Dave Sorotchy: (Walkin’ Blues) starts out with QMS playing the song, at 27 seconds it switches to the Dead playing it, at 50 seconds it switches to QMS, at 1 minute and 27 seconds it switches to the Dead, at 1 minute and 59 seconds it switches QMS, who finish it out to a total time of 2 minutes and 14 seconds. Bart Wise: The cuts are carefully done, and this might be how KPIX-TV broadcast the piece. The sound quality is similar to the version of Cream Puff War. I couldn’t find the other version of Grateful Dead doing “Walkin’ Blues” (from 1966) to compare with this one, if I even have it. Finally, if it helps with dating the tape, the Quicksilver web site lists October 1967 as the month Jim Murray left the band. David Sorochty: Yeah – I know what you’re thinking. There are some stories about them going on the Maze show and lip synching a song. I’ve even seen a picture from that TV appearance where Phil I believe, was holding a broom instead of his bass to mock out the whole lip synch thing. So I thought that even though this didn’t sound like the version on the 1st album at all, it would be worth a check since if it is kind of grungy, and as it turns out this is a much longer version than the one on the LP and they *definitely* are not the same. So – if this was from that TV show, maybe they recorded the audio there for the TV show and they just lip synched it later? Is it possible that this is from another TV appearance where they didn’t lip synch or maybe from a radio program? Who knows? I guess I always just presumed that when they lip synched on the Maze show it was to a song off the 1st LP. Jim Powell: Somewhere I’ve seen or heard Ralph Gleason quoted during this period remarking that even when San Francisco bands perform the same song, they play it differently; he gives as his example the Dead’s and Quicksilver’s different handling of Robert Johnson’s Walkin’ Blues. During his concluding remarks the announcer seems to refer to this comment. Perhaps it appeared in a passage of the show cut between Cream Puff and Pride Of Man, or between Pride and Walkin’ Blues. It seems less likely that the show also included a performance of the tune by the Dead.

The Wildflowers – Please Come Home (3:41), announcer’s intro (0:23), Ralph Gleason interviews Jerry Garcia (4:30), Grateful Dead – Cream Puff War (3:52), QMS – Pride Of Man (3:57), QMS & Dead composite – Walkin’ Blues (2:24), announcer’s outro (0:23), total time 19:12

TV > C/? > CDR > SHN

Uli Teute and Hanno Bunjes