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Jackie LaBranch (r), and
Gloria Jones are veteran Bay Area singers chosen by Jerry
Garcia to join his band in the early '80's. They became the
harmony voices for the longest running version of the Jerry
Garcia Band, remaining with Jerry until his passing in 1995.
They continued for a time with keyboardist Melvin Seals' "JGB,"
and have appeared on Ratdog guitarist' Mark Karan's album, "Walk
Through Fire."
Their radiant voices appear on seven songs on
Persuasions of the Dead.
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Country Joe McDonald is the
founder of the legendary San Francisco band, Country Joe and
the Fish, and author of the premiere anti-war anthem of the
Vietnam era, "Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag." Joe grew up
in El Monte in Southern California, learning to play rock
'n' roll and folk and blues, before a stint in the U.S. Navy
followed by a move to Berkeley, California. There, in the
remnants of the Free Speech Movement and the beginnings of
the anti-Vietnam protests, Country Joe and the Fish was
born. Joe went on to record dozens of solo albums, and to
become a good friend of military veterans through
innumerable appearances at fund-raising concerts for
veterans' groups. He has also become a well-respected
scholar and lecturer on the life of Florence Nightingale,
and has put together a tribute show about the heroic nurse.
Aside from performing concerts from his enormous body of work,
Joe also tours with an extensive tribute to the life and
music of Woody Guthrie. A longtime friend of the Grateful
Dead, Country Joe and Jerry Garcia appeared on four
songs on Joe's 1990 album, Superstitious Blues. Also a
longtime friend of The Persuasions, Joe invited the group to
join him on his anthem, "Doo-Wop-Oh," on his 1979 album,
Leisure Suite. The Persuasions, who recorded his "I'm So
Glad (I've Got Skin)" on their children's album, On the
Good Ship Lollipop, dedicated the album partly to Joe.
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Mark Karan
is best known for performing with the extended Grateful Dead
family. For the last twelve years, he has anchored the lead
guitar slot in Bob Weir & RatDog, playing hundreds of shows
to thousands of fans year-round. Before crossing over into
the land of the Dead, Mark worked his guitar and vocal
voodoo for the likes of Dave Mason, Delaney Bramlett, the
Rembrandts, Paul Carrack, Huey Lewis, Jesse Colin Young and
Sophie B. Hawkins. Mark’s debut album, “Walk Through the
Fire” was released in 2009 to critical acclaim, and features
very special guests Delaney Bramlett, Bill Payne, Mike
Finnigan, Pete Sears, John Molo, Hutch Hutchinson, The
Persuasions, The Rowan Brothers, and many more. He is in
demand as both a studio musician and producer, having
produced numerous albums for other artists, and recorded or
composed a wide variety of music for film, television, and
music libraries. His contributions to TV alone can currently
be heard on over 15 networks and internationally in over 25
countries. |
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Peter Rowan is a Grammy-winning bluegrass
singer-songwriter with a career spanning over five decades.
From his early years playing under the tutelage of bluegrass
patriarch Bill Monroe, and following his stint in Old & In
the Way with Jerry Garcia and subsequent breakout as both a
solo performer and bandleader, Rowan has built a devoted,
international fan base through his continuous stream of
original recordings, collaborative projects, and constant
touring. Among Rowan's many time-honored compositions are "
Midnight Moonlight" and the haunting "Mississippi
Moon," both recorded by Garcia. Rowan performs
internationally as a solo singer-songwriter, while stateside
he plays in three bands: the Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band, a
quartet featuring Jody Stecher, Keith Little, and Paul
Knight; The Peter Rowan & Tony Rice Quartet; and his rocking
band, The Free Mexican Air Force. |
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Dongming
Qiao has played the
plaintive Chinese instrument, erhu, since early childhood,
when he was considered a prodigy. His career was thwarted by
the so-called Cultural Revolution, when he was sent away to
a distant farm for about fifteen years of manual labor.
Resuming his career as an adult, Dongming became a street
performer in Beijing. He moved to the United States a few
years ago, where he became a fairly regular performer at
Santa Monica Place, and on the streets of San Francisco. His
solo on Persuasions of the Dead constitutes his recording
debut. He has since returned to China. |
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James
King is one of LA's most versatile and
accomplished young saxophonists. Since graduating from
California Institute of the Arts' Jazz Studies program, he
has gone on to work with artists as varied as De La Soul,
Sara Bareilles, Ry Cooder, and Joe Bataan. He has shared the
stage with luminaries such as Tony Bennett, Ray Barretto,
and Al Jarreau. He appears regularly with Jeff Goldblum's
jazz quintet, and tours worldwide with pop/soul group Fitz
and the Tantrums, of which he is a founding member.
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Alyn
Kelley is a San Francisco alto who spent
eight years with the distinctive Bay
Area a cappella group, Mary Schmary (also heard on
Persuasions of the Dead.)
She
now sings with the cover band, Keeping Our Day Jobs,
as well as the quirky ukulele duo,
lemon juju, and does
regular session work.
One of her vocal specialties is "voice trumpet," heard on
two Persuasions of the Dead songs, including "Don't
Ease Me In," in which she re-creates Jerry Garcia's guitar
solo from the Grateful Dead album version of the track. She
also recently appeared on Drew Pearce's album,
Darrington.
Her most recent gig, however, has been studying to become a
physician in Sacramento, California, where she
can be found in her living room trying to compose songs
about pharmacology.
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Eric
Thompson
took up the guitar as a teenager in
Palo Alto, California in the early 1960's. Among his
earliest bands were the Black Mountain Boys (with Jerry
Garcia and David Nelson) and Mother McCree's Uptown Jug
Champions (which eventually included Garcia, Ron "Pigpen"
McKernan, and Bob Weir.) He quickly became nationally known
as an exceptional lead flatpicker, winning the World
Championship Cup at Union Grove, North Carolina with the New
York Ramblers (which also included David Grisman and Winnie
Winston) and flying to Nashville, Tennessee to record
"Beatle Country" with the Charles River Valley Boys
(reissued on Rounder).
Eric has recorded several
solo albums (including
Kleptograss,
his latest) and has appeared with David Grisman, George
Winston, Mike Seeger. With wife and fiddler Suzy Thompson,
the duo have played and recorded together for 35 years.
Their latest CD is
Dream Shadows,
in which they continue their
long-standing love affair with the pre-war music of the
rural American South, at the intersection of country blues,
string band music, and Cajun dance tunes. |
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Pete
Grant is a master of
pedal steel guitar and dobro. Aside from designing and
playing the ten-string Zephyr dobro (pictured, and heard on
Persuasions of the Dead), he has picked and plucked
with Jerry Garcia, Eric Thompson, David Nelson, Jorma
Kaukonen, Joan Baez, Vince Gill, John Doyle, Paddy Keenan,
Willie Nelson, Al Kooper, the Blasters, Stills & Nash, the
Dillards, Hoyt Axton, Railroad Earth, the New Riders of the
Purple Sage, and the Grateful Dead (on the album,
Aoxomoxoa.) A longtime friend of Garcia, they both
shared a deep interest in the delights of the pedal steel
guitar. Grant's tribute to Jerry may be found
here. |
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Mary
Schmary was a Bay Area a
cappella group described by
Singers.com as "articulate,
eclectic, brilliant, soulful, and loopy as heck." Now
pursuing separate interests, Cynsa Bonorris (bass), Myriam
Casimir (bass), Alyn Kelley (alto, soprano), Desiree Pointer
(alto, soprano), spread a cappella wonderment at such
Bay Area venues as the Sweetwater in Mill Valley, the Hotel
Utah in SF, Freight & Salvage in Berkeley, the Palms in
Davis, the Harmony Sweepstakes at the Palace of Fine Arts,
the SF Free Folk Festival, the High Sierra Music Festival,
live on KPFA, Morgan's Cafe in Monterey, and the Red Vic in
Santa Rosa. |
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Last
but hardly least, the
late, great
Vince Welnick
was the last keyboard player in the Grateful Dead. A
brilliant player and soulful singer, the Phoenix-born
Welnick began playing keyboard as a teenager. Classically
trained, he joined a band, The Beans, which eventually
morphed into The Tubes. A San Francisco-based theatrical
rock band popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s, The
Tubes are legendary for live performances that combined
quasi-pornography with wild satires of media, consumerism
and politics. With the Dead, Welnick co-wrote two new
songs with Robert Hunter,
and introduced a number of Beatles and Who tunes into the
repertory. He once remarked of learning the Grateful Dead
song catalogue: "Every song I'd learn was like opening a new
Christmas present. I'd go home and listen to tapes and
sometimes I'd be so elated that I'd have tears running down
my face." Welnick accompanies three works on Persuasions of the
Dead. The Persuasions took to him instantly. R.I.P. |
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Additional Guest Artists
may be found on the download-only bonus tracks
of alternate mixes and versions (available on iTunes.) "Sugaree" features
David Gans
on guitars, "Liberty" features
Joe Craven on percussion, and "One
More Saturday Night" features Craven, vocal percussionist
Andrew
Chaikin, album engineer
Marc Doten
on bass,
Rip Rense on cajon (as well as Jackie &
Gloria, Mark Karan.)
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© 2011 Rip Rense/Rensart Productions. All rights reserved. |