Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol. 35. No. 13. 14 June 1972

New Riders of the Purple Sage

New Riders of the Purple Sage

Album cover for New Riders of the Purple Sage record

This L.P. has a supporting cast of the greatest musicians and studio folk in San Francisco and to me anyway, the whole of the States. Well, what can you say? Far-out? Wow? Shit? Spaced? Sykadelic?

Yep, all that and more. Dig this. John Dawson, David Nelson, and Dave Torbert, collectively known on the San Francisco Electric Kool Aid Acid head scene as New Riders of the Purple Sage, and themselves very able musicians, have their spaces filled in by Jerry Garcia (Mr Jerry Garcia to you) playing his usual superior standard of Pedel steel guitar and Airplane drummer and percussionist Spencer Dryden, Mickey Hart, ex-Dead Drummer and Percussionist and son of the Deads ex-Manager, and a guy called Commander Cody who plays a bit of piano on two tracks (maybe someone can fill me in on this guy). Also.....the exec producers Phil Lesh, bassist from the Dead and Steve Barnard who doubles as engineer and engineers for the Dead too. Well, what can you say?

What I say is that except for any Dead L.P. this is the 2nd best L.P. I've heard. All the tracks, written by John Dawson are easy country-style, truckin down the road type listening like Henry, a little fast beat song about Henry seeing a man in Mexico who's got it growing from the ground (Henry tasted, he got wasted couldn't even see) and bringing back the golden keys. Merry wanna's what they're rapping 'bout boy. Portland Woman and Louisiana Lady bounce along spinning a better image of the town groupie than most other groups do. Last Lonely Eagle seems to me to be the best track on the L.P. followed by a long track Dirty Business. Glendale Train seems to have been put in for the hard-core freaks-really good stuff.

It might be mentioned, to add another feather to their already liberally adorned stetsons, that NRPS collectively and singularly have played on most of the Dead L.P's They're like one big family over there. The cover probably sums the music up best — a psychedelic-type cactus in some desert. Really good stuff.

Keep on truckin NRPS.

—Dave Kerr