Bertha | 1971-04-29 | Grateful Dead

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5:13:44

SBD

Rating:

8.00 / 1 rating

Transferrer:

Bill Gadsden

Taper Notes:

View NotesGlitches:
[ All of these glitches are from the master reels and are not 
  digi-noise.  Many of the glitches aren't even tape problems and
  are suspected to be percussion or someone knocking something,
  but are noted here for completeness ]
d1t04 1:07 - quiet tick/pop? (Sailin')
d1t08 2:54 - quiet tick/pop? (Lodi)
d1t08 2:59, 3:00, 3:25, 3:26 - quiet static/tick
d2t01 1:50-1:57, 3:33, 3:42, 3:43, 5:54 - strange quiet clicking noise in right 
channel.  Not digi-noise (leading theories:
pick knocking a pickguard or pickup or a
watchband knocking the side of a guitar) 
(Portland Woman)
d2t03 2:42 - tick (Lousiana Lady)
d2t03 3:03, 3:05, 3:09 - quiet ticks
d3t04 8:37 - end of reel?, rest of song missing (Bird Song)
d4t02 2:33 - splice, at least a verse missing? (Bobby McGee)
d5t06 3:59 - end of song missing, faded out (Chinacat)
d5t07 2:04 - tape problems, short splice (Rider)
d5t11 4:12 - click (Bill Graham comments)
d5t12 0:09 - click (Midnight Hour)
d5t12 4:02-7:40 strange click in left channel.  Not digi-noise, percussion



-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- The Story of the Tapes *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-


"Who's the Dead freak?" With that innocuous question the story of these tapes 
begins. It was the summer of 1973, between attending 6/10/73 at R.F.K. 
Stadium and the Watkins Glen soundcheck. A friend of mine was listening to 
Live/Dead at his parent's house. A local cabinetmaker was working at the 
house and asked the question. He mentioned that he had a bunch of Dead tapes 
from the Fillmore East back at his house. For about a year, three 90 minute 
composites of the 4/71 shows had made their way around taping circles in the 
Princeton, N.J. area, but not the complete shows.
Within hours, Peter Kafer and I were at the cabinet shop with our reel to 
reel decks. What we found when we got there were 11 master reels of the 4/71 
shows, along with a host of other 1st and 2nd generation tapes from the 
Fillmore East of other bands, but also including 9/20/70. Also there were the 
1st generation reels from 11/23/70 at the Anderson Theater.

The 4/26-29/71 master reels were recorded by an individual named Buddy 
Miller, a local N. J. area musician. Buddy has become a very well respected, 
and recorded, Nashville guitarist. He is currently touring with Emmy Lou 
Harris, and can be heard on her current CD, Red Dirt Girl. Buddy was a friend 
of the cabinetmaker and, since he travelled a great deal, the tapes resided 
at the cabinet shop. Buddy was set up to record these shows by a friend who 
was a member of the Fillmore East soundcrew.

These shows were NOT recorded in the same manner as the February '70,the May 
15, '70 show, and  the material from the September 18, 19, '70 shows. For the 
April '71 shows, a feed was run off the soundboard, which was upstairs in a 
balcony box, stageleft. There is a good picture of the soundbooth in Amalie 
Rothchild's book, Live at the Fillmore East. The feed went from the 
soundboard into a broomcloset nearby, literally a broomcloset. Buddy 
remembers a bucket and mop! The feed was mixed down on two little Shure line 
mixers and recorded on a middle of the line Sony deck onto BASF 90 minute 
reels at 7 1/2 ips. There was also a little consumer Dolby B unit used, which 
is why these recordings seem so 'bright'.

We taped everything that summer of 1973 onto BASF reels. The following fall, 
Peter took his reels with him to California to begin his freshman year at 
U.C., Berkeley. From here he met various West coast tapers such as Bob Menke 
and Rob Bertrando, and the tapes began their circulation on the West coast. I 
took mine to Trinity College in Connecticut and began to circulate them out 
East.

Two years later, we wanted to retape the original masters, since we now had 
somewhat better decks and Maxell reel to reel tape had come on the market. We 
recopied everything. At this time, Buddy Miller simply gave us many of the 
Fillmore and Anderson Theater reels for essentially the cost of blank tape. 
His own musical interests had moved on. Of the 4/71 masters, we were given 6 
of the 11 reels and Buddy retained the other 5. I've had these reels in my 
possession since then.

Why has it taken so long for these reels to enter the digital world? 
Basically because I dropped out of the whole tape collecting scene about 1980 
due to family, career, etc. 

However, two of my old taping buddies, Bernie Tenenbaum and Chris Zingg, 
implored me to get my reels digitized before the analog reels degraded. 
Fortunately they had been safely stored in cardboard boxes, away from heat 
and light, in the back of a closet. I knew nothing of the digital world, 
didn't have a DAT or CD machine, had no idea what a tree or a 'B and P' was, 
and was absolutely amazed at how big the community of collectors had become. 
When I effectively left it at the end of the '70s, it was really only a 
handful of people.

This past Spring I reconnected with Buddy Miller for the first time in over 
20 years. He actually was able to dig up 2 of the 5 original BASF masters 
that he had hung onto, and mailed them up to me. With 8 of the original 11 
now in hand, and my complete set of Maxell 1st gen. copies  to fill in the 
blanks for the still missing 3 masters, I digitized the shows. The missing 
reels, #'s 4, 5, and 6,  run from 4/27 Hard to Handle through the pre-break 
portion of Bird Song on 4/28. For this I used the Maxells. Along the way, I 
was directed to Jim Wise for advice and assistance in digitizing and getting 
the shows out into the community.

I transferred the shows to CD incorporating the New Riders sets, instead of 
treating them discreetly. I really believe that the performances should be 
considered in their entirety. Back in the '70s when these shows got 
circulated, the Riders sets got ignored after awhile, which was a shame. They 
are a lot of fun to listen to, and a great warmup for the Dead show to follow.

The reels were played on a Revox A77 and digitized directly onto an Alesis 
Masterlink ML9600, sampling at 16 bit, 44.1 k. The Alesis was a wonderful 
solution for someone in my position, sitting on a bunch of reels. It removed 
the intermediate step of re-recording everything onto DAT. For those who are 
curious about the Masterlink, check it out at www.alesis.com.

One final bit of information that makes this whole 27 year story all the more 
fascinating is that these 2 track masters were used for the recent 16 track 
release, Ladies and Gentlemen....The Grateful Dead. While the 16 track 
recordings had Bill Graham's introduction and his tribute/tirade speech 
before In the Midnight Hour on 4/29, it was not nearly as strong and present 
as it was on the 2 tracks for some reason.Through an introduction facilitated 
by Jim Wise, Jeffrey Norman and David Lemieux asked if I could send out the 2 
tracks to be used on the release. With 5 days to go before the production CDs 
were due at the printing plant, I FedEx'ed them out and they were used for 
those two Bill Graham pieces. A wonderful chapter after all these years.

There has always been a question about 4/25/71. The BASF master labelled #1 
begins with Big Boss Man from 4/26. Back in 1973 we saw nothing of any taping 
of 4/25's show. I have asked Buddy about it and, after 29 years, he doesn't 
believe he recorded it, which would be consistent with 4/26 being #1. Just a 
guess: since the record company was there to record the run, our 
surrepticious broomcloset tapers just lay low the first night to make sure it 
was clear to try to tape. I know there has been a high-gen fragment of 4/25 
that has circulated for years that supposedly came from cassette masters that 
were also made of these shows. While anything is possible, if this were true 
one would have to wonder why no material from cassette has ever surfaced of 
any of the other 4 nights. The mystery remains, but one day I am gonna have 
to put this mystery to rest.

I hope everyone enjoys these new and improved versions of the 4/71 Fillmore 
East shows.  They have always been the heart of my Dead collection and many 
others as well, I suspect.

Bill Gadsden