On Friday, March 26, Vince Herman and Leftover Salmon hosted the evening performances at the celebration of Jerry Garcia’s bluegrass journey at the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Owensboro, Kentucky. Featured performers included Eric Thompson, David Nelson, and Pete Wernick, three original members of the Black Mountain Boys, who first played bluegrass with Garcia in Palo Alto in 1963. Thompson noted that the three original Black Mountain Boys on stage had an average age of seventy-nine.
Also on stage throughout the evening was Peter Rowan, who began collaborating with David Grisman after leaving Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys and went on to play with Garcia, Grisman, and Vassar Clements on Old and in the Way.
Executive director Chris Joslin, joined Wernick and Andy Thorn (Leftover Salmon) and Kyle Tuttle (Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway) played a four-banjo rendition of “Jerry’s Breakdown,” noting that it has “a zillion chords—but we think we know ‘em.”
As host for the night, Herman promised the audience they would have Garcia’s “bluegrass journey spelled out for you.” They began with “Dark Hollow” from Old and in the Way, joined by Jason Carter on fiddle, Jim Lauderdale on guitar, and Greg Harrison on bass.
Dipping back in the catalog, they played Doc Watson-inspired “Crawdad Song.” They played “Salt River,” a song Bill Keith introduced to Bill Monroe, who changed the name to “Salt Creek” to avoid confusion with “Big Sandy River.” They played Reno and Smiley’s “Lover, Please Come Home” and “Diamond Joe,” which Nelson said Tex Logan introduced to them. The set closed with Charlie Monroe’s “Rosa Lee McFall.”
Rowan had vocal lead on many of the second set songs, many old Monroe numbers, showcasing his still-song falsetto and mournful yodeling on such songs as “Muleskinner Blues,” “Hobo Song,” and “Cheyenne.” Dave Mansfield III joined Carter for twin fiddling. He was joined by Ronnie McCoury and Andy Thorn on harmony vocals on the Rolling Stones’ classic “Wild Horses.” Rowan told the. band, “Let’s get the boogie-woogie going!”
Vince Herman, with the members of Leftover Salmon, took the stage for the next set—Thorn on banjo, Drew Emmitt on guitar, Alwyn Robinson on drums, Greg Garrison on bass, and Jay Starling rotating between keys and dobro. They were joined by Jim Lauderdale for “The Race is On.” Joining Leftover members were Pete Finney sitting in on pedal steel, two generations of McCoury pickers—Ronnie and son Evan, Jason Carter on fiddle, and Lauderdale, who invited the audience to sing the chorus with him on “Headed for the Hills.”
The sole female on stage for the three-day event, Maria Muldaur joined the group, tracing her experience with Garcia and his band members back to 1962. She introduced “Sitting Alone in the Moonlight,” telling the audience, “Y’all pray for us as we come at you with this song!” She also took a bluesy turn with “Rich Man’s Woman Blues.”
Nelson returned to stage on electric guitar, reminiscing about the New Riders of the Purple Sage days, leading into “Somebody Robbed the Glendale Train.” Introducing “Dim Lights, Thick Smoke,” he said it was the first song he sang lead with New Riders, then “Panama Red,” which, he said, “led New Riders off the brink of reality into hallucinations.”
Over the course of the evening, the stage became comfortably crowded, turning into a genuine jam, as Tuttle sang “Like a Road Leading Home,” noting that Garcia’s gospel songs were “boiled down to the essence.”
The music of the evening moved easily between Bill Monroe deep cuts and standards to iconic songs of the Grateful Dead, including “Catfish John,” and, with at least fifteen instrumentalists on stage, “Friend of the Devil.” For the encore, the ensemble took it “to the promised land” with Garcia’s “My Sisters and Brothers.”
During the last set, Herman suggested that Bill Monroe was always open to “a different kind of bluegrass. Bill wanted people to make it their own.” With three generations of musicians on stage, the Friday performance maintained the high standards of the weekend event, surveying the course of Garcia’s career through the lens of bluegrass.