A few more notes about 2/4/70 "Night At The Family Dog"

[Richard Pipes]

After several viewings of the "Night At The Family Dog" PBS show, I have a 
few notes to add to the excellent entry in Deadlists and a couple of 
questions.  The list of players in the Deadlists entry is good as far as it 
goes.  As near as I can tell, these are the perpetrators of the "All-Star 
Jam":  Guitars are Jerry Garcia, Jorma Kaukonen, Carlos Santana, and Paul 
Kantner on 12-string.  There is also another guitarist standing in the 
shadows between the drummers.  The camera only lands on him for a couple of 
seconds, so it's hard to tell who it is.  He has a "Prince Valiant"-type 
haircut and could be either Gary Duncan or Steve Miller, or somebody else 
for that matter.  Jack Casady plays bass.  The drummers on trap sets are 
Mike Shrieve from Santana and a black fellow (not from Santana's band) who 
looks something like Arthur Lee of Love--I don't recognize him.  Mike 
Carabello from Santana plays congas.  Off in the shadows someone is sitting 
behind the B-3 organ, probably Greg Rolie, but you can't hear an organ in 
the mushy mix, so he may or may not be playing much.  Just before the 
ending credits there is a splice and the jam has shifted gears.  It's a 
little hard to tell if personnel has changed at all at that point.

The camera lights on a woman in the audience for a brief moment who looks 
like Janis Joplin, but it is so quick that it's hard to tell for 
sure.  There is also a famous photographer in the audience with his cameras 
around his neck--I know the face but I'm not sure who he is--maybe Jim 
Marshall or Bob Minkin.

One question which came to mind as I was watching this was that surely this 
was not all that was filmed that night.  I would imagine that all of the 
sets by all 3 bands were filmed and just these portions used, however I've 
never seen any clip that was recognizable as being from this night that 
isn't from the broadcast.  Someone has said here at Deadlists or somewhere 
that even the people at PBS can't find a quality copy of this show, so any 
"outtake" footage may have been destroyed or lost decades ago.  It would be 
interested to find out if any of this footage exists in the 
Vault.  Obviously the broadcast itself is, since Justin Kreutzmann used 
some of it in "Backstage Pass."

Also, in the ending credits is a reference to the show being recorded in 
"16-track stereo by Bob and Betty Matthews of Alembic Sound."  This raises 
the question of whether or not 16-track audio tapes of this show exist in 
the Vault.  Again, surely the whole set was recorded, not just the 15 
minute segment in the broadcast.  If so, this would make a wonderful 
candidate for a future release.

This show is dear to my heart since it was the first live Dead I ever saw, 
catching the PBS broadcast back in 1970 and taping the audio portion on a 
mono reel-to-reel deck.  I savored that tape for many years.  I realize 
legal issues among the 3 bands involved (not to mention the legion of 
"jammers") would come into play, but an official release of this in good 
quality would be far more to my tastes than any of the "Views From the 
Vault" so far.

Hope this helps,
Richard
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