1976, at the Keystone in Berkeley, California. It contains most of the concert from that date, missing only the opening song, "How Sweet It Is". It also includes two bonus tracks from a show recorded two days later. It was released on June 14, 2024.